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Half way between New Year and Valentine’s day

Last week, I was counting basic plots and getting nowhere with the numbers game – I think if you follow all of the references in the article, you get to 18 or 54 or something in between.  I didn’t try to put a number on it.

But have you noticed how many of us like to enumerate and collect?  Mostly it’s men, I hear some of you say, but I am not so sure.  Anyway, Howard Gardner noticed this, belatedly, when he added to his original seven Multiple Intelligences an eighth: Naturalist.

Seven …
there’s another magic number to add to last week’s three:

  1. Seven samurai
  2. Seven pillars of wisdom
  3. Seven deadly sins
  4. Seven wonders of the world
  5. Seven against Thebes
  6. Seven dwarves
  7. Seven habits of highly effective people

One characteristic of the naturalist intelligence is the desire and facility to characterise, categorise and count (ooops three again!).

Let’s get Emotional

This time, I have been wondering how many emotions there are.  Two things may come to your mind: the pragmatists will say ‘but what has this to do with management?’ while the theorists will challenge ‘can you really count emotions?’

Let’s start with the theorists: counting emotions

No.  I don’t think that you can create a full count of the infinite varieties of human emotion, but I did think it may be interesting to try to list the main ones, and see where it takes me.

I started with a throwaway comment I remembered from a training course that there is a ‘big five’ set of emotions.  I can find no reference to these (unlike the ‘big five personality factors’ in any psychology books).  But I did find a Reiki Healing site, and as my NLP teachers were also reiki practitioners, I’m going to make a guess…

Anyway, this led me to:

  1. Joy
  2. Sadness
  3. Anger
  4. Fear
  5. Grief

… which are big and there are five.  But there are other big ones too.  Next stop: Claudia Hammond’s excellent ‘Emotional Rollercoaster: A Journey Through the Science of Feelings’.  Dr Hammond lists

  1. Joy
  2. Sadness
  3. Disgust
  4. Anger
  5. Fear
  6. Jealousy
  7. Love
  8. Guilt
  9. Hope

She doesn’t set out to be comprehensive, just to present fascinating research results.  The web will offer you uncountable numbers of lists, but in my £2.99 copy of the textbook ‘Psychology’ (I love charity shops), I found Plutchik’s Multi-dimensional Model of Emotions.  Oh how I love the idea of a multidimensional model!

Plutchik’s Multi-dimensional Model of Emotions, reproduced as Fig 12.1 in Psychology (Bernstein, Roy, Srull, Wickens)As you can see, Plutchik’s model has eight primary emotions which are shown next to the ones they are most like and opposite the ones that are like polar opposites.  Each has a spectrum of intensity, giving a third dimension, with the peak intensity emotions at the top.  By combining adjacent pairs, you get more complex emotions.

To see this more clearly, we need to open out the solid, and this is done in many places on the web.  Here is my favourite representation (a public domain image from Wikipedia).

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You’ll notice that the two versions don’t quite match up (-  as my editor did!*).  The opened out “net” seems the more current and common articulation, with the levels on the “solid” diagram either poorly represented or from earlier thinking.

Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions

What has this to do with management?

Well, firstly, if you think that emotions and management have nothing to do with one another, you’re crazy.  But my serious point is that a greater understanding of emotions seems to me to be a major gap in much management training and education.  This is even true in many workshops and courses about ‘Emotional Intelligence’.

Yet Emotional Intelligence is one of the most powerful management models of the last twenty years.  I think we can now tentatively apply the label ‘enduring’.  So we’ll be taking a deeper look over the next two weeks.

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* In trying to answer my editor’s comment, I found two absolutely  fascinating articles on the web (30 minutes of displacement activity – thank you Ros) that you might like.  Plutchik’s original 1960 article is not available on the web (unless you have £23 to spare).  Anyway, check out:

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Why Story Telling Matters

For fifteen years or more, I have been collecting stories that I can tell in seminars, training workshops or keynotes.

I have well over a hundred packed away now, but my interest started in the 1980s when I cut out an entry from the Guardian’s ‘Notes & Queries’ column:

It is a much quoted maxim that there are only seven stories in fiction and that all others are based on them. Is it true, and what might these seven stories be?

I’ve just wasted 20 minutes looking for that cutting (I know it’s somewhere in my filing system) and then discovered in as many seconds that I no longer need it: you can read the answers that the question received here.

