Mike Lehr's Blog

Previously I had indicated that placebo management could impact performance. I recently read

Michael Specter’s article, “The Power of Nothing,” in the December 12, 2011 issue of The New Yorker. He shared Ted Kaptchuk’s work on the Placebo Effect at the Harvard Medical School. I found this passage extremely apropos for placebo management:

. . . although placebos had no impact on the chemical markers that indicate whether a patient is responding to therapy, patients nonetheless reported feeling better. Kaptchuk concluded that objective data should not be the only criterion for doctors to consider.

Translated to the business world, we cannot just evaluate our effectiveness with people only on objective considerations. For instance, when a manager explains a business plan to an employee, the value isn’t just in the manager’s explanation and the employee’s understanding. There is additional intangible value in the time the manager spent with the employee. The manager could have enhanced this value by taking the employee to breakfast or lunch for the discussion.

As we saw there are two aspects to an interaction: thinking and feelings (see diagram to right). In this example, the manager’s explanation represents the thinking; the time and place represent the feeling. A different outcome would occur if the manager simply gave the plan for the employee’s reading.

In using this managerial approach, keep five things in mind:

1. Objective information and criteria don’t tell the whole story
2. People react differently
3. Expectations of you and the other person matter
4. Feelings matter more than #1
5. Different users have different results

Relationship building strategies and techniques maximize the placebo effect. It helps to have a strategy for improving your relationship with each of your employees. Implementing initiatives and effecting change will be easier and more effective.

Other links in this series: Placebo Management: Impacting Employees’ Beliefs

People periodically ask me, “Should I get a coach?” I chuckle because it’s akin to asking, “Should I get married?” Coaching as with marriage is great if you find a great person. However, it can be unrewarding, even harmful, if you don’t, especially if you’re already good at your profession.

If you’re considering a coach, I strongly recommend reading, “Personal Best”, by Atul Gawande which appeared in the October 3, 2011 issue of the The New Yorker. Gawande gives an excellent account of his decision-making process for securing a coach. More importantly, he made three points about coaching that standout from other coaching literature I’ve read:

1. “Good coaches know how to break down performance into its critical individual components.”
2. “Good coaches speak with credibility, make a personal connection, and focus little on themselves.”
3. “. . . bad coaching can make people worse [especially if they are already professionals]”

In many respects, it doesn’t matter what the coach’s credentials, experience, references or record of accomplishment are: if the coach and you do not connect on a personal level, your experience will be mediocre and possibly damaging. Yes, selecting a coach is a highly subjective affair.

Many coaches will transfer their failure to the client by saying, “I’m only as good as my client is.” Theoretically, this is true, but in reality, you can have two excellent coaches in a situation where one succeeds and the other fails. Coaching is not an objective science; it’s a subjective art. What works for one client might not work for another.

That means determining what you want in a coach. If credentials and experience are important, that’s great! If not, don’t fret. You’re in charge; it’s your coach . . . and your choice.

As we saw with pigeonholing and tasting food, context influences us greatly. This extends to people’s inclinations to collaborate. In support of this, the July-August 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review has Yochai Benkler’s citing in his article “The Unselfish Gene” the work of Lee Ross from Stanford University. He found people being more inclined to collaborate if the context of the effort promotes it.

That’s why leadership that manages, operates and communicates with the implied assumption that employees are essentially motivated by “What’s in it for me” will tend to foster a less collaborative culture than leadership doing the same against a backdrop of collaboration. From an everyday perspective, this means the culture that heavily relies upon extrinsic rewards such as money, awards and perks for individual performances will tend to be less collaborative than the one relying upon intrinsic rewards such as the enjoyment of working with and helping others. Mastering morale builders that don’t cost a cent go a long way in helping here.

This doesn’t mean we eliminate monetary rewards for individuals, but it does mean we focus more on the culture we are promoting in our businesses; culture is context. However, the promotion of that culture must be real. If employees sense a divorce between words and actuality, then the context for collaboration falls, thus causing most employees to resort to self-interested behavior.

Using intrinsic rewards to buttress a collaborative context is involved. In addition to mastering morale builders, it means mastering compliments. Understanding and appreciating the different kinds will help us see how intrinsic rewards differ from extrinsic ones. It’s only by mastering these on an interpersonal level will we be able to extend it throughout our companies and organizations.

Other posts in this series:

• Cooperation vs. Self-interest: Which Reigns Supreme?

