I have this friend. (Really, I swear it’s not me.) She never really had a breakup, despite the fact that she dated a lot. And dated a lot of losers. But no matter how bad the cad, she strove to end things peacefully, operating according to a simple mantra she called “keeping the door open.”

Makes sense. There’s a certain comfort that comes from knowing we have options. It mitigates risk. We’re told, after all, that keeping all one’s eggs in one basket is a bad plan. Unless one is planning on making a large omelet.

I was reminded of this after a conversation I recently had with a couple of girlfriends, discussing the post I wrote about New York Mag’s “Sex Diaries” piece, during which, one declared: “I think, for our generation, commitment is kind of like death.”

Well then.

These ideas, I’d argue to say they’re almost an indelible part of the current condition. Choice is a blessing. To commit to one is to be, at best, a fool; at worst, well, dead. Stagnated. You can be anything you want! You can do anything you want! You can Have. It. All. You don’t know how lucky you are, to live in an era marked by the number of open doors you have before you! So what kind of fool would suggest we’d be better off closing them?

Dan Ariely, for one. Check this tidy summary:

In Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, Dan Ariely suggests that there is a price to be paid for having many options. He claims that we have an irrational compulsion to keep ‘doors’ open. He suggests that we ought to shut a lot of them because they draw energy and commitment away from those that we should keep open.

Buzzkill, no? And yet. Of course it makes sense. And it’s so funny, because, in all likelihood, closing a bunch of those doors probably would go a long way to ease so many of the problems we talk about here: the pain of multitasking; the impossibility of achieving the perfect work-life balance; the angsting over the roads not traveled. (The baking of the ever-lovin cupcakes.) So why should suggesting we just stick to the path we’re on and forget about all the others be such a buzzkill?

Psychological theorizing is all well and good, of course. But does it really change anything? Does knowing that we’re making ourselves crazy make us any less crazy? But what if we took this advice to heart, if we were to just decide, once and for all: This is it! Those roads not traveled? Screw ‘em! Would that really make us feel better?

Honestly, I don’t know. But I don’t really want to find out, either. I mean, ignorance may be bliss, but it’s a bliss in which I am one hundred percent uninterested. I’ll admit, I am a product of my times, and I am happy for all those doors. No matter how crazy they make me. And, the blessing and the curse of these modern times is this: no matter how much we might buy into this idea that closing off a bunch of them would make our lives easier, no matter how much we might want to pretend that those other doors are not open to us, the fact remains: they’re there. You can’t unring this (door)bell.

And as long as they’re there, I’ll be wondering what’s going on behind each and every one of them.

Keeping up with the habit of writing blog posts on guest speakers at UNC, I will copy the following e-mail I received from the economics majors’ listserv:

Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational will discuss how the principles of behavioral economics can help us understand some of the irrationalities that influence our everyday behavior, choices that we make when it comes to pricing, the effects that expectations have on our decisions, and the factors that cause us to behave [dis]honestly.

Here is a clip of Dan Ariely’s talk on TED on the same subject.  Dan Ariely has some interesting ideas on how we make decisions, his talk promises to be very entertaining and engaging.

Dan Ariely will be speaking on Monday November 30 at 6:30 pm in Hanes Hall 120.

Well, its Thanksgiving today and that means an inevitable feast. But there are a few ways to avoid overeating. My method is by living outside the United States in Israel (though Israelis do eat the most Turkey per capita in the world). But if you find yourself at an American dinner table tonight, there are a few economic tips to help you avoid taking that extra bite.

In a great Washington Post article by Ezra Klein, he asks MIT Professor Dan Ariely how to apply (behavioral) economic principles to the dinner table. His suggestions include:

1) “Move to chopsticks!” Or if you can’t get away with that, use smaller plates and utensils.

2) Place the food “far away” so people have to get up for that extra scoop of mashed potatoes.

3) Start with a soup course or other low calorie option.

4) Limit the number of courses. As Klein explains:

Variety stimulates appetite. As evidence, Ariely brings up a study conducted on mice. A male mouse and a female mouse will soon tire of mating with each other. But put new partners into the cage, and it turns out they weren’t tired at all. They were just bored. So, too, with food. “Imagine you only had one dish,” he says. “How much could you eat?”

5) Make the food yourself:

Economists believe that the obesity epidemic is largely attributable to the rise in food we don’t make for ourselves.

There will be fewer calories available if Grandma’s stuffing isn’t supplemented with bowls of chips and cheese.

6) And if all else fails, “wear a very tight shirt.”

É no mínimo exótico pensar que o ser humano é racional ao consumir. Um colega comentou dia desses que em sua cidade existe uma concessionária onde pelo menos três vendas por mês são fechadas com o cachorro do comprador decidindo qual o carro. Ou seja, a madame solta o bichinho na loja e conta com ele como bússola para escolher o próximo possante.

