Imagen Consulting

Strategies to Help Leaders, Businesses, and Teams FOCUS and THRIVE.

Listen First, Comment Later

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When new information is introduced at the start of a meeting and opinions are held until the end, groups make smarter choices.

What could be worse than a business meeting where participants ignore the right information and make the wrong decision? Recent research reveals a simple way to reduce the chances of this unfortunate outcome. Several studies have shown that when groups fail to arrive at decisions, it’s often because they devote too much time to finding common ground rather than weighing the pros and cons of what each person is saying. Building on that notion, this paper finds that meetings are especially ineffective when attendees begin by disclosing which way they are leaning; upon voicing an opinion about a decision, people are more likely to ignore information that others introduce, even if it could potentially change their opinion or contribute to a better decision.

The authors simulated a meeting environment by inviting participants to play the role of a member of an airline hiring committee that was choosing a single pilot from among four candidates. In one set of experiments, the subjects received individual pamphlets containing partial and different information about each of the candidates. They were then split into groups. In some groups, members immediately told each other their selection; in others, they kept their choices to themselves. The groups were then handed complete dossiers on the pilot candidates, at which point it became obvious who the best person for the job was. Despite this, people in the groups that had initially shared their preferences based on the incomplete data mainly stuck to their original choices and remembered little about the information presented at their meetings, suggesting they had failed to pay much attention to details introduced after they voiced their opinions. By contrast, the groups that had been closemouthed about their favorite candidates more readily identified the best person for the job.

According to the authors, 90 percent of group discussions begin with the members disclosing their pre-meeting biases. Considering the results of their research, the authors advise managers to reduce the number of distractions that may impede group members from processing new information and to ask participants to hold their opinions until the end of a meeting.

Bottom Line: Individuals fail to process information introduced by others during meetings after their own preferences have been voiced, which hinders optimal decision making.  

Author Profile: Matt Palmquist was a founding staff writer and is currently a contributing editor at Miller-McCune magazine. Formerly, he was an award-winning feature writer for the San Francisco–based SF Weekly. // Original Material::Title: Knowing Others’ Preferences Degrades the Quality of Group Decisions (Subscription or fee required.); Authors: Andreas Mojzisch and Stefan Schulz-Hardt (both affiliated with Georg-August-University); Publisher: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 98, no.5; Date Published: May 2010

Answering Engagement Issues with Maslow

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Recently read a great interview with one of my favorite authors on company culture – Chip Conley, author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow.

One highlight: “Every survey that's been done in the U.S. tends to show money is not the primary, secondary, or third; It's fourth place on why people leave their jobs. The primary motivator of disgruntlement at work is the feeling of not being recognized. People join a company and they leave their boss, as Marcus Buckingham said. The bottom line is the ultimate motivator that says ‘I gotta to out of here’ is not that you're underpaid, it's that you feel under-respected or under-recognized. There's a lot of research that shows that. Unfortunately, the practice of management tends to not take account of that.”

Highly recommended read! Check out the rest of the interview www.fastcompany.com/1685009/chip-conley-wants-your-employees-to-hit-their-pea...">here.

[Let us help you “imagen” a thriving company culture, and then put it into action! Contact us to schedule an initial meeting.]

 

Lead with Your Time

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In the workplace, leaders are often so busy trying to keep up with their workloads and the responsibility of taking the organization forward that they fail to spend the quality time with their staff necessary to support, guide and build relationships. While the team may be profitable, over time it will lack the depth and quality necessary for long term success.

Effective leaders..

  • Appreciate the value of spending time with their team members in support, training and things not related to work.
  • Realize that their time is limited and valuable and so think about how and who they will spend their time with. Often it's the "creaky door that gets the oil" and the leaders' precious time is taken up by exceedingly needy and problematic team members. This will impact on the effectiveness of the team, as the team members who want to grow and develop can miss out on this time with their team leader.
  • Manage their time well and can say “No!” at the right time.
  • Know that for long term success it is important to find a balance between time at work and time at home. What is the value of being successful at work when all of our personal relationships are falling apart?

So, who are the people in your team (and in your family) you need to spend some more time with? How are you going to set this up so that it happens regularly? Are there people in your life that you should be spending less time with?

Quote: Rebuilding Trust

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“It is easy to trust someone who has never let us down. But if we are taking any level of risk at all there will be breakdowns, some of which will be caused by us. And rarely do we act fully alone – some breakdowns will happen because we have pushed the boundaries of what is possible given the dynamic of our existing relationships. Unless we use the inevitable breakdowns in an uncertain, rapidly changing world to learn how to trust each other more, we won’t grow to meet the challenges we face, let alone be prepared to take the risks required to do the extraordinary together.

 

“The opportunity of leveraging breakdowns in trust to fuel breakthroughs in relationship is not just a nice possibility. It is an essential skill for thriving in a world that increasingly depends on or ability to cooperate and collaborate to be successful.” - Susan Mazza

Idea - Catalyst or Controller?

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Jimmy Wales is a catalyst. As founder of Wikipedia, he has built a life and business around engaging, empowering, and collaborating with a community of people. Wikipedia takes its name from the word “wiki” (from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick") and encyclopedia (from ancient Greek meaning "the circle of arts and sciences"). Wikipedia's 15 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site. Said Wales, “I couldn’t write and encyclopedia by myself. From the very beginning, Wikipedia was a community.”

Actually, it didn’t start out that way. The venture began as Nupedia, an online English-language encyclopedia whose articles were written by experts and reviewed under a formal process. But Nupedia languished for almost a year, unable to generate compelling content and to compete with existing encyclopedia powerhouses such as Encyclopedia Britannica.

Releasing control of the tool is the thing that actually led to its success. But just because Wales is not in control doesn’t mean he’s hands-off. Jimmy is a catalyst for Wikipedia. He focuses his attention on maintaining the health and energy of the community, solving disputes, and keeping people engaged. He empowers people and gets out of the way…letting go, trusting people, and relying on others to effectively build the site. And it’s working – quick!

So, would you characterize your leadership as “catalyst” or “controller”? Is it working?

Quote: Empowering Leaders

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This is servant leadership posture at its core…quite opposite of our normal leadership paradigms.

“The leader owes the follower productive conversations about the gifts that the follower brings to the organization and about the kinds of contributions the follower wishes to make – so that tasks can be designed that give that person hope.” – Max De Pree.