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Powerful people are more likely to take risks.
This is the result of studies conducted by Cameron Anderson, an assistant professor at the Haas School of Business, and Adam Galinsky, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
(The findings were published in the July/August 2006 issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology.)
"Conventional wisdom suggests that low-power individuals should be more willing to take risks, because they have less to lose," Anderson said.
The study lends support to what Anderson calls the approach/inhibition theory of power. In summary, high-power people are often exposed to more benefits and experience less interference from other people when taking risks.
Anderson also said he hopes the business world will take heed of the study.
“Ideally, the study would alert people in powerful positions to the cognitive biases they engage in when perceiving risks and making decisions,” Anderson said. “I don’t mean to imply with this research that powerful people shouldn’t take risks, just that, when evaluating the pros and cons of a risky situation, they should be more balanced in their assessment.”
I believe it is imperative to advise any decision makers not to spend too much time on evaluating the pros and cons of any new idea. They will find that in all cases, that there will be enough reasons not to pursue the idea.
Knowledge always gives enough reasons not to act. You have been warned.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 04:40 PM
Doubt destroys:
"Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."
Congruence:
"To thine own self be true."
Potential:
"We know what we are, but know not what we may become."
Thought power:
"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."
Hope:
"The miserable have no other medicine but only hope."
William Shakespeare
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:42 AM
Ten billion brain cells but boy aren't we predictable?
How predictable is our behaviour?
Learn more on our latest Podcast.
Enjoy and share.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:17 AM
A complaint can be a unique opportunity to strengthen the relationship with a client, or if not dealt with efficiently and promptly, can blow up in your face leaving considerable damage.
The focus should be always on solving the customer's problem, not on getting through as many customer service calls as possible in a day.
In the latest issue of Fortune, Michael Dell highlights just how important resolution not speed is.
"Last year, we had parts of our company where we would say 'hey, let's handle the calls faster." The problem is that if you handle the call faster, you solve 90% of the problem instead of 100%. So the guys call back. And you've just pissed him off more, and you haven't accomplished a damn thing.
This year we said we're not going to measure how well we did solving the problem.What happened in the second quarter was we had two million fewer calls than we had planned. The average hold time before we answered the call was cut by more than fifty per cent, and the satisfaction rate went up quite dramatically - like seven or eight points- in just a couple of weeks."
Integral to any professional customer service strategy - solve problem asap.
Ironically, though it is your duty to deal with customer complaints efficiently, you will exceed their expectations with your professionalism and decrease the possibility that the customer will leave your company in the short term
That is why I am a strong advocate of a proactive strategy of seeking out customer compaints rather than waiting for them to knock on your door. Remember at this stage, it is likely you have already suffered some "bad press."
Get solving today!
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:46 AM
"We walked back out the tunnel thinking," forty minutes, no regrets, give it everything, go and win it. Don't just sit back and expect it to happen.
Make it happen."
Donncha O Callaghan
Extracted from "Munster - our road to glory." Alan English
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:32 AM
What is the optimum amount of sleep?
In a study, conducted at Walter Reed and the University of Pennsylvania, Cynthia LaJambe, noted, among participants who slept from two to nine hours daily for eight days, those who slept nine hours performed the best on "psychomotor vigilance" tasks, which measures reaction time.
Those who slept three hours or less not only had progressively slower reaction times, but also did not recover from the effects of sleep deprivation even after several days of sleeping longer hours.
In another study, LaJambe's focus turned to long-haul truck drivers who sometimes get only four to five hours sleep per night, compared to the eight hours recommended for healthy adults by the National Sleep Foundation.
Tired drivers are at risk not only for falling asleep, LaJambe said, but for what she calls lapses.
A "lapse," as LaJambe described it, is a momentary shutdown of the prefrontal cortex causing a person to be temporarily unable to respond to stimuli. After a lapse, a person often feels as though they have been momentarily asleep, although technically they have not been.
