Drop Anchors Carefully
A few years ago at a Sioux Falls, ID supermarket, the owners experimented with marketing labels next to cans of soup. Some days the label said “10% off regular price, limit 10 per customer,” and on other days it said “10% off regular price, no limit per customer.” Shoppers purchased twice as many on the days with limitations. The sense of scarcity set an anchoring effect, and the number 10 set a mental anchor of the amount of cans they should buy. So, those presented with the limited availability felt a mental urge to buy more.
Similarly, if I ask you, “Is the oldest dog in the world older or younger than 60 years?” and then I ask you, “How old is the oldest dog?”, your answer will be higher than if I just ask you “How old is the oldest dog in the world?” You know instinctively that a 60 year old dog is completely nuts, but it will still have a psychological priming effect and sway your guess upwards. Significantly upwards it turns out. Your dog-age guess will be over a decade above your guess without the suggestion of a 60-year old dog.
Mental anchors are everywhere, and quite effectively used in negotiations. The above example is from Daniel Kahnemann’s new book Thinking Fast and Slow. In his chapter on the anchoring effect, he also points out that we are much more susceptible to psychological anchors during times of stress and anxiety. If we are in a stressful state and someone suggests a point of direction, or an idea to consider, we are much more likely to accept and build on that idea, instead of patiently and thoughtfully questioning it. In another Kahnemann-type example, if you are nervous and I ask even a ridiculous question like, “Is your arm getting numb?” You are far more likely to believe your arm might actually be getting numb instead of reject such a nutty suggestion.
Consider this next time you speak your mind: In times of stress with mounting deadlines, you can more easily make your case but you do so at the expense of allowing the thoughtful contribution of the team. And then sacrifice the voice of the community who might have a more powerful collective idea than you. Create a space to allow considered contribution. You will almost always create a stronger result.
[Cool cartoon from Andertoons - check them out]
Read MoreBecome an Alchemist – Expect the Unexpected
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It’s an astonishing thing to observe people who encounter obstacle after hurtle after challenge, and yet seem to only gain strength and confidence and power after each, seemingly insurmountable, roadblock is set before them. There’s a great scene in KungFu Panda II in which the bad guy – an evil peacock – laments, “How many times do I have to kill the same panda?!” because the Panda, of course keeps getting stronger throughout the movie, until the end (spoiler!) in which he’s catching blazing cannonballs and throwing them back. All because he’s found inner peace.
Terry Fox was like that. He developed cancer in 1980, and while still in the hospital, decided to run across Canada to raise money and awareness for cancer research. We lost Terry to cancer but only after he had run several thousand miles across Canada. His mother Betty Fox kept Terry’s legacy and spirit alive for the last thirty years. Betty died last week and the world is a better place for their energy and passion.
In the book Born to Run, we learn Scott Jurek had such an alchemy moment at the 2005 Badwater Ultramarathon. It’s a 135 mile ultramarathon. Run in Death Valley at temperatures typically approaching the mid-120s. After Scott collapsed after (only!) 55 miles in a ditch in 125 degree heat in a catatonic stupor, he searched his mind for ten minutes, and then stood to run the next 80 miles in record time to win the race.
I’ve watched my mom, Bev Hunter, conjure resilience and calm in the storm of cancer these last six months. Harnessing the cumulative strengths of her community, her faith, her research-driven analytical mind, family, and joie de vivre, she has transmuted obstacle into power, challenge into growth, fatigue into enlightenment. And Erik Weihenmayer has been a great source of support and inspiration to her.
Erik Weihenmayer uses that term Alchemist to describe just such people who turn adversity into strength, a challenge into innovation, a smack-down into power.
I certainly agree we have the ability to surprise ourselves. If you watch kids, they do it all the time while testing the boundaries of their own possibilities. But the key is to take the leap, sign up for that daunting project, or impossible race, or mythic challenge you might think is beyond you. Build those capacities, strengths and creative resources now, because you never know when the world is going to sign you up for something beyond your control.