The Seven Basic Plots

Continue reading Why Story Telling Matters

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A Bigger Bite

What is management without vision and inspiration?

The sad news about Steve Jobs’ untimely death has spurred more blogs than anyone has the time to read, so a shorter than usual pocketblog and a simple observation.

A bigger bite out of Apple

Making the complex seem easy and the sophisticated, a doddle to use: this is more than talent, or skill: it’s art.

Last week, for the first time in my life, I heard a major news story first, not on the radio, not on the TV, not in the press, nor even from a colleague, friend, or acquaintance.  I heard it on Twitter.

… on an iPad.

The world is a better place for everyone who is bringing us new technology and more effective communication.  Yes there are compromises and a price to pay, but who would trade it?  Very few.

Steve Jobs brought us the Mac, Pixar, the iPod, iTunes and more.  But here’s the big one for me: without him, we may still think of a mouse only as a small mammal.  Without Steve Jobs, what would the move to touch screen mean?

This image is the landing page of the Apple website, as I write this blog.  (c) Apple 2011

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Dale Carnegie: The King of Self Help

Some book titles become clichés.  So it is with ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’.  We use this as a turn of phrase from time to time – often without having read the book.

A Confession

I confess: I wrote my own book on influence, without reading it. And the most shameful part is that it had been on my shelf for several years.  I pulled it down this week to take a look.

Who was Dale Carnegie?

Dale Breckenridge CarnegieDale Carnegie came from Missouri and was the son of poor farmers.  After college, he tried a number of careers, including sales, acting and writing novels.  As a salesman, he was extraordinarily successful.

But real success began when he started giving night-school courses in public speaking at the YMCA schools in New York.  He was not paid, but instead was able to keep a portion of the admission fees.  Before long, he was earning a very handsome income.

He changed the spelling of his family name from Carnagey to Carnegie, to link him to the wholly related, highly successful business man, Andrew Carnegie and, when his talks became exceedingly popular , even hired and sold out Carnegie Hall.

His first book, a text about public speaking and influence was followed, in 1936 by the book that was to make his name and his fortune.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

In How to Win Friends and Influence People, Carnegie tells you how to do just that, in four parts.  It remains in print and the latest UK edition, at time of writing, is ranked 187 in Amazon’s UK list of all books.  The four parts give you:

  1. Three principles for handling people
  2. Six ways to make people like you
  3. Twelve principles for winning people over to your way of thinking
  4. Nine principles for how to be a leader

There is far too much to summarise here, so I will pick on his six ways to make people like you, as perhaps the most fundamental human skill.

Six ways to make people like you

Dale Carnegie: Six ways to make people like you

So here’s the deal

Robert Cialdini, in another Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, describes ‘liking’ as one of the six ‘weapons’ of influence.  And being liked requires no magic.  Yet, just because it’s easy, it doesn’t mean we all do it.

I am off to chat in the kitchen while my wife watches Come Dine with Me and we cook supper.  On past form, at least one of the contestants will fail on at least three of the above.

For you though, treat Carnegie’s list as a simple model for how to be liked, and therefore, how to increase your influence.

Some Management Pocketbooks you may enjoy

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The Onion Model of Resistance

The Handling Resistance Pocketbook, by Mike ClaytonThe Onion Model of Resistance is at the heart of the Handling Resistance Pocketbook.  It is a model I developed initially to describe resistance to change.
I subsequently generalised it to cover handling:

  • resistance to ideas in a presentation
  • sales objections
  • resistance in a learning environment
  • resistance to engagement

 

Creating the Onion Model - Training Journal article by Mike Clayton

I recently had a couple of articles published by Training Journal, which I have put onto my Handling Resistance blog:

  1. Creating the Onion Model
  2. Resistance to Engagement

I hope you will enjoy them.

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Handling Resistance to Engagement

Resistance to Engagement in the August 2011 Training Journal

The August 2011 edition of Training Journal focuses on the topic of engagement.  One of the most challenging aspects for managers is when they want to generate employee engagement, but encounter resistance.  Luckily, there is a Pocketbook dedicated to handling resistance.

