Category Archives: Psychology

Six Reasons Norway is a Leader in High-Performance Teamwork

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Six Reasons Norway is a Leader in High-Performance Teamwork

GUEST POST from Stefan Lindegaard

If you research why certain countries are leaders and others are laggards in high performance teamwork, you quickly see that Norway and thus the Norwegian society has several notable characteristics that contribute to the success of high-performance teams in business and organizations.

Note: Thank you to those who joined me in Oslo to discuss high-performance teams and explore my new and developing concept of High Performance Zones for Teams: Trust, Empowerment, and Collaboration.

Here are a few key factors for Norway in the context of high-performance:

  1. High Levels of Trust: Norwegian society is characterized by high trust both in institutions and among individuals. This trust extends into the workplace, where there is a strong belief in the reliability and integrity of colleagues. High trust environments can enhance collaboration and the sharing of ideas, which are crucial for high-performance teams.
  2. Flat Organizational Structures: Norwegian companies often favor flat organizational structures over hierarchical ones. This promotes open communication and a sense of equality among team members, enabling quicker decision-making and greater flexibility – important attributes for high-performance teams.
  3. Work-Life Balance: Norway places a strong emphasis on work-life balance, which helps maintain high levels of job satisfaction and motivation among employees. Well-rested and well-rounded employees are more likely to contribute positively to their teams.
  4. Focus on Consensus-Building: In Norwegian business culture, there is a tendency towards consensus-building rather than top-down decision-making. This approach ensures that various perspectives are considered and that team members are committed to the agreed-upon course of action, leading to more sustainable and effective team performance.
  5. Investment in Employee Development: There is a significant investment in training and development within Norwegian organizations. A well-trained workforce with opportunities for continuous learning and improvement can adapt and perform better in dynamic business environments.
  6. Innovation and Technological Adaptation: Norway is well-known for its adaptation of new technologies and innovation. High-performance teams often leverage cutting-edge technologies and new practices to maintain competitive advantages.

These aspects of Norwegian society and organizational culture provide a supportive environment for cultivating high-performance teams, which are essential for achieving exceptional outcomes in business and other fields.

How does your country compare on these six factors? Please share, and let’s discuss.

Image Credits: Pixabay

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Why Reason Matters

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Why Reason Matters

GUEST POST from Robyn Bolton

How many times a day do you ask someone to do something? If you total all the requests you make of coworkers, family members, friends, people at restaurants and shops, and even strangers, the total is somewhere between 100 and 1 bazillion.  Now, what if I told you that by including just one word in your request, the odds of receiving a positive response increase by 50%?

And no, that word is not “please.”

The real magic word

Harvard 1978.  Decades before everyone had access to computer labs, home computers, and personal printers, students had to line up at the copy machine to make copies.  You could easily spend hours in line, even if you only had a few copies to make.  It was an inefficient and infuriating problem for students.

It was also a perfect research opportunity for Ellen Langer, a professor in Harvard’s Psychology Department.

Prof. Langer and her colleagues asked students to break into the line using one of three phrases:

  1. “Excuse me, I have five pages.  May I use the xerox machine?”
  2. “Excuse me, I have five pages.  May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”
  3. “Excuse me, I have five pages.  May I use the xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”

The results were definitive and surprising.  Students who used the first phrase were successful 60% of the time, but those who used the phrases with “because” were successful 93% and 94% of the time.

“Because” matters.  The reason does not.

Note that in phrases two and three, the reason the student is asking to cut in line isn’t very good. You can practically hear the snarky responses, “Of course, you have to make copies; why else would you be at the copy machine?” or “We’re all in a rush,” and the request is denied.

But that didn’t happen.

Instead, the research (and hundreds of subsequent studies) showed that when the ask is simple or familiar,  people tend to follow instructions or respond positively to requests without paying attention to what’s said, even if the instructions don’t make sense or the request disadvantages them in some way.   Essentially, people hear “because,” assume it’s followed by a good reason and comply.

“Because” matters.  How you use it matters more.

The power of “because” isn’t about manipulation or coercion. It’s about fostering a culture of transparency, critical thinking, and effective communication.

