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Bonus leading customer bad mood
 Have
you ever wondered why people at work so
seldom come up with new ideas?
And why brainstorming sessions,
supposedly designed to encourage
creative thinking, tend to trigger the
opposite?
Here’s a hint.
What was your first thought at
school when you were given a test or
handed examination questions?
Not the answer to the first
question, I bet.
More likely you asked yourself
another question: “What is the right
answer they expect?”
Why was that?
Because school learning is based
on one correct answer for every
question.
You either got it right or not.
You learned quickly not to think
up new answers.
Doing that was plain stupid,
because everybody knew that a kid who
had right answers was a great kid.
No wonder we have people at work who,
when asked to brainstorm or be creative,
immediately think “What’s the right
answer my boss expects?
And will that get me a good
grade, I mean bonus?”
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Leading on crowded paths
 Talking
about right answers . . . .
Can a crowd really know better
than one wise guy?
Mahatma Ghandi once said, “I must
go now, for there go my people and I am
their leader.”
No doubt, Ghandi was a leader and
yet, the so-called wisdom of crowds
makes me nervous.
But then there’s the story that designer
Christopher Williams tells about an
architect who waited for the people to
lead.
He had designed and built a
cluster of office buildings which the
landscaper wanted to connect with
sidewalks.
“Not yet,” said the architect.
“Plant grass.”
Within months there were clear
pathways between the buildings.
Although not straight, these
pathways were the most efficient lines
of connection.
All the landscaper had to do was
to pave where the users had shown their
need, their preferred paths.
Indeed, sometimes leaders should simply
get out of the way so that the people
can show their path.
But knowing when this is best is
always tricky.
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Aim your customer anger higher
 Have you wondered why middle managers and other employees continue
to work for organizations that
intentionally rip off innocent
customers?
You know the sort of organization
I mean – those that believe we need them
more than they need us.
Well, here is a possible reason.
It’s simply human nature.
When they execute disagreeable orders received from up high, these
employees might feel sorry for us.
But they feel sorrier for
themselves.
They know that they will pay a
personal price if they refuse to execute
policies harmful to customers.
Personal penalties almost always override empathy for victims.
For example, records show that
some Nazi prison guards shed tears as
they shot Jewish women and children.
But guess what?
They kept shooting because the
personal risk in not shooting was
greater than their personal pain.
So don’t be angry with employees.
Be angry with their boss’s boss’s
boss.
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Bad mood rising
 For years now I have been practicing to be a crotchety old man.
I think I’ve earned the right to
finally have some fun.
And now I have an added
incentive.
Bad moods help me to think
clearer about how to be cranky.
After years of studying the dumps down under, an Australian
psychologist has concluded that
grumpiness makes for better thinking.
According to Professor Joe Forgas,
the way the brain processes information
means that bad moods make you pay more
attention to your environment and so
trigger careful thinking.
Being cheerful might make you more creative, but being gloomy makes
you less gullible.
Here’s the really useful bit.
A grumpy person, me for example,
copes better with demanding situations
than a happy person does.
So I figure, to succeed at being
crotchety, I must create demanding
situations for those happy clappy
chappies who put me in a bad mood in the
first place.
∞
Are you a happy clappy sort of chappy?
Click here to trigger my bad mood rising.
∞
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