Enter The Blog

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

This is a great, short article by well known management guru Marshall Goldsmith. Leadership skills are important in so many aspects of our lives since we are all leaders some of the time. Leadership is not reserved for CEOs, Mayors or Governors. Anytime we teach, help others or get people organized we are actually leading others. All of us are always simultaneously living lives as leaders and followers.

Enjoy this post http://entertheblog.com/91 and have a look at Marshall’s webpage:http://entertheblog.com/lx

Popularity: 3% [?]

Many projects require some type of presentation of the final results. Therefore some or all of the members of a group will be required to present their findings or completed project to a group of people. This presentation can perhaps be the most important part of the project since you are communicating your results to your teacher, professor, boss or peers. If there is poor communication and these people don’t understand or aren’t interested in your project, then your final grade will suffer.

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, is known for his over the top presentations. Whenever there is a roll out of new products at the company, he is sure to do a presentation on how cool these products are. However, there is something more to it than just demonstrating Apple products. His presentations bring customers together into a type of community. He has the ability to keep people interested in the company and motivated to follow him. How does he do this? Well according Carmine Gallo, author of the book ‘The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs’, he uses a number of tactics which all of us can afford to emulate.

1. Maintain Eye Contact – Make people feel like you’re talking to them instead of reading from slides or notes.

2. Open Posture – Stand up straight, keep your arms uncrossed and smile.

3. Use Effective Hand Gestures – Use your hands and body language to emphasize or highlight your speech.

4. User Simple bullet points for presentations – If you’re using PowerPoint or something like that, be sure to use simple points which people can peruse and understand quickly. You don’t want them staring at the presentation and reading it.

5. Practice, practice, practice – Make sure you know your presentation inside and out. Practice in front of friends, your family and even the mirror or a camcorder. When you practice be sure to pretend like you’re on-stage and in front of a real group of people. Ask people to provide you with healthy criticism, it will help.

6. Have fun and be energized – If you’re energized and confident about your presentation then this energy will spillover to your audience. An audience that is energized and having fun will more likely listen to you and appreciate what you have to say.

For more details have a look at the Forbes article: http://entertheblog.com/mU .

Popularity: 10% [?]

We often think that working in a group is at best an inconvenience and at worst a big impediment to our success. However, have you ever considered the possibility that a group can be more effective than working alone? If done properly, a well organized group can spark creativity, enhance IQ, bring more skills to the table and accomplish more work.

In the animal world, many types of individually powerful animals hunt in packs to increase their chances of success. They do this typically because the game they’re hunting is too large for them to attack on their own. By joining a group, these animals (for example wolf packs) can out-maneuver and overpower their prey. Of course by joining forces animals take on some risks as well. They must share any food they kill, even if it is a small amount and they ALL suffer if any of the animals fails to do their job in capturing prey. These risks are worth taking if the pack (or group) is successful. We should think of our groups in group projects in the same way; as potentially being able to achieve much more than individuals, but not without risk.

The Roman army, which was once the most powerful force in the world, was based on the premise of groups. The army was broken into a number of groups of various sizes. The smallest of these groups were called centuries, which were made up of approximately 100 soldiers. These centuries worked as a cohesive unit with one leader, who was called a centurion. The soldiers in these groups operated in a box formation with their shields lined up side by side. By operating in this way the soldiers could defend themselves better while also being able to break through enemy lines. These simple concepts were applied consistently and very precisely, which is one reason why they were so successful in battle.

Centuries working as a group, moving in tandem and all following the same strategy were able to defeat armies across the world. Their enemies were often unorganized and fought as a group of individuals. The difference between the Roman soldiers and their enemies were primarily better training and discipline. Training and discipline will distinguish an individual from his peers or his competition, however; What distinguishes a successful group from an unsuccessful one?

This question can be answered if we first understand why people join groups and what their motivations are. If you’re a student then the answer to the first question of why is obvious, you have no choice! You were given an assignment to do and you must do it. Also if you’re an employee, it’s likely the same answer applies; you’re in a group because you were given a project to complete and you must do it or get fired! It’s fair to say that there is motivation in not failing or not being fired. However, human beings tend to strive for something positive as opposed to avoiding something negative. Isn’t it more likely that you will work hard to achieve a good grade as opposed to working just not to fail? Also, won’t you work harder to get a raise or promotion as opposed to just keeping your job and current status? Quite simply, human beings are motivated when they have the opportunity to achieve significant goals.

If people are given clear goals then they have something to strive for and this gives us purpose, not only in our group projects, but also in life. Therefore, a successful group should have a clear goal of what they intend to achieve and this goal should be meaningful for everyone in the group. In the example of the wolf pack, the goal is to kill their prey and eat. In the example of the Roman centuries, their goal is to win the battle and in the process not only survive, but also bring honor, prestige and wealth to the Roman Empire. Therefore the first rule of a successful group is having a common purpose or goal.

While goals are extremely important, the truth is that they can only be achieved through some form of strategy. A strategy is a method of achieving a goal. An example of this concept would be someone who wanted to travel from point A to point B. This is the person’s goal. Her strategy may be to get in car, consult her GPS and drive there. The strategy of a group is something which needs to be formed by discussing the problem at hand and the various ways of solving it. The methods of solving a problem are going to be based on the skills and number of people available in the group. The formation of an accepted group strategy will be a compromise based on trial and error. Ultimately the group’s strategy should be formed clearly and there should be consensus across the group.

