Category Archives: Psychology

Hire for Diversity and Empathy to Drive Innovation

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Hire for Diversity and Empathy to Drive Innovation

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

One of the questions I get asked quite often, both at conferences and when coaching executives, is what type of personality is best suited for innovation so that they can optimize their hiring. Are technical people better than non-technical people? Introverts better than extroverts? Is it better to hire foxes or hedgehogs?

The first thing I tell them is that there has been no definitive research that has found that any specific personality type contributes to innovation. In fact, in my research I have found that there is not even a particular kind of company. If you look at IBM, Google and Amazon, for example, you’ll find that they innovate very differently.

The second thing I point out is that every business needs something different. For example, Steve Jobs once noted that since Apple had always built integrated products, it never learned how to partner as effectively as Microsoft and he wished it would have. So the best approach to hiring for innovation is to seek out those who can best add to the culture you already have.

Foxes vs. Hedgehogs

In Good to Great, author Jim Collins invokes Isaiah Berlin’s famous essay about foxes and hedgehogs to make a point about management. “The fox,” Berlin wrote, “knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Collins then devotes an entire chapter to explaining why hedgehogs perform better than foxes.

Yet as Phil Rosenzweig points out in The Halo Effect, this is a highly questionable conclusion. Even if it were true that the most successful companies focus on one core skill or one core business, that doesn’t mean that focusing on “one big thing” will make you more successful. What it probably means is that by betting on just one thing you increase your chances of both success and failure.

Think about what would have happened it Apple had said, “we’re going to focus just on computers” or if Amazon had focused on just books. There is also evidence, most notably from Philip Tetlock, that foxes outperform hedgehogs on certain tasks, like making judgments about future events.

So the best strategy would probably be to hire a fox if you’re a hedgehog and to hire a hedgehog if you’re a fox. In other words, If you like to drill down and focus on just one thing, make sure you have people around that can help you integrate with other skills and perspectives. If you like to dabble around, make sure you have people who can drill down.

Introverts vs Extroverts

We tend to see leaders as brash and outgoing, but my colleague at Inc, Jessica Stillman points out that introverts can also make great leaders. They tend to be better listeners, are often more focused and are better prepared than social butterflies are. Those are great qualities to look for when adding someone to add to your team.

Still, you wouldn’t want to have an entire company made up of introverts and, in Social Physics, MIT’s Sandy Pentland explains why. Perhaps more than anything else, innovation needs combination. So it’s important to have people who can help you connect to other teams, both internally and externally, bring in new ideas and help take you in new directions.

Consider Amazon, a company that is not only incredibly successful but also highly technically sophisticated. You might expect that it hires a lot of introverted engineers and I’m sure that’s true. Yet the skill it is most focused on is writing, because it understands that to create a successful product, you need to get a lot of diverse people to work together effectively.

So much like with foxes and hedgehogs, if you’re an introvert you should make sure that you have extroverts that can help you connect and if you are an extrovert, make sure you have people who can focus and listen.

Technical vs. Non-Technical People

By all accounts, Steve Jobs was never more than a mediocre engineer, but was clearly a legendary marketer. Nevertheless, he felt strongly that technical people should be in charge. As he once told his biographer, Walter Isaacson, in an interview:

“I have my own theory about why the decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The product starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company.”

Yet the story is not nearly as clear cut as Jobs makes it out to be. When IBM hit hard times it was Lou Gerstner, who spent his formative professional years as a management consultant, that turned it around. Steve Ballmer clearly made missteps as CEO of Microsoft, particularly in mobile, but also made the early investments in cloud technology led to Microsoft’s comeback.

So much like with foxes vs. hedgehogs and introverts vs. extroverts, the choice between technical and non-technical people is a false one. Far more important is how you build a culture in which people of varied skills and perspective can work closely together with a shared sense of purpose.

Today, as we enter a new era of innovation, organizations will need a far more diverse set of skills than ever before and building a collaborative culture will be key to success.