Previsivelmente Irracional, de Dan Ariely, parte desse princípio. As pessoas decidem muito mais guiadas pela emoção do que pela razão. O youtube está cheio de vídeos sobre ilusões de óptica. Se a visão, o sentido mais desenvolvido no homem, é assim, imagine o tipo de erro que se comete na hora de decidir por um produto.

Se não podemos contar com racionalidade, que tal apostar na emoção? Pense por um momento nas decisões de consumo que você tomou quando estava irritado. Ou alegre. Frustrado. Após um aumento. Depois de conquistar aquela loira maravilhosa. Horas depois de tomar um fora. E por aí vai…

Ao analisar o meu comportamento, pude ver que a cada vez que fecho um novo negócio acabo me presenteando com uma refeição em um restaurante mais caro naquele dia. Quando estou meio deprê, vou malhar. Na hora da raiva, não falto as aulas de Krav Magá de jeito nenhum.

Na real, emoções parecem despertar comportamentos de consumo mais previsíveis do que a racionalidade humana, supostamente comum a todos os exemplares da espécie. O passo seguinte é bem óbvio. Nada melhor que pensar comunicação como um processo disparador de emoções que induzam a determinado de consumo. Não estou alardeando nenhuma novidade, mas constatando uma ironia curiosa.

Nunca na história desse país se falou tanto em especificação técnica. Número de pixels, espaço de armazenamento, tamanho de memória, formatos aceitos e muito mais do mesmo. No entanto, quando se fala em mp3 player, existe um aparelhinho com recursos muito inferiores há tempos dando um laço na concorrência.

O iPod mostra que uma detonação bem planejada de sentimentos e emoções como fascínio, inveja, admiração e ansiedade podem cegar qualquer consumidor, mesmo aqueles tarados por fichas técnicas. Está aí um trabalho interessante para os designers: desenhar processos capazes de ativar as emoções mais adequadas ao consumo de determinado produto.

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, in the following video, describes one of his fascinating studies on the situation of cheating.

* * *

* * *

For a sample of related Situationist posts, see “The Interior Situation of Honesty (and Dishonesty),” “The Situation of Lying,” “The Facial Obviousness of Lying,” “Cheating Doesn’t Pay . . . So Why So Much of it?,” “Dan Ariely, a Situationist,” “Dan Ariely on Cheating,”and “Unclean Hands.”

Photo by Abulic Monkey

This post is the fifth (and last) post in a series of posts I am writing on lessons about managing people from the book Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely (for more post in the series, see 1, 2, 3, 4).

In the additions to the 2nd edition Ariely added a chapter called Thoughts about the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and Its Consequences. In it he writes this:

All creatures (including humans) respond negatively in situations where things don’t seem to make sense. When the world gives us unpredictable punishments without rhyme or reason, and when we don’t have any explanation for what is happening, we become prone to something psychologists call “learned helplessness.”

Let’s think about a business environment. In your office or in your team, how much uncertainty is present? And no, I am not talking about general uncertainty which is a part of every business. I am talking about managerial uncertainty. It is a kind of uncertainty that revolves around what behaviors are expected and what will be the rewards or punishments to them. It is uncertainty about how decisions that affect people are being made.

Just think about all the times that your manager waited until the last moment to give his team the news. The last time there were rumors in the office about what is going to happen. The last time you knew something is going on, but did not understand what is going on. The last time you got a decision dictated to you without understanding why.

I wrote here a number of times that I think a leader’s job is to take care of the future. To try and dissipate the natural fear that is part of the uncertainty the future holds. But managers have to deal with uncertainty as well.

In investment theory there is a term called systematic risk. This term defines the risks of the entire market. This is differentiated from the unsystematic risk which is specific for a company or industry. What is the difference between them? You can take care of the unsystematic risk with diversification, while you cannot care of the systematic risk.

A manager cannot take care of the systematic risk. The future. It is a leader’s job. It is the leadership uncertainty. A manager is in charge with the present. And he needs to take care of the risks associated with it. Take care of managerial uncertainty.

So, how do you take care of managerial uncertainty of the present? One word. Transparency.

As managers we need to make sure that our employees do not get to a state of learned helplessness. That they understand the connection between cause and effect in the workplace. That they understand how decisions are being made. That they understand the process of management. In the legal field there is term called Procedural Justice:

The notion that fair procedures are the best guarantee for fair outcomes is a popular one. Procedural justice is concerned with making and implementing decisions according to fair processes. People feel affirmed if the procedures that are adopted treat them with respect and dignity, making it easier to accept even outcomes they do not like.

