idealawg

Is someone in your firm blaming others for his or her actions? Beware of blame contagion

The media are giving a fair amount of attention to this recent research article entitled "Blame contagion: The automatic transmission of self-serving attributions" (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology) [pdf]. Here's the abstract:

When people blame others for their mistakes, they learn less and perform worse. This problem is magnified when blame becomes embedded in the shared culture of groups and organizations. Yet, little is known about whether—and, if so, how—the propensity to blame spreads from one person to another. Four experiments addressed this issue, demonstrating that blame is socially contagious: observing an individual make a blame attribution increased the likelihood that people would make subsequent blame attributions for their own, unrelated, failures (Experiments 1, 2, and 4). Results also indicated that this ‘‘blame contagion” is due to the transmission of goals. Blame exposure led to the inference and adoption of a self-image protection goal (Experiment 3), and blame contagion was eliminated when observers had the opportunity to alleviate this self-image protection goal via self-affirmation (Experiment 4). ...

You may find of interest other articles linked to here by the co-author of this article. For example: "When the Boss Feels Inadequate: Power, Incompetence, and Aggression" (Psychological Science) [pdf].

Chaos, Complexity, and Public Policy: Excellent interview of Irene Sanders

This very informative and interesting interview was done by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Click to watch "Chaos, Complexity, and Public Policy." (For those of you tuning in after November, the Sanders interview is Episode #2206.)

Click to read my interview of Irene Sanders from 2006.

Stress reduction may not be of interest to lawyers

The employee program is called SIY (Search Inside Yourself). The goal is bringing mindfulness to the people working at Google. Click "Google Searches" (Shambala Sun) [pdf] to learn about SIY.

I was particularly interested to read that stress reduction, one benefit of mindfulness, was not of much interest to the Google employees. From the article:

[Program founder] Meng’s fIrst foray into marrying meditation and google was mindfulness-based stress reduction, but it didn’t attract much attention. “Stress reduction didn’t really fly here,” ... . The hiring process at Google, Meng pointed out, is designed to draw out high achievers and idealists who have done something a little different, like hiking in Patagonia or going to war-torn areas to help children. “For high achievers, stress can be a badge of honor, and not many people will sign on for stress reduction, particularly those who need it the most. So I needed to go beyond stress reduction.

From my experience, I believe this is true of many lawyers, too. As I have written in the past, I fully support lawyers who find stress and hard work badges of honor; the choices are individual and for each lawyer to make for him- or herself. For the lawyers to whom stress reduction is not a benefit, the increased focus and clarity of attention that mindfulness brings are often appealing.

Blog Glob: Are You Ready to Manage Five Generations of Workers?

Excerpt:

The chart below shows that Baby Boomers will cede the majority of the workforce by 2015 to the Millennials. (Due to their smaller size, Gen X will never have the majority spot in the workplace — and so in essence, we will have skipped an entire generation by 2015.) When you consider the changes in the amount of knowledge available at our fingertips, the advent of social technologies, and the expansion of the global economy over those two generations, a workplace chasm could be emerging. What will this mean for how employers attract, develop and engage employees across multiple generations?

Click to read the rest of Are You Ready to Manage Five Generations of Workers? (Harvard Business Publishing blog).

Is positive thinking dangerous? Did it cause the financial crisis?

A new book is getting a lot of media attention. For example, just today Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America was reviewed by the Boston Globe and Times (UK). Friday it was reviewed by the New York Times. The publicity seems to be working; the book is at #154 on Amazon even though not being released until Tuesday.

The articles today both had "danger" in the titles. Is positive thinking dangerous? From "Accentuating the positive can be dangerous— what really helps is being lucky" (Times):

An attack on the cult of positivity is much overdue, given that it now pervades life not only in the US but across the globe. It is detectable in everything from political discourse, for example Obama’s campaign of “hope” and the consistent reluctance of British political parties to give the public bad news, to television and radio (Oprah probably being its most famous proponent), sport (it’s impossible to read an interview with any player or manager without the phrase “you’ve got to be positive” being used at some point), medicine (“you’ve got to be positive” has become the default thing to say to anyone diagnosed with cancer), self-help literature (Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret argues you can obtain everything from a lover to a parking space by just imagining it) and business (according to Ehrenreich, who had the idea

ACR Annual Conference & Summit on Workplace Conflict Resolution

The Association for Conflict Resolution is holding its annual conference in Atlanta from October 7 through 10. More about the event here. Its title is "Convening 'Whole of Community': Integrating Approaches and Practices to Address Conflicts in a Chaotic World." Whew! What a mouthful!

