Dan Erwin

How to Live to Become a Healthy Ninety-Year Old

I just turned a very healthy 89 years old. What’s intriguing about it are all the questions I get. At least eight or ten times over the past four months, people have asked about my  age. After being asked that often, I’m a bit “ho hum” about it. What’s the big deal? Another day. Another year.

On a couple of  occasions, I set up my audience to ask my age in order to make a point. But the rest of the questions were out of the blue. On my trip to Italy early this year, observing my active stance, a number of young people asked my age. One tourist, an athletic trainer from Ireland, had my picture taken with him standing beside me to show to his father, a seventy-year-old who’s “not taking care of himself."

But surprisingly, as soon as I respond to the request about my age, no matter the conversation, it turns immediately to one question: “How did you do that?”

Why Is Listening Accuracy So Very Difficult?

The obvious reason for listening failure is that people are unaware of listening processes. For example, lots of folk think resolving listening failure is all a matter of listening harder. But research makes it very clear that listening harder barely improves listening. As an exec coach and a specialist in listening, I learned years ago that people don’t understand that listening is actually a process containing several elements.

Got some doubts about that insight? Here’s how I found out about listening ignorance. And learned that very few smart MBAs—even from the top schools--understand that process.

Whatever my client's developmental objectives, whether influence management, strategic thinking, client management, decision processes, bias recognition, or leadership, I usually get around to asking participating interviewees a few very, very basic questions.  

One of the killers is this simple query:  "How effective a listener is my client?"  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I get the innocuous response--"he’s good."  Then I dig in:  Does he repeat what you've said?   Does he clarify or check out what you've said?  Does he summarize or paraphrase what you've said?  Or an even more significant question--to what extent does he verbalize the implications of what's being said? 

After four "nos" in a row, half the interviewees fill in the blanks and say something to the effect that it’s obvious my client may not be as effective as they once thought. The majority of interviewees have a question right at that point. In fact, I’ve found it advantageous to respond to their implicit listening questions.  (When I get three or four “never thought about that” responses, I’m knocking on the door for further business.) Then after confirming their insight, I take the next step—providing research information.  

The research is a shocker. It reveals that a busy manager spends 80% of her time listening to people, . . and still doesn't get half of what is said.

What Is Your Brain Doing While You Sleep?

It bugs me that the latest Time magazine (August 17/24) from which I plagiarized the above title is only interested in issues of physiology. Especially, when the far more interesting, useful and cutting-edge issues are about something else: the unconscious mind. By 1964 I was depending on that so-called black box (the unconscious) every Thursday, Friday or Saturday night.

As a young church minister in the reformed tradition, I had to write two new, creative sermons nearly every weekend. My church included many university faculty and engineers from the local technology firms, who brought high expectations with them to worship.

Thankfully, I learned just a couple years after seminary graduation (1962) that if I went to sleep on Thursday or Friday with a sermon or a creative idea half-finished, or needed some new ideas or anecdotes, I’d have everything I needed when I woke up the next morning. Or if I was just playing around with some creative ideas during the day, there was a high chance that the idea would be complete--or at least zinging some new pointers my way--when I woke up the next morning. At first, if it was an unfinished sermon, I’d go to bed very tired and worried—and toss and turn much of the night. But once I figured out that my unconscious was going to be working all night, I just went to bed—and slept easily. It was years later that I realized that I was actually priming my night brain during the day. I rested easy, because that thinking process rarely failed. So, I made a practice of leaving pad and pencil out on the kitchen table to jot down my new ideas first thing, and not lose the thinking that had been gained over the night. Forty-five years later I still use the model for my thinking and writing, and it works even better. Sometimes my night brain is so busy that I need to take a nap during the day.

When I shared my insight on how my brain worked in those early years, some understood and agreed instantly, while others...

Carol Dweck on Learning to Fulfill Your Potential

Carol Dweck's diagram contrasts the "fixed-mindset" with the "growth-mindset." Those with a “growth mindset" recognize that struggles can be overcome with “effort, strategy and good instruction.” A description of her eureka moment, the basic research, how others have grown and how you can use her insights, follows the diagram. 

    

 

Stanford’s Carol Dweck has spent her career studying failure and how people react to failure. Her research revealed that not all people react by breaking out in hives. Though most hated failure, some thrived under the challenge of failure. This was the puzzle for her.