Taking the time to think about when and how to communicate the Why behind your requests increases your odds of success and establishes you as a strategic and thoughtful leader.  But building your “Because’ habit takes time, so consider starting here:

Conduct a “Because” Audit: For one day, track your use of “because.” How many times do you make a request?  How many times to you explain your requests with “because?”  How many times do you receive a request, and how many of those include “because?”  Simply noticing when “because” is used and whether it works provides incredible insights into the impact it can have in your work.

Connect your “Becauses” As leaders, we often focus on the “what” and “how” of directives, but the “why” is equally crucial. Take your top three strategic priorities for the quarter and craft a compelling “because” statement that clearly articulates the reasoning behind it. For instance, “We’re expanding into the Asian market because it represents a $50 billion opportunity that aligns perfectly with our core competencies.” This approach not only provides clarity but also helps in rallying your team around a common purpose.

Cascade the “Because” Habit: Great leaders don’t just adopt best practices; they institutionalize them. Challenge your direct reports to incorporate “because” into their communications. When they bring you requests, ask them for the “because” if they don’t offer it.  Make it a friendly competition and celebrate people who use this technique to drive better outcomes.

Tell me how you’ll start because then you’re more likely to succeed.

(see what I did there?)

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Performance Management and Accountability

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Performance Management and Accountability

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

Accountability begins with a voluntary commitment to put yourself in service to bringing about an outcome. To frame this effort for you and your team, I have found Salesforce’s V2MOM management system to be an invaluable tool. In that context:

  1. Vision describes the outcome you are all in service to.
  2. Values shape the approach you will all take to bringing it about.
  3. Methods present what each one of you will do to achieve the outcome and are assigned to single accountable leaders.
  4. Obstacles call out the challenges the leaders anticipate having to deal with, and
  5. Measures are the objective signals that everyone will use to assess your degree of success.

Performance management begins with securing each individual’s voluntary commitment to the outcomes associated with their jobs to be done as well as to the values to be honored while doing it. It then moves on to review their methods, obstacles, and measures to test them for coherence, feasibility, and credibility, and to ensure each person is confident they are set up to succeed and that they want to be held accountable for that success. The day-to-day work of performance management consists of inspecting, detecting, dissecting, course-correcting, and resurrecting the stream of work to keep it on track. Most of this effort consists of self-management, supported by regular check-ins with the team leader and quarterly reviews with the higher-ups. The majority of the work is focused on the near term, but this must be balanced with investments in the mid and long-term for sustained success.

That all said, that is not what most people think of when you bring up the topic of performance management. Instead, they associate it with a mandate to manage out under-performers. The word under-performer has unfortunate connotations, and this has cast a cloud over the entire effort.

To set things straight, begin by realizing that everyone is an under-performer at something. If you are unsure about what you personally under-perform at, just ask your spouse or your children, and they will let you know. The point is, there is no shame in under-performing per se. We just don’t want to persist in it.

When it comes to the workplace, under-performance shows up as a series of repeated shortfalls in our measures despite our best efforts to overcome our obstacles by course-correcting our methods. To ignore these signals without taking remedial action is to fall prey to Einstein’s definition of insanity, namely, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Instead, one needs to intervene by invoking the “horse, rider, trail” principle. The horse is the offering, the rider is the person accountable for its success, and the trail is the target market. Changing any one of these factors will materially alter the dynamics of the situation such that you can expect a different result. Just understand that you probably won’t get to do this more than once, so choose wisely.

Finally, understand that while everyone is an under-performer at something, they are also likely to be an overachiever at something else. As a manager, you should act as a steward of your team members’ careers. If they are not the right fit for the job they are in, then both they and you need them to move on. Under-performing in this context is just nature’s way of telling us we are playing the wrong position, perhaps even playing the wrong game. Nobody likes to under-perform, and nobody is served by it. Meanwhile, our world is a needy place, so the sooner we can get people into their right roles, the better we all shall be.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

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The Most Successful Innovation Approach is …

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The Most Successful Innovation Approach

GUEST POST from Howard Tiersky

There are three primary approaches to innovation. In our work with large brands focused on digital transformation, we have observed that the most effective of the three is also the least common. Which approach do you use?