Also on October 7 in Atlanta will be a day-long program on workplace conflict resolution. Its title is "Conflict Competent Strategies in Challenging Organizational Times." More here. Here's a short podcast on which the organizers of the October 7 event are interviewed.

New article: "Managing with the Brain in Mind"

The new edition of strategy+business includes an article on the brain and business management. The author David Rock looks at several factors: inclusion, status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. Click to read "Managing with the Brain in Mind." Click to see all the articles in this edition.

Review of new book Management Rewired and some words about our stubborn brain

Here's a review of another book I have in my possession that sits unread. Near my pile of books, I have a coffee mug with this emblazoned on it: "so many books ... so little time." That's how I feel so I'm always grateful for book reviews in order to help prioritize all my unopened books.

Here one from strategy+business of the book Management Rewired: Why Feedback Doesn't Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science. From "Books in Brief: Storytelling’s Value for Management":

[W]e don’t record an external reality so much as we create it, making multiple drafts as we try to fit it into coherent patterns. The drafts that survive determine what we notice and what we accept, what we ignore and what we reject. And we hold on to these drafts with great tenacity, resisting external efforts to change them. As a result, management actions based on Newtonian dynamics have perverse outcomes. Rewards may be seen as punishments, and vice versa, because people continually use deeper contexts to interpret them. Extrinsic rewards, as well as incentives, may undermine commitment because they trivialize the behaviors they are designed to encourage.

I certainly appreciate those first three sentences; that's part of what I teach about the brain. Nicely put!

Millennials on the football field: Prima donnas? Divas?

Former Broncos general manager Ted Sundquist has researched the self-absorbed football player. From "Marshall plays a position caught up in controversy" (Denver Post):

Sundquist has studied the characteristics of the Millennial Generation and says it would behoove the NFL and its 32 teams to do the same.

"I'm not saying either side is right or wrong, or you have to change your standards," Sundquist said. "I do think the league and the clubs would be better off if they understand they're dealing with a player from a different generation. You may have to change your approach in the way you're dealing with this generation of athletes."

The Millennials, also known as Generation Y, were born between 1980 and 1999, give or take. They are offspring of the baby boomers. That means this generation began with people who are now 29, or roughly the median age of an NFL player.

To generalize, baby boomers were spanked by their parents; Millennials were sent to a timeout. Millennials are also referred to as "Trophy Kids." Meaning that regardless of whether they won or lost their youth games, "soccer moms" made sure they were rewarded for their effort with a snack after each game, and trophy after each season.

...

Understanding this generation, Sundquist concludes, would help the NFL better communicate with today's athletes.

Blog Glob: The Mindset of a Problem-Finder - Knowledge@Wharton

Excerpt:

Emory University professors Roderick Gilkey and Clint Kilts have argued that seeking novel experiences helps keep the brain sharp. They explain: "The more things you learn, the better you become at learning. Actively engaging in novel, challenging activities capitalizes on your capacity for neuroplasticity -- the ability of your brain to reorganize itself adaptively and enhance its performance." Problem-finding requires an ability to cope with ambiguity and to sort through seemingly contradictory signals at times. It requires a capacity to make sense of messy situations and a willingness to look at familiar situations from a different perspective. Novel learning experiences often provide us new conceptual models of how to think about a familiar situation as well as new frames of reference. Novel experience can shake our entrenched assumptions. A curious mind that enjoys learning new things may be a problem-finder's most valuable asset.

Successful problem-finders not only exhibit a curious mindset, but they also embrace systemic thinking. They recognize that small problems often do not occur due to the negligence or misconduct of an individual. Instead, small errors frequently serve as indicators of broader systemic issues in