Collaboration Is The New Competitive Advantage

Over the past few decades, the digital revolution has shaped much of our thinking about how we advance a business. Digital technology required a relatively narrow set of skills, so hiring people adept at those skills was a high priority. Yet now, the digital era is ending and we need to rethink old assumptions.

Over the next decade, new computing architectures like quantum and neuromorphic computing will rise to the fore. Other fields, such as genomics and materials science are entering transformative phases. Rather than living in a virtual world, we’ll be using bits to drive atoms in the physical world.

That will change how we need to innovate. As Angel Diaz of IBM told me a few years back, “…we need more than just clever code. We need computer scientists working with cancer scientists, with climate scientists and with experts in many other fields to tackle grand challenges and make large impacts on the world.”

That’s why today collaboration is becoming a real competitive advantage and we need to focus far less on specific skills and “types” and far more on getting people with diverse skills, backgrounds and perspectives to work together effectively.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and an earlier version appeared on Inc.com
— Image credit: Unsplash

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Neuroplasticity – the Innovator’s Edge

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Neuroplasticity - the Innovator's Edge

GUEST POST from Dennis Stauffer

Your mindset has a huge impact on how well you’re able to adapt and innovate. But mindset is one of those concepts that’s been used and abused in a variety of ways. It gets talked about as your attitude, feelings or personality.

Mindset is not personality as it’s traditionally defined. Rather than innate personally traits that are largely stable and unchanging, mindset is the mental framework you’ve created, although mostly subconsciously. That makes mindset almost the opposite of personality. You can actively shape your mindset, and whether you realize it or not, you already are. That’s because of something called neuroplasticity.

Elearnor McGuire of the University College London led a couple of famous studies of London cab drivers, that demonstrate just how malleable your brain is.

London is such an old city it’s not laid out on a grid. That’s makes it an exceptionally challenging place to find your way around. Yet, that’s what London cabbies need to do, learning the layout of 25-thousand streets and thousands of places of interest. It takes years of study and memorization to learn the city well enough to get an operator’s license as a London cab driver.

Using brain scans, McGuire and her colleagues found that those cab drivers who had mastered “the knowledge” as it’s known, had an enlarged posterior hippocampus. That’s the part of the brain you use for spatial navigation and memory—for figuring out where you are and where you want to go.

The longer they worked as cab drivers, the bigger those areas became. Bus drivers were used as a control group because they have a similar job, but they follow predetermined routes that don’t require the same constant figuring out. They didn’t show the same changes.

What Mcguire’s research reveals is that the way you use your brain changes your brain, in a way that’s similar to growing your muscles by exercising them. That means you can get better at things like finding your way around, by spending time doing those things, just like an athlete or musician practices their skills. It means you can get better at innovating by developing the needed mental habits.

Pretty cool, huh?

But the news isn’t all good. This and other research suggests that this kind of mental strength training is also how you form habits—both good and bad—by creating and reinforcing specific neural pathways.

As Aristotle said, “You are what you repeatedly do.”

If you want to improve your mindset—and your ability to innovate—you need to practice the kinds of habits of thinking that you want to have. That includes being creative, taking risks, and being open to new ways of understanding. These are habits it makes sense to practice even when you’re not attempting to innovate. So, your brain is shaped in ways that will be helpful when you are.

Here is this post as a video, if you would prefer:

Image Credit: Pexels

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What Will People See?

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What Will People See?

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When people look back on your life, what will they see?

When you’re dead and gone, what stories will your kids tell about you?

What stories will your coworkers tell?

How about your bosses?

Will they see your disagreement as mischievous or skillful?

Will they see your frustration as disruptive or caring?

Will they see your vehemence as disrespectful or passionate?

Will they see your divergent views as contrarian or well-intentioned?

Will they see your withholding as passive-aggressive or as the result of exhausting all other possibilities?

Will they see your tears as sadness for yourself or the company you care about deeply?

Will they see your “no’s” as curmudgeonly given or brave?

Will they see your dissent as destructive or constructive?

Will they see your frustration as immaturity or as others falling short of your high expectations?

Will they see your unpopular perspective as troublemaking or as the antidote to groupthink?

Will they see your positivity as fake or as the support that everyone needs to do their best work?