When people understand the system and the system works “the way it is supposed to”, they don’t have to live in a state of uncertainty, even if the result itself is uncertain. They don’t have negative reactions and they don’t go into a state of learned helplessness. It is time we put some transparency to work in order to deal with the managerial uncertainty.

Elad

Most of us live under the illusion that we make good decisions based on the data at hand.  The reality is it takes a long time for people to change their minds.  Even longer to change behavior.

Ralph Nader called on auto manufacturers for decades before seat belts were finally offered as standard equipment.  Once they were available it took legislation to get people to actually use them.  In the early ’80’s I remember once being ridiculed by a friend for buckling up.  He was a working class hero who snorted, “You know studies show that college educated people are far more likely to use seatbelts.”  This was supposed to be an insult.  Everyone knew it was safer to wear seatbelts, but the very idea of wanting to be safe was considered uncool in those days. In some circles it still is.

By now everyone knows it’s unsafe to use your cell phone to talk or text while driving.  Has the data changed your habits?  How about the other drivers?

Even scientists are resistant to their own data.  Many of us know doctors who smoke or who are overweight. But that’s just their personal behavior.  As with seatbelts it can take decades for life-saving ideas to be implemented. Seth Godin discussed when data and decisions collide in his blog a few days ago. He notes:

“It took Ignaz Semmelweis more than twenty years (he died before it happened, actually) to persuade doctors that washing their hands could save the lives of mothers giving birth. He had the data, he had the proof, but that wasn’t enough to change minds.”

Here is an interesting TEDtalk on the subject “Are We In Control of Our Decisions?” by Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational.

Photo by jenster181

This post is the fourth post in a series of posts I am writing on lessons about managing people from the book Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely (for more post in the series, see 1, 2, 3).

In the additions to the 2nd edition Ariely added a chapter called Reflections and Anecdotes about Some of the Chapters. In it, he describes the idea of the schedules of reinforcement, which is a term coined by the behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner. In simple terms, it means that when and how often we reinforce a behavior can have a dramatic impact on the strength and rate of the recurring appearance of that behavior. We would expect that a constant, fixed reward system will create a more recurring behavior. But what the experiments actually suggest is that variable reinforcements actually are more effective at creating a high steady rate of behavior.

And that got me thinking about how we reward and recognize employees. Do we do it once a year or once a quarter? Do we do it during a quarterly report or an annual meeting of the employees where the employee of the quarter is declared?

We know that predictable rewards are not as effective as unpredictable rewards, but still, most companies and managers stick to a schedule of predictable rewards. Why? Well, my guess is that it is just easier. As a manager, I don’t need to think and worry about my employees all the time. Does it really matter if I do in once every quarter for an hour or if I do it 30 times over the quarter for 2 minutes each time? But, the fact that it is easier does not mean that it is right (like most conventional wisdoms). We know nothing worth gaining is ever gained without effort.

A few posts ago I wrote about an important principle in feedback called – consistency. The same words could be used to describe the right approach for rewards and recognition:

Consistency – feedback should be given all the time. Not at a predetermined time once a quarter. But all along the year. This is where I disagree with Bratz. The question is not whether you had one meaningful conversation with your manager once a quarter. The question is how often during the quarter did you have meaningful conversations with your manager. Conversations that create value for you and are not done just to fill some kind of form or requirement from HR. If constructive feedback is given consistently, the answer will be all the time. And if it is done all the time, there is a high probability that we are dealing with a good boss.

How unpredictable are your rewards?

Elad

Here is an excerpt from an article Harvard Business Review’s Bronwyn Fryer posted at the Harvard Business bog. If you wish to read the complete article and/or sign up for daily alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

Is listening important? “Yes, of course,” you say. But then why would anyone pay thousands of dollars to hear someone speak, and then not listen?

I recently attended the PopTech conference in Camden, Maine, a mind-bending affair attended by several hundred idea junkies, each of whom paid several thousand dollars to (ostensibly) hear what really smart people like Daniel Goleman, Dan Ariely, and Michael Pollan had to say.

* * *

The authors — who conducted several in-depth studies on listening skills — offered some tips for what they call “efficient listening,” by which they mean that the listener doesn’t wander off onto mental side-roads while someone else is speaking. They found that “good listeners regularly engage in four mental activities, each geared to the oral discourse and taking place concurrently with that oral discourse.” Those four processes are:

1. The listener thinks ahead of the talker, trying to anticipate what the oral discourse is leading to and what conclusions will be drawn from the words spoken at the moment.

2. The listener weighs the evidence used by the talker to support the points that he makes. “Is this evidence valid?” the listener asks himself. “Is it the complete evidence?”

