How to Ensure Your Baby is CEO Material

Posted on 2012/10/272012/10/29 by Jason Hensel

If I was to have a baby, I’d want the child to grow up to be a musician or a writer or anything in the arts. Sports would be cool, too. But some of you may want your child to grow up to be a CEO. If so, then make sure the baby is born in the spring.

In a study from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, babies born in the summer are less likely to be CEOs.

“Our findings indicate that summer babies underperform in the ranks of CEOs as a result of the ‘birth-date effect,’ a phenomenon resulting from the way children are grouped by age in school,” said Sauder Finance Professor Maurice Levi, co-author of the study to appear in the December issue of the journal Economics Letters.

Using hockey as an example, Malcolm Gladwell addressed this same phenomenon in his book Outliers: The Story of Success, summarizing that the reason players are successful is due to the month in which they were born.

For the U.S., school admissions are open between September and January. The study’s researchers discovered that of the 375 CEOs sampled from S&P 500 companies, the ones born between June and July were the youngest in their class. Those born in March and April were the oldest.

“Older children within the same grade tend to do better than the youngest, who are less intellectually developed,” Levi said. “Early success is often rewarded with leadership roles and enriched learning opportunities, leading to future advantages that are magnified throughout life.

“Our study adds to the growing evidence that the way our education system groups students by age impacts their lifelong success,” Levi continued. “We could be excluding some of the business world’s best talent simply by enrolling them in school too early.”

(Story quotes from the University of British Columbia. Image via Flickr: opensourceway / Creative Commons)

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Flirtatious Women Score More

Posted on 2012/10/222012/10/23 by Jason Hensel

Jessie States wrote the following for another blog. I’m posting it on here, because I find that it’s a really interesting study. It’s one of those topics that is known to be true, but quietly ignored in the hopes that it will go away. It won’t go away, though, if it’s not discussed.

Flirtation is an effective way for women to gain negotiating mileage, according to a new study by Haas School of Business Professor Laura Kray. And the whole idea that it works kind of makes my stomach turn. But I get it.

“Women are uniquely confronted with a tradeoff in terms of being perceived as strong versus warm. Using feminine charm in negotiation is a technique that combines both,” said Kray, who holds the Warren E. and Carol Spieker Chair in Leadership at the Haas School.

The study, “Feminine Charm: An Experimental Analysis of its Costs and Benefits in Negotiations,” was published in October in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and co-authored by Haas Ph.D. alumna Connson C. Locke of the London School of Economics and Haas Ph.D. candidate Alex B. Van Zant.

Flirtation that generates positive results, Kray says, is not overt sexual advances but authentic, engaging behavior without serious intent. In fact, the study found female flirtation signals attractive qualities such as confidence, which is considered essential to successful negotiators.

To determine whether women who flirt are more effective in negotiating than men who flirt, the researchers asked 100 participants to evaluate to what extent they use social charm in negotiation on a one-to-seven scale. Earlier that week, the participants evaluated their partners’ negotiating effectiveness. Women who said they used more social charm were rated more effective by their partners. However, men who said they used more social charm were not regarded as more effective.

In the second experiment, the researchers asked subjects to imagine they were selling a car worth US$1,200 and asked for how much would they sell the car. Next, the subjects read one of two scenarios about a potential buyer named Sue.

The first group meets Sue, who shakes hands when she meets the seller, smiles, and says, “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” and then “What’s your best price?” in a serious tone. The second group reads an alternate scenario in which Sue greets the seller by smiling warmly, looking the seller up and down, touching the seller’s arm, and saying, “You’re even more charming than over email,” followed by a playful wink and asking, “What’s your best price?”

The result? Male sellers were willing to give the “playful Sue” more than $100 off the selling price whereas they weren’t as willing to negotiate with the “serious Sue.” Playful Sue’s behavior did not affect female car sellers. Kray says many of her students who are senior women executives admit they love to flirt and describe themselves as “big flirts.” Kray maintains flirting is not unprofessional if it remains playful and friendly.

