business
Now this looks cool. Carnegie Mellon University researchers recently developed an interactive touch interface. It’s called “World Kit,” and a user can project it on to any flat service. It’s currently bulky, as you’ll see in the video; however, the researchers are working on getting it down to the size of a light bulb.
How would you use something like this in your home or business?
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Yahoo! hired Marissa Mayer as president and CEO this past summer. Before accepting the position, she was an executive at Google, a very successful company. Yahoo!, though, is experiencing some business pains. Did Mayer take the job because it would be challenging, or did Yahoo! seek her out because feminine leadership traits–such as tact and understanding–are preferred when a company is facing a crisis?
Psychological Science published a new study that answers that question and shows that it’s not the crisis positions that attract women leaders, it’s the social resources attached to the job positions.
The Association for Psychological Science has the rest of the story:
Psychological scientists Floor Rink and Janka Stoker (University of Groningen) and Michelle Ryan (University of Groningen and the University of Exeter) investigated how men and women evaluate these “glass-cliff” positions. The researchers speculated that, all else being equal, women wouldn’t be more attracted to a precarious position, but they would be more sensitive to certain aspects of the position.
Rink and her colleagues hypothesized that, following gender norms, women would be more attentive to communal aspects of precarious leadership roles, focusing on social resources, while men would attend to aspects related to authority and hierarchy, focusing on financial resources.
In the first study, Rink and colleagues asked Dutch business students to imagine working for a large company in financial crisis. They were offered a top leadership position at the hypothetical company, where they would be in charge of resolving the crisis. All of the students read a passage containing information about the social and financial resources that came with the position. One group read that they had employee support (social resources) and financial investment from management (financial resources), a second group read that they had financial investment but no employee support, and a third group read that they had employee support but no financial investment.
Comparing across genders, women generally seemed less likely than men to evaluate any of the positions positively. Yet comparing across the three scenarios, women were particularly less likely to accept the position that lacked social resources, while men were less inclined to accept the position that lacked financial resources, confirming the researchers’ hypotheses.
A second study suggests these findings may have been driven by internalized gender stereotypes about leadership. The researchers found that women viewed employee acceptance as a factor that would lead to influence, while men viewed influence as an attribute that would lead to employee acceptance.
“Since the discovery of the glass cliff, researchers and practitioners have questioned whether women are simply more likely than men to accept precarious leadership positions, thereby–albeit unintentionally–putting themselves at a disadvantage in their careers,” the researchers note. “Our findings make it clear that the glass cliff cannot be attributed to women’s failure to recognize the precariousness of glass-cliff positions.”
Taken together, the findings from the two studies suggest that societal expectations about gender and leadership play a key role in driving women’s and men’s evaluations of glass cliff positions.
The researchers argue that these findings may be useful for organizations searching for new leaders to guide them through crises.
“In order to get the right person for the right job, it is probably important for organizations to recognize which aspects of a crisis they want their future leader to solve and to give him or her the appropriate means with which to do so,” says Rink.
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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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Personally, I’m a hugger. However, most of those hugs precede handshakes. One can’t move too fast on the whole getting to know you scale. Plus, shaking hands first eases a stranger’s feelings about you. Don’t believe me? Science says so.
Beckman Institute researcher Florin Dolcos and University of Illinois postdoctoral research associate Sanda Dolcos found that “a handshake preceding social interaction enhanced the positive impact of approach and diminished the negative impact of avoidance behavior on the evaluation of social interaction.”
That makes sense. Their study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, gives scientific proof for the first time about why a handshake is important.
The study showed “increased sensitivity to approach than to avoidance behavior in amygdala and superior temporal sulcus, which were linked to a positive evaluation of approach behavior and a positive impact of handshake.” Also, the “nucleus accumbens, which is a reward processing region, showed greater activity for Handshake than for No-handshake conditions” — proving a link to “the positive effect of handshake on social evaluation.”
“Overall, our study not only replicated previous reports that identify activity in regions of the social cognition network, but also provided insight into the contribution of these regions into evaluating approach and avoidance social interactions, and grant neuroscientific support for the power of a handshake,” Sanda Dolcos said.
Florin Dolcos says that a firm, confident, and friendly handshake leads to positive feelings.
“In a business setting this is what people are expecting, and those who know these things use them,” he said. “Not a very long time ago you could get a loan based on a handshake. So it conveys something very important, very basic. Yet the science underlying this is so far behind. We knew these things intuitively but now we also have the scientific support.”
There you have it. But beware: I’m still giving you a hug when I see you next.
(Story materials and image via the Beckman Institute.)
Send to KindleJessie 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 immediately take out something to read as soon as I’m in my seat on an airplane. Knowing I have a few hours of quiet reading time makes me very happy, and because of this, I rarely talk to the people sitting next to me. For the most part, when they see me pull out a book, they don’t bother chit-chatting with me.
Today, though, on a flight to Las Vegas, a gentleman started to talk to me as I was reading. He was pleasant, and asked an easy intro question: business or pleasure? If you’re going to Vegas, that’s a reasonable question. I told him business, he followed up with other questions about what kind of business I was in, where I was staying, etc. I didn’t want to be rude, so I asked him the same type of questions. The conversation came to its natural conclusion, and I went back to reading.
During the entire trip, however, I could see him out of the corner of my eye acting very antsy, looking around the airplane’s cabin, trying to catch anyone’s eye that would talk with him. I felt bad that I wanted to read instead of conversing with this man. Then I began to wonder why I don’t like to chit-chat like that. Why do I become shy or hesitant to meet new people? Or was it the situation? Would I had been more apt to speak at length with him if we were at a party? Probably so. I think it was the location.
Getting on a plane for a trip to me is like those times when you have the toilet to yourself. It’s your alone time. You have your assigned seat with your assigned overhead light and air nozzle. Sometimes you even get your own window. I know you’re not really alone and that there will be times you have to (or want to) talk to the other passengers. But for me, it’s a time to create an imaginary bubble where I’m all alone, enjoying a good book, and the lull of an engine roaring across the sky.
(Image via Flickr: Phillip Kalantzis-Cope / Creative Commons)
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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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One of the most ridiculous parts of the job hiring process is letting a company conduct a credit check to determine if you are financially responsible. Yes, I can see how this might be a good process for a job at a bank, for example. But just because you have a good or bad credit score shouldn’t qualify or disqualify you for most jobs.
Now, there’s some research to back up my belief. In fact, people who have good credit scores are more likely rude.
In a study to be published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, researchers from Louisiana State University, Texas Tech University and Northern Illinois University focused on links between credit ratings and personalities.
“With regards to personality and credit–it makes sense that conscientiousness is related to good credit, but what was really interesting was that agreeableness was negatively related to your credit score,” said Jeremy Bernerth, assistant professor in LSU’s E. J. Ourso College of Business Rucks Department of Management. “That suggests easy-going individuals actually have worse credit scores than disagreeable and rude individuals. This suggests that agreeable individuals might get themselves in trouble by co-signing loans for friends or family or taking out additional credit cards at the suggestion of store clerks.”
The researchers also found that there’s no correlation between poor scores and bad behavior on the job.
“It was telling that poor credit scores were not correlated to theft and other deviant types of work behaviors,” said Bernerth. “Most companies attempt to justify the use of credit scores because they think such employees will end up stealing, but our research suggests that might not be the case.”
I shared this study with an HR professional. She suggested that those who score poorly could also be more naive, which is something you don’t want in the workplace.
Interesting. Would you rather have a nice and naive or disagreeable and rude employee working for or with you?
(Photo via Flickr: Richard Lemarchand / Creative Commons)
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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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