Mike Lehr's Blog

Previously, I listed some unconscious biases we have in decision-making. What I witness is that people just don’t believe that known wrong information has any affect on them.

For example, research in “Before You Make That Big Decision” by Daniel Kahneman, Dan Lovallo and Olivier Sibony* which appeared in the June 2011 Harvard Business Review showed that dice rolls “suggesting” sentencing decisions to judges did in fact influence their final decision even though they knew these decisions were made by dice.

Cognitively and psychologically, we call this “planting of a seed” in our minds as anchoring. We experience its negative side when someone is locked on a thought based on incorrect information that we tried to expose for them. As with the judges, this erroneous information assumes a frame of reference for their decision on a subconscious level.

As the writers indicate, anchoring’s real danger is “that people always believe they can disregard them” because the information is incorrect. They don’t believe it. However, it affects them in the same way that intuition affects our thought processes. However, since people don’t realize it, they will shop for rationales to attribute elsewhere this influence on their decisions.

Anchoring also affects our views of people and contributes to the unconscious pigeonholing of people. This can tremendously affect our ability to assess and develop talent. This is why the gossip and unfounded opinions of others will still influence us even though we “ignore” them to form our own opinion.

We need to raise our awareness concerning the influence this has on others, and more importantly to us. We can’t believe we are immune; we need to make conscious adjustments or else we will fall prey to the influence of known wrong information too.

*Olivier Sibony is a director in McKinsey’s Brussels office.

Although sensitive people often don’t see their sensitivity as a gift, it is. They are more in tune with their world and those around them. However, because what they feel is often only operating on a subconscious level with the rest of us, they often hold a minority view. Thus, expressing this gift as a talent is challenging.

Sensitive people are often the best ones to ask about the overall emotional state of their organizations. In fact, I have often asked them this question:

Do you find that when you walk into a strange organization you can feel what the morale is like fairly quickly?

Usually this occurs for them within the first fifteen to sixty minutes. We could be talking about a company of fifty or a corporation of thousands. In fact, many of them could walk into a room filled with people and assess what’s going without ever talking to anyone. Moreover, their assessment would be more accurate than an average person who had talked to everyone.

While this might seem fantastic, it’s very real when you consider there are already trained professionals who can assess the potential success of married couples and sales people through observation only, no audio. Moreover there are researchers exploring the predictive aspect of subtle facial movements that only our unconscious captures. Such research is also being applied to people and technology in the recognition of security threats at airports.

Still, since many of the rest of us usually don’t get these feelings, it’s easy to talk sensitive people out of their minority, often solitary, views. That’s why for many sensitive people with whom I have worked, many of their worst decisions have come as a result of others changing their minds rather than following what they know is correct.

Other posts 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. V): Intimidation
• Emotional Self-defense for Sensitive People (Pt. VI): Defeatism & Courage

You are reading my 100^th post. In the beginning, I just wanted to see if I could stay committed to publishing twice a week for a year despite other commitments. I did that, but I had help. I felt this post was a symbolically opportune time to give thanks for that help.

First, I want to thank my wife, Kathy. She was extremely tolerant in my self-imposed urgency to meet my publishing goals while I was also trying to run several businesses.

Second, I want to single out four people, Craig Palenshus, Bill Forsyth, III, Jeannette Marshall (Blog: optioneerJM) and Mary Duckworth-Demis Mimouna.

Craig quickly got me set up and running. He intuitively knew a design and color scheme that suited my preferences and purposes. Bill was instrumental in giving me a publishing strategy for my content goals and initial SEO advice. Jeannette encouraged me throughout and was an early commenter while trying to keep me abreast of the latest blog functionality. Mary encouraged me by frequently commenting and giving advice on the more technical aspects of writing for a blog.

Finally, I want to thank you. While anything can inspire me, interactions with others are my main sources. In that regard, the internet and social media have enlightened me. I now have access to people all over the world and their works. I am no longer solely dependent upon traditional media.

True, many of these “virtual” people don’t have the viewers, listeners and readers of that media or even the visitors of older websites, but they certainly don’t lack the talent to write, discuss and inspire. In fact, I’m now convinced that there is only one difference between them and the old order . . . opportunity.

Again, thank you. I look forward to your continued inspiration. Cheers!

Designer labels encourage us not only to believe that the wearing has status but also trustworthiness, talent and many other positive attributes. In fact, the label is more important than the clothes themselves.