3. Periodically the listener reviews and mentally summarizes the points of the talk completed thus far.

4. Throughout the talk, the listener “listens between the lines” in search of meaning that is not necessarily put into spoken words. He pays attention to nonverbal communication (facial expressions, gestures, tone of voice) to see if it adds meaning to the spoken words. He asks himself, “Is the talker purposely skirting some area of the subject? Why is he doing so?”

If you wish to read the complete article and/or sign up for Harvard’s daily alerts, please visit dailyalert@email.harvardbusiness.org.

s Review’s

Related articles by Zemanta

• Is Listening an Endangered Skill? (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
• How The Record Labels Are Killing Innovative New Music Services: No Money, No Content (techdirt.com)
• Music 2.0 – The Webinar (July 31 2009) (slideshare.net)
• Brits: sign petitition to kill proposal to disconnect accused infringers from the net! (boingboing.net)
• The Future Of Conferences And Events: Critical Viewpoints From Gerd Leonhard, George Siemens And Nancy White (masternewmedia.org)

Photo by stephenhampshire

This post is the second post in a series of posts I am writing on lessons about managing people from the book Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely (for more post in the series, see here and here).

In the additions to the 2^nd edition Ariely added a chapter called Reflections and Anecdotes about Some of the Chapters. In it, he revisits chapter 4 where he discussed the differences between social norms and market norms. Just to fill in the gap, one of the main ideas of the chapter is that money changes relationships. There is a difference between the social norms (doing a favor, giving a gift and so on) and market norms (paying with cash). Cash changes the relationships and actually can de-motivate people where it is supposed to motivate them.

This is one of the examples Ariely gives:

Imagine that you work for me, and that I want to give you a year-end bonus. I offer you a choice: $1,000 in cash or an all-expenses-paid weekend in the Bahamas, which would cost me $1,000. Which option would you choose? If you are like most people who have answered this question, you would take the cash. After all, you may have already been to the Bahamas and may not have enjoyed being there very much, or maybe you’d prefer to spend a weekend at a resort closer to home and use the remainder of the bonus money to buy a new iPod. In either case, you think that you can best decide for yourself how to spend the money.

Ariely claims, due to the effect of market and social norms, that giving the employee no choice, thus giving him the vacation, will make the employee happier:

I suspect that both your and my best interests would be better served if I simply didn’t offer you a choice and just sent you on the Bahamas vacation. Consider how much more relaxed and refreshed you would feel, and how well you would perform, after a relaxing weekend of sun and sand, compared with how you would feel and behave after you got the $1,000 bonus. Which would help you feel more committed to your job, more enjoyment in your work, more dedication to your boss? Which gift would make you more likely to stay long hours one night to meet an important deadline? On all of these, the vacation beats the cash hands down.

While I agree with the comparison between the cash reward and the none-cash reward (and there is a lot of empirical evidence in the book about that), I have a problem accepting the assertion that giving no choice at all is always better. As Ariely mentions himself, the employee might not want the Bahamas trip. Do we really want to give the employee a vacation he does not want? I am not sure that Ariely meant to say that we should not offer a choice between a number of none cash rewards, but the way this paragraph is phrased, definitely suggests that.

Now, while I know there is not only a problem with monetary rewards (cash), but also a problem with too many choices, I still think that an employee will be happiest if he receives a reward that he actually wants (and I know that sometimes people don’t know what they want). I will admit that my assertion is not backed up by empirical evidence and only by my own limited experience and by what I learned and read, but the mere fact that people are different must make us realize that different rewards will work differently on different people. So, while we need to realize the dangers of cash, we should also remember that the best way to motivate our employees is to understand them and what makes them tick and give them the ability to choose what is best for them.

Elad

Photo by QueenNeveen

This post is the second post in a series of posts I am writing about lessons about managing people from the book Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely (for the first post in the series, see here). This time I want discuss chapter 5.

Chapter 5 is called the influence of arousal – why hot is much hotter than we realize. In short, it describes the effect that feelings and extreme emotions have on our decision making processes. It is like each and every one of us contains a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. A rational, calculating persona and an emotional, less sophisticated side. And it happens to us all the time even we are not aware of the effects. And when you are dealing and managing people, you are prone to a constant state of varying emotions.

For me, I think the most important lesson from reading this chapter is a two part lesson – wait and re-evaluate

Wait – Let’s say something happens. For example, a peer or an employee makes a mistake or sends you an e-mail that you feel is wrong (to use the nice term). You are angry and you want to instantly write back to him an angry e-mail. You write a wonderful e-mail explaining his entire family history and how it pertains to the current situation. And you hit send. And then, a few minutes after that, you calm down. And you think about it. Actually, he is right. He might not entirely accurate, but if you think about it from his perspective, you can understand why he said what he said. And after the apologies (assuming he forgives you) you talk to him and understand that the problem was in how you explained things to begin with.

