Archive for September, 2009
Fences & Cages : Perspective In Contracts
Sep 29th
This past weekend I visited the Zoo. Looking at all of these animals separated from the crowds, in some cases to product the crowds from the animal (black bear/lions/vipers) and in other cases to protect the animal from the crowds. The separation prevented me from going in and it prevented them from going out. Are the animals in a cage or are the crowds? Depends somewhat on your perspective.
We’ve all heard that good fences make good neighbors. But putting your neighbor in a cage usually doesn’t turn out so well. It seems to me that the difference is one of perspective.
Fences delineate boundaries, cages indicate control. Fences strive toward a common understanding, cages strive for self protection. Fences are open, cages are closed.
Often times when we are negotiating legal contracts we start out by striving to create fences. Statements that lead to a mutual understanding of expectations. Done right, these contracts are beneficial to the relationship as they add clarity; however, it is very easy in these kind of negotiations to begin to strive for self-protection and built a cage around the other party.
This is when perspective shifts and with deleterious consequences. Rather than working toward mutual clarity, each is now competing before the relationship has even begun. And since control and trust are inversely correlated, this ultimately breaks down trust which is fundamental to having a synergistic relationship – which is usually the whole reason you started to write a contract to begin with.
Jaded Memories During Conflict
Sep 27th
Per an earlier entry on remembering things we never noticed, another place where we struggle remembering reality is during conflict. Because we as humans tend to feel and remember losses far more than we remember gains, we are far more apt to remember the negative things in a relationship rather than the positive things. Incidentally, the asymmetry between gain and loss is why it’s a really bad idea to keep looking at how your stock is doing all day long – every down will be weighed much more heavily than every up, leaving you feeling overall down even on an up day.
In relationships, there is a natural give and take. Every once in a while, especially during a conflict, it is very easy to recall all of the give-times (when we gave or sacrificed) and much more difficult to remember the take-times (when the other gave or sacrificed). We notice when we are consciously choosing to give, and therefore remember. When we receive, we are thankful in the moment but that memory does not carry as strong of a significance.
When we are in conflict and feeling emotionally negative, we find it easy to put the gives and takes on a balance and find the other party lacking. Our ability to judge this properly is construed both by the quality of our memory and the state of our emotions. Recognizing this fundamental inadequacy and help us not make conclusions in conflict that result in further conflict and ultimately further hurt the other party.
If it really is important to get the scales right on this for some reason or another, then you’re better of not relying on your own memory at all, but using some other measurement. Better though is to question whether or not a scale is really the way to solve the problem.
The Cost of a Story
Sep 26th
Since stories are inherently valuable for so many purposes, I’ve come to start looking at bad experiences as simply stories that come with a cost. Some stories are extremely expensive – having a complication in surgery, being stuck in the middle of nowhere after running out of gas and getting a flat tire.
In most of these cases you survive to tell the story, and the more harrying the experience, the more regaling the story. In this way, some of the best stories, are the most expensive to acquire. Of course, I don’t recommend collecting stories where you don’t survive. 
When times are tough, it’s good to remember not only that it won’t always be this way, but that the story you are now taking part in,will be useful to yourself and others. It’s not all bad and those who get to receive the gift of your story will thank you (unless you keep giving the same one to them over and over and over again. ).
The Power of Stories
Sep 23rd
Jose lived with his wife and children in Madrid. One morning, after a family breakfast, Jose grabbed his umbrella and left for the office. In Madrid, it rains every day and Jose had to fight his way through the wet traffic yet again.
You probably read this and thought: “Yes, and?”. If I had simply stated:
In Madrid, it rains every day.
You are more likely to object. And if you were really insistent, you might head over to a local weather site and check it out. But when information is presented in the form of a story, we simulate the information rather than question whether the facts are true. Much of this stems from the so-called Suspension of Disbelief that we enter into when enjoying a story. We all know Matt Damon is not a janitor at MIT solving extraordinarily difficult math equations, yet we put that objection aside and just enjoy the show.
This gives stories an extra ability to persuade, but also allows us to learn far more from them. For instance, firefighters tell each other stories of things they have experienced so that others can know how to respond in similar circumstances. When those circumstances arise, they can very quickly recall the story and act accordingly. This is far more effective than simply giving a set of facts to memorize.
There are people who can memorize a deck of cards in under 30 seconds and remember the order perfectly because they tell themselves a story about the cards. We remember stories, we simulate them and they become part of our experience. Ever watch a tense movie and have your adrenal glands kick in? That’s simulation. Ever have your adrenal glands kick in from watching someone read a power point presentation? Not usually (unless you managed to weave a story in your mind that gets you excited).