Here’s the thing: What matters is not what it looks like from the outside, but your intentions.

And another thing: Anyone that knows you knows your intentions.

Now, go out and do what you think is right. And do it like you mean it. And don’t look back.

And here’s a mantra: What people think about you is none of your business.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Four Growth Mindset Myths

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Four Growth Mindset Myths

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

It’s not about profit, you don’t have to be upbeat all the time and you actually have a hybrid mindset!

# 1 – Growth mindset equals business growth, profits

A common finding by Neuro Leadership Institute is that some leaders believe growth mindset is about profits. In reality, growth mindset is the continuous belief that improvement is possible and that failures are opportunities to learn

# 2 – You either have a growth or a fixed mindset

No, we have a hybrid mindset with growth and fixed traits. Whether one is stronger than the other is often situational. Know yourself in given situations and be careful when labeling others

# 3 – Organizations, rather than people, can have a growth mindset

A mindset is a personal thing and thus not a part of an organizational culture as such. However, the essence of the growth mindset in an organizational context is to instill a mindset that is wired towards always trying to get better rather than believing – and proving – that you are the best. It overlaps

# 4 – You have to be positive all the time

Developing a growth mindset is much more about self-awareness and development rather than being in a positive growth mode all the time. We all have our ups and downs

What’s your mindset and what behaviors does this bring along? What about your team? Let’s talk if you want some free resources or other help on this. Get in touch.

Stefan Lindegaard Four Growth Mindset Myths

Image Credit: Stefan Lindegaard, Pexels

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Why Yelling at Customer Service Agents Doesn’t Work

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Why Yelling at Customer Service Agents Doesn't Work

GUEST POST from Shep Hyken

Someone asked me a question: Sometimes I’m so frustrated when I call a company’s customer service number. I try to be nice, but that doesn’t always work. What do you think if I yell at them?

Here is my answer: A couple of old expressions come to mind. First, “The squeaky wheel gets the oil,” which means if you make enough noise, you might get some action. On the other hand, another expression might be more appropriate for these situations: “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” So, be friendly but stern. At the beginning of the conversation, note the agent’s name and try to build a rapport. This also gives you a name to reference if you aren’t getting your problem resolved. Be direct about the problem, but don’t lose your temper. If you feel you’re getting angry, stop and pause. You can ask for a supervisor. And if you really think you are 100% right and the customer support agent is wrong, consider ending the call and calling back to speak with a different agent who may respond differently. I’m amazed at how often I call a company and talk to two or more people, getting a different answer each time.

So that’s my advice for the customer. Now, let’s switch to the business on the receiving end of the customer’s disappointment and anger and discuss the problem.

I’ve covered how to handle angry customers many times, so let’s not go there again. If you go to www.CustomerServiceArticles.com, you will find many articles covering that topic. Instead, I want to emphasize the last part of my response to the question: sometimes customer service agents – and other employees – have different answers to the same questions. The problem is a training issue.

My comment about not being surprised about getting different answers comes from my experience that companies don’t often focus on answers to common sense questions. The reason is that the answers should be common sense. But that doesn’t guarantee a consistent response from one employee to the next.

Create a database of customer questions and answers, and train employees to use it. The goal is to respond with the same answer every time. When a customer doubts the answer and calls back only to get a different answer from a different employee, it erodes the customer’s confidence, not to mention the frustration the customer experiences by not getting the right answer the first time. In short, consistency creates confidence.

By the way, if you have any questions about customer service or customer experience, reach out to me on any social media channel – I’m pretty much everywhere. I’ll answer your question on social media, in my weekly customer service newsletter, on my Amazing Business Radio podcast or on my Be Amazing or Go Home TV show. And be sure to use the hashtag #AskShep.

Image Credit: Pexels

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Six Leadership Myths Sabotaging Your Team

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Six Leadership Myths Sabotaging Your Team

GUEST POST from David Burkus

We all arrive at leadership with certain preconceptions about what makes a successful leader.

