Archive for the ‘Leadership’ Category
Short takes: Derek Silvers “Anything You Want”
I’m a little wary of touting the work of “success gurus” (I can’t help flashing on the Chris Farley SNL motivational speaker character Matt Foley) but I make a few exceptions — Derek Silvers is one of those and he has a great trailer for his new book, “Anything You Want” published by fellow guru Seth Godin’s Domino Project.
Related articles
- Leadership Through Stories?! – with Derek Sivers (mixergy.com)
- Anything You Want (sethgodin.typepad.com)
- Lessons From the Mafia for Entrepreneurs, Managers (cnbc.com)
- Short takes: different types of “creative metropoles” (decipheringculture.com)
- Keep your goals to yourself (@ DerekSilvers.com)
- Dancing Guy as a lesson in leadership (@DerekSilvers.org)
Keep your goals to yourself (@ DerekSilvers.com)
A counter-intuitive lesson in fulfilling your goals from Derek Silvers (founder of CD Baby). Silvers gave an elaborated version for TED** (video below — 3:16)
Shut up! Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them.
2009-06-16
Shouldn’t you announce your goals, so friends can support you?
Isn’t it good networking to tell people about your upcoming projects?
Doesn’t the “law of attraction” mean you should state your intention, and visualize the goal as already yours?
Nope.
Tests done since 1933 show that people who talk about their intentions are less likely to make them happen.
Announcing your plans to others satisfies your self-identity just enough that you’re less motivated to do the hard work needed.
In 1933, W. Mahler found that if a person announced the solution to a problem, and was acknowledged by others, it was now in the brain as a “social reality”, even if the solution hadn’t actually been achieved.
NYU psychology professor Peter Gollwitzer has been studying this since his 1982 book “Symbolic Self-Completion” (pdf article here) – and recently published results of new tests in a research article, “When Intentions Go Public: Does Social Reality Widen the Intention-Behavior Gap?”
Four different tests of 63 people found that those who kept their intentions private were more likely to achieve them than those who made them public and were acknowledged by others.
Once you’ve told people of your intentions, it gives you a “premature sense of completeness.”
You have “identity symbols” in your brain that make your self-image.Since both actions and talk create symbols in your brain, talking satisfies the brain enough that it “neglects the pursuit of further symbols.”
A related test found that success on one sub-goal (eating healthy meals) reduced efforts on other important sub-goals (going to the gym) for the same reason.
It may seem unnatural to keep your intentions and plans private, but try it. If you do tell a friend, make sure not to say it as a satisfaction (“I’ve joined a gym and bought running shoes. I’m going to do it!”), but as dissatisfaction (“I want to lose 20 pounds, so kick my ass if I don’t, OK?”)
** TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and Open TV Project, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.
Thinking about Research — Short Takes (4)
(1) Insights often come from (or are repeated by) unlikely sources. This is the case today with a blog post from Dan T. Cathy of fast food chain Chik-A-Flik based on a point made by author Stephen Covey, author of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (a self-help/business book I admit to checking out years ago). The insight is on the importance of knowing where you’re going when embarking on any project, whether it’s a new spicy chicken sandwich or a research project — the projected outcomes of the latter may be more open-ended but the basic principle still applies. Below is a short excerpt from Why the End Matters at the Beginning
… no journey should start without a clear destination in mind. No adventure should begin without a tangible definition of what the point is. You need to know your true north before you even take your first step..
(2) And then there are the likely sources — a recent study by the Cambridge Group delineates the strategic role of internet and mobile in developed and emerging economies. It’s a changing world (read the study report on nielsenwire).
SUMMARY: Consumers around the world are hungry for access to information and communication, especially in countries with a growing middle class. Defying classic economic models, the demand for communication (cell phones) leads traditional media growth, signifying a global, disruptive phenomenon. The demand for information via the Internet follows slower, more predictable growth patterns. The implications for marketers: lead with mobile advertising in high-growth, emerging economies. (
Dancing Guy as a lesson in leadership (@DerekSilvers.org)
The “dancing guy video has become viral — over 3 million hits for the original. And it’s making its way into business presentations. I saw Gentry Underwood of IDEO use it to illustrate the herd aspect of human behavior in a talk on ethnography and design at PARC in Palo Alto. And below is a link to an article by music business strategist Derek Silvers on whaa we can learn about leadership from Dancing Guy (the video gives a capsule version — the text is available on Silver’s blog, a new find I’m bookmarking today).
Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy
Also worth checking out is Silvers’ entry on the human need for drama:
Kurt Vonnegut explains drama
I was at a Kurt Vonnegut talk in New York a few years ago. Talking about writing, life, and everything. He explained why people have such a need for drama in their life. He said, “People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories. Let’s look at a few examples.” (read more…)
Deciphering Culture
Deciphering Culture 