Blind Spots and How to Work at Them

Blind Spots and How to Work at Them

by Karen Christensen | Apr 12, 2013

Douglas Stone, the Boston-based consultant and ‘difficult conversations’ expert talks about blind spots (the bad news: we all have them) and the best way to give and receive feedback

Positive self-regard helps us feel good about who we are, but it can get in the way of learning and improving.  Why is that?
Stanford Psychologist Carol Dweck has done some interesting research on this.  She had middle school students take a test and then gave them feedback on the results.  Some were told that they were “smart,” while others were praised for how hard they worked.  The ones who were praised for their intelligence were less likely to want to take on a next set of challenges; the ones who were praised for their effort were excited to exert more effort.  So, Dweck says, “praise the process,” rather than intelligence or natural ability.   Read more of this post

The Power of Talking to Your Baby

APRIL 10, 2013, 3:25 PM

The Power of Talking to Your Baby

By the time a poor child is 1 year old, she has most likely already fallen behind middle-class children in her ability to talk, understand and learn. The gap between poor children and wealthier ones widens each year, and by high school it has become a chasm. American attempts to close this gap in schools have largely failed, and a consensus is starting to build that these attempts must start long before school — before preschool, perhaps even before birth.

There is no consensus, however, about what form these attempts should take, because there is no consensus about the problem itself. What is it about poverty that limits a child’s ability to learn? Researchers have answered the question in different ways: Is it exposure to lead? Character issues like a lack of self-control or failure to think of future consequences? The effects of high levels of stress hormones? The lack of a culture of reading?

Another idea, however, is creeping into the policy debate: that the key to early learning is talking — specifically, a child’s exposure to language spoken by parents and caretakers from birth to age 3, the more the better. It turns out, evidence is showing, that the much-ridiculed stream of parent-to-child baby talk — Feel Teddy’s nose! It’s so soft! Cars make noise — look, there’s a yellow one! Baby feels hungry? Now Mommy is opening the refrigerator! — is very, very important. (So put those smartphones away!) Read more of this post

Rosabeth Moss Kanter: The Happiest People Pursue the Most Difficult Problems

The Happiest People Pursue the Most Difficult Problems

by Rosabeth Moss Kanter  |   9:00 AM April 10, 2013

Lurking behind the question of jobs — whether there are enough of them, how hard we should work at them, and what kind the future will bring — is a major problem of job engagement. Too many people are tuned out, turned off, or ready to leave. But there’s one striking exception.

The happiest people I know are dedicated to dealing with the most difficult problems. Turning around inner city schools. Finding solutions to homelessness or unsafe drinking water. Supporting children with terminal illnesses. They face the seemingly worst of the world with a conviction that they can do something about it and serve others.

Ellen Goodman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist (and long-time friend), has turned grief to social purpose. She was distraught over the treatment of her dying mother. After leaving her job as a syndicated columnist, she founded The Conversation Project, a campaign to get every family to face the difficult task of talking about death and end-of-life care. Read more of this post

Does Money Really Affect Motivation? A Review of the Research

Does Money Really Affect Motivation? A Review of the Research

by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic  |   9:50 AM April 10, 2013

How much should people earn? Even if resources were unlimited, it would be difficult to stipulate your ideal salary. Intuitively, one would think that higher pay should produce better results, but scientific evidence indicates that the link between compensation, motivation and performance is much more complex. In fact, research suggests that even if we let people decide how much they should earn, they would probably not enjoy their job more.

Even those who highlight the motivational effects of money accept that pay alone is not sufficient. The basic questions are: Does money make our jobs more enjoyable? Or can higher salaries actually demotivate us? Read more of this post

If You’re Confident About Competence, Admit Your Flaws; IBM’s Lou Gerstner’s, “I don’t know IT but I know management” was pure genius. Here’s why

If You’re Confident About Competence, Admit Your Flaws

by Steven Berglas  |  11:00 AM April 10, 2013

Within moments of seeing white smoke billow from the Sistine Chapel, media outlets were inundated with a slew of reports about the former Cardinal Bergoglio. The Vatican PR machine noted that Pope Francis was an incredibly humble Cardinal who, as was befitting a Jesuit, had an abiding concern for the poor, rode the subway, and cooked his own meals. Oh… and that he was missing most of one lung.

