Simple behaviour routines, such as following a structured checklist, can prevent crucial workplace errors and increase quality in medical settings, found Harvard’s Atul Gawande.

He found that people effectively improved their performance when they recognized weaknesses in organizational processes, and took proactive steps to remedy these shortcomings.

Three elements of better performance can be applied across industries:

• Diligence – Attending to details can prevent errors and overcome obstacles.
  
  Gawande’s The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right suggests best ways to structure these memory aids,

  

• Doing Right –Ensuring that skill, will, and incentives are aligned to drive excellent performance,
  
• Ingenuity – Deliberately monitoring potential failures, continuously seeking to improve performance and solutions.

Attentive observation and feedback prevent errors of omission when people lack

• Sufficient and relevant Knowledge (ignorance),
• Skill in applying knowledge (ineptitude).

Ignorance occurs less frequently than ineptitude because relevant information is widely available, Gawande noted.

He suggested that both errors can be improved by systematic analysis and consistent use of tools like checklists.

Checklist-based analysis was also linked to Internal Rate of Return (IRR) in Geoffrey Smart’s study of investments by Venture Capital (VC) firms,

He found a correlation between IRR and leadership effectiveness in new investment ventures.
Selecting capable leaders is critical to business outcomes, so Smart also evaluated VC firms’ typical approach to assessing potential leaders:

• The Art Critic is the most frequent approach in which the VC assesses leadership talent at a glance, intuitively, based on experience,
  
• The Sponge conducts extensive due diligence, then decides based on intuition,
  
• The Prosecutor interrogates the candidate, tests with challenging questions and hypothetical situations,
  
• The Suitor woos the candidate instead of analysing capabilities and fit,
  
• The Terminator eliminates the evaluation because the venture firm replaces the company’s originators,
  
• The Infiltrator becomes a “participant-observer” in an immersive, time-consuming experientially-based assessment,
  
• The Airline Captain uses a formal checklist to prevent past mistakes.
  
  This last approach was linked to the highest average Internal Rate of Return (IRR) for the new ventures.
  
  In addition, this strategy was significantly less likely to result in later terminating senior leaders.

Venture Capitalists in these studies reported that two of their most significant mistakes were:

• Investing insufficient time in talent analysis,
• Being influenced by “halo effect” in evaluating candidates.

Systematic reminders to execute all elements required for expert performance can prevent failure and signal potential failure points.

-*How do you improve performance?

-*What value do you find in expert coaching to enhance performance?

Related Post:
Developing a SMARTER Mindset for Resilience, Emotional Intelligence – Part 2

©Kathryn Welds

Successful careers can follow forms other than “up or out,” according to Decision Dynamics’ Kenneth Brousseau, Michael Driver of USC, with Lund University’s Kristina Eneroth, and Rikard Larsson.

Their “pluralistic career concept framework” classified careers as:

–Linear – Traditional upward movement, with variable job role tenure, and motivated by power and achievement.

Behavioral competencies include leadership, competitiveness, cost-efficiency, logistics management, profit orientation.

This career concept is most seen in tall hierarchies with a narrow span of control.

–Expert – Little movement and long role tenure due to deepening expertise in a narrow discipline.

Motives include mastery, expertise, and security.
Meaningful rewards are continued training, benefits, recognition.

Competencies are quality, commitment, reliability, technical competence, stability orientation.
This career concept is well-matched to flat functional organizations.

–Spiral – Lateral movement to broaden functional exposure, with seven to ten year tenure in roles.

Motivated by personal growth, creativity, and suited to matrix organizations with cross-functional teams, this pattern is seen in loose, temporary team structures.

Rewards include cross-functional lateral assignments and training.
Key competencies include creativity, teamwork, skill diversity, lateral coordination, people development.

–Transitory – Lateral moves with three to five year tenures are motivated by desire for variety, independence.
Most often found in temporary team structures, where behavioural skills include speed, networking, adaptability, fast learning, project focus.
Meaningful rewards are job rotation, temporary assignments, immediate cash bonuses.

This team’s research was distilled into assessment tools focused on career “fit” with an organization’s structure and objectives.

A similar emphasis on cultural fit is found in CareerLeader Inventory, based on Timothy Butler and James Waldroop’s research at Harvard Business School.

-*Which of the four career trajectories seems most like yours?

-*Which career assessment tools have you found most useful to determine your skills, interests, and best-fit organizational context?

