Real Case Stories

Our sense of sound, sight, touch, taste, self-motion, and smell don't work independently. Professor Charles Spence  of Oxford University has conclusively proved the intimate connection between our senses. He is, in fact, a leader in the field of Senseploration - the investigation of how our senses mingle and interconnect.  Marketing departments and product-design agencies have increasingly started using Spence's findings. In 2006, the FMCG giant Unilever commissioned a study to find whether volume and pitch of the sound from an aerosol affected a person's perception of the pleasantness or forcefulness of the deodorant inside. Based on the findings, the company invested in a packaging redesign for Axe deodorant , complete with new nozzle technology. The underarm spray, which is targeted at young men, now sounds noticeably louder than the company’s gentler, female-targeted Dove brand See how you score on this sensory test ! Source: Accounting f...

When we look at a scene, our eyes move around quickly, 70 to 100 times a second , locating anything noteworthy.  This visual input is translated into a mental memory map by our brains. These quick eye movements are called saccades .  Saccadic movement is what causes Change Blindness :  a perceptual phenomenon that occurs when humans  fail to detect seemingly obvious changes to scenes around them .  Example of images that can be used in a change blindness task As a result when we see we unconsciously focus on areas that our evolutionary biases deem important (often anything moving fast , anything that looks like a living thing that may be a potential friend or foe). The brain automatically fills in the rest of the details from its memory map — often disregarding details that it thinks it has seen before.  "The Door Study" a 1998 study by Daniel Simons and Daniel Levin is the one of the most popular study to demonstrate how change b...

This Forbes Etiquette guide video shows you how to Work a Room and network with strangers Some key points being Talk to 3 new people Learn 2 new pieces of information Be a lone ranger comment on the venue/food/program

This HBR video explains how Management teams can have a good productive debate and fight to get positive outcomes Teams that worked best embraced conflicts It highlights 6 points 1. Work with more rather than less information. A healthy supply of information can switch the focus from guesses & personal opinions to a debate on hard facts. 2.Enrich the debate with multiple options. Having only 2 options can split the groups into 2 teams. Teams that have multiple options can expend their energies then into coming up with creative solutions 3. Establish common goals 4. Inject Humour. It releases tension and promotes collaboration. 5. Maintain a balanced corporate power structure. 6. Resolve issues without forcing a consensus

What is the effect of color on our Behavior? The Australian government hired a research agency to find out what is the world's ugliest color and they came up with Pantone 448C.  The purpose of this activity was to color cigarette products with this colour to dissuade people from smoking. Check this video below

Why is Feedback only synonymous with Negative? Why do we give only Negative Feedback? It's very common to see people get very defensive when someone gives a feedback which is perceived as Negative. One tends to lockdown and get into a counter offensive mode whenever such feedback is given. This very often results in promoting a culture where people don't openly discuss issues. This author,Sonia Di Maulo  proposes a 3+1 feedback model. For every One opportunity for improvement, 3 positives need to be highlighted first. They key to the 3 positives is It builds Trust and Collaboration It increases engagement

Anthony Schuman , a health services researcher, has published a paper on Human relationships. Through his teaching and writing (more than 90 articles and book chapters and the book “Partnerships in Healthcare: Transforming Relational Process”) he has become a leading proponent of a partnership-based clinical approach known as Relationship-Centered Care. His work focuses on organizational change and how people can work together more effectively across all levels of healthcare. When people disagree at work, it is often misinterpreted as a personal attack. The standard reaction is that " If you like my idea, you like me, if not, you don't like me"  src HBR Suchman recommends using a series of Relationship building statements represented in the Acronym  PEARLS. src WSU.edu Partnership             We’ll see this through together             I really want to work o...