Approach #1: The Artist

“I create for myself. I hope my customers like it.”

Georgia O’Keeffe said of art, “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant; there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” And this philosophy of creating from one’s own mind and heart, of bringing to the world your unique and individual expression, is a powerful driving force for many innovators. Steve Jobs was the penultimate artist innovator. When asked what type of market research he had conducted in creating the Macintosh he replied, “Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the phone?” He also said, “Some people say, ‘Give customers what they want.’ But that’s not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they’re going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, ‘If I’d have asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me they wanted a faster horse!’ People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page. Great art resonates with people–it inspires and moves them to action. This is true of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings as well as Steve Jobs’ creations. They create from their instinct and their passion, and their work has been wildly successful commercially. However, there is a key challenge with the artist approach to innovation: Are you Steve Jobs? How many Georgia O’Keeffe’s do you have on your team? Because for every Jobs or O’Keeffe, there are thousands of others who have followed their gut to create an endless myriad of technology projects that have not resonated. For each Georgia O’Keeffe, there are vast numbers of aspiring painters following their hearts but who never achieve commercial success. Now if what O’Keeffe says is really true for you–if success does not matter if the mere expression of your idea in the real world is sufficient to satisfy you– then this may be an effective path. But if you are seeking commercial success, the reality is that only a small percentage of the personal expressions of people’s hearts will reach out to and resonate with a mass audience. So unless you are an innovator with a proven track record of doing that, or willing to take that chance, this is a highly unpredictable approach to innovation. We often see companies designing products, be they physical or digital, by getting a small team in a room with a whiteboard. Or there is an executive who has a vision he has imagined for a product that he wants his team to bring to life. This is, in fact, probably the most common method of corporate innovation, and it very often fails.

Approach #2 The Researcher

“Give people what they want. What you want is unimportant.” – Pete Waterman, record producer
Commercial success in innovation comes from creating something new that resonates with the customer– that solves a problem for the customer or empowers them in a new and exciting way, like the Post-it or Uber. So the research approach to innovation involves simply asking the customer what they want and giving it to them. The classic focus group is an example of this; however, there are several problems with this approach to innovation. First, Steve Jobs was right: Customers often don’t know what they want. They may tell you what they think they want, but in fact, their real-world behavior after a product is launched is often inconsistent with what they have told you in a focus group. There is probably no better example of this than the disastrous launch of New Coke in 1985. Prior to the launch, Coca-Cola spent $4 Million (in 1985 dollars!) on conducting over 190,000 taste tests of different formulations to find the one that customers would like best. Based on that research they changed the taste of Coke and then spent considerably more on a massive launch of New Coke, only to be followed by massive public backlash and the eventual need to restore “Classic” Coke. How could research lead us so disastrously astray? We see all the time in our own work that when customers are asked for the features, they would like to see in an app or for ideas for new products, the results are often weak. Also, when customers passionately identify innovations they would like to see, it’s common to discover that those same customers don’t actually use the innovations they requested. In fact, customers like to be artists too, and they like to share their personal vision of what a product could be. That doesn’t mean, though, that they are Steve Jobs any more than you are, and they often have poor insight into their own future behaviors. This “researcher” approach in some form is the second most common approach we see taken to innovation projects. It can be successful to some degree for incremental changes. For example, if many users of your product are clamoring for a different sorting option in a reporting application, then sure, listening to their feedback and integrating those priorities is probably a path to incremental improvement. But that is quite different from wholesale innovation. In that area, asking users what they want rarely proves to be a useful activity.

