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Saturday, May 31, 2014

Preview of the Review: Post #10--FINAL

Research, Essays, and More
  • In The Afternoon, the Moral Slope Gets Slipperier: Due to "psychological depletion," people lie/are unethical more often later in the day than earlier. Take a break (p. 34).
  • Leaving it All on the Field: If world class athletes use a coach, why shouldn't executives? A compelling essay that argues for executive coaching (p. 40).
  • More in May Issue: “Freemium” Work; Volunteer-Staffed Company; Outsmarting Activist Investors; Going Global; Training Buyers...and more.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Preview of the Review: Post #9--Humor

Leadership Issues:Humor
  • Leading with Humor by Alison Beard: Laughter is good for business. HBR Senior Editor reviews two new books on the subject (p. 130).

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Preview of the Review: Post #8--Next Big Thing

Leadership Issues: Next Big Thing--Caution
  •  Beware of the Next Big Thing: Management ideas (like TQM and Six Sigma) come and go. Two techniques work best: 1) Observe & Apply; 2) Extract the Essential Principle and Test (p. 50).

Preview of the Review: Post #7--Culture


Leadership Issues: Culture
  • Navigating the Cultural Minefield: A Cultural Map can help leaders dealing with people from other countries. Eight scales: communicating, evaluating persuading, leading, deciding, trusting, disagreeing, and scheduling (p. 119).

Monday, May 26, 2014

Preview of the Review: Post #6--The Invisibles

Leadership Issues: The Invisibles
  • Managing the Invisibles: In an age of self-promotion, many high achievers are quietly, competently working below the radar (p. 96).

Thursday, May 22, 2014

Preview of the Review: Post #5--Finding Purpose

Leadership Issues: Finding Purpose
  •  From Purpose to Impact: Lots written on purpose-driven leadership. Authors outline the process to get to true purpose and how to execute on it (p. 104).

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Preview of the Review: Post #4--Say-Do

Say-Do
New Blue Ocean Focus: Editor Adi Ignatius frames this month’s HBR—focused on organizational leadership (p. 16).
  •  Get Your Team to Do What it Says it's Going to Do: How leaders can narrow the vision-to-execution gap...the say-do gap (p. 82).

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Preview of the Review: Post #3--Time Management

Time Management
New Blue Ocean Focus: Editor Adi Ignatius frames this month’s HBR—focused on organizational leadership (p. 16).  

  • Your Scarcest Resource: Time management has become the bane of our existence. Three Bain consultants offer some solutions (p. 74).

Monday, May 19, 2014

Preview of the Review--Post #2--Blue Ocean

New Blue Ocean Focus:  Editor Adi Ignatius frames this month’s
HBR—focused on organizational leadership (p. 16).

  • Blue Ocean Leadership: by the two authors of Blue Ocean Strategy. Describes what leaders can do to develop employee potential (p. 60).

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Preview of the Review: Post #1--Introduction

Preview of the Review
—Harvard Business Review—May 2014
Every month, I eagerly await my Harvard Business Review. It’s the best investment I make, outside of sending unexpected flowers to my wife. I recommend it to every one of my executive coaching clients and their teams. If you don’t get it, you’re losing a critical competitive advantage. Here’s this month’s new “Preview of the Review.”
Will also be posting on my Twitter feed: SteveGladis.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Trust: FINAL--Competence

Testing for Competence: Since trust is about honesty and competence, the authors also tested for competency.  Findings: 1) The expressions for pride and status cued well for competence. 2) Such gestures as expanded posture, head tilted upwards, arms open and raised and decreased gazing at others demonstrated competency, just as pride did. 3) Pride can push people to get better. 4) Hubris—undeserved pride—gets rejected.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Trust: Post #7--Truth Telling

The Truth Telling Trust Experiment: Researchers set out to find baseline gestures that signaled trust. Subjects played a “trust” game with other people and a sophisticated robot. Analyzing the videos, researchers discovered four (4) cues that, when in a constellation (together), determined if someone was untrustworthy: 1) Crossed Arms; 2) Leaning Away; 3) Face Touching; and 4) Hand Touching. Crossed arms and leaning away means “I don’t like you.” Face and hand touching means “I’m thinking about how to screw you over!” When people saw clusters of these nonverbals in their partners, they tended to predict distrust well.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Turst: Post #6--Trust or Not