After chewing over the results ...

Outside the Mainstream

"Outside the Mainstream” regularly brings articles, columns and research that challenge conventional thinking. The past two weeks have provided a deluge of challenges to conventional commitments and thinking, many of which should be taken very seriously.

Is there such a thing as “honest graft,” can we learn from annoying workers and are we little more than “puppets of our biochemistry?” These are questions from outside the mainstream everyday life.

Jonathan Rauch, The Case for Corruption: Why Washington needs more honest graft is not only spellbinding, but also absolutely correct in its recognition that we’ve gone too far in our demands for transparency and the removal of earmarks. A classic case of unintended consequences, Rauch points out that “regular order” has been replaced by “regular chaos.” “Public ultimatums supplanted private negotiations, games of chicken replaced mutual back-scratching, and bumptious Republican House members took to dictating terms to their putative leadership.” As Rauch argues, loyalty gets you only so far, and ideology is divisive. Political machines need to exist and they need to work. . . .Earnest campaigns to take the politics out of politics ...

What Is Behavioral Economics? And How Can You Use It Inside the Organization?

(4 Behavioral Economics Strategies)

Behavioral economics is rapidly becoming one of the most useful skill sets for both business and government. But the term, economics, can create serious misunderstanding. Behavioral economics is not conventional economics. Behavioral economics takes human behavior into account, basing its insights on actual human behaviors. Traditional economics assumes that people behave in rational ways, that the choices they make are made in a vacuum, and that the conflicting, messy human factors we social scientists take for granted are largely irrelevant in decision making.

Richard Thaler, the founder of behavioral economics found many examples of what he called the endowment effect, especially for goods that are not regularly traded on the consumer market. For example, suppose you’re in your early thirties and are a dyed-in-the-wool fan of the popular band, “Black Keys.” You’ve been waiting for them to appear in your city for several years and they are coming for a one night only appearance. You get one of the last $200 tickets for a sold-out performance. Now you’ve got your ticket and learn that richer or more desperate fans are offering $2,000 for a single ticket. Would you sell? If you’re like most of the audience at sold-out events, especially if they’re just one-time, you would not sell. A believer in traditional economics would not understand this behavior. Traditional economists believe that the person is focused on building wealth, and so in this instance they would sell their ticket.

Thaler, who was looking for some way to explain puzzles like this found it in psychology, specifically the works of Kahneman and Tversky. Thus, that blend of psychology—the social sciences—and economics became behavioral economics.

Why behavioral economics?
That’s an important question, but it’s related directly to the knowledge economy. Since management processes have gone from top-down to much more bottom-up, making vested power irrelevant, organizations need better ways of managing people. Especially in knowledge-oriented companies, the hierarchy has been flattened and responsibility has been passed down to the troops. Silicon Valley has proven the validity of the behavioral economics approach. When Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s new CEO, ordered employees to work at headquarters rather than from home, her belief in the need for face-to-face innovation was built upon a behavioral economics strategy.

Four strategies of behavioral economists
There are many possible approaches and strategies to motivate change with employees and their families. As more and more research is carried out in related fields, others will continue to surface.

. . . . Framing—the perspective or lens through which people look at a problem or decision. Is your job 24/7 or 9 – 5? Learning culture or performance culture? Virtual organization or face-to-face bricks and mortar? The way issues and decisions are framed impacts employee motivation.

. . . . Anchoring—a number (or an idea) that is first offered to gain attention and set expectations. In negotiating a salary, it’s found to be best for the most interested party to state specific expectations or limits. (That goes against conventional wisdom.)  Especially when the other party is uncertain about the correct or fair outcome, the other will gravitate toward any number that helps them focus and resolve their uncertainty.

. . . . Choices—provision of a limited number to options to focus attention and encourage decisions. Many cafeteria health plans offered by the smarter companies limit choices to two, three or four, puffing the plan supposed best for the consumer, but often the best for the company. School cafeterias are making choices into a discipline to manage the obesity and diabetes epidemic of children.

Contrary to the assumptions of traditional economics, money isn’t everything. Nor, according to the conventional wisdom, does it buy happiness. Behavioral economics, instead, looks at what really brings happiness, and how to help people, business and governments make smarter choices. What’s frustrating is that business is taking behavioral economics very seriously, but that politicians often ignore empirical data. Ahhhh well, that may be the subject of a future blog.