Have you been there? I have. The solution – if something in your everyday work makes you feel a particular emotion, just stop. Wait a few minutes. Wait a few hours. Re-examine the situation and then make the decision.

Re-evaluate – there are some decisions that we know are important. And still, we make them in different states of emotions. This rule is not practical in all situations, but if you have the opportunity, make the decision twice. I first came across the advice while reading Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui book Billion Dollar Lessons and manifesto Let’s Get Persian:

Herodotus, the Greek historian, reported that the ancient Persians always made important decisions twice—first when they were drunk, and then again when they were sober. Only if the Persians reached the same decision, drunk and sober, would they act on that decision. The approach apparently worked—the Persians dominated the much of the Middle East and Central Asia for three centuries.

They talk about it in terms of how to create dissent and overcome groupthink, but I think it is applicable to inter-personal communication as well.

Ariely mentions in his book that “Looking from one emotional state to another is difficult”. To use his analogy even further, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde don’t really communicate. The decision Mr. Hyde makes under the enhanced state of emotions seems completely rational to him. But when Dr. Jekyll re-evaluates the same decision, he will understand how irrational it is. We need to create this communication between the sides and allow them to discuss the rationality. Sometimes, the decision would not change. Sometimes it will. But at least you will have some kind of assurance that it was made (hopefully) more rationally and that it will be fairer to your peers or employees.

Elad

Hello everyone! Hisashiburi (long-time-no-see)!

I have been meaning to share with you guys a website that I truly like, and since I am a little caught up with my thesis/lab work, I think this is the best time to introduce it.

Have any of you heard of a website called TED? Basically it is a website where you can enjoy talks from famous creative people in past TED conferences held each year. They are not merely famous, but they have GREAT IDEAS. Ideas worth sharing, as their motto says. What is interesting is that they invite experts from all types of fields, from psychology to music, from religion to biology.

Try and check it out. I am sure you will enjoy at least some of videos featured inside, especially if you are an IDEA LOVER (don’t know if that makes any sense!). And I don’t get any commission by introducing this website, by the way. Of course, you don’t have to watch all the videos at once, but at least you have an alternative to go to whenever you get frustrated that I haven’t updated my blog!

You can search for yourself some good talks in there, but if you want a quick sneak peek at some of the ‘good ones’, here are a few speakers which made my list:

1 ) John Francis walks the earth (About earth and the environment. Hear his story of not talking for 17 years!)

2 ) Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce (On consumer psychology)

3 ) Robert Full: Learning from the gecko’s tail (On learning about how nature works)

4 ) Dan Ariely asks, are we in control of our own decisions? (On our own psychological irrationality)

5 ) Woody Norris invents amazing things (On some cool inventions)

6 ) Ken Robinson says school kills creativity (Lookng at school education from another point of view)

7  ) Rory Sutherland: Life lessons from an ad man (On how we see things makes all the difference)

8 ) David Pogue says “Simplicity sells” (On intelligent design)

9 ) Tony Robbins asks why we do what we do (On human psychology)

…and much more!

Welcome to TED, haven for idea lovers.

P.S.: If there are any others that you like, feel free to share it with us!

-y4ku24 l0v35 T3D-

Será que quando lemos uma crítica negativa sobre um filme, isso afeta nossa percepção final sobre ele depois de assistir?

Algumas experiências realizados por Dan Ariely e descritos em seu livro “Previsivelmente Irracional” nos dizem que sim, nossa mente obtém aquilo que espera. O poder de nossas expectivas são maiores do que pensamos.

“Quando acreditamos de antemão que algo será bom, por conseguinte, em geral será bom (e quando achamos que será ruim, será ruim). Mas qual seria a profundidade dessas influências? Elas alteram só nossas convicções, ou também alteram a fisiologia da própria experiência?”

Quem lembra do “Desafio Pepsi”? Onde em um comercial as pessoas participavam de um teste cego que comparava Coca-cola com Pepsi e no final as pessoas diziam preferir Pepsi. Em seguida a Coca-cola lançou o seu comercial que proclamava que as pessoas em um teste preferiram a Coca. O que houve? Manipulação de dados?

A resposta está em como foram feitos os testes. O desafio Pepsi era um teste cego, sem influência da marca, e no teste da Coca-cola, as pessoas viam o refrigerante que estavam bebendo, e isso fez TODA a diferença.

Para entender melhor essa diferença de resultados, um grupo de neurocientistas realizaram um teste com ajuda de uma máquina de ressonância magnética, que permita o monitoramento das atividades cerebrais nos momentos de consumo do refrigerante. Detectou que a ativação do cérebro dos participantes diferia se o nome da bebida fosse revelado ou não. A reação do cérebro em relação ao sabor (essencialmente açúcar) revelou-se igual para os dois. Porém, a vantagem da Coca-cola devia-se à marca, que quando mostrada antes do consumo, ativava mecanismos cerebrais de ordem mais alta, diretamente relacionados com o centro do prazer.