LaJambe equates sleep deprivation with drunkenness in terms of its negative potential effects.
Eight hours of sleep and a daily diet of twenty minutes daily to quieten your mind should help jumpstart your personal performance.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 10:11 AM
Optimism without doubt has its benefits.
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that the "glass half full brigade" had a fifty per cent decreased risk of early death compared to pessimists.
A new study has shown that optimists might be better equipped to deal with traumatic situations. A study which began before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, conducted by Barbara L. Fredrickson, a professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, found that people identified as being resilient and optimistic before the tragedy, were half as likely to suffer depression afterward as those more pessimistic by nature.
For those that are challenged by the aging process, there is reason for optimism as well.
A new study, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, conducted by K Sheldon compared well-being and goal motivations of students and their parents.
(The average age of adults participating in the study was 50. The average student age was 20.)
Both groups listed their life goals and rated their reasons for selecting them. They also rated their current well-being. The results were calculated and older participants recording higher levels of life satisfaction.
And finally, two tips to help develop your levels of optimism:
1. Believe!
43% percent of people who regularly attend religious services are “very happy,” compared to 26% of those who rarely do.
2. Get married.
Married people are, on average, significantly happier than the unmarried.
(These are some of the findings of 2006 Pew Research study.)
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 09:49 AM
Find out what is one of the keys to successful goalsetting on my latest podcast.
Enjoy and share
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 02:40 PM
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Enjoy and spread the word!
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:49 AM
"We are always getting ready to live, but never living."
"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood."
"Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but when we fall, rising every time."
"Patience and fortitude conquer all things."
"The world belongs to the energetic."
"These days come and go, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away."
"A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us."
"All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better."
"Go oft to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path."
"The only way to have a friend is to be one."
"To fill the hour that is happiness."
"Hitch your wagon to a star."
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 06:00 PM
Half of all new hires at Pepsi have to be either women or ethnic minorities.
Managers now earn their bonuses in part by how well they recruit and retain them according to Fortune magazine.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 03:25 PM
Just returned from Stuttgart where I attended the Ireland - Germany game.
What a fantastic atmosphere, especially up to the final whistle! No doubt about it, if one could bottle the positive energy, the excitement, the energy in the stadium, you would have one very marketable product. The hairs were standing on the back of my neck as The Green Army proudly sang the National Anthem.
As a "very committed" Liverpool supporter, I was amused by the following statistics highlighted by recent research by Philips who surveyed 4,500 supporters during the World Cup:
30% of Argentinians thought about the World Cup "every waking moment!"
Meanwhile 12% of English fans said they would exchange their partner for tickets to the final. (Scientific sampling??!!)
At the airport on the way home, in a rush for the plane, I was confronted by three sales people marketing a new credit card. I was perplexed - did their company's strategist ever consider the promotional value of "location, location, location!"
Meanwhile behind me at the coffee shop one lady was explaining out loud to her friends how she couldn't look at herself in the mirror in the morning under any circumstances.
And finally on the car journey back to base, a strong advocate of my work within schools described her first meeting with me in the following fashion - "It was like a scene from Fatal Attraction. All I could think of was whatever this guy is on, I want some of it!"
And all I could think of was......"boiled rabbit!!"
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 07:51 PM
People like each other like themselves ....more than you may think!
Research at University of St Andrews in Scotland showed that the face we feel most attracted to is ...our own!!
Cognitive psychologist David Perrett discovered that when asked which of a number of faces they most "fancied," students tended to pick their own face, morphed into the opposite sex.
Scary!!
In the context of building rapport, there is no doubt that the more we approximate people's behaviour's, body language etc, the more they begin to like us.
All you need to do is to watch two people in agreement from a distance -you will notice that they subconsciously mirror each other. From folding arms to crossing legs to moving their hands, they perform an intimate mirroring act.
Posted by Kevin Kelly at 08:59 AM