Flickr photo: by chinadialogue

"How to Be Brilliant." It's All About Discipline, Not Giftedness.

Who would think that a single book review could garner so much attention? The blog, originally published in March 2010, continues to garner weekly attention. Both the book and the issue are groundbreaking. The issue is just as important today, so here's the original blog. . . . 

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Forget about genes as "unchanging" "blueprints" and talent as a "gift," all tied up in a bow. The review of David Shenk's new book, The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've been told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ is Wrong, in today's NYTimes Book Review summarizes much of the important research findings over the past ten years.

Reading over the review a couple times, I hooted with laughter remembering the old saw from music school about how to get to play at Carnagie Hall: practice, practice, practice. That's exactly what Anders Ericsson has learned about development, the notion of deliberate practice.

Shenk sets out to overthrow the conventional ideas surrounding the words, "nature" and "nurture." But he also recognizes that you can't overthrow the conventional ideas and images that have been accumulating for more than 125 years. In fact, as I've argued in numerous places, old dogma dies hard. Once concepts are deeply embedded, a superstructure of assumptions and ideas grows around it. Rejecting a dogma means that many ideas are now questionable, more research could be invalid, and that the reputation and contribution of many scientists might be questioned. As you can guess, old dogma rarely gets challenged.

Still, two significant and distinct lines of psychological research have been built up over the last fifteen years. One body of research shows that intelligence is fundamentally a competence that can be developed. A second line of research shows that supervised coaching, maintained at high levels for extended time periods, along with disciplined learning, can be far-reaching.

I draw two very important conclusions from this research. First, the next time you pick up the Wall Street Journal and read an article by Charles Murray (of the Bell Curve) and his ilk, remember that he's either BSing or clueless. Here's a copy of a letter by Robert Sternberg of Yale and Tufts, which I've posted on my website, challenging Murray's archaic ideas.

What the research also reveals is that we need not be stuck in careers and vocations that go the way of the Dodo bird as a result of technology and innovation. If we are willing to persist in continual growth, we can create new opportunities for ourselves. I've seen clients do that very thing for years and years.

Oh yeah. What Shenk seems to be unfamiliar with is the notion of small wins, the best way to persist and grow in the face of failure. You can find my basic discussion of the process and the research here. Why small changes work. . . . and Motivation and small wins . . . .

Flickr photo: by Vladsun

What I Learned About Creative Problem Solving from a High School Sophomore

For the past 12 days, I’ve been at our summer condo by beautiful Gull Lake, near Nisswa, MN. It’s always a learning experience for this granddad. My teachers are my two grandsons and granddaughter. I’ve had a number of lessons this summer, the most important being how to learn creative problem solving from a 15 year-old.

Evan, who merits my blogging a strangely diverse set of topics (lying, civil action, laptops as serialized interruption, American mythology, etc.) detailed with (amusing) frustration his honors class in Algebra II. First, a bit of context: Though an avid reader and superb scholar, my grandson Evan is not a nerd, his parents are not helicopter parents, he has a passel of friends, and he’s nuts about ski-boarding [32 days this past winter], golf, skateboarding, his kid-brother (a real piece of work) and investing.  He attends one of the top prep schools in Massachusetts, a school that emphasizes not only academics, but also leadership and social justice.

The algebra class took up 2/3 of the year.  His teacher like all of his teachers is “awesome.” This teacher made a pot of money on Wall Street and turned to education in his retirement years. (He also advises students on investment strategy. Intriguing . . .) Evan and his classmates took about 10 or 12 tests over the two semesters. The tests were typically 5 or 6 questions, each very complex, demanding and time consuming. The first 5 questions covered material from the class and the 6th was always about material the students had not discussed in class nor covered in the syllabus or book.

Evan tells me that you try to figure it out for yourself, based on prior learning. He assumed that his familiarity with all previous material would make it possible to be figured out. Typically, he said, you look for patterns. The sixth question was “really, really hard.” Over time, they began to think like the teacher, using his mental techniques for solutions. Of course, they put their assumptions and conclusions on paper, getting partial credit for their thinking. But at the end of the semester, no one had gotten more than half of those questions correct.