“The key is to flirt with your own natural personality in mind. Be authentic. Have fun,” Kray said. “That will translate into confidence, which is a strong predictor of negotiation performance.”

Read the full paper here.

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I’m Sorry, Your Name Is…?

Posted on 2012/06/202012/06/20 by Jason Hensel

I’ve taken improvisation lessons for more than two years now. While it has helped improve my listening skills, I still forget people’s names at times. And as someone who works in the meeting industry, forgetting names is often not a positive trait.

For the longest time, I thought it was my brain’s love of forgetfulness that it increasingly embraces every year. However, it’s not my mind’s mechanics that are at fault. It’s me. According to Richard Harris, a psychology professor at Kansas State University, your level of interest determines your brain’s ability to remember names.

“Some people, perhaps those who are more socially aware, are just more interested in people, more interested in relationships,” Harris said. “They would be more motivated to remember somebody’s name.”

Harris says that the more interest you show in a person, the more likely you’ll remember that person’s name. That’s common sense, but as with most common sense advice, it’s easily forgotten.

To help you remember names, try strategies such as mnemonic devices or saying the person’s name while you talk to the person. Or better yet, as Harris says, just show more interest in people.

(Image via Flickr: Emily Rose / Creative Commons)

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Employees Are Your Best Customers

Posted on 2012/04/132012/04/13 by Jason Hensel

At every job I’ve had, I’ve heard phrases such as “the customer is always right,” or “think of the value to the customer.” While those sentiments are good, I never hear anything about a product or decision being valuable to an employee. It’s as if business leaders are too focused on keeping customers happy that they forget about employees. And that’s crazy, because employees are your best customers.

The main reason a business treats its customers well is because they will be happy and spread the word to their friends and family about how great the business is. Couldn’t the same be said for your employees? Treat them well, contribute to their happiness, and they’ll extend that feeling in dealing with customers.

It makes so much sense that I’m confused as to why it’s not addressed more. If you’re leader, please do everyone a favor and the next time you want to ask something like “What is the customer value?” please pause and actually ask “What is the value for the customer and the employee?” Running a successful business is a two-way street, and more often than not most leaders have a one-track mind.

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Review: Imagine

Posted on 2012/01/02 by Jason Hensel

There was much talk about innovation and creativity in 2011. In fact, I heard or saw the word innovation so much that its mention would bring on waves of hostility in me. Everyone talked about it, making it not, well, very innovative.

Most writers were telling you what to do to be innovative or creative. Rarely did you read why it happens. It’s as most people wanted to jump to instruction without knowing reason.

That’s where Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer comes in. As with his previous book, How We Decide, Lehrer explores the basis of a brain function that everyone wants to know about. Yes, he does offer creativity advice, but he bases it in reason. You have to know the hows and whys before you can know the whats.

Lehrer leads readers through many examples of innovation and creativity, touching on everything from how Bob Dylan found his writing muse to how no-wrong-answers brainstorming doesn’t work in the long run to the benefits of living in a city. And he keeps your interest, because he’s a great storyteller who asserts authority. He doesn’t just report research; he guides with pristine narrative.

“The Power of Q” chapter is one of the more interesting sections. It’s about socialist Brian Uzzi and his study of Broadway musicals, about why some are successful and some are not. Uzzi found that successful productions needed a certain amount of people who have known each other for a long time and a certain amount who are new to the operation. In other words, a sweet spot of social intimacy is needed.

The reason I found this chapter interesting is because around the same time I was reading it, the Dallas Mavericks were restructuring their championship team, losing several players that helped them win it all last season. I’ve always been one that feels you don’t break up the house, you keep teams together for the long-term in order to ensure yearly success. After reading this chapter, though, I’m thinking differently about teams (sports or work). Perhaps it is best that the Mavericks shook things up, bringing in some new faces to play with a few of the old-timers. (However, maybe it’s not working; the Mavericks are 1-4 at the time of this review.)