Sometimes we form an idea of what great leaders do based on historical leaders or modern-day leaders who are always getting media attention. Other times we form a picture of great leadership based on our own past experiences—both leaders we’ve worked under and even what attributes got us promoted into leadership. But those are often anecdotes.

And the plural of anecdote is not data. When you look at the data on effective leaders, pretty quickly you notice that some of these notions are misconceptions or outright leadership myths.

In this article, we’ll outline six leadership myths that are holding you back as a leader and may even be ruining your team—if you believe them of course.

Myth 1: Your Title Is Your Power

The first leadership myth is that your title is your power. It’s great that you’ve been promoted into a leadership role, but the mere title of leader doesn’t actually give you a lot of power over the team. Sure, your name is one box higher than your team members on the organizational chart. But if you work for a large organization, you may not actually have much ability to fire or punish people without getting approval from your boss or from human resources. Instead of trying to gain “legitimate power,” new leaders are better served by gaining rapport or respect from their team (what’s often called referent power and expert power respectively). When your team feels connected to you and respects your expertise, they’re much more likely to be influenced by you than if you’re merely trying to command them.

Myth 2: You Need To Have The Answers

The second leadership myth is that you need to have all the answers. This myth is most common in new leaders. Often, it’s the individual contributors who are hugely productive and who often have all the answers that get promoted into leadership roles. You were promoted for your expertise, so you protect your expertise at all costs. But the longer you stay in a leadership role, the more likely it is that your people know how to do the work better than you do. Pretending you know better may actually trigger their disrespect. In addition, leaders gain a lot of trust among their team when they’re willing to say, “I don’t know” and then look to the team for answers or commit to finding the answers and bringing them back. You don’t need to have all the answers, you just need to be committed to helping your find them.

Myth 3: Your Style Works For Everyone

The third leadership myth is that your style works for everyone. This myth is most common with middle managers. In the first leadership role, you often develop your preferred leadership style. And it often works because you’re leading a team of people who do a lot of the same work. But as you move up in an organization, and as your “team” starts to be a collection of different roles with different preferences, your preferred style becomes less important. It stops being about how you want to lead and starts being about how they want to be led—and led on an individual level. The best leaders understand the motivations and skillsets of each of their people individually and adjust their leadership style accordingly.

Myth 4: Disagreement Equals Disrespect

The fourth leadership myth is that disagreement equals disrespect. When someone on a team speaks up and disagrees with your idea, it can be easy to become defensive and see their disagreement as an act of defiance. And while some people can be downright belligerent, most disagreement on a team is healthy. The best teams are marked by a sense of psychological safety where everyone feels free to speak up, to express themselves, and even admit failure. And when team members disagree respectfully with you, how you respond affects how much psychological safety the team feels. Treat conflict as collaboration and remember that task-focused disagreement not only helps improve your idea, it helps everyone on the team know their opinions are valued.

Myth 5: Silence Signals Consent

The fifth leadership myth is that silence signals consent. This myth is the reverse of the previous one. Disagreement does not equal disrespect but at the same time, no one saying anything doesn’t mean everyone agrees with you. It could be that they have disagreements, but don’t yet feel safe to share them. (Or it could mean that everyone agrees…which means your team might not get much independent thinking.) When you feel your team reaching consensus early, or when no one is pushing back on your ideas, you’ll have to look harder for disagreements and encourage more candor on the team. Be willing to wait in silence for someone to speak up. Then treat that conflict as collaboration and over time your team will be less and less silent.

Myth 6: Performance Is Personal

The sixth leadership myth is that performance is personal. This final myth is less of a leadership myth and more of an organizational one. For most organizations, performance is measured individually and performance reviews conducted individually. But great leaders know it takes a team effort, and a growing body of research suggests that most of individual performance is better explained by the resources and collaboration of the team as a whole—whether high performance or low. So, when coaching members of your team, remember to take into consideration that much of their performance isn’t something they can fix, but rather something in the system or on the team that they need you to fix.

As you review this list, one myth in particular probably stood out to you—depending on your style and your leadership journey. That reaction is a good signal that the particular myth is one to focus your attention on and work on improving. But keep a lookout for the other myths as well. You may not believe them, but you may need to defend your team from other leaders who do. And as you move from myth to reality, your team will move toward greater performance until eventually they, and you, are doing their best work ever.