In their book "How Google Works" Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg speak about the Google work culture. Google encourages people to stay longer in office and keep them in cramped quarters. In order to do this they have free food, games on campus, bring your family to work and an open cluttered and cramped office where people are in close proximity to each other. This constant interaction with people in the office brings out new ideas, breaks communication barriers and keeps the flow of information which is difficult in the case of a work from home environment. A very good example cited in the book is that Google's Adsense product which developed into a multibillion dollar business was invented by a group of engineers from different teams who were playing pool in the office. Read the book

Amazon's Jeff Bezos is of the view that too much Communication is really a bad thing.  This WSJ article quotes an Amazon executive who says that during an offsite when some employees suggested that there should be more communication in the organisation, Bezos declared that "No, Communication is terrible" Bezos preferred a decentralized company where independent thinking prevails over Grouthink. In order to achieve this, he implemented a company wide policy, the concept of the "2 Pizza team". Any team should be small enough that it could be fed with 2 pizzas. Small teams generally tend to function like families, fighting, bickering but eventually getting the work done. Larger teams tend to be more political. Source: Birth of a Salesman, WSJ article by Richard L. Brandt

In this HBR article  , the author talks about using Structured Debates as a technique to eliminate Groupthink. One strategy that can significantly help teams avoid the dangers of Groupthink and successfully respond to emerging threats and opportunities is to create structured debates. This is done by randomly assigning different team members to argue opposing points of view. Structured debates can provide an opportunity to rigorously discuss and dispute interpretations of current trends, as well as future predictions, in a kind of organizational “safe mode” that enables teams to explore external risks without putting individual members of the team at internal risk. Randomly assign different team members to argue opposing points of view. Then, at a team meeting , set up a debate with scenarios such as: “Our organization’s mobile app will be obsolete within two years. Here’s what will replace it, and here’s what we need to do now to survive and thrive.” Ask half the team to argu...

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints, by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences. src Wiki The term was coined in 1952 by William Whyte, an American business writer who feared that corporate "groupthink" would suppress original thought and entrepreneurialism. Nietzsche once said that Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups. In his book "Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy decisions & fiascoes" author Irving Janis cites an example of a disaster that struck a small mining town of Pitcher, Oklahoma in 1950.  A few days before disaster struck the local mining engineer had warned the in...

Kim Scott, ex Googler and now a coach speaks about Guidance and in her view it is the single most important part of managing people. "Apart from giving Guidance it's also important to receive it. Guidance which is basically Praise and Criticism is feedback. She speaks about a tool called Radical Candor. To explain Radical Candor she speaks about an incident in her career. During her early days at Google, she had to make a presentation to the founders and the CEO. The presentation went off very well and Eric Schmidt was ecstatic. After the meeting was over, her boss Sheryl Sandberg walked her back to her office. She spoke about 4 or 5 points about the presentation that she liked and while she was speaking Kim felt that there was something amiss and a criticism was around the corner. Finally Sandberg said "But, you said 'Um' a lot during your presentation". Kim was relieved and said "Ah! No big deal, I know I do that". Sandberg: "Was it ...

Often when employees have issues related to work, Leaders offer advice and suggestions. Employees get intimidated by the suggestion and often tend to go by the boss' recommendations. The pitfall of this is that it results in a culture where employees shy away from taking decisions and keep escalating it to their bosses. In this McKinsey article , the author cites an example of a Leader who uses the principle of "Extreme Listening"  which results in creating a space for people to do their own best quality thinking.  The Leader used this technique with an employee who came to her with a problem. She kept asking "what else?" and kept nudging him for a solution. Within 5 minutes he solved the problem himself.  Very often Leaders try to prove their own competency in the eyes of their subordinate and feel that it is their duty to put in their 2 bits. But this may end up intimidating people instead of bringing out the best out of them.

In this HBR article "How to respond when your employee asks for a raise"  the author offers a few do's and don'ts on how to handle the situation. First and foremost when the employee asks for a raise, don't react right away. The writer quotes from a book "How to be good at Performance Appraisals" by Grote. He suggests a simple 3 word sentence "Tell me more" and take notes while the person tells you why she deserves the pay increase. This conveys that you are not dismissing the request and your act of taking note indicates your seriousness. The article also has 2 case studies at the end. Buy the book

When Lou Gerstner joined IBM in 1993, he was depressed. In the first few weeks into the job he would sit through 8 hour presentations and understand nothing!  Source: Harvard Business Review One of the measures that he took was that the executive team abandon slide presentations and submit plans injargon-freee prose.   Source: Mckinsey, Leadership in Context