The Great Recession has led many of my executive coaching clients to reduce 401(k) contributions, celebrations, work hours (through furloughs), and cut other employee perqs. These leaders often explain the reductions as prudent adjustments to avoid layoffs. Employees, unfortunately, are likely to react by becoming less trusting and cooperative with their employers, as this new research illustrates.
“Even something that is not so strong as a vindictive action—something simply perceived as a negative act,” [Professor Boaz] Keysar says, “escalates quickly.”
The researchers paired up participants for several games of give and take. In one a designated leader decided how much of $100 to give to a partner. In another, leaders decided how much of $100 to take from their partners. … Subjects in the study also consistently reacted better to receiving something than to having it taken from them, even when the gift left them with less money, say $30 instead of $50.
Leaders, however, thought they were being fair … “They did not anticipate,” Keysar says, “that the other person was going to perceive them as doing something negative.” What’s more, he discovered that as the game wore on, each successive round saw partners grabbing more and more as they alternated the taking role. Perceiving the takers as selfish, the participants became less generous.
Languages shape the way we think about space, time, colors, and objects. Other studies have found effects of language on how people construe events, reason about causality, keep track of number, understand material substance, perceive and experience emotion, reason about other people’s minds, choose to take risks, and even in the way they choose professions and spouses. Taken together, these results show that linguistic processes are pervasive in most fundamental domains of thought, unconsciously shaping us from the nuts and bolts of cognition and perception to our loftiest abstract notions and major life decisions.
Language is central to our experience of being human, and the languages we speak profoundly shape the way we think, the way we see the world, the way we live our lives.
See also this Wall Street Journalarticle by Dr. Boroditsky.
…literate people said “dark blue” or “light yellow,” but illiterates used metaphorical names like “liver,” “peach,” “decayed teeth,” and “cotton in bloom.” Literates saw optical illusions; illiterates sometimes didn’t. Experimenters showed peasants drawings of a hammer, a saw, an axe, and a log and then asked them to choose the three items that were similar. Illiterates resisted, saying that all the items were useful. If pressed, they considered throwing out the hammer; the situation of chopping wood seemed more cogent to them than any conceptual category. One peasant, informed that someone had grouped the three tools together, discarding the log, replied, “Whoever told you that must have been crazy,” and another suggested, “Probably he’s got a lot of firewood.” [Work by Aleksandr R. Luria]
Illiterates also resisted giving definitions of words and refused to make logical inferences about hypothetical situations. … Whereas literates can rotate concepts in their minds abstractly, orals embed their thoughts in stories. [Work by Walter J. Ong]
My client, Raj Khera, has started several successful businesses, including MailerMailer and the MoreBusiness site for small businesses. I am Raj’s client, too, since I use MailerMailer for my email newsletter.
All the best companies have bottom-up management. That means those staff who actually meet customers, or run operations, tell the boss what works, rather than vice versa. It means delegating responsibility in order to empower staff. Imperious, dictatorial leaders who are out of touch with the shop floor do not achieve sustained success.
–Luke Johnson
Chairman of Channel 4 and Risk Capital Partners
in The Financial Times
I use Twitter to share brief daily messages. You can have them delivered to your cell phone by text message (SMS) or view them when you visit your free Twitter web page. Create a Twitter account and “follow” TonyMayo.
Here are my recent tweets (messages):
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so –Shakespeare’s Hamlet Act 2 Scene II
Your biggest competitor is not a competitor; it’s (more…)
This short and entertaining book has been making the rounds of both my executive coaching groups. Invest an hour reading Mr. Shmooze: The Art and Science of Selling Through Relationships and consider how you might deepen and expand your network and your life. This book is not primarily about making money; it is about creating a large and rewarding life.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, …, taught mindfulness at a high-stress biotech company; these beginners meditated for 30 minutes a day for eight weeks. [Professor] Davidson’s measures showed that after the eight weeks they had begun to activate that left prefrontal zone more strongly — and were saying that instead of feeling overwhelmed and hassled, they were enjoying their work. So while the Calvinist strain in American culture may look askance at someone sitting quietly in meditation, this kind of “doing nothing” seems to do something remarkable after all.
Of course, there’s no guarantee of greater happiness from meditation, but the East has given us a promising path for its pursuit.
I have been very happy with my results from following the diet and exercise advice of Joe Dillon. I started the program in April of 2004 and quickly lost 26 pounds, reduced my resting heart rate, improved my cholesterol levels, and increased my strength and endurance. Since I like the food and workouts are easier than what I had been doing, I have stayed with the program ever since and am enjoying the longest non-obese period of my life.
A foundation of the program is a high-protein, low-carb diet. This is not Atkins. No shock, no bad breath, and–woefully–no bacon. The most convenient way I have found to get enough protein is with a shake. My recipe is below. Don’t be put off by (more…)
What Makes Us Happy?, in the June, 2009, issue of the Atlantic has attracted a lot of attention. It is an interesting story, or collection of anecdotes, but does it provide any useful guidance for CEOs or their executive coaches?
I asked a wealthy client about the beginnings of his fortune. As a child, he accumulated $600 through odd jobs and gifts. While in college in the early 1960s, he invested this savings into the stock market. By the time he got out of school he had multiplied his stake into enough cash to support himself for years, travel to Europe, and finance his first business.
I remarked, “Even in the go-go bull market of the 60s, that is an amazing return. You must have made some very smart investments. Why didn’t you continue onto a career in investing?”
My client is not a modest or self-effacing man, but he does see events clearly. He replied, “I did make some good investments, but I was smart enough to know I was lucky.”
Maybe this is why we use the same word, fortune, for both “chance” and “wealth.”
I have had the privilege of working with Tony as my executive coach for over two years now and highly recommend him.
He exemplifies the term, “coach.” His ability to listen to what others say and are not saying is unmatched. Plus, he has the rare gift of being able to incite others to take actions they have only dreamed of taking. I not only value his opinion but rely on it for important personal and business decisions.
Tony’s executive coaching has been the most valuable professional support I’ve ever received.
Study indicates that employees who are trusted by managers do better work and are more loyal to their employer.
A Closer Look at Trust Between Managers and Subordinates: Understanding the Effects of Both Trusting and Being Trusted on Subordinate Outcomes
The authors propose that trust in the subordinate has unique consequences beyond trust in the manager. Furthermore, they propose joint effects of trust such that subordinate behavior and intentions are most favorable when there is high mutual trust. Findings reveal unique (more…)
In the night, in the dark, the tragedy part was always to the front, and always warning, always threatening; and so I moaned and tossed, and sleep was hard to find. But in the cheerful daylight the tragedy element faded out and diappeared, and I walked on air, and was happy to giddiness, to intoxication, you may say.
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