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May 18, 2009

Imagine that one day you are reading an article in a magazine that describes an account that is rather worrying. In fact the article is written in such a compelling and engaging style that it arouses a strong response in your emotional feelings. On finishing the article you turn the page and see an advertisement for a product billed as “The #1 Market Leader”. Could the emotions you are still experiencing from the story you have just read effect the persuasiveness of the ad you are now looking at?

 

In our increasingly complex and information overloaded world people will often rely on simple triggers as reliable shortcuts to make good decisions (Cialdini & Goldstein 2004). For example if we see a product billed as “The #1 Market Leader” we may be persuaded by the social proof heuristic “if many others are buying it then perhaps I should too”. Similarly, products might be presented as ‘Limited Editions’ and as a result appeal to the scarcity heuristic “if it’s rare or dwindling in availability then it must be good”.

 

But messages that employ these decision triggers are rarely presented in isolation. So how are messages that employ these decision triggers affected by what someone experiences immediately before the message is presented? Imagine for example that having read a compelling and rather worrisome magazine article that you see two advertisements, one that uses the “#1 Market Leader” social proof message and another that employs the “limited edition” scarcity message. Which would message might be more appealing to you?

 

Vladas Griskevicius from the University of Minnesota and a team of social scientists that included INFLUENCE AT WORK’s very own Robert Cialdini and Noah Goldstein tested this exact question. They proposed that the persuasiveness of a message could depend on not just the content of the particular decision trigger used in the message but also the specific emotion that an individual experiences immediately prior to receiving a message.

 

To test these ideas the researchers showed people a series of short film clips that were designed to induce either a fear based emotion or a romantic based emotion in the viewers. In case you’re wondering the film ‘The Shining’ was shown to evoke fear based emotions and the film ‘Before Sunrise’ was shown to evoke romantic based emotions. In another test emotions were induced by asking the study participants to read a short story that again evoked feelings of either fear or romance.

Immediately afterwards people were shown a series of advertisements that employed either a social proof message or a scarcity message. For example one advertisement promoted a Museum where the social proof message read “Visited by over one million people every year” whereas the scarcity message read “Stand out from the crowd”.

 

In another condition study participants were shown a restaurant review that suggested that “many people gathered there” and it was “a most popular restaurant” (social proof message). Another group were shown reviews that said the restaurant was a “one-of-a-kind place that is yet to be discovered by others” (scarcity message).

 

The results of the study clearly showed that those people who had feelings of fear evoked prior to seeing the ads were more persuaded by messages that employed the social proof appeal compared to a scarcity appeal or a control message. However the opposite was true for those who had their feeling of romance evoked before seeing the advertisements. The people in this group were more persuaded by messages that described features that were unique and scarce.

 

In summary, the study showed that fear can lead to messages using social proof as potentially being more persuasive than messages that use scarcity information. However feelings of romance would cause the opposite to be the case.

 

There are several implications of this study that could be of importance to marketers, salespeople and managers. Imagine for example that your organisation is considering placing advertisements in a series of magazines or perhaps on the internet. As well as asking questions about where your ad will appear in the publication it might also be appropriate to ask what will precede your ad so you can be sure that the effectiveness of your ad won’t backfire due to the emotional status of the reader being influenced by a story or article they have read immediately before seeing your advertisement. Similarly managers might consider taking steps to assess the emotional state of their teams before deciding whether to frame their communications or requests in terms of social proof or scarcity. For example if people are uncertain or perhaps fearful of the future they will be more persuaded and guided by messages that employ the social proof heuristic. For those working in sales this research suggests that spending a few moments describing a situation, case study or even another customers experience to evoke an emotional response in your target customer might be a worthwhile thing to do providing that a) it is done so ethically and b) the appropriate social proof or scarcity heuristic is then employed in any subsequent message.

 

By: Steve Martin, CMCT

 

Source:
Vladas Griskevicius, Noah Goldstein, Chad Mortensen, Jill Sundie, Douglas Kenrick & Robert Cialdini (2009). Fear and Loving in Las Vegas: Evolution, Emotion, and Persuasion. Journal of Marketing Research (in press).