What Lehrer suggests–and something he consistently suggests in his writings–is that you should know yourself best. Find what works for you, because for every piece of research saying one thing, there will be another saying the opposite. Maybe you work better getting away from a problem. Or maybe you work better with a group. However you work best, identify that and edge toward it. That is where you’ll find your creativity. For you see, science is primarily about paying attention, and until you pay attention to yourself first, nothing will change. Lehrer’s latest book is a great tool toward this needed self-consciousness in society.

(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer in March 2012.)

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Hit That Perfect Beat

Posted on 2011/12/202011/12/20 by Jason Hensel

A former band mate of mine once told me he would be happy to have a one-hit wonder. I thought he was crazy. I wanted a long life full of hits (and fame and groupies and all that comes with the rock-n-roll lifestyle). One-hit wonders seemed so fleeting and defining.

Besides, a musician doesn’t set out to write one hit song and then retire for life. If that happened, hit songs would be easy to craft and more people would do it.

But stop the record. A new study has found what it takes for a song to be a hit. University of Bristol researchers claim that predictions can be made using machine learning algorithms.

The team looked at the official U.K. top 40 singles chart over the past 50 years. Their aim was to distinguish the most popular (peak position top five) songs from less popular singles (peak position 30 to 40).

The researchers used musical features such as, tempo, time signature, song duration and loudness. They also computed more detailed summaries of the songs such as harmonic simplicity, how simple the chord sequence is, and non-harmonicity, how ‘noisy’ the song is.

A ‘hit potential equation’ that scores a song according to its audio features was devised. The equation works by looking at all the U.K. hits for a certain time and measuring their audio features. From this the researchers had a list of weights, telling then how important each of the 23 features was and allowing them to compute a score for a song.

The researchers classified songs as hits or not-hits based on their scores. The team had a 60 percent accuracy rate and noticed some interesting trends.

Before the 1980s, the danceability of a song was not very relevant to its hit potential. From then on, danceable songs were more likely to become a hit. Also the average danceability of all songs on the charts suddenly increased in the late 1970s.
In the 1980s, slower musical styles (tempo 70-89 beats per minute), such as ballads, were more likely to become a hit.
The prediction accuracy of the researchers’ hit potential equation varies over time. It was particularly difficult to predict hits around 1980. The equation performed best in the first half of the 1990s and from the year 2000. This suggests that the late 1970s and early 1980s were particularly creative and innovative periods of pop music.
Up until the early 1990s , hits were typically harmonically simpler than other songs of the era. On the other hand, from the 1990s onward hits more commonly have simpler, binary, rhythms such as 4/4 time.
On average, all songs on the chart are becoming louder. Additionally, the hits are relatively louder than the songs that dangle at the bottom of the charts, reflected by a strong weight for the loudness feature.

You can read more about the research at ScoreaAHit.

My favorite trend is the part about the late 1970s and early 1980s as periods of more creative and innovative music. I definitely agree with that.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have a hit song to write. The secret formula has been found.

(Photo via Flickr: Paul Townsend / Creative Commons)

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Your Creative, Cheating Heart

Posted on 2011/12/07 by Jason Hensel

Think of the most creative person you know. Now tell me, do you think that person cheats more than others? I bet you’ll say no, because most people place creativity and those who possess gobs of it on an elevated plain. If you’re less creative, then of course you’re a cheater, as the theory goes.

Oh how wrong that is, because, it’s actually those who are more creative that cheat more.

“Greater creativity helps individuals solve difficult tasks across many domains, but creative sparks may lead individuals to take unethical routes when searching for solutions to problems and tasks,” said lead researcher Francesca Gino, Ph.D., of Harvard University.

In other words, creativity breeds more rationality for choices.

