Persuasion

The Unlikely Barrier to True Diversity

May 31, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

As much as companies like to tout diversity, the definitive rule of getting ahead at work is to be likable—to follow the unwritten set of norms and adhere to your company’s culture. That is, you must fit and mix well with the rest of the “gang.”

As I’ve written before, likeability is a significant predictor of success. Well-liked people, especially those who work well with others, will advance. Those who aren’t very likable don’t usually get as far. If your company is conservative, you should be conservative. If the leadership is aggressive, snappy, and rule-bending, be the same. It’s better to be “one of them” to progress your career and endear yourself to your colleagues and higher-ups.

Every grouping of people, whatever the institution, community, or population, has an unwritten set of norms. It’s true for nations, in social groups, sports teams, and businesses. Wherever people form a group, they organically form rules. They institutionalize ways of doing things, traditions, and unquestioned assumptions. Such norms give the group a sense of identity. It’s natural. It’s tribe mentality. We, humans, are social creatures, and this is how we foster a sense of belonging.

Affinity Bias

Per affinity bias, human nature is such that people instinctively associate other people with labels, relate, and play favorites. Groups establish the norms and embrace and propagate them. The resulting categorization not only resists differences but also initiates prejudice and favoritism.

In professional settings, most workplaces tend to hire similar people and encourage them to think and work in the same way. I’ve previously written,

Even if nearly all corporate mission statements extol the virtues of “valuing differences,” managers stifle individuality down in the trenches. They are less willing to be receptive to different viewpoints. They seek to mold their employees to conform to the existing culture of the workplace and to comply with the existing ways of doing things. Compliant, acquiescent employees who look the part are promoted in preference to exceptional, questioning employees who bring truly different perspectives to the table. The nail that sticks its head up indeed gets hammered down.

Defining, fostering, and defending a corporate culture often becomes an exercise in clarifying ‘this is who we are’ and ‘this is who we are not.’ It engenders a strong norm, which builds an even more significant incentive to get people to think alike, get on, and tolerate or repel incompatible people.

Idea for Impact: Culture is a Barrier to Diversity and Inclusion

Culture is the unlikely—if unintentional—barrier to true diversity. Culture has a pernicious effect on hiring. It gives people ample reason to favor and engage who they believe to be “the right people.”

The Truth about Being a Young Entrepreneur

May 24, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

I think we should start telling our young people that getting into business is hard.

Let’s stop pumping them up, “Go for it, kid. This is awesome. This is going to be the best thing you’ve ever done. If X can do it, you can do it too. You’re going to smash it.”

Entrepreneurs have a tendency to over-confidence, and the over-confident tend to be socially and culturally primed for entrepreneurship.

Fact is, most first-time entrepreneurs wish that someone had told them how hard it was going to be. Ideas are a dime a dozen. When real-life replaces daydreams, researching, experimenting, taking on customers, building a team, gaining wisdom, and getting cash in the door are all awfully difficult. Most self-employed people put in very long hours and worry about their work, even outside of work. Entrepreneurship simply isn’t for everyone.

America is fascinated by entrepreneurs. But the successful-young-entrepreneur narrative has generated a false affirmation that sets up people for disappointment when they encounter reality.

In recent years, we’ve seen more young people diving into the startup realm. Yes, young entrepreneurs have lower opportunity costs and a better sense of the new generation’s needs. But they don’t have the network, mature frame of mind, industry insight, and adequate financial resources vital to success. Indeed these factors are why older entrepreneurs tend to have a substantially higher success rate.

Let’s stop creating false hopes for young people who don’t realize how difficult business—even a one-person-shop—is. Yes, encouragement is essential, and it can go a long way in helping people succeed. However, let’s lend support to reality and not a myth.

Idea for Impact: If you have the entrepreneurial itch, don’t become quickly sold on tales of grandeur.

Don’t build a startup to become a trend.

Don’t quit your day job yet—especially if your business idea is a spin-off from your present occupation or you intend to turn a hobby or a particular interest into a thriving business.

Don’t give up that steady paycheck until after you’ve built a side hustle.

Don’t listen to the superstars.

Yes, You Can Write a Book. But Should You?

May 20, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

There’s a disturbingly large number of popular books that have been drawn out from a well-received op-ed (example,) blog article (example,) TED talk (example,) or commencement speech (example.) All puffed up with blather and personal anecdotes and exhortations that are often remotely relevant to the core arguments.