 

If you like the above article, let Kairos Performance Learning bring this workshop to your organization as an in-house program. You will be joining the best in class companies in the world in this impactful workshop. For further details, please contact: ckkhoo@kairospl.com

May 12. 2009

What does the fame of Susan Boyle tell us about economics? Here are some possibilities:

1. The power of the contrast effect. Ms Boyle’s singing talent is magnified by the contrast between it and her ugliness and – yes – mild learning difficulties. Her rival Hollie Steel also exploited this effect; her bad dancing caused her singing to seem better by contrast.

This contrast effect is a powerful influence upon our perceptions. If you put your hand in a bucket of lukewarm water, it’ll feel cold if your hand had previously been in hot water, but warm if it had been in cold. And it has important implications. In Influence, Robert Cialdini cites research which shows that men shown pictures of average-looking women whilst watching Charlie’s Angels judged them to be uglier than they did if shown the same pictures during other TV shows; women suffered by comparison to Farrah. The damage done by the “beauty myth” is down to the contrast effect.
And retailers exploit this. We’re likely to buy ties just after an expensive suit, or lots of options for our car just after deciding what model to get because after a large purchase, a given sum of money seems smaller than it otherwise would.

 

2. The ubiquity of statistical discrimination. Ant (always the one on the left) hit the nail on the head: “you didn’t expect that, did you.” We were prejudiced against Ms Boyle because she was ugly.

 

This is a widespread prejudice. Ugly people, on average and controlling for other things, earn less than good-looking ones, with the penalty for ugliness being generally larger than the premium for beauty.  It’s for this reason that criminals are more likely to be ugly; munters have worse labour market prospects, and so are more likely to turn to crime.

However, this bias against the ugly is not pure spite. The audience’s low expectations of Ms Boyle were well-founded, because very few successful singers are ugly – even the ones who aren’t conventionally handsome have charisma; Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand come to mind precisely because they are rare exceptions.
Similarly, there’s evidence that good-looking people are genuinely more productive than ugly ones – perhaps because teachers give them more attention in school and so develop their talents.

 

3. Efficiency vs. justice. The correlation between looks and ability suggests that the rule, “don’t hire the munter” will, generally speaking, be a useful one. It’s a fast and frugal heuristic that saves the decision-maker time and often works. It is, therefore, an efficient rule.
But it can be an unjust one,  because it penalizes the small number of Susan Boyles. If it’s expensive for these to demonstrate their talents – and it will be in many cases where they can do so only over time, or by working with costly capital -  they will not get hired. There’s therefore a trade-off between efficiency and justice.

 

4. The (limited) power of the web. Ms Boyle has become an overnight star in the US – something not achieved by many British singers even with huge record company backing. It’s tempting to say this shows the power of the web; that Youtube clip has gone viral.

 

But in another sense, it shows the impotence of the web. The web did sweet FA to bring Susan Boyle to initial public attention. Instead, she got her break through very old media – a TV talent show.

 

And this is still generally true. There are pitifully few big stars – yet – who have broke through thanks to the web alone: Sandi Thom (who’s she?) and Lily Allen don’t count.
Yes, the power of old media is waning. But it is still the only way for making a star.

 

Source: Influence At Work

May 05, 2009

Introduction

 

The model and profile of Emotional Capability is mainly derived from the work of Daniel Goleman, Hendrie Weisinger, Richard Boyatzis, John Mayer, Peter Salovey and David Caruso together with our own application of best practice, initially as part of leadership development in our client organisations.

 

In 1999, failing to find an effective diagnostic tool to meet the needs of our clients, we decided to develop our own Emotional Intelligence Profile. While based on the recognised theories it provided a practical measure that was quickly appreciated by clients in a wide range of industry sectors. In five years over approximately 2000 people have received profiles and over 4500 have been involved on the 360º process.

 

This paper presents the basic principles of the tool and its development history. A list of the literature used to create the instrument and associated workshop is attached.

