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September 23, 2009

How knowing your neighbor’s electric bill can help you to cut yours

THREE DECADES AGO, Robert Cialdini was one of the first social psychologists to study what motivates people to take care of the environment. Since then, focusing on everyday settings that would have clear relevance for policy makers, he’s investigated how we respond to everything from litter in a parking garage to public-service announcements about recycling.

 A few years ago, Cialdini, a professor at Arizona State University, conducted a study in several Phoenix hotels comparing the effects of those ubiquitous hotel-bathroom placards that ask guests to reuse towels, testing four slightly different messages. The first sign had the traditional message, asking guests to “do it for the environment.” The second asked guests to “cooperate with the hotel” and “be our partner in this cause” (12 percent less effective than the first). The third stated that the majority of guests in the hotel reused towels at least once during their stay (18 percent more effective). The last message was even more specific: it said that the majority of guests “in this room” had reused their towels. It produced a 33 percent increase in response behavior over the traditional message.

 When made aware of the social norm, subjects tended to adhere to it. “People are mostly oblivious to the impact of the decisions of those around them,” Cialdini told me. “But they are powerfully affected, without recognizing what it is that is influencing them.”

 Cialdini terms this effect “social proof.” It’s a primitive instinct, much like the impulse that drives insects to swarm or birds to flock; people take in information and respond, without being aware of why they act the way they do. “On some base level, it’s survival recognition: these are the people who are most like me—we share the same circumstances,” Cialdini explained. He sees the power of this impulse less as peer pressure and more as peer information.

 Now Cialdini is applying that concept to energy consumption, with promising results. Positive Energy, a company that has drawn on his work (he’s the chief scientist), has created software that assesses energy usage by neighborhood. Results are sent to consumers on behalf of their local utility, praising you with a row of smiley faces (you’ve used 58 percent less electricity than your neighbors this month!) or damning you with none (you used 39 percent more electricity than your neighbors in the past 12 months, and it cost you $741 extra).

 In Positive Energy’s reports, a once-intangible bit of social information—how much energy you use relative to your neighbors—is made tangible. Now you can find out not just what people in the same city are doing, but what people in your neighborhood, living in the same-size houses, are doing—akin to discovering what guests in “your” hotel room have done, but also with customized tips on how to do better.

 Keeping up with the Joneses may be cliché, but it seems to work: in Sacramento, where Positive Energy began its pilot program with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in 2008, people who received personalized “compared with your neighbors” data on their statements reduced their energy use by more than 2 percent over the course of a year. In energy speak, a 2 percent reduction is huge; with the pilot sample of 35,000 homes, it’s the equivalent of taking 700 homes off the grid. And the cost to the utility is minor: for every dollar a utility spends on a solar power plant, it produces 3 to 4 kilowatt-hours; for every dollar a utility spends on the energy reports, it saves 10 times that. By the end of 2009, Positive Energy will have contracts to deliver these reports to 1 million customers across the country, including in California, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, and New York.

 Many utilities have been trying for years to get their customers to be more energy-efficient, with limited success. Persuading consumers to switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs—which serve the customer’s self-interest—is one tactic, but it’s hard to get consumers to act, says Val Jensen, who oversees the design and implementation of energy-efficiency programs for the Chicago utility Commonwealth Edison. Social proof is a way to do so, he has concluded. ComEd will begin sending out reports to its customers in August.

 Cialdini hopes that what has been learned in the energy arena will be applied to the looming problem of water conservation—not only in the U.S., but globally. Something akin to the homeowner reports is a logical extension. And he notes that another aspect of behavioral science may influence policy makers trying to find a way to conserve water resources. “The very same unit of value—say, a gallon of water—has more impact on people if they think they’re going to lose it than if they think they’re going to gain it,” he explained. “Seizing on the concept of loss can be a motivational opportunity—one that will finally get people to act.”