A presença visual da marca Coca-cola nos testes criava uma expectativa positiva, portanto uma experiência mais agradável.

Isso explica também, o porque pessoas com experiências diferentes enxergam o mesmo fato de formas completamente opostas. Como por exemplo, um lance em um jogo de futebol, foi pênalti ou não foi? Depende do time que vc torce.

Sim, suas experiências anteriores, como torcer para determinado time, distorcerão sua maneira de enxergar a situação.

The last few days I have been reading the book Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely. It describes many experiments done over the years that illustrate how people behave in irrational ways when we – and when I say we I mean traditional economics – expect them to act like rational people. While I don’t agree with some of the conclusions Ariely makes in his book, I find the questions fascinating. Thus, I am going to dedicate my next few posts to relevant lessons for managing people the book.

Chapter 4 of the book is called: “the cost of social norms – why we are happy to do things, but not when we are paid to do them”. In it, Ariely describes a number of experiments that show how when people are paid to do things, they do them with less enthusiasm and effectiveness. It reminded me of the above fascinating TED talk by Dan Pink that talks about similar experiments that led to similar (but a little different) conclusions. Both Ariely and Pink conclude that we need to rethink the effectiveness of money as a motivator for work.

So, is money being the best motivator another conventional wisdom that needs breaking.  Well, I will let my past as lawyer get the better of me and say – yes and no.

Yes, because we need to realize that the world is changing. That some things that we thought were true are not true anymore. There is a growing tendency of people to seek out work that not only gives them money, but also gives them joy, a sense of impact and work life balance. People look to use their strengths more and attempt to reach a state of flow. And we need to understand that money creates problems, because it is easy to compare (link in Hebrew). I would direct you to Ariely’s first chapter in the book about relativity.

But the answer is also no. in some situations, monetary rewards work. And when we think about these experiments we need to remember a few things. First, the experiments described in Ariley’s book and in Pink’s lecture are experiments, done in a lab, on students and not in a real work environment. Real life is different and we need to be careful in applying the lessons learned in the lab without thinking about the differences between students in the lab and real life work environment. Second, these experiments are social science experiments. They don’t have one result. They check for averages. And averages are sometimes dangerous. The experiments show trends. They show tendencies. But they don’t show how all people behave in all situations. And we know that monetary rewards do work in certain circumstances. As Paul Hebert from I2I explains, although there are some accurate things in Dan Pinks’s lecture, we must be careful when taking it as saying all monetary rewards are bad. Below is his presentation on how to look at incentive reward strategies within the context of how business operates:

From all the theories of motivation I encountered to date, the one I like the most is Vroom’s expectancy theory.  The reason I like it so much is that it talks about personalization. About understanding each employee specific motivation and about customizing the right rewards, invectives, and recognition, in order to motivate him. And I think this is the most important lesson from the science and experiments. We should be careful from applying one approach. We should doubt and check if what we are doing actually works. And the most important thing of all, we should not assume what motivates people, we should find out.

Elad

Ontem, fui a uma pesquisa. Quali, de animatic, para dar nome e sobrenome, dessas em que a gente testa comerciais antes que eles sejam produzidos.

Sim, é isso mesmo que vc entendeu.

Como não contamos com a qualidade técnica de um comercial filmado, mostramos um desenho (mal) animado e pedimos que os pesquisados criem mentalmente um filme, com os atores de sua preferência. Como não podemos reproduzir a naturalidade e o conforto de se assistir um comercial no sofá de casa, batemos um papo com o consumidor na sala de pesquisa, servimos coxinha e contamos piadinhas para ele relaxar.

Elas assistiram uma única vez, em trinta segundos, trinta e pouquinhos, para não ser injusto. Em seguida, pedimos seus vereditos.

Depois de ler o Dan Ariely, já é difícil acreditar em qualis e quantis. Mas quali de animatic é sacanagem. É de uma insegurança que constrange.

Via Alphen

As marketers, the holy grail of any survey method or model would have to be something that could help us predict how a targeted audience would react given a particular offer.   Conjoint Analysis and its ability to flush out the offering-price combination that a given demographic would choose has always been a favorite tool for developing irresistible offerings.  Then there’s the recent focus on fMRI work as described by Martin Lindstrom in his business best seller “Buyology,” where he outlines the peculiarity with which our brains are wired and driven by deeply ingrained emotional drivers.  Or how about Dan Ariely, the brilliant economist who studies our tendency for irrational decision making?