 

Background

 

In1999, we started gathering data on managers’ practice in demonstrating the competencies associated with the competence framework provided by the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organisations and the framework provided by Hendrie Weisinger in his book ‘Emotional Intelligence at Work’. We were particularly interested to establish and explore the link between emotional intelligence and effectiveness in the workplace, initially by the leaders within organisations.

 

The initial, self-perception, instrument evolved over the course of a year to a 360º tool

providing both numerical and narrative feedback. In the process the relevant current research on emotional intelligence was incorporated and tested within a number of organisations in New Zealand. As our databank grew and we considered creating an on-line version of the profile, we took the opportunity to review the efficacy of the questions in our 80 question tool which resulted in our current 66 question instrument. As a result of this review we also found that although our profile was initially entitled Emotional Intelligence, what we were in reality measuring was a person’s Emotional Capability.

 

The ECP is based on the framework developed by Goleman (1998) and thus, to an extent, parallels the original work done by Boyatzis and Goleman in the Emotional Competence Inventory. We developed questions to test the elements within the framework, piloting the instrument and refining it to be culturally appropriate for New Zealand. It is a 360º instrument providing self-perception and others perception.

 

The purpose of the ECP is as a developmental diagnostic instrument. Therefore it seeks to provide participants with valid, practical information from which they can create a coaching and development plan to strengthen these competencies thus supporting superior performance.

 

Reliability of the instrument

 

An independent study of the EIP (Polzer-Debruyne February 2005) found the following:

“The reliability of a scale indicates how free it is from random error. Reliability can be assessed via a survey’s internal consistency. This is the degree to which the items that make up the scale are all measuring the same underlying attribute. Internal consistency is most commonly measured using the Cronbach’s coefficient alpha. This statistic provides an indication of the average correlation among all of the items that makeup the scale. Values can range from 0 to 1, with higher values indicating greater reliability. While different levels of reliability are required, depending on the nature and purpose of the scale, Nunnally (1978) recommends a minimum level of .7. (Pallant 2001).

 

The Cronbach alpha coefficient for the complete Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire of 80 questions is .9747.”

 

An exploratory group comparison

 

A further independent study was commissioned to explore the possible changes over time in

EIP scores. Four groups were studied:

 

•  2 Profiles, 1 year apart, no further development during the period

•  2 Profiles, 1 year apart, further emotional capability development during the period

•  3 Profiles, each 1 year apart, no further development during the period

•  3 Profiles, each 1 year apart, further emotional capability development during the period

 

The report (Polzer-Debruyne August 2005) indicated that:

 

• “Administration of the Emotional Capability Profile has, in the presented four groups, on     average, facilitated an increase in emotional capability as judged by others, and in some cases as by the target person him/herself.

•  The mean increases were larger in the groups where the target persons had participated in  further Emotional Capability development activities than in those groups where this had not been the case.

•  The development of emotional capability, as observed by others, tended to improve over time. Again, this effect was greater for the participants who received further development than for those where this was not the case.”

 

 

Definition of Emotional Intelligence

 

Quoted as a ‘catch-all’ phrase by Daniel Goleman in his article ‘What makes a Leader’ he gives a simple explanation of Emotional Intelligence emphasising that EI is a set of skills: “…is the ability to manage ourselves and our relationships.” This phrase is a simplification of a definition of a phenomenon described by James Dozier in 1981 before the term EI was considered – His description is “The ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand and reason with emotion, and regulate emotion in the self and others.” – quoted by Mayer, Salovey & Caruso 2000 p.396 and appearing on P4 of The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace 2001 Cherniss & Goleman.