When we plan for the future, we plan with stories. We picture what it will look like to have this or that and what work will be required to get us there. We are hard wired for stories: both learning from them and telling them.
I think that powerful story telling is becoming a lost art in our modern culture. Partially because of the shear number of distractions in the world around us, and partially because people don’t spend the time telling stories. We waste our time on stories that carry little merit but are entertaining and ignore stories that have significance — ones we can learn from.
This gap I think provides an opportunity for us as leaders. Share your stories so that others can benefit, tell stories to help instruct others, and listen to good stories so that you can learn as well.
It won’t always be like this
Sep 21st
As I mentioned earlier, my dad recently had knee surgery and had a serious complication that resulted in an additional 2 hour surgery requiring him to have to fast (fluids and food) for 3 days while he was still forced to walk around on his new knees. It’s hard to even imagine the discomfort that he was in, the only thing I could occasionally remind him was that it won’t always feel like this and that soon he will be walking around and recovering from the pain.
When we are in a position of discomfort, what makes the discomfort unbearable is not just that we are in pain, but rather that we project our current emotional state into the future. Feeling the full weight of all of the discomfort in every moment rather than taking each moment by itself. This can be true of almost every other intense emotion as well: cravings, anger, even excitement. We see the emotion as never-ending and so pushing through this moment because even more difficult.
This perspective of discomfort jades our view of the future leading us to further worry and more pain and this can cause poor decisions that are based on shifting emotions. The best perspective, especially in extreme discomfort, is to only bear each moment on it’s own. To truly live in the present.
If you’re not presently in a position of discomfort, that won’t last either. Hard things will happen as well and have in your past. You can remember back to those difficulties, recognize how non-ending that seemed at the time, and how it is not as painful as it was. When hard things happen in the future, this can prepare you for remembering that these times past.
It won’t always feel this way.
[This post was not inspired by a current discomfort in my life, but is something that I often use to try to encourage those who are going through difficult times - and is something I remind myself about when I go through the same]
Book Worth Reading: Rapt
Sep 17th
Recently finished the book, “Rapt – Attention and the Focused Life” by Winifred Gallagher. I’ve recently been reading books on attention as I believe this will be an increasingly important theme in business and in life as the pace of change continues to accelerate.
Winifred was diagnosed with cancer and this book really is about her learning during that period, particularly as it related to where she placed her attention. At first, I thought the focus on the individual would be not as interesting, but I was wrong. The book contains a good amount of behavioral economics studies that I haven’t heard in other similar books (Outliers, Predictably Irrational, etc) and also spent a lot more time discussing the impact of what we personally pay attention to. I highly recommend reading (or listening) to this book.
One of the anecdotes/studies that the book discusses is a study that was done in the 1970’s that created a home that was decked out to the nines in 1950’s regalia. They had several older men live in this house for one week. They had physicals done both before and after and at the conclusion of the week, they were all walking taller, visibly looked younger, and were in better health.
But the book covers a wide cadre of topics from how attention affects our emotions to what we remember in a given situation. It also was a refreshing take from talking more about what others have noticed about human behavior to how we can influence the way we think about the world around us.
ATM Trustworthiness – A Caution
Sep 15th
In spite of verging on being paranoid when using ATM machines, we apparently fell victim to a recent scam either involving a fake ATM machine or possibly some form of ATM Skimming. So, my recommendation is to use ATM’s only at known banks or in trusted locations and be on guard for any tampering with the machine. Just a public service advisory – fortunately, we were able to recoup all of our losses.
[UPDATE: Here is a video of someone actually installing one of these devices]
Projecting Backward From Today
Sep 14th
I moved to India for three months back in 2004-2005. It was a great trip and I would love to return, but it is quite a bit different from the US. What I found most fascinating however, is how quickly you adapt to the changes.
When we first arrived, it was very noticeable how often they use their horn while driving (driving is more the use of sonar than of vision with writing on bumpers encouraging you to use your horn regularly — “HORN OK!”). After being there for sometime though, it seems like the normal thing to do (and the US suddenly seems extremely boring by contrast).
This process of adaptation though is not something that we notice – it just happens. As a result, when we project backward to how we felt or think about something in the past, we remember always being the way we are today.
After spending some time working in Sweden, my dad came home once and made a comment about an “ad-vert-iss-ment” (English accent). We teased him and he said, “I’ve always said ad-vert-iss-ment”. This resulted in more teasing.
But it’s easy to see how this happens, once you adapt it’s hard to remember a time when you haven’t believe what you believe today.