Image credit: Pixabay

Originally published at https://davidburkus.com on January 30, 2023

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What’s Your Mindset?

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What's Your Mindset?

GUEST POST from Dennis Stauffer

Your mindset has a powerful influence on how you think and behave—including how innovative you are. You have the power to shift your mindset to become more innovative. However, to do that effectively you need to know what your mindset is now, and it’s mostly subconscious.

I’m going to show you how to measure your mindset, by surfacing some of those hidden assumptions. To do this, you’ll need some way to jot down four numbers and make a simple calculation.

You may have heard about the work of Stanford University Professor Carol Dweck and her distinction between a growth and a fixed mindset, which is what I’m having you measure. It’s what Dweck calls your Theory of Intelligence.

For each of four statements, I’d like you to write down a number between 1 and 6. One indicating that you strongly disagree with that statement, and six that you strongly agree, with increments in-between.

  1. Strongly Disagree
  2. Disagree
  3. Slightly Disagree
  4. Slightly Agree
  5. Agree
  6. Strongly Agree

Ready?

  1. __ The first statement is: Our intelligence is something about each of us that we can’t change very much. Give that number between 1 and 6, depending on how strongly you agree or disagree with that statement.
  2. __ The next statement is: We can learn new things but we can’t really change how intelligent we are. Give that a number from one to six.
  3. __ The next statement is: No matter how much intelligence a person has, they can always change it quite a bit. Give that a number 1-6
  4. __ And the final statement is: I can always change how intelligent I am. Give that a number.

To score your results, add your first and second answers together to give yourself an “A” value, and add your third and fourth answers together to give yourself a “B” value.

If your A value is the larger of the two, that indicates that you favor what Dweck calls a fixed mindset—that you believe intelligence is largely fixed and unchanging.

If your B value is larger, you favor a growth mindset—defining intelligence as something you can change and grow.

The larger the difference between those two numbers, the stronger your preference.

In her research, Dweck has found this simple distinction has all sorts of ripple effects especially on how students perform. Students with a fixed mindset, may be quite smart, but they’re afraid to challenge themselves and try new things because if that reveals any intellectual deficits, they don’t believe they can do anything about it. Students with a growth mindset believe they can get smarter by working at it, giving them a strong motivation to work hard, learn and overcome setbacks. They tend to become the high performers.

You may never have given much thought to your personal theory of intelligence, but you almost certainly have one and it’s one of many hidden assumptions that make up your mindset. Dweck has found that those hidden assumptions impact your beliefs, behavior, motivation, competitiveness and ethics. Other researchers have found that mindset even impacts how your body functions.

Your mindset also impacts how innovative you are, and that can be measured too. Instead of the growth vs. fixed distinction, measuring your innovativeness involves a range of other tradeoffs. Things that impact how imaginative you are, how willing you are to take risks, how you make observations and how open you are to new insights and ideas.

A growth mindset makes you more willing to accept and push through failure, being ready to learn and discover. An Innovator Mindset is about how you go about doing that. How you can systematically find solutions and make improvements—including improving yourself. Being able to adapt and learn and make discoveries has many benefits in all aspects of your personal and professional life.

If you’d like to measure your innovativeness, across twelve dimensions, and receive detailed personalized feedback on how to improve it, go to Innovator Mindset where you’ll find links to take the Innovator Mindset assessment, or enroll in Mindset Trek elearning—which includes the assessment—to get in depth mindset training.

Here is a video version of this post:

Image Credit: Pixabay

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The Discomfort Caused by a Diversity of Perspective

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The Discomfort Caused by a Diversity of Perspective

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When your organization doesn’t want to hear your truth because it contradicts a decision they’ve already made, that’s a sign of trouble. It’s a sign they’re going to do what they’re going to and they don’t care all that much about you. But, what if they’re wrong? And what if your perspective could snatch victory from the flames of an impending train wreck? As someone who cares about the company and thinks it would benefit from hearing what you have to say, what do you do?

