Mike Lehr's Blog

We often hear about the jealousies women have for other women who they feel are attractive. While it’s easy to discount this as pettiness, there are business implications when it comes to appraising and hiring talent.

For example, the March 31, 2012 edition of The Economist reports in its article, “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful,” that it’s better for attractive men to submit photos with their resumes but not women. The reason was that “human resources departments tend to be staffed mostly by women,” especially when it comes to resumes’ initial screenings. Bradley Ruffle of Ben-Gurion University and Ze’ev Shtudiner of Ariel University Centre conducted the study.

As I wrote above, it’s easy to view from a petty perspective. However, let’s frame it from a perspective of power. For instance, would a man hire another man who he felt was more powerful (i.e. more talented than he was)? More specifically, would a male manager hire another man who could take his job or the promotion he was expecting to receive in the near future?

Thus, if we look at beauty as power, couldn’t the women in this study be feeling threatened from a power perspective? This is even more possible if we review how beauty’s subliminal influence deliver many advantages to attractive people in the marketplace. As a result, rather than see the rejection of attractive women by other women as something superfluous, it’s now a natural defense mechanism.

Again, the purpose of this series is to explore the tangible, pragmatic influences beauty has on us in everyday business life. It’s not just a personal sideshow in that life. Beauty, and its superficial sister, attractiveness, trigger deep, natural forces within us that influence our decisions.

Other posts in this series:

• Beauty as Power
• Beauty as Power (Part II): Attraction vs. Beauty
• Beauty as Power (Part III): Appreciation
• Beauty as Power (Pt. IV): Subliminal Influence

My October 13, 2011 post, “Eloquence Trumps Honesty in Trust & Likeability Wars,” discussed how style affects our assessment of talent. Now, in the November 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review, the article, “It’s Not What You Say but How You Say It,” cites the research of

Timothy DeGroot’s team from Midwestern State University indicating the attractiveness of leaders’ voices influence our perceptions of their effectiveness.

Again, the challenge is that we often don’t realize this influence is occurring. Moreover, we tend to believe other people are influenced but we aren’t. Combining this with the way labels influence our perceptions of content and how beauty and attractiveness influences us, we begin to see easily how incompetent people can receive promotions especially if they are confident.

In combating this influence, it’s important to begin with two perspectives:

1. Acknowledge that style influences us (“That includes me!”)
2. Remain focused on more intrinsic indicators of talents such as process (how a person works, thinks and interacts)

Often, we erroneously focus on results when we don’t factor in extraneously factors such as the team, timing and situation of the person’s experience. Perhaps the person was just along for the ride. Culture, processes and tools can also affect outcomes. When we fail to account for these, we tend fall into the trap of believing people are “winners” if they come from “winning organizations.”

In the final analysis, what makes assessing talent difficult is not the intrinsic analysis of it but rather being able to do so while trying to navigate the murky cloud of our own perceptions and biases. Many forces intuitively influence us on a subconscious level to stir up this mud.

Beauty’s power often influences us without our knowledge and thus distorts our decisions. In other words, we think we are making them based upon objective criteria, but we’re not. In order to understand this better, it helps to see beauty beyond something feminine and physical.

In the August 27, 2011 issue of The Economist, “The Line of Beauty” reviews three books examining the “economics of good looks.” While it focuses on physical attractiveness and implies it’s somewhat the same as beauty, it includes a masculine aspect to the concept. For instance, it cites:

• Homely NFL quarterbacks earn less than their comelier counterparts, despite identical yards passed and years in the league.
• Attractive people also have an easier time getting a loan than plain folks, even as they are less likely to pay it back.
• [Attractive people] receive milder prison sentences and higher damages in simulated legal proceedings.
• . . . looks have a bigger impact on earnings than education . . .

However, the real point is that beauty applies much of this power below our consciousness. For example, in none of the citations above did anyone think these:

• Quarterbacks are attractive so we should pay them more.
• Loan applicants are attractive so we should give them a loan.
• Prisoners are attractive so they should get milder sentences.
• Plaintiffs are attractive so they should get higher damages.
• Employees are attractive so they should get paid more than those with better educations.

Moreover, the overwhelming number of folks making these decisions didn’t feel that people’s attractiveness was influencing them. Now, if this can happen with physical attractiveness, imagine the impact beauty can have. Disciplines such as advertising, marketing, merchandising and retailing contain many examples of beauty’s sublime power.