We’re wishing Erik a successful journey coming up as he and his teammates embark on Expedition Impossible. May he and his team find the alchemy needed to win.
Read MoreHit a Wall? Your Mindset Matters
“Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.”
- Thor Heyerdahl, innovator, adventurer, and border-smasher
I have a friend who installed the same invisible dog fence I did, but he admitted he didn’t bother with the training and simply installed the underground wire and shackled his dog with the electrical buzz collar which would shock the dog whenever he got near the line. His thinking was the dog would just learn the boundaries himself and viola! – a dog self-trained to stay in the yard. I asked him what happened, and he described that as his young boisterous dog started to run and play as usual he would get shocked and, since he didn’t associate the pain with any clear boundary, he eventually sat in the middle of the yard shaking in fear, paralyzed to move. From that point on all the dog wanted to do was stay in the house.
There are many dimensions to this story – not least the owner’s choice and behavior – but what I want to address is the dog’s perspective. The dog, not understanding why the random shocks, arrived at a state psychologists call “learned helplessness.” It’s the point at which they (we) are capable of believing that nothing we do matters, and regardless of our action, we’re going to be punished or bad things will befall us. A sense of control, and a sense that our behavior matters, is one of the most important predictors of happiness, and in turn workplace productivity, collaboration and creativity.
In a 2002 study from the Families and Work Institute, researchers concluded the following six criteria for creating an effective workplace:
• Providing job autonomy;
• Creating learning opportunities and challenges on the job—where employees can grow,
learn, and advance;
• Developing environments where supervisors support employees in being successful on
the job;
• Developing environments where coworkers support each other for job success;
• Involving employees in management decision-making; and
• Creating flexible workplaces
All of the above offer workers more, not less control and autonomy over their team, their task, their technique.
Carol Dweck, author of Mindset, in a series of studies, has found that people fall into two gross categories – those who believe their intelligence and aptitude is fixed, and those who believe their intelligence and capabilities are malleable and can change over time with effort. When people are in a learning, instead of a fixed mindset, they continually keep getting better because they try harder and constantly put themselves in positions where they might fail. And keep getting better because, or despite of, the challenges they self-impose.
In the invisible fence example, think of the ways in which you bump up against boundaries and how you react to them. Do you run back to the middle quaking, or spend time probing to understand that invisible boundary and then concoct ways to circumvent, or leap beyond it? Or maybe tunnel under? And if you are the boundary-creator, ask yourself why? It could be a legitimate boundary – we do it to our kids all the time for health, or safety, or learning, etc… But in my experience, when you give trust, you get trust, and sometimes exceptional performance.
Read MoreTurn Anxiety into Positive Action
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In the always-on bottle rocket economy, in which creative contributors spend their extended waking hours in simultaneous and schizophrenic bouts of digital grazing, conference calls, work tasks, social media…it’s no surprise anxieties and hypertension have overtaken the workforce.
I had an interview the other day with Chip Conley, Founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre (and killer TED speaker) and learned a cool emotional equation trick he is debuting in his new book. It’s common to feel overwhelmed with looming deadlines, and dueling projects. Here are a few tricks you can try to take control.
Understand You Have More Control Than You Think
We tend to fixate on what we can’t control or have little influence over. Try this from Chip Conley. It’s about turning negative stress in to positive challenge. Think of a project, task, or effort you are involved in and write down all of the things you have control and power over.
Now write down the things you think you have little or no control or power over. In Chip’s experience trying this out on hundreds and hundreds of leaders, they come to realize the number of elements they do have control and power over is surprisingly higher than they realized. And by clearly identifying and sharing pieces they think they have no control over, they realize quickly the people resources and available insights are more immediate and readily accessible than previously thought.
Understand Where You Spend Your Time
One tip from Martin Seligman. Weigh what your goals are against how you spend your time. Write down three to five things you really want to accomplish. Then keep track of how you actually spend your time. You can try reflecting on the past week or looking through your calendar from the last month, but in his experience, a better measure is to actually measure. Post a white board in your office or kitchen – or places you frequent – and jot down the time you spend on activities. It might surprise you the difference between time invested and stated goals.