Evan received his lowest grade in that class, a B+, but since it was honors, the grade was figured in as an A-. Neither he nor his classmates is shy, so on several occasions they went to their teacher and complained of the process and the lack of preparation for that last question on each test.

The message from their teacher was four simple words: “Get used to it.” On several occasions he explained to the students that when he was in college he had to teach himself a lot. And when he went to Wall Street, he also had to teach himself a lot.

More significantly, the teacher said, the world is like that. You won’t always have a teacher around. The problem may be nearly insurmountable. And you’ll have to use every resource imaginable to solve problems. And . . . some problems won’t be solvable.

Evan told me that he strongly disliked the results at the time. But since he’d had a couple months to think about it, he decided that he learned an awful lot. He thought that the lessons were very valuable, but that “he should have gotten a higher grade.” Ha!

We talked over the lessons learned from his experience.

1. Expect that you will inevitably face difficult, even insurmountable problems in life and work.
2. Resolution will require every possible resource from the past, including techniques and thinking that you’ve never used before.
3. Joint problem solving offers keys that are unavailable to the individual. Collaboration is a must for success.
4. Part of your responsibility as an adult is to take on very difficult problems.
5. “Get used to it.” Reality presents us with complex, difficult problems, and may not readily—sometimes never—bend to our desires or hopes.

We now know that the teen-aged brain develops the executive functions between 13 and 18 years of age. As the prefrontal cortex matures, teenagers learn to reason better, develop more control over impulses and make better judgments. Intriguingly, this part of the teenage brain has been dubbed “the area of sober second thought.” It strikes me that Evan’s math teacher was approaching brain growth in brilliant fashion and with exact timing, forcing his students to reason about the difficulties of problem solving and adult reality.  He was also forcing the students to develop neuronic patterns in their gray matter, patterns that would be functional over their lifetime.

The research also shows that adolescence is a supremely important time to learn to deal constructively and innovatively with reality. It leads me to think that a major reason that many have great difficulty with adaptability, innovation and creativity is at least partially because few experienced opportunities like Evan. Just yesterday, a Gen-Y acquaintance called me with a very difficult problem he faced on a small professional board of musical leaders. Although we talked for more than a half-hour, it was rather clear that he had a great deal of difficulty dealing with the realities of the group. He seemed unable to understand a basic fact: The world is not a just place.

Failure to learn about complexity and social and physical reality has two big negative effects. First, it hinders our ability to learn from all situations, including those whom we don’t like or respect. Second, it anesthetizes us to the need to be proactive in building the kind of thinking skills and intelligence network that are of ultimate value.

Quotation of the Week: Gerard Schellenberg, Alzheimer's Research

As many understand, much scientific research is limited by the cultural model in which researcher's jealously guard their data.  The vast gene study of Alzheimer's, reported in yesterday's NYTimes, would not have been possible without the footwork of Dr. Schellenberg.  Thus, the quote:

I spent a lot of time being nice to people on the phone.

Schellenberg, a pathology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, got what he wanted: nearly every Alzheimer's center and Alzheimer's geneticist in the country cooperated.  The scientists were able to analyze the genes of more than 50,000 people in the US and Europe.  They now have intriguing clues to why Alz strikes and how it progresses.

In a previous post, I argued from a huge body of research that being nice to people is not enough.  You've also got to be competent.  Obviously, Schellenberg is both nice and exceedingly competent, the real keys to his success. 

The study showed, with a very strong level of research, that there are 10 genes involved in Alzheimer's. 

It is known that one of the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease is an accumulation of beta amyloid, or a-beta, a protein that forms plaques. And it is known that later in the disease, twisted and tangled proteins — tau — appear in dead and dying nerve cells.

But what is not known is why a-beta starts to accrue, why the brains of people with Alzheimer’s cannot get rid of its excess, or what is the link between amyloid and tau.

As Schellenberg concludes, We are pretty sure more stuff will pop out.