 (By Bonnie Tsui in The Atlantic July/August 2009,)

 To know more about how you can you use persuasion and getting more “Yes” to your requests, why not attend the Principles of Persuasion (POP) workshop brought to you by Kairos Performance Learning? Just click POP at the top bar or left bar of the screen to download the POP brochure. To bring this POP workshop as an inhouse training programme, please contact: info@kairospl.com.

September 21, 2009

Debate is still occurring between various specialists on whether emotional intelligence can be learned and whether it is a major ingredient of enhanced performance. Even while this is happening there are more and more research studies providing evidence that emotional intelligence is a major contributory factor to superior performance and that it is a skill set that can be learned and developed. This has now led to a clearer direction for future research towards producing validated data to demonstrate that a person’s performance is enhanced if that person has a high level of emotional intelligence.

 Even now, the work done by a disparate group of scientists, theorists and practitioners making up the Consortium for Research on Applied Emotional Intelligence support one basic premise that “individuals or groups who attend to emotion in the self, in others, and in the social situation and who can manage their own emotion appropriately have an advantage in life and at work.”

 The view that emotional capability can be enhanced through training and development is also supported by a wider range of experts than Daniel Goleman and his associates. John D Mayer, one of the pioneers of emotional intelligence, has the following view point on emotional intelligence. “It’s the ability to reason with and about the emotions and the capacity of emotions to reach in to the cognitive system to help us reason better.” As such, it is an ability that can be learned and improved.

Along with this good news is the finding that this learning takes place over time – it is not a quick fix. Coaching is considered to be a key factor in taking the raised understanding and learning intentions gained at a workshop and turning this into on-going application in a person’s job and life. Our own research supports this finding – there is significant improvement in skills over a 2-year timeframe where there is continued coaching and interest in assisting people to develop their emotional capability within an organisational culture of emotional intelligence.

 A critical function within business, namely customer service, is receiving increased study to find out whether enhanced emotional capability leads to improved customer service. Some key points that emerge from this research are:

• Self management and social relations are key competencies for those in front-line customer service positions

• Getting feedback (through the ECP) on how they and their respondents perceive their level of emotional capability enables identification of strengths and development needs

• Emotional intelligence is able to be developed – so specific interventions targeting the critical elements in customer service will have a positive impact.

 More information and references are given in the two papers by Frances Tweedy and Cheryl Wright made available for the 2006 Persona Conference in San Francisco.

 (Source: Persona Global, Inc. 2005. © 2000, 2005 Capability Group Limited)

CK Khoo is conducting a workshop session on Emotional Capability at the coming 36th ARTDO International Leadership & HRD Conference on October 6, 2009 in Penang, Malaysia.

For details of having a in-house training on Emotional Capability in your organization, please click on “ECP” at the left hand side bar or the top of the screen. You can also contact: info@kairospl.com for more information.

September 18, 2009

Below is an article from Steve Martin, CMCT (Cialdini Method Certified Trainer) on one of the powerful principles of persuasion:

Most people will happily agree to help a colleague out at work who has helped them out previously, take their turn to buy lunch when others have bought lunch before and remember to send a birthday card to the people who have sent them a card on their birthday.

The principle of reciprocity is a well accepted societal norm and has been extensively studied by social scientists. Its influence runs so deep that obligations can reach long and powerfully into the future (Cialdini 2001). But will people be just as likely to live up to the rule of reciprocity and return a favour in situations where nobody will ever know if the favour is returned?

Researchers Jerry Burger and his colleagues from the Department of Psychology at Santa Clara University tested this idea by setting up a study in which participants were asked to take part in a series of tasks to test “personality and perception skills”. In fact the “personality and perception” tests were a cover for the real study which involved certain participants being given a bottle of water by another study participant (the favour condition). The person who gave out this unexpected gift was actually a research assistant involved in the study. In a second condition the research assistant didn’t hand out bottles of water to anyone (the no-favour condition).

At the end of the test the researcher asked all the participants if they would be willing to complete a survey and return it a couple of days later. Half the people asked to complete the survey were led to believe that the person would be present when they returned the survey but the other half were told to leave the survey anonymously in a drop off box.