To Trust or Not to Trust: We detect deception at about a 54% level—a bit better than flipping a coin. Despite previous research to the contrary, there’s no “golden cue” to detect deception—not smirks, shifty eyes, or sneers—especially in isolation. However, context does matter—configural and situational context. Configural context means that we have to see an array of gestures to properly interpret veracity. Situational context deals with circumstances or with people expressing the gesture. For example, a smile by someone similar to us (gender, race, class) will be considered support, whereas a similar smile by someone in a different social category may not be.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Trust: Post #5--Money, Power, Trust

Money, Power and Trust: More money can make us feel like we don’t need others; thus, we become less trustworthy because we don’t have to worry about the future relationship with such people. Power’s the same. Not needing people can make you look at them as expendable. Power is a drug that can make you a better liar because it holds sway over people. But it can backfire—ask any politician who has strayed from trust. Also, avoid focus on money; it makes us selfish.  Abundance can make you feel like you don’t need others, and you are more likely to cheat or misuse them.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Trust: Post #4--Biology

The Biology of Trust: “In the end, biology all comes down to protecting and providing resources for people on your own team.” We give off the drug oxytocin when we trust, and we trust more when we give it off. Understanding the polyvagal theory helps. The vagus nerve controls the heart and other organs. Calm, deep breathing can add vagal tone, slow down the heart, and give off oxytocin, and it causes trust to soar.  More primitive connections to our threat center can turn our minds into distrustful reptiles, which run either to avoid being eaten or to eat the threat! Caution: Oxytocin can help your in-group (family and friends) but act as a threat to out-groups. Keep in mind that “biology is about optimization, not virtue.”

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Truth: Post #3--Basics

The Basics: Trust is about competing interests between you and another and being able to predict what someone (even you) will do in the future. We need to trust to achieve more together than we ever could alone—we prosper when we collaborate.  Being trustworthy isn’t etched in stone; rather it’s subject to timing, risks, and circumstances—often invisible to us. Trust is both situational and temporal—tradeoffs between now and the future. The question is, will someone cheat you in the moment for immediate gain or remain trustworthy for long-term gain? We even do this with ourselves—believing that we will be better in the future than in the present (I’ll start my diet on Monday). Self-regulation stands at the center of trust. Two factors of trust are integrity and competence.

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Trust: Post #2--How honest?

How Honest Are We? In an experiment, subjects were asked to flip a coin and make a choice. Heads: You get an easy assignment; tails you get a much tougher assignment. Subjects were surveyed before the experiment about staying true to flipping a coin and being honest about it—100% agreed. However, 90% lied about the results when left alone. Many did not flip it at all, and some kept flipping until they got the results they wanted!

Monday, May 5, 2014

Trust: Post #1--Overview

Overview: David DeSteno's six rules of trust founded in experimentation: 1) Trust is risky but necessary. We need to use trust every day and rely on our instincts. 2) Trust permeates our lives. Trust is about integrity and competence, at work, with friends and at home. 3) Consider motives, not just reputation. One’s motivations in the instant are a more reliable predictor of trustworthiness than reputation of past. 4) Pay attention to clusters of nonverbals. Using the cues of crossed arms, leaning away, touching the face and hands—in constellation—can reliably predict untrustworthiness. 5) Appreciate the benefits of illusion. Best to err on the side of trusting your loved ones—though not always accurate, it preserves long-term relationship. 6) Cultivate trust from the bottom up. Most of us rely on top-down “willpower” to resist untrustworthy behavior. We also need to learn to read nonverbals—trust from the bottom up.

The Truth About Trust: How it Determines Success in Life, Love, Learning, and More (Hudson Street Press/Penguin Group, NY, 2014) by David DeSteno and reviewed by Steve Gladis.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Quiet: Post #9--FINAL

Some Concluding Thoughts: “Love is essential; gregariousness is optional.” When it comes to relationships, think quality over quantity. When networking, go deep not wide…one great conversation vs. a ton of hellos. When teaching, remember both gregarious and quiet kids have LOTS to offer the class. Remember the New Groupthink, therefore allow employees and students to think first and then share. And finally, remember that an eloquent presentation doesn’t mean it contains deep ideas.

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