Beyond the obvious motives for writing a book (credibility, publicity, vanity,) many books aren’t really necessary. If they are, they deserve to be no more than page-length articles—paragraphs even.

The rise of self-publishing and on-demand printing has only exacerbated the precipitous decline in originality. Formula writing proliferates. There’re no gatekeepers to decide whether you can publish your book—and save you from your own ego.

If you believe you have a book in you, don’t even think about publishing it. Keep it inside you, where it belongs. Unless you’ve got something worthwhile and unique to say, or you can do good writing for its own sake.

Idea for Impact: Save the time. Save the typing. Save the trees. Spare us from your fluff.

Why You Should Celebrate Small Wins

May 18, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Small steps are more manageable than big, daunting ones. Small wins aren’t just a great way to make progress. They’re good for your emotional well-being too.

Peter Sims writes in Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries (2013,)

Small wins are like footholds or building blocks amid the inevitable uncertainty of moving forward, or as the case may be, laterally. They serve as what Saras Sarasvathy calls landmarks, and they can either confirm that we’re heading in the right direction or they can act as pivot points, telling us how to change course.

In the acclaimed paper in which [University of Michigan psychologist Karl] Weick described small wins, published in the January 1984 issue of American Psychologist, he used the example of how helpful it is for alcoholics to focus on remaining sober one day at a time, or even one hour at a time. Stringing together successive days of sobriety helps them to see the rewards of abstinence and makes it more achievable in their minds. Elaborating on the benefits of small wins, Weick writes, “Once a small win has been accomplished, forces are set in motion that favor another small win.”

Each time you accomplish a small step, have a little voice whisper in your ear, “You accomplished more than you had ten minutes ago!” This affirmation can help you recognize the momentum you’ve created and stimulate you to get absorbed in more of the task. By the end of the hour or the day, you’ll feel like you’ve had multiple wins on your way towards the larger goal.

A big hurdle to change is the resistance from believing that the pain of attempting major change is too rarely worth it. But researchers believe that any accomplishment, no matter how small, activates your brain’s reward circuitry, releasing dopamine, the pleasure hormone. That can evoke the motivational appeal of an outcome, which in turn can hook you toward achieving even more.

Keep sight of the small victories. Those are the ones that keep you going. If you’re a manager, celebrate even ordinary, incremental progress—that’ll improve your team’s engagement.

Idea for Impact: Celebrate your small wins—it’ll make you feel good about yourself. Attention to small wins can help people lift themselves out of fear and hopelessness—this is the crux of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT.)

‘Follow Your Passion’ is Really Bad Career Advice

May 17, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

One of Our Greatest Literary Stylists Was a Full-time Business Executive

Wallace Stevens, one of the 20th century’s most celebrated poets, was a full-time insurance executive for The Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company. The son of a wealthy lawyer, Stevens attended Harvard, where he became recognized on campus as a prolific and multitalented writer. He moved to New York City to become a poet. His father was a lover of literature but was also prudent. He disapproved of Stevens’ literary aspirations and directed his son to cease writing and study the law.

Stevens eventually caved to his family’s pressure and went to New York University Law School. He practiced law at several New York firms for more than a decade before becoming an insurance lawyer and executive.

Stevens wrote most of his poetry on his daily two-mile walks to and from work: “I write best when I can concentrate, and do that best while walking.” He would take slips of paper in his pockets and jot down words. His secretary would type them up for him.

Despite the job demands, Stevens produced a fantastic body of imaginative work in his spare time. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1955 for Collected Poems (1954.)

A Paycheck Comes First

Artists of all kinds have kept their jobs their entire lives. Among just the writers,

T. S. Eliot did some of his best work while employed at Lloyds Bank in London.
Two-time Poet Laureate Ted Kooser was also an insurance executive for much of his career. He would get up early, write poems for an hour and a half, and then go to work.
Pulitzer winner A. R. Ammons was a sales executive at his father-in-law’s scientific glass firm.
Richard Eberhart, another Pulitzer winner, worked at the Butcher Polish Company, his wife’s family’s floor wax business.
Poet Laureate James Dickey started his career at an advertising agency to “make some bucks.” A copywriter, he worked on the Coca-Cola and Lay’s Potato Chips accounts. He famously said, “I was selling my soul to the devil all day… and trying to buy it back at night.”
William Carlos Williams was a doctor in New Jersey practicing pediatrics and general medicine.
Novelist Henry Darger was a custodian at a Chicago hospital.
Harvey Pekar was a VA Hospital clerk in Cleveland. He held this job even after becoming famous. Until he retired in 2001, he declined all promotions.
Jules Verne was an agent de change (a broker) on the Paris Bourse. He woke up early each morning to write before going for the day’s work.
Novelist Jodi Picoult worked at an ad agency and a financial analyst, a textbook editor, and an eighth-grade teacher. She wrote her first novel when she was pregnant with her first daughter.