Well, if the models I’ve mentioned above aren’t enough for you, now there is something called a “TRAITS” model that’s been introduced by a couple of professors from Duke University, Scott De Marchi and James T. Hamilton.

The TRAITS model stands for six attributes that these two social scientists uncovered as part of their studies around why people choose to do what they do and how they choose to do what they do.  They’ve written a new book about it called “You are What You Choose: The Habits of Mind That Really Determine How We Make Decisions.”

The six TRAITS attributes are:

1. Time: Do you have a shorter term view or a longer-term view of life?  Scoring high on the “Time” trait means that you forgo short-term gain for long-term value.
2. Risk:   A lower score on the risk attribute means that you are more risk averse, while a higher score means that you can tolerate more risk.
3. Altruism: To what degree are your decisions driven by your focus on the welfare of others?  A low score means that you may simply have a lack of action or low interest in charitable activities and a high score means that you are “other centered.”
4. Information:  If you are an information junkie, then you probably score high in information.  A lower score means that you do not seek out as much information to drive your decision-making.
5. MeToo:  A high score on this attribute puts you in a sort of “status-seeker” category.   Think in terms of “keeping up with the Jones’.”  A low score means that you are more individualistic about your choices and not so influenced by what others are doing or not doing.
6. Stickiness:  This attribute measures what role loyalty plays in how you decide.  A high score in this area points to being loyal to a brand or value while a low score means that you can switch easily to an alternative.  Think about being in a restaurant and having the waitress as “Is Pepsi ok?”  If you score high on Stickiness and love Coke, you might answer “NO!  Get me a Coke!”

What’s Your TRAITS profile?

Start your profile here: http://traits.time.questionpro.com.   At the end of each set of 5 questions, you will be re-directed to a “spotlight report” where you can see how your answers compare with other readers’.  Be sure to scroll down to the bottom to see your score for each attribute.  You might want to print or save each spotlight report for future reference.  If you have problems, you can take each of the TRAITS profiles separately: TIME, RISK, ALTUISM, INFORMATION, meTOO, STICKINESS.

The real power behind these TRAITS is in your ability to literally segment your markets and design your messages around what’s really important to these people.  Use these TRAITS as an enhancement to your existing demographics and watch your marketing results improve.

About the Author: Ivana Taylor is CEO of Third Force, a strategic firm that helps small businesses get and keep their ideal customer.  She’s the co-author of the book “Excel for Marketing Managers” and proprietor of DIYMarketers, a site for in-house marketers.  Her blog is Strategy Stew.

Recepta jest prosta. Otoczyć się ludźmi mniej obdarzonymi urodą, biedniejszymi, niższymi, nieszczęśliwie zamężnymi z nieznośnymi dzieciarami. Naturalną rzeczą jest porównywanie się do innych. A samo to porównanie i kontrast poprawi ci nastrój. Tak przynajmniej zażartował sobie Dan Ariely, profesor Behavioral Economics na MIT, autor bestsellerowej książki ‘Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions‘ podsumowując badania jakie na zlecenie Magazynu Time (100 people of 2009) przeprowadził Nicholas Christakis.

Nicholas Christakis, 47, fizyk i socjolog na Uniwersytecie Harvarda, podważa tę opinię, oczywiście. Bazując na danych z badań przeprowadzonych na 5.000 osób przez okres ponad 20 lat sugeruje, że szczęściem, podobnie jak grypą, można się zarazić jedna osoba od drugiej.
Kiedy ludzie nam bliscy, zarówno ci z nami spowinowaceni czy też pokrewni duchowo, stają się szczęśliwsi, nasz stan również się poprawia. Dla przykładu: jeśli osoba żyjąca w promieniu 2 km staje się szczęśliwsza, prawdopodobieństwo, że dobry przyjaciel tej osoby również będzie szczęśliwszy wzrasta o 15%. Jeszcze bardziej zadziwiające jest, że efekt ten może przenikać pierwszy szereg bezpośredniej znajomości i wpływać na osoby będące na 3 poziomie separacji, czyli gdy przyjaciel przyjaciela staje się szczęśliwszy, my stajemy się szczęśliwsi, nawet jeśli nie znamy tej pierwszej osoby bezpośrednio.
Oznacza to, że otaczanie się osobami szczęśliwymi uczyni nas szczęśliwymi, sprawi, że nasi najbliżsi staną się szczęśliwsi i sprawią, że osoby wokół nich będą bardziej szczęśliwe. Uf… Cóż za sielanka.

Ale obraz ten burzy fakt, że sieci społeczne i relacje w nich przekazują nie tylko szczęście i pozytywne rzeczy. Christakis wykazał w swoich badaniach, że na przykład palenie i otyłość mogą być również społecznie zaraźliwe.
Jeśli uznacie jego teorię za prawdziwą, powiedzenie Z kim przystajesz, takim się stajesz nabiera o wiele głębszego znaczenia.

