Mike Lehr's Blog

Even though rankings are extremely subjective, they seduce us as strongly as the sirens did sailors in Greek mythology. Consequently, we often wreck ourselves on the rocky shores of fantasy island.

In order to understand the lure of rankings, we need to understand the lure of numbers. When we quantify something, it becomes easier to grasp. However, easier doesn’t mean that what we are grasping is real. It’s often easier to understand what we want to believe than it is to understand reality. For example, in reality a woman’s measurements don’t tell us much about her, but that doesn’t prevent them from triggering our fantasies.

Applying this illusionary power to rankings, they tap into our insecure desires for:

1. Simplifying a complex world
2. Defining limits to large or limitless knowledge pools
3. Quantifying the unquantifiable
4. Delivering certainty in an uncertain world

Rankings perform complex thought for us by determining which is better by deciphering many, many variables. They imply we can get by on much less knowledge by giving importance to the top ten rather than the top million or billion. Their parameters and measurements are subjectively determined, trying to measure something that normally is immeasurable. Finally, as implied above, the quantification inherent in rankings provides certainty; “these are the important ones and that’s it.”

For instance, consider these Google searches:

“Top 10” = 743 million results
“Top 100” = 1,083 million
“Top 1,000” = 46 million
“Top 10,000” = 17 million
“Top 100,000” = 2 million
“Top 1,000,000” = .6 million
“Top 1,000,000,000” = 5,250

Clearly, our focus is on the simple with limits; so, the problem is this: How are we going to ever appreciate the billions of unique people, places, creatures and things in this universe if we’re so focused on the top ten?

Part of what makes intuition so powerful is the assumption that we are born with personalities, talents and knowledge. Life then becomes the challenge to express them.

For example, we are born knowing about the “opposite sex.” It’s only later in life we arrive at an understanding of it and the ability to verbalize it. However, this contradicts the more popularized view of humans being born a “blank slate.” The article, “Transporter of Delight”, in the October 15, 2011 edition of The Economist, severely undercuts this notion by beginning:

“The idea that the human personality is a blank slate, to be written upon only by experience, prevailed for most of the second half of the 20th century. Over the past two decades, however, that notion has been undermined.”

The article cites research concluding, “personality is the single biggest determinant” of happiness with “a third of the variation in people’s happiness [being] heritable.” For example, extroverts tend to feel happier than introverts do. Thus, what I wrote regarding free will (more) and “who we are” being quite different from “who we think we are” is really about us being substantially more than “the sum of our experiences” and more than “a product of our environment.” There are opportunities for us when we realize we weren’t born slaves to our conditions, environments, societies and cultures.

Yet, this poses some thought provoking questions such as, “What happens to us when our nature is in conflict with our culture, our society or our upbringing?” Also, “What happens when we try to express ourselves in the midst of such conflict?” In such situations, we can easily see how God or Nature created us to alter the status quo, to change things . . . to encourage growth where stagnation exists. Growth cannot occur without change.

I’m frequently asked about the difference between emotional intelligence (EI) and intuition. Essentially, EI is a head thing, intuition a heart thing. EI is being “intelligent” about emotions; it’s not about feeling. If you look at EI’s definition of empathy according to Daniel Goleman, this distinction becomes clear:

Ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people

In my work with intuition, I define empathy as a feeling (or collection of feelings):

Ability to feel what the other person is feeling

Just because we understand someone’s emotions, it doesn’t mean we feel what he feels. If a truly totally empathic person existed, she would not be able to kill anyone because she would die too from intense pain and sorrow. The closest real example is a mother losing her child; that bond is so empathic, that mothers never really recover from this. A part of them dies with their child. EI understands this but wouldn’t necessarily feel it.

This head/heart difference between EI and intuition shows up in two other areas besides empathy: the unconscious and problem solving.

EI is about intelligence; therefore, it’s concerned with conscious activity (the head). On the other hand, since intuition is about the acquisition of knowledge and the making of decisions through emotions, unconscious activity plays a vital role because emotions emanate from there.

As for problem solving, EI doesn’t play if you’re alone in the woods. It requires a social or interpersonal context. However, intuition plays in social, interpersonal and solitary contexts. Thus, while an inventor would not need a high EI, he would definitely benefit from keen intuition.

Therefore, EI and intuition differ when it comes to empathy, the unconscious and problem solving. Symbolically, EI is a matter of the head while intuition a matter of the heart.

The power someone has as a leader in an organization is a function of 1) the authority it gives him and 2) his personal influence within the organization. The former is formal organizational power (FOP) and the latter informal organizational power (IOP). Figures 1 and 2 help us visualize their difference.

Figure 1: Formal Organizational Power

The importance of IOP becomes more apparent if we view leadership beyond a management context. For instance, one client expanded its definition from those in management to those who could initiate and develop new services, those who could grow existing services and those who could find and develop new customer channels.