Gino and her co-author, Dan Ariely, Ph.D., of Duke University, conducted five experiments to test their thesis that more creative people cheat under circumstances where they could justify their behavior.

From the paper:

We test our main hypotheses in a series of studies. First, as a pilot study, we collect field data to examine whether people in jobs that require high levels of creativity are more morally flexible than others. Next, we conduct five laboratory studies in which participants have the opportunity to behave dishonestly by overstating their performance and, as a result, earn more money. In Experiment 1, we measure creativity as an individual difference and examine whether this personality trait is associated with increased dishonest behavior. In Experiment 2, we prime cognitions associated with creativity and examine whether they temporarily promote dishonesty. In Experiments 3 and 4, we explore the mechanism explaining the link between creativity and dishonesty by focusing on people’s ability to justify unethical behavior. Finally, in Experiment 5, we examine whether individual differences in creativity moderate the effect of priming a creative mindset on dishonesty.

The researchers found during every study that the greater one’s creativity the more likely that person would cheat.

“Dishonesty and innovation are two of the topics most widely written about in the popular press,” the authors wrote. “Yet, to date, the relationship between creativity and dishonest behavior has not been studied empirically. … The results from the current article indicate that, in fact, people who are creative or work in environments that promote creative thinking may be the most at risk when they face ethical dilemmas.”

Gino and Ariely say there are some limitations in their study–primarily that they created monetary temptation situations. They say “that future research should investigate whether creativity would lead people to satisfy selfish, short-term goals rather than their higher aspirations when faced with self-control dilemmas, such as eating a slice of cake when trying to lose weight.”

I’m not sure about you, but I can always find a way to rationalize eating cake, creativity be damned.

(Photo via Flickr: Roadsidepictures / Creative Commons)

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Why Engagement Matters

Posted on 2011/11/012011/11/02 by Jason Hensel

National Novel Writing Month is in November. I tried it once. I didn’t succeed. Writing more than 1,666 words a day is hard, especially if you have an editing and writing job. After a day’s work, I just want to come home and do anything but write or read for a few hours. Then by the time I want to write, it’s time for The Daily Show. Can’t miss that! Then it’s The Colbert Report. Have to watch that, too! Oh, look, it’s 11 p.m. What’s on Facebook? A few hours later, it’s time for bed. National Novel Writing Month, I hardly knew you.

There’s another national writing project that happens each month, though. It’s National Blog Posting Month. Writing a blog post a day seems totally doable, primarily because there’s no word count requirement or need for a complete story. If I want to write about banshees one day and then write about the dangers of electricity the next, as Bobby Brown would say, that’s my prerogative. It just takes engagement on my end.

Engagement, however, is difficult. A recent Gallup poll found that 71 percent of U.S. workers were “‘not engaged’ or ‘actively disengaged’ in their work, meaning they are emotionally disconnected from their workplaces and are less likely to be productive.”

And who are these less engaged workers that are bringing down production? They’re primarily college educated, men, and between the ages of 30 and 64. Oh dear, I’m in my prime disengagement period.

A perceived lack of progress or the fear of layoffs are two of the main reasons employees are less engaged in their work. Leaders, though, can mitigate the lack of engagement, according to Gallup:

Every manager can play a role in engaging workers by clarifying expectations, getting employees what they need to do their work, giving workers recognition when they do good work, encouraging employee development, helping workers connect to the broader purpose of the organization, and frequently measuring and discussing progress. The managers and departments within organizations that do these things are more likely to produce high-quality work and help their organizations grow and improve the wellbeing of their workforce.

Now while I believe a lot of workplace issues are due to mismanagement and poor communication from leaders, they shouldn’t solely take the blame. Employees should communicate with their employers about what’s bothering them. They should have honest conversations, without fear of retribution, about an organization’s direction and their role in that direction. Unfortunately, there’s usually a huge highway between employers and employees.

The Gallup poll says that employees younger than 30 or older than 65 are more engaged. That raises the question: Are these age groups just happily employed due to economic conditions?