As you would expect, significantly more people who were given a bottle of water complied with the request to complete and return the survey compared with the group that were not given a bottle of water (30% v 5%). A good example of the reciprocity effect in action.

What is potentially more interesting is the fact that the people who believed their response would be anonymous were just as likely to live up to the rule of reciprocity and return the survey as those who believed that their act of repayment would be witnessed.

This means that even in situations where the giver of the original favour is unlikely to find out whether their favour has been reciprocated, they can be confident there is a good chance it will be.

This fact should be especially comforting for those working in certain business environments.

Leaders who employ large teams of people and manage them through groups of other managers, or managers who lead teams who work in different office locations (or even different countries) can be assured that even if they only rarely see their staff they should never fail to seek ways to employ the principle of reciprocity. Giving your time, trust, attention and providing useful information will be useful activities that teams will be likely to reciprocate even if you are not around to witness it.

Another situation where this study could provide useful insights is for those who do business online and as a result rarely, if ever, come face to face with their customers and consumers.

Given the increased anonymity of online environments and the fact that people are just as likely to live up to their obligations even when there are no witnesses, should mean that anything your business does to promote new custom (such as offering trial periods, newly published reports or exclusive software) should be an effective use of the societal rule of the ‘good old give and take’.

Either way, known or unknown, the principle of reciprocity continues to be a powerful force in persuading others.

Source:
Jerry M. Burger, Jackeline Sanchez, Jenny E. Imberi, & Lucia R. Grande. The norm of reciprocity as an internalized social norm: Returning favors even when no one finds out. Social Influence 2008, iFirst Article, 1 – 7.

Why not learn more about the Principles of Persuasion and boost the amount of times you hear “Yes” to your requests?

Just go to “Pages” on the left bar of the screen and click “POP” to download a brochure which contain the details of the POP Workshop. For further details, please contact info@kairospl.com.

September 17, 2009

There is general agreement amongst those who have studied emotional intelligence that this is a significant contributor to a person’s effectiveness and that it has a greater impact on performance than IQ and technical skills. Emotional Capability emphasizes that emotional intelligence is made up of a number of skill clusters that can be reinforced and developed.

 Kairos Performance Learning is offering The Emotional Capability Workshop which provides an interactive and supportive environment including experiential projects that support the learning. There is also a comprehensive participant workbook. The workshop is able to be tailored to a group’s developmental needs through a choice of learning modules and can be designed to integrate with an overall organizational developmental programme.

 Accompanying the Emotional Capability workshop, is the Emotional Capability Profile which will be administered before attending the workshop. The Emotional Capability Profile uses the most up-to-date research findings and is designed as a development tool (not a measurement tool). Based on the perception of self and others, it is a way of giving feedback to individuals about their use of those skills that are widely held to be associated with demonstrating emotional intelligence at work. People are finding that this profile provides practical insights into the skills associated with managing one’s own emotions and actions, and in developing sustained and appropriate relationships with others.

 The ECP has been used to assist leaders to enhance their leadership skills either as part of a leadership development program or a culture change program. It has also been very effective as a basis for coaching leaders on a one-to-one basis. The ECP has also been used very effectively with team members of client organizations, especially when linked to team building.

 The instrument is universally relevant across a wide range of organizational types such as public sector, public utilities, not-for-profit organizations and the private sector, where it is applicable to a wide range of industries. The ECP is equally suitable for different sizes of organization and can be used at every hierarchical level.

 For further details on the Emotional Capability Workshops, please go to Pages on the left bar and click on ECP to download the brochure. You can also contact info@kairospl.com for more information.

September 07, 2009

Consider the obstacles that pose the greatest risks to a successful influence encounter. These are: negative or ambiguous relationships, poor credibility, communication mismatches, hostile belief systems, and conflicting interests. The first two of these barriers relate to how people see you personally. The final three make it harder for people to hear your idea clearly.