Approach #3: The Research-Ideation Cycle

The most successful approach that we see used is what we call the research-ideation cycle, an approach that blends science and art. Customer research is core to this approach. However, the goal of the customer research is not to ask customers what they want, but rather to understand their current experiences, goals, and points of pain or inefficiencies. Uber effectively understood that the moment when a customer arrives at their destination and has to wait to get out of the car to deal with paying the driver was a small point of pain, that once removed, creates a far better experience. In the research-ideation cycle, we first create a detailed picture of the different customer segments and use techniques like ethnography to truly understand how they are accomplishing the tasks we are targeting with our innovation, whether it’s vacation planning, home decorating or rebuilding a diesel engine. Once that research is complete we can access our inner artists, but not for the purpose of self-expression, but with the goal of problem solving. In fact, creativity is usually at its greatest when a problem is brought into clear focus via detailed customer research and anecdotes. Ideation cycles involve inventing a number of solutions to the customer problems identified through the initial research. Once those ideas are generated, they can be tested with customers. But unlike the New Coke research, the goal of the testing is not to ask users what they think. It’s nice to ask because it’s polite, but it’s not the primary data source. Rather, we observe users using prototypes of our ideated solutions and use that data to gauge the effectiveness of our solutions in solving the previously identified problems. Very often we have partial success in initial rounds and use the insights from the research to further ideate ways to improve the solution. Then the cycle goes back to research, and so on between ideation and research until we have a solution that appears market-worthy. Even then typically there is a small market test or beta test, with research to understand the actual usage patterns, and the iteration process continues.

“You’re not supposed to give people what they want, you’re supposed to give them what they don’t know that they want yet.” -Diana Vreeland, Editor-in-chief of Vogue
When we understand the problems and challenges users face, creative teams can invent novel solutions that the users may never have dreamed of or suggested directly.

This article originally appeared on the Howard Tiersky blog

Image Credits: Dall-E

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What Are the Toughest Words to Say?

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What Are the Toughest Words to Say?

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

As the world becomes more connected, it becomes smaller. And as it becomes smaller, competition becomes more severe. And as competition increases, work becomes more stressful. We live in a world where workloads increase, timelines get pulled in, metrics multiply and “accountability” is always the word of the day. And in these trying times, the most important word to say is also the toughest.

When your plate is full and someone tries to pile on more work, what’s the toughest word to say?

When the project is late and you’re told to pull in the schedule and you don’t get any more resources, what’s the toughest word to say?

When the technology you’re trying to develop is new-to-world and you’re told you must have it ready in three months, what’s the toughest word to say?

When another team can’t fill an open position and they ask you to fill in temporarily while you do your regular job, what’s the toughest word to say?

When you’re asked to do something that will increase sales numbers this quarter at the expense of someone else’s sales next quarter, what’s the toughest word to say?

When you’re told to use a best practice that isn’t best for the situation at hand, what’s the toughest word to say?

When you’re told to do something and how to do it, what’s the toughest word to say?

When your boss asks you something that you know is clearly their responsibility, what’s the toughest word to say?

Sometimes the toughest word is the right word.

Image credit: Pixabay

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Sometimes to Innovate You Must Do the Following

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Sometimes to Innovate You Must Do the Following

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

What it takes to do new work:

Confidence to get it wrong and confidence to do it early and often.

Purposeful misuse of worst practices in a way that makes them the right practices.

Tolerance for not knowing what to do next and tolerance for those uncomfortable with that.

Certainty that they’ll ask for a hard completion date and certainty you won’t hit it.

Knowledge that the context is different and knowledge that everyone still wants to behave like it’s not.

Disdain for best practices.

Discomfort with success because it creates discomfort when it’s time for new work.

Certainty you’ll miss the mark and certainty you’ll laugh about it next week.

Trust in others’ bias to do what worked last time and trust that it’s a recipe for disaster.

Belief that successful business models have half-lives and belief that no one else does.

Trust that others will think nothing will come of the work and trust that they’re likely right.

Image credit: Unsplash

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Five Secrets to Growing Talent

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Five Secrets to Growing Talent

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

1. Do it for them, then explain.

When the work is new for them, they don’t know how to do it. You’ve got to show them how to do it and explain everything. Tell them about your top-level approach; tell them why you focus on the new elements; show them how to make the chart that demonstrates the new one is better than the old one. Let them ask questions at every step. And tell them their questions are good ones. Praise them for their curiosity. And tell them the answers to the questions they should have asked you. And tell them they’re ready for the next level.