Increasing engaged workers could spur job growth, according to the Gallup report. But maybe people don’t care about things such as job growth, seats at the table, and money anymore. Maybe 30- to 64-year-old, non-engaged worker concerns are about other things, such as time, family, and spiritual matters. Maybe to them, work is just work, so why be engaged in it? Get in, get enough money, and get out as soon as you can in time to enjoy the rest of your life. If that is your plan, then maybe being more engaged will get you there sooner. Or maybe not. Maybe you’re more engaged in throwing a Frisbee with friends every afternoon.

What I’m saying is choose your focus. Figure out what you ultimately want in life and do it. Maybe it’s working hard every day. Maybe it’s writing a daily blog post. Whatever it is, figure it out for yourself and be engaged in it, because there’s nothing worse in this world than a life half lived.

(Photo via Flickr: drinksmachine / Creative Commons)

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Real Leaders Embrace Dissension

Posted on 2011/10/21 by Jason Hensel

I’ve been thinking a lot about dissension and its role in business. It appears that most leaders avoid it at all costs, especially from customers. Or if we’re talking about associations, if you don’t march in time with the brand, you’re labeled a traitor.

However, as Howard Zinn, U.S. historian and activist, said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

So, why would leaders be afraid of those who offer contradictory opinions?

The answer is simple: Ego. Most leaders take to the notion that they’re “leading.” And by “leading,” that means their word is final, their roads in the woods the only ones to walk.

But what about the loyal customer or the long-time member who offers a different opinion? Shouldn’t she be listened to, as well?

Yes! More often than not, though, she is not listened to. That person is dismissed as a rebel rouser, someone out to undercut the business.

But what if that person has been a loyal customer or a renewing association member year after year? Maybe she is really out to help the company. Maybe that person put a lot of time and money into something she feels like she “owns”?

I think leaders are short-sighted to ignore these “owners.” They’re probably more invested in the company than managers or board members, who may be in the business for a quick buck or to pad their resumes.

Real leaders embrace contradictory opinions. They know how to engage. They build up rather than put down. If you’re afraid of a little criticism, you’re not a real leader.

(Photo credit via Flickr: Romain Rolland / Creative Commons)

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Sweet Tooth Equals a Sweet Deal

Posted on 2011/10/182011/10/19 by Jason Hensel

Your sweet tooth is more than a preference for desserts. It’s also an indicator of your personality and behavior, according to a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Let’s read the study’s abstract together:

It is striking that prosocial people are considered “sweet” (e.g., “she’s a sweetie”) because they are unlikely to differentially taste this way. These metaphors aid communication, but theories of conceptual metaphor and embodiment led us to hypothesize that they can be used to derive novel insights about personality processes. Five studies converged on this idea. Study 1 revealed that people believed strangers who liked sweet foods (e.g., candy) were also higher in agreeableness. Studies 2 and 3 showed that individual differences in the preference for sweet foods predicted prosocial personalities, prosocial intentions, and prosocial behaviors. Studies 4 and 5 used experimental designs and showed that momentarily savoring a sweet food (vs. a nonsweet food or no food) increased participants’ self-reports of agreeableness and helping behavior. The results reveal that an embodied metaphor approach provides a complementary but unique perspective to traditional trait views of personality.

The part about increased agreeableness through sweets fascinates me. Do this mean you should bring sweets with you before every meeting? What does it say about someone who doesn’t like sweets? Does a preference for chocolate over hard candy indicate a different type of sweet and agreeable personality? So many questions.

(Photo credit via Flickr: Keith Macke / Creative Commons)

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Practice May Not Be Perfect

Posted on 2011/10/17 by Jason Hensel

One of my goals this year is to write more so that I can become a better writer. If I’m not writing on 750words.com, then I’m doing my best to write at least 20 minutes a day.