The source of IOP varies by person. It could be his expertise, knowledge, experience, achievements, attractiveness, personality, education, intelligence, relationships, character, talents, skills, abilities, credibility, reliability, judgment, wisdom, seniority plus many other things. I knew one machinist who was a leader because he could run more of the machines in the plant better than anyone could.

Figure 2: Informal Organizational Power

FOP gets people to do things because they must; it’s the rule. IOP encourages people to do things because they want to; they like those with IOP or do so out of respect. Using a body as an analogy, FOP represents the bones and IOP the muscles. The most powerful leaders have a lot of both; organizations give them a lot of authority and people within the organization have a strong desire to help them.

Thus, when we try to understand and appreciate how organizations work, looking at the organization chart shows formal organizational power. Overlaying this chart is the influence of a multitude of relationships that vary by situation and by moments in time. In effect, we don’t really know an organization unless we have a feel for how informal organizational power influences it.

Related Link:

• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part II)

I ran across a good article by Malcom Gladwell in the February 14 & 21 issue of The New Yorker titled, “The Order of Things.” The detail with which he explores rankings of colleges, hospitals and cars demonstrates the immense subjective potential rankings have. What is even more astounding is Gladwell’s discovery of the degree to which many organizations hold their leaders accountable for their place in these rankings.

From an intuitive perspective, people tend to have an emotional connection to statistics; they satisfy feelings for certainty, clarity and knowledgeableness. Thus, when we express arguments statistically, they tend to carry more weight than if we simply express them in words. Rankings clearly define for us what is best, better and good. However, they are more akin to magic where reality is but a trick. Thus, the feelings we receive from rankings (certainty, clarity, knowledgeableness) are satisfied because we want to believe their magic is real.

As a rule, unless the ranking is comparing very similar things against a single, measurable criterion, it is highly subjective. Therefore, here are some important questions to ask about the ranking to discover how its trick works:

• Is it really comparing similar things?
• Is the ranking based upon multiple criteria?
• How important is each criterion and is it valid?
• How does it weight the criteria?
• Is it using some criteria as proxies for things that are difficult to quantify or research?
• What important criteria are absent because of these difficulties?
• Is the difference between one rank and each of those immediately above and below it that significant?
• How accurate was the data collected for each criterion?
• What problems might have retarded data quality?

Applying these questions will demonstrate that our affinity for rankings is more emotional than pragmatic.

Brian Christian’s article, “Mind vs. Machine,” in the March 2011 issue of The Atlantic covers the Loebner Prize competition which administers the Turing Test to artificial intelligence (AI) programs. This involves an instantaneous form of instant messaging (IM) in which judges have to determine within five minutes whether they are conversing with a computer or a person.

What computers teach us about being human when we attempt to program them to converse is really how formulaic our conversations can be. Therefore, are we really putting any thought or effort into them? The computers sometimes fool the judges, often enough to make us stop and think. When the first such conversational computer arrived, Eliza (more), many people mistook the experience for a human one.

For instance, casual conversation tends to be relatively predictable and easily programmable because it’s driven by the most recent comment. It rarely refers back to prior comments made three, four, ten or more in the past. In other words, we don’t require any knowledge of the conversation’s history to continue it. We don’t need to remember and sort through relevant points to formulate our own ideas. We only need to remember the most current comment.

Returning to what computers can teach us about being human, I was prompted to recall that someone had emphasized to me the importance of “getting down to a human level” when dealing with people. This made me wonder:

If our conversation is programmable and actionable by a computer, can we really be human with one another?

Perhaps this explains why we find some people’s conversations shallow. They’re conversing at a level no better than a computer.

A question posted by Expat 21 asked for examples of patience in the workplace, especially those demonstrating a contrast between American and other cultures.

While I find non-American cultures more patient, the examples I have aren’t that distinguishable by cultures except in their acceptance of patience-oriented approaches and the rules under which they might apply them. However, these rules don’t alter the basic strategies and tactics behind the employment of patience; they will only make application of patience more or less accepted.

With that said, Rahm Emanuel’s well documented quote,  “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before,” summarizes the business implications of patience. However, this means partnering patience with our knowledge, experience or insight about the future that others lack; we are waiting for the “crisis” that we know is over the horizon.

For example, I worked on an IT project involving the rollout of client management software (CMS). From my experience, I pushed for certain functionality that I knew sales executives would want. However, the CMS team discounted the functionality, had other priorities and didn’t incorporate it. I could have pushed harder, irritated the team and achieved only a partial list of what was needed. Instead, I waited for the rollout because I knew sales managers would request the functionality. When they did, I had their entire support to get the team to do what I originally proposed and much more.

Another example for me was the reorganization of an 80 person call center. They had already gone through three reorganizations in four years. I had advised patience to the new executive because her people were “shell shocked” and hadn’t been able to establish sound interpersonal working relationships; they needed a period of stability. She went along with her reorganization anyway; she felt pressure to do something. However, the reorganization reinforced anxieties, undermined executive credibility and made achieving goals difficult. She left after only eighteen months.