Six Tips for Managing Your Stress in a Stress-Filled Environment

One of my international readers from a Middle East nation sent me a very gracious thank you for my blogging.  A Gen-Yer with an MBA and out of school barely three years, he asked me a very important question: I feel like I'm over-stressed all the time.  What can I do to manage my stress better?  First of all, it's not just Gen-Yers who are over-stressed.  I meet people from all walks of life and all the generations who tell me they're overstressed.  Although I have a lot of background in stress management and have taught the subject, even I got caught up in the throes of painful stress this year.  I described it in recent blog: Three questions for dealing with serious personal loss.

First, some stress background.  Be aware that some stress can enhance performance, whether we're saddled with a new project, presenting to the CEO, arguing in front of a jury, participating in a triathlon or negotiating the terms of a business deal.  That adrenalin surge, triggered by some situations, increases our stress and enables us to focus better, become more efficient and perform at the top of our game.

Yet we also know that some stress undermines our performance.  We can't concentrate, creativity fizzles out, frustration sets in and we become forgetful, moody and irritable. 

So what does stress do to us?  Well, one thing is that it activates the fight-or-flight responses: our heart rate and blood pressure go up and hormones, especially adrenalin, can take over.  As I said, some stress can be very positive.  But too much means that all the benefits disappear and we start to go downhill. 

Learn to identify your personal stress-response patterns so you can take steps to intervene.  Pay attention to your mood.  Getting discouraged, and excitement gone?  Check your stamina.  Feel like you're running out of steam--and hitting a brick wall?  Listen to your body.  Headache?  Back pain?  Dizziness?  Or a racing pulse?

I assume that most of us don't have to deal with chronic stress which can result in really serious problems, but that in the new economy most of us have to deal with more "occasional" stess--task and project related stress.

Here are six tips for managing your stress successfully in a stress-filled environment.

1. Prioritize your tasks on a daily and weekly basis.  It takes time to learn how to prioritize effectively, and it usually requires input from your boss and your colleagues to do a good job.  But I'd suggest that one of the most basic ways to start the process is to figure out what you're NOT going to do today.  Do that first thing in the morning, and just set those things aside for another time--or never.
2. Do what you most hate first thing in the morning--or as soon as possible.  I learned this from a wise client years ago, and I've found that it's a wonderful stress releaser.  I can mull and fret over something for hours, lowering my efficiency and wasting time if I don't get the thing done that I most hate to do.  And all of us have what I call shit-jobs--or grunt jobs--sometimes every day.
3. Put an end to thinking in worst-case scenarios.  We can get emotionally worn down, fatigued and terribly discouraged by spending a lot of time worrying about them.  Set them aside.  Practice the toilet mentality--out of sight, out of mind.  Start your day by playing out scenarios in your brain that are in your own best interest.  There is plenty of useful research that supports the role of "thinking positive" about our tasks.  Optimism can be learned.
4. Get enough sleep.  I think it was the philosopher Voltaire who once said, "I've got so much to do that I've got to take a nap."  In today's 24/7 work world a full night's rest may be an impossible dream.  Still, whenever possible, routinize your sleep.  Go to sleep at the same time every nite, and watch your long nites.  If you're still dating, an overnite often kills off two-to three days, leaving you satiated and happy, but profoundly fatigued.  As one of my young friends puts it, dating requires a lot of energy.  He's right.  Plan it!  Manage your hormones. 
5. Eat a balanced diet.  There's a reason that a lot of Greeks live to old age.  It's their Mediterranean diet.  Fruits, vegetables and meat merely as an accompaniment to the meal rather than the main entre.  Fish and chicken can be a major part of the diet as long as they're not deep fried.  Stay away from a lot of grilling.  Heavy beef and pork are ultimate killers.  I've always loved lamb--and it's very low in animal fat.  You might try bison.  Many grocers are beginning to carry it regularly.  It's tasty and very low fat.  If you're Middle Eastern, goat is also very low fat.  My undergrad college served goat for occasional meals, and I developed a taste for it.  And watch the portions of food.
6. And finally, regular exercise.  There's a reason you feel refreshed after a run or a long walk.  More brain neurons are being created.  The research says a minimum of three sessions of thirty-minute exercise per week.  Do it even when you're tired.  If I'm worn out and emotionally fatigued, the sofa and TV are a disaster.  I simply put my butt into gear and go exercise, even if I'm dragging.  I always feel better as  result.

The fundamentals of stress management are nutrition, exercise and sleep.  Don't ignore them.  After that, there are a lot of tips out there.