Other links in this series:

• Beauty as Power
• Beauty as Power (Part II): Attraction vs. Beauty
• Beauty as Power (Part III): Appreciation

My Beauty as Power posts have generated emails regarding teaching what beauty is. Unfortunately, even though beauty is extremely subjective, we’re often taught it in a “one size fits all” perspective. Consequently, we often confuse beauty with popularity. Tossing that aside for the moment, it’s difficult to learn about beauty without learning appreciation.

For example, most people find maggots extremely ugly and gross. However, Maggot Therapy involves injecting maggots into body parts to remove gangrene so they can heal. By doing so, patients avoid amputation. This happens because maggots only eat dead organic material and are extremely thorough about it. Now, to people on the verge of losing limbs to gangrene, they learn to appreciate the beauty of maggots’ work very quickly.

Something similar happens to men when women nurse them back to health. Many movies play upon this theme such as Witness and Hang ‘Em High.  In medical facilities, it’s not unusual to have seriously injured male patients become attached to their nurses. They learn to appreciate the dedication and healing power of women whom they would not have considered otherwise.

As a more humorous example, there is Tom Sawyer’s fence painting. Tom’s given the undesirable task of painting a fence; however, by exhorting the virtues of fence painting to his friends, his friends come to appreciate the “privilege” of doing it for him by paying him.

As other examples, antiques, family heirlooms and memorabilia become more beautiful to us when we appreciate the story, memories and people behind them. Thus, appreciation is a process by which we learn to value something. Since we value beauty, it’s hard to learn about beauty without learning how to appreciate things . . . and people. Teach people appreciation, and you will teach them beauty.

Related links:

• Beauty as Power
• Beauty as Power (Part II): Attraction vs. Beauty

My post, “Beauty as Power”, resulted in a commenter questioning, “Is beauty the same as attraction?” The short answer is, “No.” However, elaboration helps us to position beauty better as an attracting force by comparing and contrasting it to other attracting forces. Beauty is just one such force. Many things attract us not just beauty.

For instance, we can find ourselves attracted to low prices, flashing lights, accidents, disasters, loud noises, foods, water, statistics, designer labels, celebrities, power and many other things. On hot days, ice cold drinks attract us, on cold ones, hot beverages and soups attract us. Sporting events, musical performances, movies and plays attract some of us. Advertisers, merchandisers and politicians certainly work hard to attract us. News programs and publications attract us with bad news. Politicians attract us with negative advertisements. Some reality shows attract us by displaying personal conflict.

Some of us will find beauty in all and some of these things. Beauty is a higher form of attraction. Beauty is to attraction what skill is to work and what talent is to effort. It’s true that beauty attracts us, but not all things that attract us are beautiful. This also explains the difference between beautiful and attractive. Beauty is a far stronger attracting force than attractiveness alone. Beauty is the qualitative aspect of attraction in the same way a fine restaurant is of all eateries.

What this means in terms of beauty as power is that beauty is more powerful than attractiveness. In other words, the attraction we have for certain things becomes more powerful if we also find them beautiful. It also means that as we discover the beauty in something or someone that thing or person will come to exert more attraction on us.

Related link: Beauty as Power

Looking at beauty as power is important in understanding and appreciating intuitive approaches because it dramatically expands the influences and solutions we see. However, as I mentioned in the A Blue Heron Instructs on Patience, we tend to be prejudiced toward action; therefore, we will often overlook beauty as power because it’s not an active force. Thus, it helps if we initially think of beauty as attractive because the verb “attract” implies some kind of active force.

For example, suppose we saw a metal ball rolling on a level table toward a wall. We might initially think that there was something about the ball that caused movement. However, suppose later we find out that a powerful magnet was implanted in the wall. Now, we begin to see the wall as the active force.

Another problem we tend to have is that we look at beauty very superficially, as something physically feminine. However, beauty can exist in anything, including intangible things. For instance, consider the movie A Beautiful Mind; also consider the attraction of beautiful ideas, prices, cars, paintings, formulae, advertisements, parks, scenery, etc. Anything that attracts us has some level of beauty in it; even power is beautiful to many.

So, if a car dealer stocks his showroom with a car that he knows is likely to attract us enough to buy it, who is really applying the active force: the buyer or the dealer? Similarly, when the Indians attracted General George Custer into the trap on Battle of Little Big Horn because he thought he had a beautiful opportunity to defeat them, who was playing the active force: Custer who rushed in or the Indians who created the attractive situation?