2. Do it with them, and let them hose it up.

Let them do the work they know how to do, you do all the new work except for one new element, and let them do that one bit of new work. They won’t know how to do it, and they’ll get it wrong. And you’ve got to let them. Pretend you’re not paying attention so they think they’re doing it on their own, but pay deep attention. Know what they’re going to do before they do it, and protect them from catastrophic failure. Let them fail safely. And when then hose it up, explain how you’d do it differently and why you’d do it that way. Then, let them do it with your help. Praise them for taking on the new work. Praise them for trying. And tell them they’re ready for the next level.

3. Let them do it, and help them when they need it.

Let them lead the project, but stay close to the work. Pretend to be busy doing another project, but stay one step ahead of them. Know what they plan to do before they do it. If they’re on the right track, leave them alone. If they’re going to make a small mistake, let them. And be there to pick up the pieces. If they’re going to make a big mistake, casually check in with them and ask about the project. And, with a light touch, explain why this situation is different than it seems. Help them take a different approach and avoid the big mistake. Praise them for their good work. Praise them for their professionalism. And tell them they’re ready for the next level.

4. Let them do it, and help only when they ask.

Take off the training wheels and let them run the project on their own. Work on something else, and don’t keep track of their work. And when they ask for help, drop what you are doing and run to help them. Don’t walk. Run. Help them like they’re your family. Praise them for doing the work on their own. Praise them for asking for help. And tell them they’re ready for the next level.

5. Do the new work for them, then repeat.

Repeat the whole recipe for the next level of new work you’ll help them master.

Image credit: misterinnovation.com

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Disinformation Economics

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Disinformation Economics

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

Marshal McLuhan, one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, described media as “extensions of man” and predicted that electronic media would eventually lead to a global village. Communities, he predicted, would no longer be tied to a single, isolated physical space but connect and interact with others on a world stage.

What often goes untold is that McLuhan did not see the global village as a peaceful place. In fact, he predicted it would lead to a new form of tribalism and result in a “release of human power and aggressive violence” greater than ever in human history, as long separated —and emotionally charged— cultural norms would now constantly intermingle, clash and explode.

Today, the world looks a whole lot like the dystopia McLuhan described. Fringe groups, nation states and profit-seeking corporations have essentially weaponized information and we are all caught in the crossfire. While the situation is increasingly dire it is by no means hopeless. What we need isn’t more fact checking, but to renew institutions and rebuild trust.

How Tribes Emerge

We tend to think of the world we live in as the result of some grand scheme. In the middle ages, the ontological argument posited the existence of an “unmoved mover” that set events in motion. James Bond movies always feature an evil genius. No conspiracy theory would be complete without an international cabal pulling the strings.

Yet small decisions, spread out over enough people, can create the illusion of a deliberate order. In his classic Micromotives and Macrobehavior, economist Thomas Schelling showed how even small and seemingly innocuous choices, when combined with those of others, can lead to outcomes no one intended or preferred.

Consider the decision to live in a particular neighborhood. Imagine a young couple who prefers to live in a mixed-race neighborhood but doesn’t want to be outnumbered. Schelling showed, mathematically, how if everybody shares those same inclinations that scenario results in extreme segregation, even though that is exactly opposite of what was intended.

This segregation model an example of a Nash equilibrium, in which individual decisions eventually settle into a stable group dynamic. No one in the system has an incentive to change his or her decision. Yet just because an equilibrium is stable doesn’t mean it’s optimal or even preferable. In fact, some Nash equilibriums, such as the famous prisoner’s dilemma and the tragedy of the commons make everyone worse off.

That, in essence, is what appears to have happened in today’s media environment with respect to disinformation.

The Power Of Local Majorities

A big part of our everyday experience is seen through the prism of people that surround us. Our social circles have a major influence on what we perceive and how we think. In fact, a series of famous experiments done at Swarthmore College in the 1950’s showed that we will conform to the opinions of those around us even if they are obviously wrong.

It isn’t particularly surprising that those closest to us influence our thinking, but more recent research has found that the effect extends to three degrees of social distance. So it is not only those we know well, but even the friends of our friend’s friends have a deep and pervasive effect how we think and behave.