This should give us caution in making absolute statements about how we felt or what we thought in the past. Our thinking and beliefs continue to progress, but in ways we don’t consciously note. This should give us pause before we proclaim that we have always thought or believed something.
[Related: Created To Perceive Change]
Remembering The Non-Event : How we corrupt our own conclusions
Sep 13th
This morning, we went to go catch a cab and I remarked that when I walk to the street that has cabs, an empty one always drives by about 1 minute before I get to the corner.
Always drives by? Really? Obviously as you are walking down the street to where you catch the cab, it takes a few minutes and the chance of a cab driving by during that time is remarkably high. Even more important though: if a cab doesn’t drive by it’s unlikely to even occur to me that one did not drive by whereas when one does drive by, I think: “Dang, I just missed it”. A memorable moment.
Non-events are the things we don’t notice because they never occurred and we don’t remember things that don’t happen. So when I try to remember walking down the street and not seeing a cab drive by, I can recall many times that it has occurred and never remember a time that it hasn’t. This is one of the ways that we often corrupt our conclusions about the world around us, we remember the times that something hasn’t happened and don’t record all the times it didn’t happen.
When you’re tempted to create theories that explain the world around you or your business, it’s important to do a more scientific assessment before drawing conclusions — make notes of every experiment rather than leaping to judgments based solely on your memory.
Nickel & Dime – How To Destroy Trust
Sep 11th
I’ve recently been flying a bit and have been considering the business of nickel and diming that seems so popular with airlines these days. If the long lines for the Southwest are any indication, people are not enjoying being taken for a ride (so to speak).
Compare and contrast this with the experience of buying apps on the iPhone. With both the airline and iPhone, you are buying one thing, and then buying additional things to enhance the experience. This is why I think airlines fall into this trap. They believe that there is genuine value in checking bags, or buying softdrinks, or having a window seat, or sitting in a seat with extra leg room. In isolation, these things do add a unique value, but I think there are two major differences.
- The Implicit Expectations of Service vs. a Product
- The Transactional Cost
First, when you are selling a product, the product has clearly delineated boundaries. The product provides this and by itself is sufficient. A product can be “hired” to provide lots of different services, it’s packaging clearly labels the features it has, and one can match the “job” to the specs to decide if it will be up to the task.
A service on the other hand is hired to provide a very specific objective. Normally, this objective is defined explicitly, but has implicit expectations (i.e. provide me with a way to get me and my stuff to a new location), the subsequent “value add” charges run contrary to the expectations of the service that was purchased. It also starts to make the service feel like a con game — now that you’ve said yes to the first thing, give me more of your money. I’m required to check my bags because otherwise I can’t go home, so I’m forced to buy an “improved service” at the gate (even though I thought this was the service I was buying when I purchased my tickets – though I certainly don’t think this anymore). This, of course, seriously backfires as the following illustrates.
I was flying on Frontier back to CA and they had a storm delay that required an overnight layover in CO, but they were unable to get anyone’s bag nor compensate anyone because, after all, it wasn’t their fault. We went to go see if we might be able to get our bag, and overheard a man say in utter exasperation: “First, you make me miss a day of work and make me go find a place to house my family for the evening [which costs money]. Then, after MAKING me pay you to take my bag, you REFUSE to provide it for me for our overnight stay!” Having there be a fee, changed yet another implicit expectation, that the bags are now being handled in a special way.
Services are tricky because there are lots of expectations that are not spelled out very clearly in the business arrangement and the expectations of what they are going to get, can vary wildly from the reality of the service. I think this, in part, is why services tend to have such a horrible track record with customer interaction.
Second, there is an inherent transaction fee associated with each decision to “upgrade”. Each decision is one that you might later regret and as such gives people pause. Obviously when they mug you at the front counter to check your bags, there is not much choice, but when it comes to buying a better seat, one by the window, getting on the plane first, or watching the TV on the plane. Each is something you have to consider, leading to additional frustration that these weren’t included in the original purchase. A product on the other hand is already doing it’s job, and when you consider an “upgrade” you are deciding whether that addition is worth the price. No one is forcing you to do this, and so you more willingly decide on the things you want to spend your money on. The other ingenious thing that I think Apple does, which they probably do to save money on the Visa transaction, is bundle your weeks purchases into a single statement. This makes the small decisions all feel like a single purchase.
Expectations are critical to your customers success and trying to charge your customers for something they think they already purchased will lead to a death spiral. Trust is broken. If you are selling a service and something isn’t communicated properly up front, then provide it free and make sure you communicate better next time. If it’s a constant sticking point, find another way to extract the value you are providing.