Handling Resistance

The Handling Resistance Pocketbook

Mike Clayton, author of The Handling Resistance Pocketbook, has written an article ‘Resistance to Engagement’ that builds on the onion model described in the book, to discuss why people sometimes resist such an obviously ‘good thing’.

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The book contains three versions of the model, for contexts of resistance to ideas, resistance to change and sales objections. Mike has developed a new version for this article.

Training Journal is a subscription only magazine, and access to the full article archive on their website also requires a subscription.  It is an excellent journal and, if you are a trainer or you commission training, reading it will be a valuable part of your CPD.

However, the subscription model means that any people interested in my article won’t be able to access it, so Mike has put it onto his Handling Resistance blog, in two parts…

Resistance to Engagement

People want to be engaged. They want to be treated fairly, to be consulted about what is happening, and to feel valued and supported.  Yet employee engagement initiatives often meet with scepticism, resistance and even hostility.  Why is this?  Can we understand the source of the resistance and build on this understanding to create positive ways to handle it?

Read more…

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Through the Square Window… is me!

Are you:

able, accepting, adaptable, bold, brave, calm,
caring, cheerful, clever, complex, confident,
dependable, dignified, energetic, extroverted,
friendly, giving, happy, helpful, idealistic,
independent, ingenious, intelligent, introverted,
kind, knowledgeable, logical, loving, mature,
modest, nervous, observant, organized, patient,
powerful, proud, quiet, reflective, relaxed,
religious, responsive, searching, self-assertive,
self-conscious, sensible, sentimental, shy, silly,
smart, spontaneous, sympathetic, tense,
trustworthy, warm, wise, witty

If you had to pick five or six of these 56 adjectives, which would you pick?  Equally important, which would your friends or your colleagues pick?

Match and Mismatch

If the match were perfect, then your whole life would be an open book. But more likely, there will be some aspects of your personality that are hidden from other people – adjectives no one but you would pick.  Likewise, there are usually characteristics that people will see in you, that you are blind to.

Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham

This exercise was developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in 1955, to examine how to help us extend the area of shared understanding between ourselves and the people we communicate with.

imageThe model they produced is powerful; the Johari Window. Luft named it from a contraction of their first names, Joseph and Harry (Harrington); JoHari. The mid word capitalisation (a ‘camel’ word) was ahead of recent typographical fashion by 40 years, but it was soon dropped.

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The Johari Window

The window has four panes, derived from the knowledge or lack of it that we have about ourselves, and that others have about us.

image

The Arena

The Open area represents what we and the people around us all know about ourselves.  These are the matched adjectives  This is shared knowledge and is the basis of effective communication. Luft and Ingham worked from the assumption that the more of our life that is in this quadrant, the better our relationships will be.

The Facade

In the Hidden area is the information we keep from the world. It is what I have not revealed to you about myself. It may be trivial facts about my hobbies, deeply personal feelings, or past history that I am embarrassed or secretive about.

The Blind Spot

In the Blind area, people around us can recognise traits, habits or characteristics, to which we, ourselves, are oblivious. These may be strengths or failings.

The Unknown Area

Finally, there is the Unknown zone, representing characteristics that neither we nor other people are aware of. Perhaps these things are repressed; perhaps simply un-expressed, like latent capabilities.

Uses of the Johari Window

imageThere is a wide range of uses for this model, in coaching, training, organisational development and therapy.  The latent capabilities in the blind spot represent a powerful opportunity for coaches, whilst supressed emotions may be the very focus of therapeutic interventions.  Unsurprisingly, this is a popular model among trainers, facilitators and coaches, but beware: if you do uncover repressed components, leave them be.  They should be addressed with great care, by qualified therapists.

Opening the windows

Some use the metaphor of windows into four rooms in our lives.  We can choose which to open and which rooms to expand.  Most commonly, we can enhance our knowledge of ourselves by seeking feedback, and making use of the insights others have. We can also increase our self-awareness by processes of self discovery, while a group discovery process can open up the Unknown area to both ourselves and the group.

When we want to be more open about ourselves, we can disclose information about ourselves to other people, removing it from the hidden area.

So here’s the deal

The Johari Window has multiple uses, but is most often used to help teams get to know each other better.

Some Management Pocketbooks you might Enjoy

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How to Understand your Toddler

imageI took a big step towards understanding toddler psychology today – which you would think would be very useful to a man with a two and a half year old.