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• How to Win the Career Advancement Contest – Tournament
• Do Women Advance in Careers More Slowly than Men?
• Comparative Rankings May Reduce Gender Bias in Career Advancement
• When Appearance Matters for Career Development
• Career “Planning” = Career “Improvisation”
• Three Approaches to Identifying a Career Path
• Women’s Career Development: Contest and Sponsorship Pathways to Advancement
• Women’s Career Development Model: Negotiation, Networking-Mentoring-Sponsorship, Skillful Self-Promotion
• Career Navigation by Embracing Uncertainty

©Kathryn Welds

Narcissistic personality is characterized by:

-Inflated views of the self,
-Grandiosity,
-Self-focus,
-Vanity,
-Self-importance,

according to San Diego State University’s Jean M. Twenge, with Sara Konrath and Brad J. Bushman of University of Michigan, collaborating with University of South Alabama’s Joshua D. Foster, and Keith Campbell of University of Georgia,

One well-validated assessment instrument to identify narcissism is the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, developed by University of California Berkeley’s Robert Raskin and Calvin S. Hall.

Raskin and UC Berkeley colleague, Howard Terry examined responses from more than 1000 volunteers and found seven constructs related to narcissism:

• Authority,
• Exhibitionism,
• Superiority,
• Vanity,
• Exploitativeness,
• Entitlement,
• Self-Sufficiency.

They related ratings of “self” and “ideal self” to participants’ responses on the Leary Interpersonal Check List, developed by Harvard’s Timothy Leary before he investigated psychedelic drugs.

An alternative to Leary’s lengthy NPI was developed by University of Michigan’s Sara Konrath, Brian P. Meier of Gettysburg College, and Ohio State’s Brad J. Bushman of Indiana University.
The Single Item Narcissism Scale (SINS) measures grandiosity, entitlement, and low empathy characteristic of “narcissistic” behaviour.

The team asked more than 2,200 participants to rate their answer to a single question on a scale of one to seven: To what extent do you agree with this statement? “I am a narcissist.”

Konrath’s team demonstrated that the Single Item Narcissism Scale is a valid, reliable alternative to longer narcissism scales because it is significantly correlated with scores on the NPI and is uncorrelated with social desirability.

People who score high on the NPI and SINS say that they are more arrogant, condescending, argumentative, critical, and prone to brag than people who score low on the NPI, according to University of Toronto’s Erika Carlson.

Narcissism was also related in Konrath’s validation studies to:

• Negative emotions including anger, shame, guilt, and fear,
• Low empathy for others including low perspective-taking, low caring concern, and little personal distress when others experience distress,
• Minimal commitment to relationship partners.

People who scored high for narcissism also showed behaviours that can be problematic at work:

• Anger and aggression in response to perceived threats to “self-worth”, and “insufficient” admiration and respect, often evoked in performance reviews,
  
• “Salary entitlement” in believing they deserve higher compensation than peers, even under adverse business conditions.

However, people who scored high for narcissism displayed positive attributes including:

• High creativity,
• Happiness,
• Self-esteem,
• Resistance to anxiety and depression.

Interacting with a narcissist in the workplace can be challenging, and a previous blog post identifies recommended strategies.

-*How do you identify narcissists in the workplace and in personal life?
-*What are more effective ways to work with them?

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• Least Skillful Performers May Have Greatest Self-Delusions of Skill
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• “Honest Confidence” Enables Performance, Perceived Power
• Costs of Workplace Incivility

©Kathryn Welds

A negotiator’s assertiveness style and understanding of how others perceive assertive behaviours can determine success in bargaining, according to Columbia University’s Daniel Ames and Abbie Wazlawek.

Individuals who apply more assertiveness than required to achieve their goals have less-accurate self-perception than less assertive people, and both groups experience “self-awareness blindness.”

A mismatch between negotiation partners’ ratings of appropriate assertiveness was linked to poorer negotiation outcomes for both parties.

Nearly 60% of negotiators who were rated as appropriately assertive but felt over-assertive (“line-crossing illusion”) negotiated the inferior deals for themselves and their counterparts. 

This finding suggests that disingenuous emotional displays (such as “strategic umbrage” or feigned anger) were associated with a negotiation partner seeking the first acceptable deal. 
This reduces the opportunity to achieve an optimal outcome for both participants.

Negotiators can increase their accuracy in judging their negotiation partner’s impression of their degree of assertiveness in the negotiation, (“meta-perception“) by:

-Participating in 360 degree feedback,

-Increasing skill in listening for content and meaning,

–Considering whether negotiation proposals are “reasonable” in light of alternatives,

-Requesting feedback on reactions to “strategic umbrage” displays to better understand perceptions of “offer reasonableness,”

-Evaluating costs and benefits of specific assertiveness styles.