“Management by walking around” and “teachable moments” are key general examples of techniques employing patience. People are more receptive to instruction when they approach us than when we approach them. We can encourage it by making ourselves accessible but we need patience to make this work.

Some macro-business applications of patience deal with such things as branding, investment, public relations, training and marketing. In each of these cases, patience is required to see a return. Often the urgency of the moment disrupts these initiatives before the return on our patience is realized. It’s personal discipline combined with the corporate and social culture that will determine how much patience is accepted; however, the basic strategies and tactics remain fundamentally the same across cultures. It’s similar to warfare; weapons, training and supplies might be different, but the basic principles remain the same no matter who is fighting.

Related Post: Blue Heron Instructs on Patience

Arbitrariness & First, Second, Third

Arbitrariness is a vital to intuitive problem solving because it’s related to subjectivity which is related to personality and its emotional drivers. Looking at the relationship between arbitrariness and conditionality will help us see this.

For instance, the concept of “first” does not need the existence of another number; however, the concept of “second” is dependent upon the condition that “first” exists, and the concept of “third” is dependent upon the condition that “first” and “second” exists.

House of Arbitrariness & Conditionality

Consider a house. Whereas someone can arbitrarily place the first stone of his house anywhere, the rest is built conditionally around that stone which is called the cornerstone. Ideas and knowledge are also built around cornerstones which we often experience as assumptions. Since knowledge influences how we identify, define and examine problems, our problems will have cornerstones too.

For instance, many of us consider the idea of democracy good. However, if such decision making is absolutely superb, why don’t companies and armies use it where more authoritarian styles dominate? This is because democracy’s cornerstone is placed in a governmental location. If we move that cornerstone to a corporate or military location, we will end up building a more authoritarian-style house.

In problem solving, moving the cornerstone to a new location will help us view our old location from a different perspective. But first, we must challenge ourselves to find the cornerstone of any set of conditions in which we find ourselves and the cornerstone of any set of ideas we are using to evaluate those conditions. That means avoiding an unquestioning, absolutist perspective and employing an inquisitive, arbitrary one.

The other day a colleague forwarded this link to the BNET blog speaking to intuition. Embedded in it was a link to an article that appeared in Psychology Today back in November 1, 2002. It provided early insight into the scientific advancements into the study of intuition.

Whenever I speak to people individually or collectively about interpersonal skills for disciplines such as sales, management, leadership and influencing, I emphasize that the most dramatic advancements we’ll see in the next 5-15 years will not be in areas such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, communications or even sensors but rather in how we understand ourselves, especially our decision making and knowledge acquisition abilities.

Increasingly, science is finding – as the Psychology Today article noted back in 2002 – that we make decisions and acquire knowledge before we are consciously aware of them. Yes, there are problems with trusting intuition unquestionably; however, there are problems with doing the same with the most well reasoned and supported scientific findings. You cannot make decisions by facts and figures alone. There will always be unknowns; intuition helps here.

The key is integrating both intuitive and cognitive functions. The danger we face now as the article implied is that we are generally living under the illusion that our decisions are largely conscious (cognitive) ones. We are prejudice in thinking our consciences are in control. Of course, this control calms our insecurities; control is often analogous to safety and security. In reality, many factors beneath our radar influence our feelings and thoughts. They encourage us to choose rationales to justify our wants.

Thus, every one of our decisions has emotions influencing it no matter how rationale and scientifically supported we believe they are.

The difference between cognitive and intuitive arguments can best be summarized as one between reason and belief. Just as the strength of someone’s reasons can persuade us so can the strength of his beliefs. However, this strength of belief can be used against us as well as for us. An August 19th, 2010 Economist article demonstrates this by reporting five cues bosses give when they lie, but they could apply to anyone.

They are from a study by David Larcker and Anastasia Zakolyukina of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and include:

• References to general knowledge (i.e. “as you know”) as opposed to specific knowledge
• Use of fewer “non-extreme positive emotion words” to describe information and situations (i.e. using more “greats” rather than “goods”)
• Avoidance of using “I” and employing more third person pronouns
• Use of fewer “hesitation words” or utterances (i.e. pauses, “um,” “er”)
• More frequent use of swear words

Along with the influence one’s strength of belief can have on us, the other important intuitive lesson we can glean from the article is that people’s patterns of speech can reflect their emotional states. For example, the emotion that is being satisfied by someone who is lying is the desire to have us believe him. Extended further we could apply the same cues to someone who intensely wants us to believe what he is telling us such as in a sales situation. His phrasing will satisfy his desire to “sell” us.

However, a better way to convey the influence strength of belief has on us is to describe it as confidence. Since people tend to have a prejudice toward those who are confident, people who wish to deceive others will tend to express themselves confidently in order to do so.