 

There is general agreement that emotional intelligence comprises a number of skill clusters, many of which have very similar cluster descriptions. There are the 5 components written up by Goleman in Emotional Intelligence 1996 and in his article ‘What Makes a Leader’ HBR. His labels of the 5 components are Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, Motivation, Empathy and Social Skill. Dr. Hendrie Weisinger in his book ‘Emotional Intelligence at Work’ 1998 indicates that are 5 components which, together, make up Emotional Intelligence. His labels are: Self-Awareness, Managing Emotions, Self-Motivation, Relating Well and Emotional Mentoring. Bar-On 1997 indicates 5 meta-factors and fifteen factors of emotional and social intelligence measured by the Bar-On EQ-I. The five meta-factors are Intrapersonal EQ, Interpersonal EQ, Adaptability EQ, Stress Management EQ and General Mood EQ in which the factors can be re-distributed into the 5 components. While Goleman has since refined the components into 4 – Self-awareness, Self-management, Social awareness and Relationship Management, we have retained the 5 as these clusters of skills conform to the original findings and link to other researchers’ findings.

 

 

Emotional intelligence compared to emotional capability

 

“It is important to distinguish between two terms – emotional intelligence and emotional competence.

 

The former refers to a person’s basic underlying capability to recognise and use emotion – “the ability to perceive and express emotion, assimilate emotion in thought, understand reason with emotion, and regulate emotion in self and others.” Mayer and Salovey 1997). This exploration of emotional intelligence built on a foundation of personality theory.”

 

The latter is explained as “Emotional competence described the personal and social skills that lead to superior performance in the world of work.” (Cherniss and Goleman 2001 p85.). This exploration of emotional intelligence began with a theory of performance in the workplace and David McClelland’s work on competencies.

 

Capability Group has chosen to follow the competency approach, given the fit with their consulting work with organisations in ‘releasing people potential for business success’. In support of this focus on building emotional competency, research done by Hay/McBer of the relative weight of a given competence in setting star performers apart from average performers, greater strengths in purely cognitive capacities were 27% more frequent in stars than average performers, while greater strengths in emotional competencies were 53% more frequent. This finding is supported by a number of other studies and, as a rule of thumb, emotional competencies were twice as important in contributing to excellence as were pure intellect and expertise (Goleman, 1998 p. 320).

 

The original ECI (Boyatzis & Goleman) set out to measure all the competencies in the framework in similar fashion to our ECP. Following analysis by Boyatzis & Goleman of the data from the first version, Innovation and Initiative were integrated, Optimism integrated into the Achievement Drive, Leveraging Diversity into Understanding Others which became Empathy, Commitment into Leadership, Collaboration into Teamwork. While Goleman had hypothesised five competency clusters (defined as behavioural groups of the desired competencies) resulting from the framework – see Emotional Intelligence 1998, the ECI assesses only four.

 

Capability Group have chosen to retain the five clusters as these better support the developmental purpose of the ECP and the ability of the ECP to link its competencies to those of the client organisation. Thus individuals are gaining a measure of their emotional intelligence competency directly supporting the desired competency of their organisation. Development plans can thus be targeted at building competencies that support superior performance specific to that organization and its strategy, culture and values.

 

The authors of the ECI have found that on the basis of preliminary factor analysis and cluster

analysis, three clusters emerged – Self Awareness, Self-Management and Social Skills. Cherniss & Goleman have, in this publication (The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace p87) yet to demonstrate empirical support for the fourth hypothesized cluster of Social Awareness.

 

A factor analysis of the EIP has shown one major factor with Self Awareness as a separate cluster within that factor and strong correlations between the other four components. Given the authors’ focus on providing information for development purposes and their deliberate decision not to combine elements as has occurred in the ECI, the overlap between these components is seen as positive and helpful.

 

Wood & Tolley (2003) identify five components or areas of competence – self regulation, self awareness, motivation, empathy and social skills. “These components are interconnected in

complex ways – our ability to perform effectively in any one of them being related to how capable we are in one or more of the others. In other words, there is a root system that runs through all of them. Thus, the handling of feelings in such a way that we behave appropriately (self-regulation) is an ability that builds on knowledge of self (self-awareness). Likewise, those who are adept at reading their own emotions (self-awareness) are likely to be able to read the emotions of other people (empathy).”