And before you think you’ve come to the wrong blog, let me reassure you of two things:

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  1. What I learned offers real insights for managers, trainers, change agents and project leaders
  2. The practical application to toddler management – like all other theories – is pretty well nil

Like all good models, this one has explanatory power

The first criterion for a good model is that it must describe real world events.  In so doing, most models therefore help us to understand – and even explain – those events.  So it is with our model:

Icek Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behaviour

imageIcek Ajzen is Professor of Psychology at The University of Massachusetts. His research interests include how we form attitudes, how they affect our behaviour, the relation between knowledge, intentions and behaviour, and habitual versus reasoned action.

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Ajzen is, perhaps, best known for his theory of planned behaviour.  It was in refreshing my knowledge of this theory that I had my insight.

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The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) suggests that our behaviour is driven by ‘behavioural intentions’.  These intentions are, themselves, determined by three things:

  1. Our attitude towards the behaviour
    That is, some sum of what we believe to be each of the likely consequences of that behaviour, modified by our beliefs about how likely they are (their expectancy).
    This links to Victor Vroom’s Expectancy Theory.  This is the section in the free extract you can view on the Management Models Pocketbook page, by clicking on ‘view extract’.
  2. Our subjective assessment of societal norms about the behaviour
    Based on an aggregate of all our beliefs about how society works
  3. Our perceptions of factors that might control our behaviour
    Note that there may indeed be real factors that do control our behaviour, leading to the dotted line in the figure above.

Uses of the TPB Model

This model is used by professional influencers, like the advertising industry.  It explains, for example, why information alone rarely results in behaviour change – Ajzen found it not to be a major factor in driving intention.  It is also valuable to change agents, who want to influence behavioural change.

Application to Toddlers

At a fairly young age, I observe that toddlers do start to plan their behaviour.  But the problem is that they are only poorly able to foresee possible consequences, they have little knowledge of societal norms (which were largely suspended when the toddler was a baby) and therefore it is only their perceptions about how their behaviour might be controlled that might check that behaviour.  But these are often fairly limited.

So here’s the deal

Therefore, only real behavioural control will alter a toddler’s behaviour, since toddlers are wired to explore the boundaries of their independence.

Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

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Reciprocity and Expectation

I got a phone call out of the blue yesterday.  I have noticed that this kind of call can either be a complete waste of time (’do you want to save money on your toner cartridges/wine/mortgage/pet insurance?’) or thought-provoking.  This one was most certainly the latter.

Tip of the day

You may have noticed on the main Management Pocketbooks website (you can get to it by clicking the logo at the top of the right hand column next to this blog) the Tip of the Day function.

SeeOurTipoftheDayTipoftheDay29Apr2011

If you click on it, you will get a different tip each day.  This caller had done just that, and got one of mine.

Keeping Promises

‘If I keep my promise, will you keep yours?
If I don’t believe you will, why should I bother?
Vroom’s model of motivation!

This tip came from the Management Models Pocketbook, where I describe Victor Vroom’s Expectancy Theory.  This is the section in the free extract you can view on the Management Models Pocketbook page, by clicking on ‘view extract’.

The tip was about the way that we can fail to motivate others if we get a reputation for not delivering on promised rewards.  But the tip had resonated with my caller in another way.

Honesty and Reciprocation

In her job, Alison had been thinking about the importance of truth and honesty.  She had read the quote and thought about the reciprocation of honesty, which got us into an interesting discussion about the nature of truth.

Reciprocation appears to be a fundamental part of human nature.  It is the basis of a large part of our society:

  • Trade, commerce and negotiation
  • Moral philosophy (do unto others… – the so-called ‘golden rule’)
  • Community and the trading of favours
  • Criminal justice (punishment fitting the crime – an eye for an eye)
  • Diplomatic exchange and warfare

Of course pure reciprocity is not always seen as the ideal in all of these cases.  In negotiation, a win-win goes beyond pure exchange of fair value and in moral philosophy, alternative approaches have developed and extended the golden rule, starting with Kant’s categorical imperative.  In community, the concept of paying forward, rather than paying back emerged in the 1950s and hit its peak of popular awareness in the 1990s with the film ‘Pay it Forward’.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPcwQi-AnWI]

There is no need to analyse the failings of tit-for-tat reciprocity in the criminal justice and diplomatic arenas!

