Positive-Negative Reinforcements: Pluses and Minuses
It’s generally easier to understand what positive and negative reinforcements are than it is to understand their advantages and disadvantages. Trade offs... Read More
Style Trumps Content Once Again
Posted on15 Dec 2011
Tagsassessments, attraction, attractiveness, beauty, confidence, content, effectiveness, Harvard Business Review, Influence, intuition, labels, Midwestern State University, outcome, perception, style, subconscious, Talent, Timothy DeGroot, voice
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My August 15, 2011 post, “Eloquence Trumps Honesty in Trust & Likeability Wars,” discussed how style affects our assessment of talent. Now,... Read More
Want to Motivate? Beware of What You Say
Posted on21 Nov 2011
Tagsword choice, Tori Rodriguez, Scientific American, phraseology, motivation, management, leadership, Influence, food, employees, constructive criticism, compliments, anchoring
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So, the boss walks in and harshly reprimands an employee. Unknowingly, she probably just shot his productivity down for the day. A... Read More
Downside of Focus and Rise of Situational Awareness
Posted on06 Oct 2011
Tagsanchoring, aptitude, Before You Make That Big Decision, business, business planning, conditionality, context, decisions, focus, Influence, market research, optimism, pigeonholing, planning, situational awareness, skills, Talent
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Classical business literature emphasizes focus: set goals, plan, and then focus on execution. However, it’s relatively void of focus’ downside: obliviousness to... Read More
Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 2): Context – The Great Influencer
Posted on29 Sep 2011
Tagsassumptions, behavior, collaboration, compliments, context, cooperation, Cooperation vs Self-interest Series, organizational culture, extrinsic, food, Harvard Business Review, Influence, intrinsic, leadership, Lee Ross, management, money, morale, motivation, Performance, pigeonholing, self-interest, Stanford, taste, Yochai Benkler
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As we saw with pigeonholing and tasting food, context influences us greatly. This extends to people’s inclinations to collaborate. In support of... Read More
Positive Thinking as Myth
Posted on19 Sep 2011
Tagsattitude, biology, biotechnology, business, Hal Arkowitz, Influence, motivation, negative thinking, optimism, pessimism, Pollyannaism, positive, positive thinking, problem solving, Scientific American, Scott O. Lilienfeld, subconscious, thinking process, who we are, who we think we are
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I’ve seen positive thinking do much harm to some folks; if they can’t keep their smiley face on, they feel they’re failing.... Read More
Names and Our Unconscious Biases
Posted on29 Aug 2011
Tagsadvertising, branding, connotations, Donna Ginther, emotions, feelings, Influence, intuition, Marianne Bertrand, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, names, New York Times, peer review, race, Sendhil Mullainathan, subconscious, The Economist, University of Chicago, University of Kansas
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Our names unconsciously influence people. We humorously smile at actors who change their names making them more appealing. Yet, some people relate... Read More
Eloquence Trumps Honesty in Trust & Likeability Wars
Posted on15 Aug 2011
Tags12 Most, advertising, approaches, cognition, cognitive bias, conscious, eloquence, free will, Harvard Business Review, honesty, Influence, intuition, like, Michael I. Norton, politics, sales, subconscious, Todd Rogers, trust, truth, unawareness, understanding
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Intuitive approaches often work because we don’t believe they do. Advertising is an excellent example: it influences us because we often believe... Read More
Smart Bombs & Twitter Clutter
Posted on23 Jul 2011
Tagsassessments, clout, humans, Influence, Justin Harrison, Mitchell Friedman, quality, quantity, smart bomb, technology, Twitter, Twitter clutter
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Managing your Twitter account is like using smart bombs. No matter how smart the technology, you can never guarantee a good target... Read More
Information You Know Is Wrong Still Influences You
Posted on21 Jul 2011
Tagsplanting a seed, Thoughts, Talent, subconscious, rationale, psychology, pigeonholing, Olivier Sibony, judges, intuition, information, Influence, Harvard Business Review, gossip, dice, decisions, Daniel Kahneman, Dan Lovallo, cognition, Before You Make That Big Decision, anchoring
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Previously, I listed some unconscious biases we have in decision-making. What I witness is that people just don’t believe that known wrong... Read More