Why do I do this? Well, I love writing; however, I also know that practice makes perfect. Or so I thought.

Now comes along Zach Hambrick from the University of Michigan. He says that working memory capacity may be what ultimately makes a person great.

“While the specialized knowledge that accumulates through practice is the most important ingredient to reach a very high level of skill, it’s not always sufficient,” said Hambrick, associate professor of psychology. “Working memory capacity can still predict performance in complex domains such as music, chess, science and maybe even in sports that have a substantial mental component such as golf.”

Hambrick says that when someone such as Malcolm Gladwell writes that practice is what separates those who are good and great, he’s wrong.

“The evidence is quite clear: A high level of intellectual ability puts a person at a measurable advantage–and the higher the better.”

However, it’s still not known if a person can improve his general intelligence, because a lot of it based in genetics and environments.

“We hold out hope that cognitive training of some sort may produce these benefits,” Hambrick said. “But we have yet to find the magic bullet.”

Until then, I’ll keep practicing.

Which do you find makes you greater in your chosen pursuit: intelligence or practice?

(Photo credit via Flicker: Alastair McDermott / Creative Commons)

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The Value of Quitting

Posted on 2011/10/05 by Jason Hensel

I love to read books. For the longest time, I would read five books at a time, switching among each one depending on my mood. Over time, though, I felt like I wasn’t reading as much (not true) or concentrating on each book as much (somewhat true). So, I decided to force myself to read one book at a time and give it my full attention.

I’ve been satisfied with this strategy for the most part. However, when I decide to read a book and I end up not liking it after 20 or so pages, I feel terrible about wanting to give up on it. I fall into the old trap that I should finish what I started, that winners never quit.

You should embrace quitting, though. Learning when to quit can make you more successful in the long run. Here’s Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, on the upside of quitting.

So I hang out with a lot of economists. (I know, you’re envious.) But there are two things they love to talk about that will help us understand quitting. One is called “sunk cost” and the other is “opportunity cost.” “Sunk cost” is about the past — it’s the time, or money, or sweat equity that you’ve put into something, which makes it hard to abandon. “Opportunity cost” is about the future. It means that for every hour or dollar you spend on one thing, you’re giving up the opportunity to spend that hour or dollar on something else — something that might make your life better. If only you weren’t so worried about the sunk cost. If only you could quit.

The “sunk cost” is what hurts us most of the time. It’s living in the past instead of the now or the future. It’s a cause of most of our worries.

These past couple of weeks, I started three different books that looked great. Upon reading, they were real stinkers. I started to worry that maybe I was quitting too soon, that I wasn’t giving the book its due. That’s absurd on one level, because a book is an inanimate object. But it’s more absurd that I worried about quitting something that wasn’t making me happy. I found myself in a worry spiral, and the only way to get out of it was to quit.

Dubner goes on to say:

Of course it takes tremendous amounts of time and effort and, for lack of a more scientific word, stick-to-itiveness, to make any real progress in the world. But time and effort and even stick-to-itiveness are not in infinite supply. Remember the opportunity cost: every hour, every ounce of effort you spend here cannot be spent there. So let me counter Napoleon Hill’s phrase with another one, certainly not as well known. It’s something that Stella Adler, the great acting coach, used to say: Your choice is your talent. So choosing the right path, the right project, the right job or passion or religion — that’s where the treasure lies; that’s where the value lies. So if you realize that you’ve made a wrong choice — even if already you’ve sunk way too much cost into it — well, I’ve got one word to say to you, my friend. Quit.

Exactly. Why continue when you know you’re going to fail? Quit and move on to something that you know will be more successful. Myself, I started to read another book, The Harvard Psychedelic Club. It’s fun to read, interesting, and, more important, it makes me happy.

How easy is it for you to happily cut your loses and move on as quick as possible? Or do you have difficulty quitting things?

(Photo credit via Flickr: Frits Ahlefeldt-Laurvig / Creative Commons)

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