This effect is then multiplied by our tendency to be tribal, even when the source of division is arbitrary. For example, in a study where young children were randomly assigned to a red or a blue group, they liked pictures of other kids who wore t-shirts that reflected their own group better. In another study of adults that were randomly assigned to “leopards” and “tigers,” fMRI studies noted hostility to out-group members regardless of their race.

The simple truth is that majorities don’t just rule, they also influence, especially local majorities. Combine that with the mathematical and psychological forces that lead us to separate ourselves from each other and we end up living in a series of social islands rather than the large, integrated society we often like to imagine.

Filter Bubbles And Echo Chambers

Clearly, the way we tend to self-sort ourselves into homophilic, homogeneous groups will shape how we perceive what we see and hear, but it will also affect how we access information. Recently, a team of researchers at MIT looked into how we share information—and misinformation—with those around us. What they found was troubling.

When we’re surrounded by people who think like us, we share information more freely because we don’t expect to be rebuked. We’re also less likely to check our facts, because we know that those we are sharing the item with will be less likely to inspect it themselves. So when we’re in a filter bubble, we not only share more, we’re also more likely to share things that are not true. Greater polarization leads to greater misinformation.

Let’s combine this insight with the profit incentives of social media companies. Obviously, they want their platforms to be more engaging than their competition. So naturally, they want people to share as much as possible and the best way to do that is to separate people into groups that think alike, which will increase the amount of disinformation produced.

Notice that none of this requires any malicious intent. The people in Schelling’s segregation model actually wanted to live in an integrated neighborhood. In much the same way, the subjects in the fMRi studies showed hostility to members of other groups regardless of race. Social media companies don’t necessarily want to promote untruths, they merely need to tune their algorithms to create maximum engagement and the same effect is produced.

Nevertheless, we have blundered into a situation in which we increasingly see—and believe—things that aren’t true. We have created a global village at war with itself.

Rebuilding Trust

At its core, the solution to the problem of disinformation has less to do with information than it has to do with trust. Living in a connected world demands that we transcend our own context and invite in the perspectives and experiences of others. That is what McLuhan meant when he argued that we electronic media would create a global village.

Inevitably, we don’t like much of what we see. When we are confronted with the strange and unusual we must decide whether to assimilate and adopt the views of others, or to assert the primacy of our own. The desire for recognition can result in clashes and confrontation, which lead us to seek out those who look, think and act in ways that reinforce our sense of self. We build echo chambers that deny external reality to satisfy these tribal instincts.

Yet as Francis Fukuyama pointed out in Identity, there is another option. We can seek to create a larger sense of self through building communities rooted in shared values. When viewed through the prism of common undertaking rather than that tribe, diverse perspectives can be integrated and contribute to a common cause.

What’s missing in our public discourse today isn’t more or better information. We already have far more access to knowledge than at any time in human history. What we lack is a shared sense of mission and purpose. We need a shared endeavor to which we can contribute the best of our energies and for which we can welcome the contributions of others.

Without shared purpose, we are left only with identity, solipsism and the myth-making we require to make ourselves feel worthwhile.

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credits: Unsplash

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Give Love and Truth to Everyone

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Give Love and Truth to Everyone

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you see someone doing something that’s not quite right, you have a choice – call them on their behavior or let it go.

In general, I have found it’s more effective to ignore behavior you deem unskillful if you can. If no one will get hurt, say nothing. If it won’t start a trend, ignore it. And if it’s a one-time event, look the other way. If it won’t cause standardization on a worst practice, it never happened.

When you don’t give attention to other’s unskillful behavior, you don’t give it the energy it needs to happen again. Just as a plant dies when it’s not watered, unskillful behavior will wither on the vine if it’s ignored. Ignore it and it will die. But the real reason to ignore unskillful behavior is that it frees up time to amplify skillful behavior.