This certainly runs contrary to conventional wisdom about how best to conduct impression management; i.e. “Put your best foot forward.” With Catholics already anxious about the new Bishop of Rome’s wellbeing, doesn’t pointing-out a condition that begs the question, “Was it cancer?” constitute impression mismanagement?

Actually, I think it’s something leaders should do more of. Let’s take an example from history to see why: Back in 1999, Louis V. Gerstner “let out” word that he had a deficiency immediately prior to taking the helm at IBM. Big Blue had been among the nation’s foremost enterprises, but when Gerstner was picked for the top spot it was bleeding red ink. Conventional wisdom would say that to redress the blue mood IBMers were suffering, Gerstner should have greeted them with bravado to boost morale. Instead, Gerstner exposed his soft underbelly by stating, “I don’t completely understand the technology [of IBM’s product line]. I’ll need to learn it, but don’t expect me to master it… unit leaders must translate it into business terms for me.”

Gerstner’s, “I don’t know IT but I know management” was pure genius. Here’s why: Read more of this post

The Shibumi Seven Design Principles, Inspired By Zen Wisdom

7 Design Principles, Inspired By Zen Wisdom

WRITTEN BY: Matthew May

WANT TO BECOME THE NEXT STEVE JOBS–OR JUST UNDERSTAND HIS NEAR-SPIRITUAL DEVOTION TO SIMPLICITY? THIS PRIMER, OUTLINING THE MAIN TENETS OF “ZEN DESIGN,” WILL HELP.

One of the best-known photographs of the late Steve Jobs pictures him sitting in the middle of the living room of his Los Altos house, circa 1982. There isn’t much in the room, save an audio system and a Tiffany lamp. Jobs is sipping tea, sitting yoga-style on a mat, with but a few books around him. The picture speaks volumes about the less-is-more motive behind every Apple product designed under his command.

As Warren Berger wrote on Co.Design, Jobs’s love for elegantly simple, intuitive design is widely attributed to his appreciation of Zen philosophy (Jobs was a practicing Buddhist). But while many people might be familiar with Zen as a broad concept, far fewer are knowledgeable of the key aesthetic principles that collectively comprise the “Zen of design.”

To understand the Zen principles, a good starting point is shibumi. It is an overarching concept, an ideal. It has no precise definition in Japanese, but its meaning is reserved for objects and experiences that exhibit in paradox and all at once the very best of everything and nothing: Elegant simplicity. Effortless effectiveness. Understated excellence. Beautiful imperfection.

James Michener referred to shibumi in his 1968 novel Iberia, writing that it can’t be translated and has no explanation. In his 1972 book, The Unknown Craftsman, Soetsu Yanagi talked about shibumi in the context of art, writing that a true work of art is one whose intentionally imperfect beauty makes an artist of the viewer. In the 1979 best-selling spy novelShibumi, the author Trevanian (the nom de plume of Dr. Rodney William Whitaker) wrote, “Shibumi has to do with great refinement underlying commonplace appearances.”

Shibumi was first introduced to the West by House Beautiful in 1960. Nearly 40 years later, architect Sarah Susanka reintroduced shibumi in her 1998 book The Not So Big House: “The quality of shibumi evolves out of a process of complexity, though none of this complexity shows in the result. It often seems to arise when an architect is striving to meet a particular design challenge. When something has been designed really well, it has an understated, effortless beauty, and it really works. That’s shibumi.”

The process may be complex, but these seven Zen principles can help you approach shibumi in your own designs:

THE SHIBUMI SEVEN Read more of this post