Each of the five barriers has the potential to become a valuable asset in your idea pitch if you do your homework well. But, at a minimum, your goal should always be to clear out of your path as many of these obstacles as possible in order to give the other person a chance to objectively evaluate the merits of your proposal.

Potential Barrier #1: Relationships. The first potential barrier is often the one that colors all the rest: How will the other person view your relationship to him or her? Will he or she know you? Like you? Best of all, trust you?

Persuasion at work always takes place within a network of relationships. A relationship with someone, somewhere will be the starting point for putting your idea “in play,” and relationships with and between people you may not even know will often be the end point for getting it adopted. You need a circle of influence, a network of people who know people who know people. And it may be too late to form such a circle when you are ready to make your sale. The relationships must already be in place. The biggest barriers, of course, arise when you face negative or hostile relationships in the pathway of your idea.

Potential Barrier #2: Credibility. Next, you need to think about whether the other person will see you as a credible advocate for your idea. Will he or she view you as competent? Reliable? Someone with special expertise? This factor explains why trying to manipulate other people does not work when you are selling important ideas.

We have a friend who is the regional sales manager for a large franchise organization. He is fascinated by books that explore the “hidden psychology” of persuasion—the kind of books that promise to make you an expert in “instant influence” so you can close deals “in ninety seconds.”

Our friend learned about the importance of credibility when he tried the “Door in the Face” technique on his boss at raise time. The gambit works (when it does) by making a request that the other party is sure to reject (he slams “the door in your face”). Then you immediately back down to a much more modest suggestion. Your second request looks so reasonable by comparison with the first one that people are more inclined to say “OK.” Research on the “Door in the Face” technique has shown that people raising money for charities can get more ten-dollar donations if they start by asking for fifty dollars and shifting quickly down to ten dollars (after the target donor says “no”) than they can by asking for ten dollars in the first place.

Our friend decided he would try this with his boss. He asked for a raise that was three times what anyone in his or her right mind would have requested. When the boss looked at him in shock, he backed down to the regular raise he had planned to ask for.

The boss was still in shock. “You are being completely unreasonable,” he said. Our friend tried to recover by making a joke of it, but nobody was laughing. Our friend got no raise because he had, temporarily at least, lost his credibility.

An important part of credibility is character, a point emphasized by the ancients who studied rhetoric and persuasion. Aristotle, in particular, underlined character—one’s ethos—as the antidote to becoming overly focused (as the Greek “sophists” eventually became) on pandering to particular audiences. He argued that character was the most important persuasion tool of them all.

So will we. If you want to be truly persuasive within your organization, you must develop your own ethos and endorse character as a value. This attitude was summed up well by the banking mogul J. P. Morgan in a short interchange he had with a congressional committee in the early 1900s. The committee was investigating possible financial manipulations in a deal Morgan was associated with (the committee eventually exonerated him). In the course of the hearings, the following exchange took place.

Committee Member: Is not commercial credit based primarily on money or property?

J.P. Morgan: No, sir. The first thing is character.

Committee Member: Before money or property?

J.P. Morgan: Before money or anything else. Money cannot buy it.

Potential Barrier #3: Communication Mismatches. With both the relationship

and credibility issues addressed, you are ready to encounter the third barrier: your audience’s preferred style or channel of communication. Your natural enthusiasm and humor may be effective for selling an idea to your marketing group. But the company’s straitlaced executive committee may not appreciate

that style. You may need to adjust.

For example, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the legendary media mogul who founded the studio DreamWorks and then took it public, once made this sort of mistake. Like many in Hollywood, he is a natural-born user of visionary influence, wooing audiences with enthusiasm, snap, and passion. But on this occasion, he got carried away with his own message and forgot to see it from his audience’s point

of view, It was a costly lesson.