If you’re going to spend your energy doing anything, reinforce skillful behavior. When you see someone acting skillfully, call it out. In front of their peers, tell them what you liked and why you liked it. Tell them how their behavior will make a difference for the company. Say it in a way that others hear. Say it in a way that everyone knows this behavior is special. And if you want to guarantee that the behavior will happen again, send an email of praise to the boss of the person that did the behavior and copy them on the email. The power of sending an email of praise is undervalued by a factor of ten.

When someone sends your boss an email that praises you for your behavior, how do you feel?

When someone sends your boss an email that praises you for your behavior, will you do more of that behavior or less?

When someone sends your boss an email that praises you for your behavior, what do you think of the person that sent it?

When someone sends your boss an email that praises you for your behavior, will you do more of what the sender thinks important or less?

And now the hard part. When you see someone behaving unskillfully and that will damage your company’s brand, you must call them on their behavior. To have the most positive influence, give your feedback as soon as you see it. In a cause-and-effect way, the person learns that the unskillful behavior results in a private discussion on the negative impact of their behavior. There’s no question in their mind about why the private discussion happened and, because you suggested a more skillful approach, there’s clarity on how to behave next time. The first time you see the unskillful behavior, they deserve to be held accountable in private. They also deserve a clear explanation of the impacts of their behavior and a recipe to follow going forward.

And now the harder part. If, after the private explanation of the unskillful behavior that should stop and the skillful behavior should start, they repeat the unskillful behavior, you’ve got to escalate. Level 1 escalation is to hold a private session with the offender’s leader. This gives the direct leader a chance to intervene and reinforce how the behavior should change. This is a skillful escalation on your part.

And now the hardest part. If, after the private discussion with the direct leader, the unskillful behavior happens again, you’ve got to escalate. Remember, this unskillful behavior is so unskillful it will hurt the brand. It’s now time to transition from private accountability to public accountability. Yes, you’ve got to call out the unskillful behavior in front of everyone. This may seem harsh, but it’s not. They and their direct leader have earned every bit of the public truth-telling that will soon follow.

Now, before going public, it’s time to ask yourself two questions. Does this unskillful behavior rise to the level of neglect? And, does this unskillful behavior violate a first principle? Meaning, does the unskillful behavior undermine a fundamental, or foundational element, of how the work is done? Take your time with these questions, because the situation is about to get real. Really real. And really uncomfortable.

And if you answer yes to one of those two questions, you’ve earned the right to ask yourself a third. Have you reached bedrock? Meaning, your position grounded deeply in what you believe. Meaning, you’ve reached a threshold where things are non-negotiable. Meaning, no matter what the negative consequences to your career, you’re willing to stand tall and take the bullets. Because the bullets will fly.

If you’ve reached bedrock, call out the unskillful behavior publicly and vehemently. Show no weakness and give no ground. And when the push-back comes, double down. Stand on your bedrock, and tell the truth. Be effective, and tell the truth. As Ram Dass said, love everyone and tell the truth.

If you want to make a difference, amplify skillful behavior. Send emails of praise. And if that doesn’t work, send more emails of praise. Praise publicly and praise vehemently. Pour gasoline on the fire. And ignore unskillful behavior, when you can.

And when you can’t ignore the unskillful behavior, before going public make sure the behavior violates a first principle. And make sure you’re standing on bedrock. And once you pass those tests, love everyone and tell the truth.

Image credit: Dall-E

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AI Requires Conversational Intelligence

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AI Requires Conversational Intelligence

GUEST POST from Greg Satell

Historically, building technology had been about capabilities and features. Engineers and product designers would come up with new things that they thought people wanted, figure out how to make them work and ship “new and improved” products. The result was often things that were maddeningly difficult to use.

That began to change when Don Norman published his classic, The Design of Everyday Things and introduced concepts like dominant design, affordances and natural mapping into industrial design. The book is largely seen as pioneering the user-centered design movement. Today, UX has become a thriving field.

Yet artificial intelligence poses new challenges. We speak or type into an interface and expect machines to respond appropriately. Often they do not. With the popularity of smart speakers like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, we have a dire need for clear principles for human-AI interactions. A few years ago, two researchers at IBM embarked on a journey to do just that.