źródło: Dan Ariely, Time Magazine,

Zobacz również:

Przebojowe wystąpienie Dana na tegorocznym TED gdzie zadaje pytanie czy kontrolujemy swoje własne decyzje. To jeden z najlepszych mówców znanych na całym świecie spotkań TED.

Imagine you are at your son or daughter’s play with a distracting hankering for a piece of chocolate. After much internal debate, you decide to satisfy your sweet tooth by allowing yourself exactly one piece of chocolate. In the lobby, students are offering two options–a Lindt Truffle for $0.14 or a Hershey Kiss for $0.00. Which do you choose? How much does price factor into your decision? Thanks to the research of behavioral economist Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational, we can put a bit of concrete data to this scenario…

A couple of years back Ariely and his team set up a table in front of a public building to sell chocolate at various price points to test how price impacts consumer behavior. In their first experiment they charged the following and got the following responses:

• Lindt truffles:0.15 (73% of customers chose this option)
• Hershey’s kisses:0.01 (37% of customers chose this      option)

In the battle of quality versus price, it appears that “quality” won out. Now, in the second experiment they discounted each option by a penny:

• Lindt truffles:0.14 (31% of customers chose this option)
• Hershey’s kisses:0.00 (69% of customers chose this option)

From the first experiment we can see that Lindt is clearly the preferred brand of chocolate. Even when Ariely and company priced truffles at 26 cents and Kisses at a penny in subsequent experiments, Lindt still won out. Yet, the moment FREE! was introduced into the equation, Kisses won the battle of consumer choice by a landslide. Why? Ariely writes, “Zero is not just another discount. Zero is a different place. The difference between two cents and one cent is small, but the difference between one cent and zero is huge!” Moving back to our school play… Which will you choose, the relatively “expensive” Lindt Truffle or the free Hershey Kiss? Now, what if you have the option of a Lindt Truffle ($0.14), a Hershey Kiss ($0.00) or a piece of your neighbor’s infamous triple chocolate fudge ($0.00)? FREE! fudge sounds quite lovely, doesn’t it? Especially knowing that your neighbor has been cooking fudge for years and is a real expert in the realm of chocolate… Getting hungry?

Where am I going with this? Well, for the past four years the organization I direct, Curriki, has provided access to tens of thousands of lessons, units and learning objects to people across the globe free of charge via the Web. With nearly 90,000 registered members of our site, we know Curriki is providing a valuable service to educators in need of the right lesson at the right time and at the right price point for their classrooms.

Now to date, that price has been FREE!, but as Curriki aims to sustain itself over the next ten years and beyond, we are wondering if our pricing structure and product are in need of a revision.

The content on Curriki is not the expensive and polished Lindt chocolate that the major textbook and supplemental providers represent. Nor are we the lower grade but wildly abundant “edutainment” web sites that share the same instructional value as a Hershey’s Kiss. Instead, Curriki is that rich, time-tested fudge that your neighbor makes. Like the fudge, the quality of the educational resources on Curriki is the product of years of experience. What is exciting about Curriki is that it leverages the collective experience of educators around the world, giving them a place to share ideas, content and best practices. By harnessing all of this institutional knowledge, Curriki is inverting the publishing paradigm. Rather than relying on publishers to create content, Curriki empowers classroom teachers to build and share their best work.

We believe that breadth, depth and the classroom tested nature of the resources on Curriki give them substantial value. As Curriki now explores creative ways to sustain itself and find the right product/market fit, we again need the input of the education community. Teachers, administrators and parents, help us out by responding in the comments section below!

• In light of the financial pressure that most schools are under, how comfortable are you moving from a polished textbook to a repository of teacher-created content?
• What does high-quality educational content mean to you? Has it been tested? Is it comprehensive? Is it research-based? Is it problem-focused? Is it aligned to standards and learning objectives?
• Does the price tag on a piece of content impact your perception of its quality? Does an expensive textbook feel of higher quality than FREE! teacher-created content?

As Ariely states in Predictably Irrational, “Most people don’t know what they want unless they see it in context”. Given the context above, share your thoughts with us! Are you excited by a world with abundant teacher created, classroom-tested curricula? If so, what value (or “price”) would you give for its access? If that value is greater that $0.00, why not take a moment to promote Curriki and the sharing of content internationally!

Barbara Kurshan

Executive Director, Curriki

P.S. Still thinking about chocolate? Check out this excellent teacher-created unit on the history and science of chocolate courtesy of Curriki member Sarah Wostbrock.

This blog was originally featured in the Huffington Post Technology Section on October 19, 2009.