Sensitive people (SP) can increase team intelligence in very much the same way mortar makes brick and stone walls stronger. Since diverse teams tend to be more creative and intelligent than homogeneous ones, SP will often provide the relational glue keeping diverse groups from fracturing under the stress of diverse views.

In “What Makes a Team Smarter? More Women,” an article in the June 2011 of the Harvard Business Review, Anita Woolley and Thomas Malone found SP:

• Listen well
• Share criticism constructively
• Possess open minds
• Aren’t autocratic

Since “Many studies have shown that women tend to score higher on tests of social sensitivity than men do,” Woolley and Malone found that adding more women to groups would make them more intelligent. They “saw pretty clearly that groups that had smart people dominating the conversation were not very intelligent.”

SP’s concerns for the well being of others will help ensure that diverse views receive a hearing even from more dominant and autocratic members of the team. In effect, we don’t increase the intelligence of the group by necessarily adding more intelligent people. We do so by adding more SP who give deference to others so stronger more effective bonds are formed. Through these bonds flow the life-blood of ideation, more simply called communication. Under the influence of dominant, head-strong members, these arteries become constricted by fear and tension thus preventing the free, open flow of ideas necessary for increasing team intelligence.

As we saw, nurturing positive feelings in others dramatically improves performance. SP are perfect additions to improving the intelligence and performance of teams. Their talent for being more aware of the emotions running through others will help ensure team members will feel good about the team and their contributions.

Other links in this series:

• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt I): Awareness
• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt II): The Unconscious
• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt III): Self-Awareness
• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt IV): Talent
• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt. V): Intimidation
• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt. VI): Defeatism & Courage

The article, “Think Yourself Better,” in the May 21, 2011 edition of The Economist discussed the placebo effect: belief in a medical treatment increases its effectiveness. Research is also showing that this effect continues even if patients know a placebo was used. So, if belief helps doctors treat patients, why can’t it help managers manage employees?

The connection becomes more pragmatic when we consider that placebos work better when the drama around administering them is intensified. For example, the more enthusiastic the doctor is in administering it, the more likely it will have a greater effect. Additionally, giving an injection works better than a pill and a sham surgery works better yet.

The application to management is this: you can improve employees’ performances by telling them you believe they will become better. By connecting this belief to various new tools, initiatives and training, you will make the tools, initiative and training work better.

Presentation is a large part of what makes placebos work. A previous post talked about two identical bonus plans that were presented differently to employees. One motivated them more than the other did. This held true even when employees learned later that they earned the same bonus under both plans.

In pragmatic terms, this means that the more enthusiastic you are, the more attention you pay to employees and the more important you believe they are, the better they will do. This will occur even if you don’t show them one single technique to do their jobs better.

To make employees better, help them believe they can become better by showing sincerely and enthusiastically that you believe they can become better. If you want good employees, treat them like good employees.

I read two articles related to the impact positive feelings can have on performance. One concerns positive feelings from comments (Harvard Business Review) and the other from superstitions (Psychological Science). Both reference research from Dr. Lysann Damisch of the University of Cologne.

They reminded me of the commentary from the Top Gun DVD (Widescreen Special Collector’s Edition). A Top Gun instructor who was a technical advisor for the movie emphasized the importance of pilots’ confidence; they need to feel invincible. Thus, the crisis of confidence that Tom Cruise’s character, Maverick, had after his partner’s death is very real and dangerous.

Paradoxically, the modern workplace seems more concerned with telling employees what they are doing wrong rather than right. How successful can we be then in nurturing positive feelings to enhance the performance of employees? How much better would employees do if we took the same care as a Top Gun instructor? The research suggests, “They would certainly do much better.”

Part of the problem is psychological. We often see managers who regularly point out employee errors as being much tougher than those who regularly point out their successes. We tend to associate toughness with criticism and gentleness with compliments. Consequently, it’s extremely difficult for managers to convey strength when they’re complimentary. Moreover, complimentary actions can trigger sensitive emotions encouraging managers to feel “soft.” This can be a fearsome personal event for managers in companies that even have a small amount of machismo in their culture.

However, what studies like this demonstrate, and there will be more in the future, is that the emotional state of our employees is far more important than their mental state. Nurturing this will take extremely disciplined and emotionally secure managers to overcome their own feelings of being a “softy,” not a trait that has normally been in managerial talent.

People are always looking for ways to ensure their jobs, more so today. As we’ve seen, the people who only focus on doing a good job place themselves at high risk. Simply being talented is no guarantee either. So, when people discuss their strategies with me, I often ask this question:

• Do you like your boss, his boss, the President/CEO, and/or Owner(s)?