Thus the second rule of a successful group is an accepted and unified approach. Take again the example of the Roman century, if any of the soldiers in the group decided that the Roman approach to battle was wrong and went their own way, what do you think would happen to them? Well if they broke off from the box formation and went off on their own it is likely that one of two things would have happened; they would have been killed in battle or if not, they would be executed by Roman commanders after the battle. In either situation, the result is not desirable. Therefore there is a strong pressure to conform to a group’s strategy once it has been decided upon.

In conclusion, we should overcome any prejudices that we may have regarding the potential power of working in groups. Even if our beliefs are the consequences of negative past experiences we should remember that groups can accomplish more than individuals. Furthermore we should remember that very successful groups can even go so far as conquering the world, turning a company into an industry leader or quite simply achieving top grades.

Popularity: 9% [?]

This is a great read on social dilemmas—Social dilemmas are situations in which each member of a group has a clear and unambiguous incentive to make a choice that when made by all members provides poorer outcomes for all than they would have received if none had made the choice.

Robyn M. Dawes
David M. Messick

Abstract
In social dilemma situations, each individual always receives a higher payoff for defecting than for cooperating, but all are better off if all cooperate than if all defect. Often, however, people in social dilemmas attend more to the group’s payoffs than to their own, either automatically or to behave “appropriately.’ ‘ But whereas social identity elicits cooperative behaviour in dilemmas, it is generally only for the benefit of an “in-group.” Dilemmas between groups (requiring self-sacrificial behaviour within) are often the most extreme. Consequently, the framing and manipulation of group identity is critical to cooperation rate as demonstrated by careful laboratory experimentation.

Some examples of Social Dilemmas
A few more examples should suffice. Imagine that you and a group of seven casual acquaintances are having a dinner out. You all agree in advance of the meal to share the cost of the meal equally. As you examine the menu and the wine list you see a number of options that are very tempting but also that are very expensive. You realize that if you order an expensive main course and an expensive bottle of wine you will only have to pay one eighth of the cost yourself with the additional seven eighths being distributed equally among the others. This cost sharing obviously presents an opportunity for you to enjoy yourself without having to pay the full cost.
When every person at the table reasons in the same manner, however, all are collectively and individually stunned by the bill. It is far more than any one of you would have guessed. This example does not represent a problem for a society or for a corporation. However, the analogous problem of medical insurance is such a problem. People who pay medical insurance premiums are free to select the most expensive care they can and they all are shocked by the bill (next year’s premiums). You invest in a fishing boat and license and then want to take the largest catch that you can. You are then shocked when the fishery is seriously reduced in size, because after all you personally were responsible for only a minute fraction of this reduction.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL DILEMMAS
In the case of the public good, one strategy that has been employed is to create a moral sense of duty to support it—for instance, the public television station that one watches. The attempt is to reframe the decision as doing one’s duty rather than making a difference—again, in the wellbeing of the station watched. The injection of a moral element changes the calculation from “Will I make a difference’ ‘ to “I must pay for the benefit I get.’

The final illustration, the shared meal and its more serious counterparts, requires yet another approach. Here there is no hierarchy, as in the organizational example, that can be relied upon to solve the problem. With the shared meal, all the diners need to be aware of the temptation that they have and there need to be mutually agreed-upon limits to constrain the diners. Alternatively, the rule needs to be changed so that everyone pays for what they ordered. The latter arrangement creates responsibility in that all know that they will pay for what they order. Such voluntary arrangements may be difficult to arrange in some cases. With the medical insurance, the insurance company may recognize the risk and insist on a principle of co-payments for medical services. This is a step in the direction of paying for one’s own meal, but it allows part of the “meal’ ‘ to be shared
and part of it to be paid for by the one who ordered it.

The fishing version is more difficult. To make those harvesting the fish pay for some of the costs of the catch would require some sort of taxation to deter the unbridled exploitation of the fishery. Taxation, however, leads to tax avoidance or evasion. But those who harvest the fish would have no incentive to report their catches accurately or at all, especially if they were particularly successful, which simultaneously means particularly successfully—compared to others at least—in contributing to the problem of a subsequently reduced yield. Voluntary self-restraint would be punished as those with less of that personal quality would thrive while those with more would suffer. Conscience, as Hardin (1968) noted, would be self-eliminating.

…

Relatively minor changes in the social environment can induce major changes in decision making because these minor changes can change the perceived appropriateness
of a situation. One variable that has been shown to make such a difference is whether the decision maker sees herself as an individual or as a part of a group

Read more: http://entertheblog.com/V9

Popularity: 3% [?]

This article discusses the issues that people face when working with others. I believe that group dynamics are more complex than people realize and this article addresses that. This article is courtesy of PsyBlog.

Discover the essentials of group psychology.

When we’re in a group other people have an incredibly powerful effect on us. Groups can kill our creativity, inspire us to work harder, allow us to slack off, skew our decision-making and make us clam up.

The keys to understanding human behaviour—our lives as citizens, as workers, as friends—are in the research on group psychology, which PsyBlog has been exploring over the past few months.

This post provides an overview and you can follow the links to explore the experiments that reveal the power groups hold over us.

Formation, influence and leadership

The seeds of group behaviour are sown even before its members meet. Just knowing that some people are on ‘our side’ and others are not begins to shape our social identity. Group affiliation soon grows even stronger, though, bending our behaviour further, if we undergo an initiation rite. A rite as simple as reading rude words out loud can produce a measurable effect (see 10 rules that govern groups, #1, #2).

Once we are in a group it starts to shape us through conformity, pulling our attitudes and behaviour in line with others, threatening us with ostracism if we dare to rebel and, when facing rival groups, firing our competitive spirit (see 10 rules that govern groups, #3, #4, #10).

Popularity: 6% [?]