Disregard the Inspirational Mumbo Jumbo

Each of these authors had ambitions to be a writer but didn’t think they could earn a living at it initially. They started working as a means to an end. At the same time, they plodded away at writing, honing their craft, trying to appeal to readers, and refusing to stop trying because of their ambition and passion.

The boilerplate career advice “Do what you love and the money will follow” is aspirational but hardly practicable. Plenty of people are passionate about their craft, but few people can turn those passions into an actual paycheck.

Many people want to “do what they love” and specialize in, say, 17th-century Metaphysical poetry, get disheartened when there aren’t a lot of job positions available in that field, let alone that narrow area of expertise.

Pursue a passion but as a hobby. Work at it, and until you can find people who’ll like your work well enough to pay you for what you love to do, get a day job that’s acceptable and pays reasonably well. A steady professional income will take the pressure off. You’ll still be pursuing what you love, and, hopefully, someday, you can make a full career of it.

For now, though, let the money follow, if only from a different source.

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a Passion, But Don’t Expect to Make it a Career Right Away

To follow a passion, go get a day job. Think of it as your side gig. Then make time to cultivate your passions. When you’re good at something that people are likely to want, the money will come.

Despite the well-meaning counsel to follow your passion, the truth is, it’s easier to pursue your passion and achieve your dreams if you can afford to work free. Until then, seek the peace of mind that comes from being able to pay your bills and attaining financial stability.

The Difference between Directive and Non-Directive Coaching

May 13, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

When coaching, many managers’first impulse is to jump into solution mode and fix problems by recommending solutions. The advice is often framed as, “I’ve seen this condition before, and you should do X. That’s what worked for me when I was working at company Y.”

The Directive Coaching Style is suitable when your employee doesn’t have the time, skills, temperament, or patience to resolve her problem.

The Non-Directive Coaching Style, in contrast, encourages the employee to think through her problem and develop her own solution. This coaching style takes more time but is usually more effective, especially if the situation is complicated.

Suppose the problem presents a skill or competence that the employee can learn. In that case, a good coach nurtures the employee by challenging her to mull over the situation objectively. Merely supplying the right solution is wasted if she doesn’t understand it or internalize it well enough.

The most effective coaches I know tend to dwell less on the “what’s to be done” and more on instilling the “how to think about.”

Idea for Impact: When offering advice, steer the thought process. Don’t dictate the outcome. Employees are more likely to be invested in the solutions they come up with.

Ever Wonder Why People Resist Gifts? // Reactance Theory

April 12, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

People are more likely to resist or reject well-intentioned proposals, advice, or gifts when it feels like their freedom is being threatened in some way.

For instance, I hate receiving clothes for gifts—clothing is mostly a matter of personal taste. I’ll grin and bear it. I may even wear said clothes once or twice just to please the giver.

Turns out that my indifference isn’t atypical. Psychological studies of the gift-giving process indicate that giving clothing gifts involves greater risk than with other kinds of gift objects. The chosen gift may not match the recipient’s self-image, identity, or dress style.

The so-called Reactance Theory explains why giving gifts and offering uncalled-for advice could rankle so much. According to the American Psychological Association,

Reactance theory is a model stating that in response to a perceived threat to—or loss of—a behavioral freedom, a person will experience psychological reactance (or, more simply, reactance,) a motivational state characterized by distress, anxiety, resistance, and the desire to restore that freedom. According to this model, when people feel coerced into a certain behavior, they will react against the coercion, often by demonstrating an increased preference for the behavior that is restrained, and may perform the behavior opposite to that desired.

Reactance can come into play when you’re persuading someone to buy a specific product at the grocery store, forbidding a child from using a mobile phone at school, or insisting that an employee perform some detestable task for the boss.

Idea for Impact: Think twice before you do anything that, though meant well, may threaten another person’s sense of behavioral freedom. People who are threatened thus usually feel uncomfortable and angry—even hostile.