In most cases, if we don’t like one or more of these folks, we are at a high risk to lose our jobs even if we believe they don’t know that we don’t like them. The reason is that there is a very high correlation between the people we don’t like and the people who don’t like us.

Of course, their stated reasons for letting us go most likely won’t include that they dislike us. It might not even include performance issues. “Down-sizing” or “job elimination” are much more convenient rationalizations. They can give the impression that it was beyond their control; it was business, nothing personal. This will help them avoid looking like the bad guy or gal. If they really want to keep us, they will find a way.

At the core is how well we fit into the culture. Since these folks play a major role in defining that culture, if we don’t like them, most likely we won’t like the culture they’re creating. What do you do? Learn to like them or begin looking for another job.

A commenter inquired why the “good job” compliment isn’t intrinsic since “doing that good job comes from inside a person (an experience, or a value); it’s not something that can be taken away.” There are three main reasons. They also serve to explain why the compliment, while acceptable, is inferior to other compliments.

First, “doing a good job” is different from the “desire to do a good job.” Performance exists outside of us, desire within. People perform well for many reasons beyond the desire to do a good job: money, recognition, promotion, peer pressure etc. For example, two children can read the same difficult book; however, there is a difference between the child who reads the book for a promised candy bar and the other child who reads it for the love of reading.

Second, the determination of a good job is subjective; it varies by the person establishing standards and evaluating outcomes against those standards. You can “take away” a good performance by simply using a different evaluator. For example, other teachers might not consider the above book’s difficulty worthy of compliments.

Third, the product of a good job can be erased. A good painting could be destroyed, a good program terminated, and a good sales year erased with the start of a new one. “What have you done for me lately,” exemplifies the negation of performances. In the above example, the child’s reading of the difficult book might elevate his grade this period but won’t for the next one. However, the love of reading continues on.

Yes, the “good job” compliment is adequate. However, “Reading that book shows that you have a natural love for reading,” is far better. Again, it’s because we are complimenting a quality of the person (intrinsic) versus an outcome (extrinsic).

Once, a woman who had just joined a bank wanted to meet with me since I had experience working at a bank. After asking many questions, she apologized and said, “I just want to make sure I do a good job.” I responded, “Well, first, you have to realize that just doing a good job is no guarantee of keeping your job even if no one is being laid off. Focus more on the relationships you have with your co-workers and most importantly your boss.”

Influencing others is a form of power and as is being increasingly shown simply being good at what you do isn’t the best way to expand your power at work. Consider Schumpeter’s commentary, The Will to Power, of the September 11, 2010 issue of The Economist. He references Jeffrey Pfeffer’s book Paths to Power in which he claims attributes “such as the ability to project drive and self-confidence” as being more important. Note he said “ability to project” and not “have.”

How many times have we all heard someone (or ourselves) say, “Well, I just don’t play politics,” or “I’m not good at the politics”? Yes, the negative connotation of politics implies that these are positive attributes and gives us positive feelings for rationalizing bad experiences. On the other hand, politics is really about managing our interpersonal relationships. When they are ones we enjoy we call it teamwork; when they are ones we don’t we call it politics.

No matter what we call it, if we don’t do it well, we risk not only the diminishing of our power at work but our jobs.

In the August 2, 2010 issue of the New Yorker, Atul Gawande writes in “Letting Go” about the importance of hospice giving “patients someone experienced and knowledgeable to talk to about their daily needs,” suggesting it helps to reduce traditional medical costs. This is a form of the “talking cure” first coined by Josef Breur and further developed by Sigmund Freud. The essential concept is that talking through our troubles helps to alleviate our anxiety.

In the work place, we often incorrectly identify this talking as a “bitch session.” An office manager in a law firm once complained to me about the time it was taking her to “talk through” various personality conflicts among the secretarial staff. I finally asked her, “What makes you think this isn’t part of your job?”

When people perform at their peaks, some anxiety will naturally exist because they are working on the edge of their comfort zones. The song Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins from the movie Top Gun expresses quite well the intensity of operating on this edge. Analogously, what would happen to a runner if she wore a wet suit and could not release her sweat? The same thing occurs on an emotional level if people cannot release their “emotional sweat.” Thus, we compound the problem when we discourage or criticize release.

Anyone who has worked in a law office knows that legal secretaries can work under some intense pressures. These pressures can easily create intense interpersonal encounters. Talking through them will help to ensure they don’t explode and assume more harmful forms. Managers should expect to have to “talk through” events with their people and not necessarily interpret them as bitch sessions.