When you have a culture that makes it clear it’s not okay to share divergent perspectives, you have a big problem.

In domains of high uncertainty, increasing the diversity of perspective is the single most important thing we can do to see things more clearly. In these situations, what matters is the diversity of culture, of heritage, of education, of upbringing, and of experiences. What matters is the diversity of perspective; what matters is the level of divergence among the collective opinions, and what matters most is listening and validating all that diversity.

If you have the diversity of culture, heritage, education, and experience, congratulations. But, if you’re not willing to listen to what that diversity has to say, you’re better off not having it. It’s far less expensive if you don’t have it and far fewer people will be angry when you don’t listen to them. But, there’s a downside – you’ll go out of business sooner.

When you have a perspective that’s different than the Collective’s, share it. And when there are negative consequences for sharing it, accept them. And, rinse and repeat until you get promoted or fired.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Mastering Your Innovation Mindset

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Mastering Your Innovation Mindset

GUEST POST from Dennis Stauffer

Mindset is quite a remarkable thing. It can be an invisible hindrance, or a tremendous asset when you know how to manage it. Mindset is your often subconscious beliefs about how the world works. It’s your mental frame, your personal paradigm. It has a huge impact on your ability to innovate and drive effective change.

It may have never occurred to you that when you observe something, what you see and experience is just as much in your head as it is out there. Your brain just gives you its best interpretation—using some innate processing, and based on those often-unconscious assumptions and beliefs that make up your mindset. To a great degree, you shape—or your brain shapes—what you experience.

It can be a little disturbing to realize that your brain is deciding for you what you believe is real—and not warning you about it. For a vivid illustration of just how much influence your mindset can have over you, watch this brief video.

But here’s the good news: you can learn to consciously shape your mindset, to reshape how your brain subconsciously processes what you experience.

As you discover your own unconscious assumptions, you reveal choices you didn’t know you had. You can then shape a mindset that gives you greater control, self-awareness and personal effectiveness. You can become more creative, imaginative, resourceful, open and observant–more innovative.

Innovation tools and change management strategies are important, but your mindset determines how effectively you apply those tools and strategies. It’s your default way of thinking and engaging. The key to your effectiveness is getting in front of your mindset. You need to be intentional about the beliefs you want to have, so you’re able to control your mindset, rather than letting it control you.

That’s how you become someone who creates exceptional value in your life and makes the world better—by innovating yourself.

Image Credit: Unsplash

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Sometimes Too Much is Too Much

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Sometimes Too Much is Too Much

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

When you’re out of gas, you’re out of gas. And there are no two ways about it, the last year has emptied our tanks. And when your tank is empty, it’s empty. When there’s nothing left, there’s nothing left. But what if you’re asked for more?

What is the mechanism to communicate that the workload is too much? How do you tell your boss that you can’t produce as you did before the pandemic because, well, you’re emotionally exhausted? How do you tell company leadership that this is not the time to layer on more corporate initiatives and elevate the importance of accountability? And if you do deliver those messages, will there be ramifications to your career? No ramifications you say? Then why do most feel overwhelmed yet say nothing?

How might we conserve our emotional energy to focus on what’s important? And what if the company thinks business continuity is most important and you think your family’s continuity is most important? What’s a caring parent to do? How about a loving spouse? How about an exhausted employee who wants desperately to contribute to the cause? And what if you’re all three? And what about your mental health?

If you can help someone, help them. If you don’t have the energy for that, tell them you know they are suffering and sit with them. They don’t expect you to fix it, they just want you to sit with them.

If you’re part of a team, check in with your teammates. Again, no need to try and fix them, just listen to them. Really listen. Listen so you can repeat what you heard in your own words. There’s power in being heard.

If you’re in a position to tell company leadership that people are living on the edge, tell them. If you’re not in that position, find someone who might be and ask them to pass it along. Tell them it’s important. Tell them it’s dire.

And when you go home to your family, tell them you’re exhausted and tell them you love them. And you’re doing your best. And tell them you know they’re doing their best, too. And tell them you love them.

Image credit: Unsplash

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