Take Action
Now do something. That’s right, just get in motion. I heard a cool adage recently, “the amount of time it takes you to accomplish anything is equal to the amount of time you have to do it.” In other words, if you have two weeks to do the presentation, it will take two weeks. If you have two hours, it takes two hours. So my final advice in taking control is to self-impose deadlines and act. In my experience, the big project I’ve been putting off takes very little actual time. Or as my new friend Alexander Kjerulf likes to say, we are always choosing, since inaction is also a choice. So choose to act.
Using Humor for Discovery
I’m in Virginia this weekend visiting my mom, Bev Hunter, with my eldest son Charlie, and was reminded of the relationship between the Ha-ha of humor and the Ah-ha of discovery. Bev has been using humor as a therapeutic device for combating an illness (you can read in her blog), and I’ve been reminded of the power of using humor in finding new insights and ideas. As a gift she gave me a deck of creative thinking cards developed by Roger von Oech – each with their own little bit of creative provocation. I keep this deck in my bag everywhere I go and pull it out and try the next card in spare moments when reaching for new ideas.
Roger von Oech is a firm believer in using fun ideas to stimulate creativity. His company Creative Think was started in 1977. He is the author of A Whack on the Side of the Head, and this Creative Whack Pack I keep handy. Oech believes in the power of ‘creative stimulants’ and ‘mental fresheners’. They stimulate the thinking process, and open the mind to creative ideas.
I’m in Roger’s camp, who says that humor can drive creativity and the process by which new and different ideas are produced. And, there is a practical angle to it. It has to work in the given situation, or adapted in a manner that can work in the particular situation. Oech recommends that organizations have an ‘innovation requirement’ in the performance plan of employees. This way, employees would also focus on looking for innovative solutions. Asking questions that stimulate their thinking, or putting them in situations which require them to think laterally, or giving them open-ended problems to solve would get their creative juices flowing. It is important for people to approach a problem from many and different points of view.
Having a sense of humor helps. It has been found that there is a close relationship between the ‘Ha-ha of humor and the A-Ha! of discovery,’ to quote Oech.
Employees with wide-ranging interests in fields other than their field of work, or area of specialization, or have absorbing hobbies are always more creative than those who only specialize in their field of work. How does one use peripheral vision? Here again, Oech has a suggestion: ‘Look for the second right answer.’ Most problems have many solutions. The deal is that you have to look for them – have to free the mind enough to see them. It is only then that all possibilities can be found.
Read MoreDo it Like Zorro – Control Your Circle
Wall Street today was a street of vanished hopes, of curiously silent apprehension and of a sort of paralyzed hypnosis yesterday. Little groups gathered here and there to discuss the fall in prices in hushed and awed tones.
- New York Times, Oct 30, 1929
You might expect that at that moment in 1929, and again in 2008, sleep-deprived, anxious bankers worked tirelessly to arrest the stock market free-fall. And yet, more often, sleep-deprived anxious bankers sat in paralyzed hypnosis as the crisis unfolded before them. Not because they were unable to do anything about it, but instead were drawn into a state of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is that point at which we feel we are utterly unable to make a difference no matter what we do. We have to start by controlling/influencing what we know we can – which often means the lowest denominator.
Consider the story of Zorro in which early on we find our hapless hero, Alejandro Murrieta who is drinking and raging quietly against Captain Harrison Love who has killed his brother, and feeling totally helpless to take his vengeance. Zorro introduces him to the Master’s Wheel and advises, “This is called a training circle, a master’s wheel. This circle will be your world, your whole life. Until I tell you otherwise, there is nothing outside of it.” He teaches Alejandro to first control only what comes within his circle and by the end of the story the new Zorro is swinging from chandeliers and handling twenty men in battle.
In 2011, remember to focus first on what you can control. Your circle will widen.
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