In the article, “I’ve Got You Labelled”, appearing in the April 2, 2011 edition of The Economist, Rob Nelissen and Marijn Meijers of Tilburg University in the Netherlands reached this conclusion from their research. While initially far-fetched, we find that a piece of art can fluctuate enormously in value depending upon whom people think painted it even though the art itself does not change. It’s also why people persistently knowingly buy knockoffs; they want the label.

One of the needs labels address is security. As we saw in my posts, Is Freedom for Everybody? and People Follow Leaders Not Facts, not all people are comfortable making their own decisions; they want others to make them for them. Status labels do exactly that; they help people determine what is good. The attributes of what makes clothing good such as the material, stitching, design, fabric, dyes, thread, etc., can make a qualitative determination daunting.

What is fascinating from Nelissen and Meijers research, is that this qualitative stamp not only influences our perceptions of the clothes but also the wearer. The qualitative effect is transferable, and it occurs on a subconscious level.

From an intuitive perspective, this means we can upgrade ourselves simply by wearing the right labels. This is what politicians do when they try to tie themselves closely to their country’s flag. This is what manufacturers do when they invest huge amounts in the packaging of their products. Presentation strongly influences our evaluation of content; plating affects our food’s taste. Thus, this principle holds true for the presentation of our ideas.

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)

When we pigeonhole people, we are defining their talents by their jobs rather than looking at their talents. The most obvious example of this is the resume. When we define someone talents by their experiences, we are essentially pigeonholing them.  We are relying upon their experiences to tell us what their talents are; we are not relying upon our assessment of their talents to determine what their experiences could be.

Furthermore, we will tend to view any additional talent we come across within the context of those experiences. For instance, we will tend to assume that the attention to detail that an engineer displays will only tend to exist within a mechanical realm and not within an artistic one. This also works in reverse. If a job does not require extensive interpersonal skills, we will tend to believe that the person has few.

Figure #1 shows the influence context can have on our decision making. It asks, “Which dot is the darkest?”

Figure #1: Which dot is darkest? 

The right one seems to be; however, what Figure #2 shows is that not only is there more than two dots, but they are all the same color. It’s their contexts that either make them lighter, darker or invisible. Similarly, we can easily miss people’s talents because they don’t come into play within a particular job.

Figure #2: All The Same 

This came to me when a 7-year stock broker was hired as a banker. His employer still sent him through the same basic investment training that all the other bankers went through. This also happened with a 3-year investment manager who managed multi-million dollar portfolios.

As an exercise, try assessing people’s talents without asking what they do or looking at their resumes. You will see how dependent we’ve become on relying upon those contexts to determine which dot is darkest.

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.

Compliments are an extremely effective way to build morale and relationships. However, they are not as easy to employ as one might think. It’s not just a matter of saying something nice; it’s a matter of saying something positive about something that is important to the other person. There are two broad types, extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic compliments refer to things “outside” of someone and intrinsic “inside.” Intrinsic compliments will tend to make a greater impact than extrinsic ones. Their disadvantage is that they tend to be harder to pinpoint and describe. For some, intrinsic compliments are more difficult to deliver because they require a higher level of sensitivity.

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Four Basic Types of Compliments

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Extrinsic Compliments

1.    Things: compliment what they have.

2.    Job: compliment what they did.

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Intrinsic Compliments

3.    Values: compliment what they believe.

4.    Talents: compliment their innate qualities.

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Examples

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Many things are obvious to us consciously but our actions often betray us. Initiating change among employees is one of those things. We might consciously know that people aren’t light switches but we often expect change as though they were. How often do we say to our bosses, “Yes, I told them about the new way,” in response to pressure as to why employees didn’t adopt a change? Such a response indicates we are expecting people to be light switches.

Switch (FIG #1)

Tomato Plants (FIG #2)

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Look at Figures 1 and 2. Which is more analogous to employees, the light switch or the tomato plants? If we select the plants, can we fully expect them to grow with only one watering or feeding? If we view them as light switches, then yes, we could. Flipping them to “on” has them adopt the changes we want and flip them to “off” has them stop the old habits.

As you can see, my wife is growing these tomato plants by having them grow within a circular, vertical wire frame. This allows them to grow taller so more vines can bear tomatoes. Yes, sometimes the vines extend out of the frame, so she works them back in to encourage them upward. She just didn’t plop down the frame and then expect them to follow it.

The same holds true for people. They require follow up and regularly observation. It usually takes at least five enforcements of the change over a couple months before the change becomes the new habit. Even then, depending upon the change, a periodic refreshing of it is needed. That is why as managers our follow up is more important than what we’ve said.

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.