In gift-giving, offering advice, or any other attempt at social influence, know your limits. Beware that it’s not always easy to recognize the limits until you overshoot them.

The Data Never “Says”

March 1, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Data doesn’t say anything. Indeed, data can’t say anything for itself about an issue any more than a saw can form furniture, or a sauce can simmer a stew.

Data is inert and inanimate. Data doesn’t know why it was created. Data doesn’t have a mind of its own, and, therefore, it can’t infer anything.

Data is a necessary ingredient in judgment. It’s people who select and interpret data. People can turn it into insight or torture it to bring their agenda to bear. Data is therefore only as useful as its quality and the skills of the people wielding it.

Far more than we admit, subjectivity and intuition play a significant role in deciding how we collect, choose, process, explain, interpret, and apply the data. As entrepreneur Margaret Heffernan warns in Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril (2012,) “We mostly admit the information that makes us feel great about ourselves, while conveniently filtering whatever unsettles our fragile egos and most vital beliefs.”

In the hands of careless users, data can end up having the opposite effect its creators intended. All data is good or bad depending on how it’s employed in a compelling story and what end it’s serving—neither of which the data itself can control.

Don’t let data drive your conclusions. Let data inform your conclusions.
Don’t declare, “The data says,” (as in, “the stock market thinks.”) Data by itself cannot have a particular interpretation.
When you find data that seems to support the case you wish to make, don’t swoop on it without caution and suspicion. Data can be very deceptive when used carelessly.
Be familiar with the limitations of your data. Investigate if your data informs any other equally valid hypothesis that could propose an alternative conclusion.

Idea for Impact: Beware of the risk of invoking data in ways that end up undermining your message.

How to Avoid Magical Thinking

February 22, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Magical thinking remains a subtle impediment to making sound decisions. The more you examine yourself, the more you can reduce your tendency to indulge in it.

Discover the truth for yourself. Beware of the tendency to let others think for you. Don’t believe what your parents, teachers, counselors, mentors, priests, and authorities of all inclinations have taught you from an early age. (The best predictor of people’s spiritual beliefs is the religiosity of their parents.) Question others’ underlying premises and discover for yourself what’s reasonable. Force yourself to test for alternatives.

Don’t believe what you want to believe is true. Many people believe in UFOs and ghosts, even when there’s no credible verification for any visitation from outer space or dead souls haunting abandoned buildings. Often, misinformation is cunningly designed to evade careful analytical reasoning—it can easily slip under the radar of even the most well-informed people. Shun blind optimism.

Consciously identify your biases and adverse instincts. Psychologists have identified more than 100 cognitive biases that can get in the way of clear and rational thinking. Explore how those biases could come into play in your thinking. Try to determine their motive. Work to extricate yourself from them to the best of your ability.

Demand proof when the facts seem demonstrable. Remain intellectually agnostic toward what hasn’t been established scientifically or isn’t provable. If you can’t determine if something is true or it isn’t, suspend judgment. Beware of anecdotes—emotionally swaying stories in particular—they are the weakest form of evidence.

Don’t believe in something that isn’t true just because there’s a practical reason to. If you feel emotionally inclined to believe in something because it gives you hope, comfort, and the illusion of control, identify your belief as just that. Faith is often no more than an inclination that’s not withstood the tests of reason. The process of faith is an absence of doubt. There’ll always be people who reject evolution for reasons that have little to do with evolution. Don’t act with more confidence in unproven theories than is justifiable.

Idea for Impact: Be wary of the influences that can put you at risk for magical thinking.

Give critical thinking and systematic evidence the central role in how you understand the world. Improving the criteria you use to judge the truth of things is difficult—but it’s of the essence. Have an unvarying, well-balanced degree of skepticism about everything, especially your own postulations.

« Previous Page

Persuasion

Affinity Bias

Idea for Impact: Culture is a Barrier to Diversity and Inclusion

Wondering what to read next?

Idea for Impact: If you have the entrepreneurial itch, don’t become quickly sold on tales of grandeur.

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

One of Our Greatest Literary Stylists Was a Full-time Business Executive

A Paycheck Comes First

Disregard the Inspirational Mumbo Jumbo

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a Passion, But Don’t Expect to Make it a Career Right Away

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Idea for Impact: Be wary of the influences that can put you at risk for magical thinking.

Wondering what to read next?