One of the first movies DreamWorks launched after going public was a cartoon feature called Madagascar. Following his usual style, Katzenberg aggressively hyped the film in the media. When the production met DreamWorks’ projections by pulling in $47 million at domestic theaters over its opening weekend, everyone inside the company was pleased. But DreamWorks’ stock price took a dive. Why? Katzenberg had failed to recognize that, as CEO of a public company, he was now speaking to an audience of stock analysts. Addressing these number-crunchers required a prudent rather than a passionate approach. They read Katzenberg’s prelaunch hype as a signal that the movie would hit a much higher number. As one analyst explained the stock-price dip, “Credibility has not been helped by ‘talking up’ Madagascar only to have the film [merely] meet expectations.” Katzenberg’s blunder was costly for his stockholders, and he quickly learned to adopt a more audience-sensitive persuasion style (in this case a data-driven, reason-and-logic mode) in public statements about future films.

Potential Barrier #4: Belief Systems. If your organization is committed to diversity in hiring, a proposal to save money by focusing only on Ivy League universities during recruiting season will be a tough sale. Asking people to buy an idea that violates one of their basic values or beliefs—or the written standards and policies that sometimes give concrete expression to these beliefs—puts people in an uncomfortable position: either they buy your idea and give up the core value or reject your idea and keep their value.

They will usually find it easier to reject your idea. Effective idea selling, therefore, requires you to position your idea as consistent with (or better yet, furthering) your audience’s important beliefs and values.

Potential Barrier #5: Interests and Needs. Fifth and finally, effective idea sellers focus on the other party’s interests. For example, when Napoleon was a young officer in the French army, he established an artillery battery at the siege of Toulon in such an exposed position that his superiors told him he would never get soldiers to man it. Had he ordered his men to take on this duty, his superiors would probably have been right. It was close to being a suicide mission. But Napoleon showed his skill as a persuader by finding and appealing to a fundamental interest—his soldiers’ pride and their desire to be seen as men of courage.

He created a large placard to put on the battery. On it, the following words were printed in bold letters: THE BATTERY OF THE MEN WITHOUT FEAR. Instead of shying from a life-threatening assignment, Napoleon’s men competed for the honor of being known as the members of this fearless band. The position was manned day and night.

G. Richard Shell is director of the Wharton School’s Executive Negotiation Workshop and professor of legal studies, business ethics, and management. His previous book is the award-winning Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People.

As this story shows, understanding what is really motivating other people opens up a host of options for influencing them. It is also important to pay attention to interests because conflicts related to control over resources, credit for initiatives, and career advancement can be the source of political disputes. The more people who have interests that conflict with your idea, the more potential enemies you have.

The above article was written by G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa. Both wrote an interesting book, The Art of Woo.

Mario Moussa teaches at the Wharton School and is a principal of CFAR Inc., a management consulting firm.

September 05, 2009

The following reading article taken from Executive Matters from AMA is a must read for managers. We are guilty of some of the behaviours mentioned here. Don’t commit career suicide by doing those 10 ways mentioned in this article. I have read the book, What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith and find it very useful especially for coaching. This reading article is taken from his book.

Marshall Goldsmith, world-renowned executive coach, identifies 12 reasons that keep executives back from further advancement, in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (Hyperion, 2008).

Among these obstacles to professional growth are:

1. Winning too much. The desire to win at all costs and in all situations, whether it matters or not.

2. Adding too much value. In other words, some executives have an overwhelming desire to add two cents to every discussion.

3. Passing judgment. You’ve probably met executives who need to rate others and impose their standards on them.

4. Making destructive comments. Sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us sound witty can erect barriers between us and the job we want.

5. Responding with “no,” “but,” or “however.” As Marshall Goldsmith observes, “The overuse of these negative qualifiers secretly says to everyone, ‘I’m right, you’re wrong.’”

6. Telling the world how smart they are. Their goal is to show people that they are smarter than we think they are.

7. Withholding information. Do you know people who don’t share information? Their goal, says Goldsmith, is to maintain an advantage over others.

8. Speaking when angry. Using emotional volatility as a management tool.

9. Failing to give proper recognition. The inability to praise and reward.

10. Making excuses. The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent  fixture so people excuse us for it.

Source: Executive Matters, April  2008, AMA