In the world of influence, reciprocity is king

As Richard Storey points out in the Influencing Pocketbook, appeal to self interest is a powerful influencer.  But what is equally powerful is to appeal to our innate instinct to reciprocate a gift or a concession.  It is as if, your self interest served, you feel a need to express your gratitude with a reciprocal action.

This offers me a powerful way to influence your thinking or your behaviour.  If I meet your need or give you something you want, then you will feel an urge to give me something in return.  If I give you an honest answer, then you are more likely to be honest with me.

Game theory

But here is where the problem lies.  If I deal honestly with you, can I expect you to deal honestly with me?  If I do trust you and you reciprocate, we can get the best possible collective results, but if you cheat on  me, you optimise your gain, while I lose out.  So what should I do?

This is the domain of ‘game theory’ – the mathematical study of sequences of plays within a set of rules, where the players have some choice.  It turns out that tit-for-tat is a pretty good strategy…

… but not the best.  Constant cheating and constant trusting are both poor strategies, but one strategy stands out.

I am wondering whether I should share this.  What are the ethics of sharing a strategy that must mean some cheating, some trusting and some tit-for-tat behaviour?  Hmmm, that is something to think about.

So here’s the deal

The optimum strategy  in part depends on the strategy of your counter-party – your ‘opponent’ in the game.  But one of the most successful strategies seems to be ‘modified tit-for-tat’.  This means you start by reciprocating, to build trust, but every now and then, take advantage of the situation by cheating.  Then, revert to tit-for-tat behaviour to rebuild trust… and so on.

Does that sound familiar?  I have encountered it a number of times and it hurts.  For those of us who believe we act fairly and with integrity, encountering it in someone we trust is unpleasant.  It leaves us with a difficult choice: one I faced recently.

Should I reciprocate the cheating behaviour?  That was my instinct.  But maybe pure reciprocity is not the ideal strategy.  I relented and resorted to a tactic designed to rebuild trust.  Does this make me a gullible mark, ready to be fleeced the next time?  I don’t think so, because there is always one strategy I have not yet rolled out: not cheating, not trusting, not tit-for-tat.

You can always stop playing the game.

Some Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

The Negotiator’s Pocketbook

The Influencing Pocketbook

The Handling Resistance Pocketbook

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How to Understand Resistance and Handle it Effectively

Mike Clayton

Mike’s first law of change: “Resistance is inevitable”

There’s no getting around it, so all you can do is to embrace it, and engage with your resisters.  But how can you do so positively, and increase your chances of a successful transition?

That’s the reason I developed my Onion Model of Resistance, which I started working on back in the 1990s.  It helps us to understand the nature of the resistance we encounter and leads us towards effective strategies.

Five Layers of Resistance

There are five layers of resistance that we encounter and they are summarised in the image below. (click to enlarge)

The Onion Model of Resistance by Mike Clayton

What we find is that, as we uncover a layer of resistance, there is often another layer beneath it.  Each layer is psychologically deeper, it is emotionally hotter, and it is harder to deal with.

Harmonious Engagement with the Resistance

My Golden Rule for Handling Resistance is:

‘I will always respect my resisters’

This means I need to use a harmonious approach that does not clash with them nor seek to put them down.  Our instinctive approaches, to blame, bully, plead, fight, do deals or lie, do not work – or, if they do, are not sustainable.  In my talk – and in the book – I listed a dozen or so techniques, inspired by the principles of Aikido, a Japanese martial art, sometimes called the ‘way of peace’, or ’the way of harmony’.

Three things to remember

The talk ended with three things to remember:

  1. Resistance is part of the process.  It is inevitable.
    Don’t fear it: embrace it.
  2. There is always a reason for the resistance you get.
    It may not be rational, but you can understand it,
    and you can deal with it.
  3. Above all, always respect your resisters.

Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

The Handling Resistance Pocketbook, by Mike Clayton

The Onion Model, how to handle resistance to ideas, to sales, and to change, along with a host of tips are all in the Handling Resistance Pocketbook.

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You may also like:

For more on the Onion Model…

…take a look at this earlier blog, on Handling Sales Objections.

The Golden Rule for Resistance: "I will always respect my resisters"

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