Dan Erwin

Mind Reading 101

Or. . . How to succeed in the prediction game.

The other evening after listening to a neighbor talk about her family I asked whether she was "rules oriented." I was certain she was, but I wanted to double-check my prediction. "Of course," she said. That's the best way to raise kids. Aren't you?" Amused by her shock at my negative answer, I was more intrigued by the fact that in spite of a number of personally-revealing conversations, she was clueless regarding my orientation.

Her lack of mind reading tools resulted in prediction failure.

As a business person, you can’t afford that kind of prediction failure. Your ability to predict others’ thinking and behavior is not only necessary for working with your boss, peers, subordinates, clients and teams, it’s also necessary for overall career success.

Mind reading tools grow out of two disciplines: the rhetorical competency of "close reading" and the communication competency of “barrier resolution.” Close reading tools are mind-reading competencies that enable you to go beyond the words and evidence that's presented. Barrier-resolution tools are competencies related to the recent stuff in the “ladder of inference.”   

Ultimately, mind reading is built on the well-accepted fact that ways of thinking tend to be systematic. People tend to hold well-connected kinds of values and convictions in their thinking...

Why Should You Keep Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer?

 
The biggest January surprise was that this blog from November 2012 was, by a large margin, the most heavily trafficked blog of 2013. That's based on my own personal website--I also post regularly on humancapitalleague, HRblognotions and Talentzoo. But this finding resulted in a number of personal conversations as well as some rethinking of my reading audience and their needs. 

Two things came to mind over the past few weeks. When I was seminary faculty, the initial assignment I gave my first year grad students was to write a half-page on each of their best friends, explaining what they liked about them. I'd go over the papers, send them back and ask them what having these friends says about their own character, values and objectives. Inevitably, they pointed out the similarities between their friends and themselves. There's plenty of research suggesting that we tend to live in homogeneous neighborhoods and that's merely a reflection of what my students' assignment also revealed.

But if I were teaching today, I'd add a second assignment in that basic class on the ministry. I'd ask them to write a half-page on the three acquaintances that they like least, explaining what about them they didn't like and why...

Robert Reich on David Brooks' Utter Ignorance About Inequality

In my last blog, I wrote about David Brooks' article on "The Inequality Problem." If you read it closely, you noted that I clarified the terminology of "framing" and suggested that the research is highly conflicted. Brooks argued those issues but in typical fashion limits his discussion to the two.

Now, here's the real substance from Robert Reich. Reich takes on nearly all the issues. In contrast, if you go back through Brooks' columns, you'll notice that originally he rejected the notion of inequality. Very slowly, he's coming around. But I'm not certain why it's always a devil of a time for Brooks to admit to the policy problems. This conservative that liberals love seems congenitally unable at that point. Not Robert Reich.

Brooks, you'll remember, argues that we should be focusing on the social problems of the poor, not on inequality. At best, that's a half-truth.

But Reich has the appropriate rejoinders: "Baloney" and "Hogwash!" His knowledge of policy, labor and economics means a better and different analysis of the inequality problem. And Reich gets down to the real stuff...

David Brooks and the Inequality Problem

In a recent opinion article, David Brooks brilliantly untangles the issues in the widespread discussion of inequality, arguing that much of the debate misses the point. The terminology and research are not nearly as well understood as Brooks assumes. This is a very important issue for the voting public. Yet a great deal of basic clarity is missing around two very important issues in the article.

First of all, Brooks' underlying argument is around the "framing" of the issue. Business people use the language of “framing” regularly, but when you get down to what’s meant by it and its implications, it’s also widely misunderstood. The key to framing, which Brooks does not explain, is this: the way you frame a problem determines the solution to the problem. Furthermore, it’s important to understand how framing is used as well as it strengths and weaknesses...

Dan Erwin: Good Reads for the Intellectually Curious

Three of this week's Good Reads are oriented to personal development, while one gives us background on Janet Yellen, the most powerful woman in the world today. The last article, calling your attention to the 100 year anniversary of World War I, points to some recent odd fungal findings from old military hospitals (the fungus lives on!).

The Atlantic's Ann Hulbert on How to Escape the Community College Trap. What will it take to get a student through the two year process in just three years? This is a very important question for a lot of businesses. According to one successful program the answer is a lot of pushiness. In fact, as hulbert writes, for a student to graduate in two-and-one-half years, like Daquan McGee, is shockingly rare. But the Borough of Manhattan Community College has found a way to achieve the graduation objective. And this may be one way to narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots.

Adam Grant on Why Men Need Women. I've been saving this opinion piece, but now that you're thinking about taxes is good time to pass it on. Grant is one of the best HR and personal development gurus in the country. And a lot of fun, as well. He answers his question ...

Great Executive Coaching: Finding Lear's Fool in Business

If you’ve seen Shakespeare’s King Lear, you recognize my reference. The Fool is Lear’s own, personal stand-up comedian. But he is much more than that. When the Earl of Kent lips off, Lear boots him out of the kingdom. And when Lear doesn’t like what Cordelia, his daughter, has to say, he disowns her altogether. In contrast, the Fool is never rejected and retains “humorous” immunity throughout the life of the King. In Lear, the King gradually goes mad, but the “Fool” provides commentary even in the madness.

As in many of Shakespeare’s plays, the Fool is actually very smart. He’s the only person who tells it like it is, even calling his master “foolish.” Additionally, he provides much of the social commentary. He’s also loyal. But most of all, he is the voice of reason, serving to clarify and expose folly, while emphasizing reality over appearance.

Lear’s Fool: where many coaches fall flat
The rise of executive coaching over the past decade has brought a great deal of clarity to the process. That’s because executives maintain a number of routine activities that lend themselves to regular, direct feedback and practice. They include managing and leading people, interactions with ...

You Will Never See a More Direct, So Straight-To-The-Point, No-BS Take on the Rich. But, Thankfully, It's Not Always True.

If people are highly successful in their professions they lose their senses. Sight goes. They have no time to look at pictures. Sound goes. They have no time to listen to music. Speech goes. They have no time for conversation. They lose their sense of proportion--the relations between one thing and another. Humanity goes. 

             --Virginia Woolf

Woolf's insight supports research from as early as 1925. Indeed, you can generalize from Freud's comment in "Those wrecked by success" that the highly successful occasionally fall ill precisely when a deeply-rooted and long-cherished wish has come to fulfillment. That "illness" is highly prohibitive, and can lead to the loss of senses and proportion.

There's a terrific amount of research clarifying the notion that wealth leads to selfishness. Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner of Berkeley ran several studies looking at whether wealth and prestige influences how much we care for others. In one study they discreetly boserved the behavior of drivers at a busy four-way interestection. The results were revealing: they found that luxury car drivers were more likely to cut off other motorists rather than waiting for their turn. This was . . .