The Science Of Conversations

Bob Moore first came across conversation analysis as an undergraduate in the late 1980s, became intensely interested and later earned a PhD based on his work in the field. The central problems are well known to anybody who has ever watched Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm, our conversations are riddled with complex, unwritten rules that aren’t always obvious.

For example, every conversation has an unstated goal, whether it is just to pass the time, exchange information or to inspire an emotion. Yet our conversations are also shaped by context. For example, the unwritten rules would be different for a conversation between a pair of friends, a boss and subordinate, in a courtroom setting or in a doctor’s office.

“What conversation analysis basically tries to reveal are the unwritten rules people follow, bend and break when engaging in conversations,” Moore told me and he soon found that the tech industry was beginning to ask similar questions. So he took a position at Xerox PARC and then Yahoo! before landing at IBM in 2012.

As the company was working to integrate its Watson system with applications from other industries, he began to work with Raphael Arar, an award-winning visual designer and user experience expert. The two began to see that their interests were strangely intertwined and formed a partnership to design better conversations for machines.

Establishing The Rules Of Engagement

Typically, we use natural language interfaces, both voice and text, like a search box. We announce our intention to seek information by saying, “Hey Siri,” or “Hey Alexa,” followed by a simple query, like “where is the nearest Starbucks.” This can be useful, especially when driving or walking down the street,” but is also fairly limited, especially for more complex tasks.

What’s far more interesting — and potentially far more useful — is being able to use natural language interfaces in conjunction with other interfaces, like a screen. That’s where the marriage of conversational analysis and user experience becomes important, because it will help us build conventions for more complex human-computer interactions.

“We wanted to come up with a clear set of principles for how the various aspects of the interface would relate to each other,” Arar told me. “What happens in the conversation when someone clicks on a button to initiate an action?” What makes this so complex is that different conversations will necessarily have different contexts.

For example, when we search for a restaurant on our phone, should the screen bring up a map, information about pricing, pictures of food, user ratings or some combination? How should the rules change when we are looking for a doctor, a plumber or a travel destination?

Deriving Meaning Through Preserving Context

Another aspect of conversations is that they are highly dependent on context, which can shift and evolve over time. For example, if we ask someone for a restaurant nearby, it would be natural for them to ask a question to narrow down the options, such as “what kind of food are you looking for?” If we answer, “Mexican,” we would expect that person to know we are still interested in restaurants, not, say, the Mexican economy or culture.

Another issue is that when we follow a particular logical chain, we often find some disqualifying factor. For instance, a doctor might be looking for a clinical trial for her patient, find one that looks promising but then see that that particular study is closed. Typically, she would have to retrace her steps to go back to find other options.

“A true conversational interface allows us to preserve context across the multiple turns in the interaction,” Moore says. “If we’re successful, the machine will be able to adapt to the user’s level of competence, serving the expert efficiently but also walking the novice through the system, explaining itself as needed.”

And that’s the true potential of the ability to initiate more natural conversations with computers. Much like working with humans, the better we are able to communicate, the more value we can get out of our relationships.

Making The Interface Disappear

In the early days of web usability, there was a constant tension between user experience and design. Media designers were striving to be original. User experience engineers, on the other hand, were trying to build conventions. Putting a search box in the upper right hand corner of a web page might not be creative, but that’s where users look to find it.

Yet eventually a productive partnership formed and today most websites seem fairly intuitive. We mostly know where things are supposed to be and can navigate things easily. The challenge now is to build that same type of experience for artificial intelligence, so that our relationships with the technology become more natural and more useful.

“Much like we started to do with user experience for conventional websites two decades ago, we want the user interface to disappear,” Arar says. Because when we aren’t wrestling with the interface and constantly having to repeat ourselves or figuring out how to rephrase our questions, we can make our interactions much more efficient and productive.

As Moore put it to me, “Much of the value of systems today is locked in the data and, as we add exabytes to that every year, the potential is truly enormous. However, our ability to derive value from that data is limited by the effectiveness of the user interface. The more we can make the interface become intelligent and largely disappear, the more value we will be able unlock.”

— Article courtesy of the Digital Tonto blog and previously appeared on Inc.com
— Image credits: Pixabay

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