 

Weisinger (1998) states ‘your emotional intelligence derives from four basic elements (based on Mayer & Salovey) that operate like the building blocks of DNA…Each building block represents abilities that together give rise to your emotional intelligence. They are hierarchical, with each level incorporating and building upon the capabilities of all previous ones.” He saw Self-Awareness as the foundation upon which all other emotional intelligence skills are built. Managing your emotions and motivating yourself were two further components under the Intrapersonal skill set. He then looks at Interpersonal competencies in terms of effective communication skills, interpersonal expertise (i.e. social skills) and helping others to help themselves. While the competencies are not identically clustered, the concept of interdependency is well established.

 

Source: Frances Tweedy and Cheryl Wright, both are authors of Emotional Capability Profile (ECP).

 

Emotional Capability is the pivotal factor in optimizing performance. The Emotional Capability Profile can be used effectively:

• As part of an Introductory program
  • To help new people understand their entry level of competency linked to the organization’s competencies
• As a core development opportunity for all leaders and potential leaders
• As a longitudinal development tool by repetition of the Profile after six – twelve months to measure development (and the ROI of interventions)
• In conjunction with “Communicate to Win”
  • Emotional capability is a key contributor to behavioural flexibility, and
  • There is potential for up to ten respondents providing complementary feedback
  • Therefore it is very powerful in leading an individual to recognize the need to change

 

Cheok Kau Khoo has been personally trained and certified by Cheryl Wright, one of the authors of Emotional Capability. Kindly contact ckkhoo@kairospl.com for bringing this impactful workshop to your organization.

May 04, 2009

Two geese and turtle were very close friends. As the nights became shorter and cooler, the two geese decided to fly south for the winter. However, they did not want to leave their turtle friend behind. They were wondering what to do with their turtle friend – the turtle cannot fly like them and to walk south for the winter is impossible because of the long distance. The turtle said to the two geese: “I have an idea. Why don’t we find a stick that the two of you can hold in your mouths and I will hold on to the middle of the stick with my powerful stick? Then we can fly together to the south for winter.”

 

Showing concern for the turtle, one goose asked if the turtle was strong enough to hang for a long time on the stick. The turtle replied, “Sure, I’m very strong”.

 

Several weeks later while flying over a farm, they were spotted by a farmer who was most impressed with what he saw. He quickly called his wife to watch this incredible sight. There were the two geese flying overhead with a stick in their mouths and a turtle hanging in between them. The farmer’s wife shouted, “What an incredible idea! Who thought of that?”

 

The turtle could not resist and shouted, “I did”, and the turtle fell down from the sky.

 

Leadership Lesson:

 

PRIDE is a five-letter word with “I” in the middle. This story reminds us of the proverb: pride goes before a fall. Many leaders fall because of pride. They became self-centred and self-exalted. We see this in companies where leaders after holding high positions became arrogant to others. Pride says, “I did it”. True humility says, “I did it by the grace of God.” The great American printer, writer, scientist and statesman, Benjamin Franklin made a chart of 12 virtues that he would try to perfect, such as industry and frugality. Each week he proudly showed off his progress to the other members of his self-improvement club. One member, noting Franklin’s too-evident pride, “kindly” informed him that he had left off a virtue that he would do well to practice: humility.

 

CS Lewis has this to say about pride:

 

The point is that each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive – is competitive by its very nature- while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.

 

Cheok Kau Khoo

 

Cheok Kau Khoo is the Principal Trainer/Consultant for Kairos Performance Learning with working experience in education, manufacturing and service industries. He had been personally trained by Dr. Robert Cialdini who is the most cited expert in the Principles of Persuasion. He is certified in numerous training programs and is listed in the International Who’s Who of Professionals.

 

To know more about the Principles of Persuasion, kindly click on the introductory video clip by Professor Cialdini and the flyer on the left side bar. To have an in-house workshop, please contact: ckkhoo@kairospl.com or call: 6012-4019398 for a presentation. Do not let this opportunity pass as you join other world class companies to getting “Yes!” most of the time.