Over-assertiveness may provide the benefit of “claiming value” in a negotiation but may lead to ruptured interpersonal relationships, according to Jeffrey M. Kern of Texas A&M, SUNY’s Cecilia Falbe and Gary Yukl.

Cultural norms for assertiveness vary across countries. 
In “low context” cultures like Israel, dramatic displays of emotion and assertion are  expected in negotiations.
In contrast, “high context” cultures like Japan, require more nuanced assertiveness, with fewer direct disagreements and fewer “strategic umbrage” displays, according to Edward T. Hall, then of the U.S. Department of State.

Under-assertiveness may minimise interpersonal conflict, but may lead to poorer negotiation outcomes and undermined credibility in future interactions, according to Ames’ related research.

To augment a less assertive style, he suggested:

• Set slightly higher goals,
• Reconsider assumptions that greater assertion leads to conflict,
• Increase proactivity to show respect and improve outcomes,
• Observe outcomes when collaborating with more assertive other people.

To modulate a more assertiveness style:

• Make slight concessions to increase trust with others,
• Evaluate the outcomes when collaborating with less assertive other people.

*How do you match your degree of assertiveness to negotiation situations?

RELATED POSTS:

• How Effective are Strategic Threats, Anger, and Unpredictability in Negotiations?
• Expressing Anger at Work: Power Tactic or Career-Limiting Strategy?
• Anxiety Undermines Negotiation Performance
• Power Tactics for Better Negotiation
• Do You Accept Bad Deals?
• Decision Maximizers, Satisficers and Potential Bias
• “Honest Confidence” Enables Performance, Perceived Power

©Kathryn Welds

Two Stanford professors’ personal experiences in gender transition were highlighted by University of Chicago’s Kristen Schilt.

Stanford’s Joan Roughgarden, was an evolutionary biologist for more than 25 years as Jonathan Roughgarden before she made her male-to-female (MTF) transition.

Known for her work integrating evolutionary theory with Christian beliefs (“theistic evolutionism”), she reported feeling less able to make bold conjectures and no longer had “the right to be wrong.”

Her experience contrasts with Stanford colleague, neurobiologist Ben Barres, who made scientific contributions as Barbara Barres until after he was 40.

After his female-to-male (FTM) transition, Ben delivered a lecture at Whitehead Institute, where an audience member commented, “Ben Barres gave a great seminar today, but, then, his work is much better than his sister’s.”

Schilt surveyed FTM and MTF to compare earnings and employment experiences before and after gender transitions with questions similar to 2002 Current Population Survey (CPS) survey items:

• Last job before gender transition,
• First job after gender transition,
• Most recent job.

Female-to-male transsexuals (FTMs) reported that as men, they had more authority, reward, and respect in the workplace than they received as women, even when they remained in the same jobs.

Height and skin color affected potential advantages enjoyed by FTM.

Tall, white FTMs experienced greater benefits than short FTMs and FTMs of color.
In contrast, MTF reported reduced authority and pay, and often harassment and termination.

University of Illinois’s Donald McCloskey, for example, was told by his department chair “in jest” that he could expect a salary reduction when he became Deirdre McCloskey.

However, salary reduction was no joke for MTFs in Schilt’s survey sample.
Participants reported significant losses of 12% in hourly earnings after becoming female.

Additionally, MTFs transitioned on average 10 years later than FTMs, delaying the loss of financial advantages attributable to male gender.

FTMs, however, experienced no change in earnings or small positive increases up to 7.5% in earnings after transitioning to becoming men.

Any gender transition was associated with risks of harassment and discrimination, reported more frequently in “blue-collar” jobs, particularly for those with “non-normative” appearance and not consistently “passing” as the other gender.

These “naturalistic experiments” confirm continuing gender-based pay discrepancies.

-*To what extent have you observed these gender-linked differences in compensation and workplace credibility?

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• “Social Accounts” as Pay Substitutes for Women
• How Accurate are Personality Judgments Based on Physical Appearance?
• “Self-Packaging” as Personal Brand: Implicit Requirements for Personal Appearance?
• Role Pioneers May Encounter “The Glass Cliff”
• Women Don’t Ask for Raises or Promotions as Often as Men
• Attractive Appearance Helps Men Gain Business Funding 
• Executive Presence: “Gravitas”, Communication…and Appearance?
• How Much Does Appearance Matter?

©Kathryn Welds

Situations outside the workplace can affect employees’ productivity, commitment, mindset, attitudes, and health.

Similarly, experiences at work can affect employees’ quality of life at work and outside of work.
Workplace Employee Assistance Programs, on-site medical centres, concierges, meals, and fitness centres are intended to address this bi-directional influence to improve employee retention and productivity.

When employees suppress their true feelings about work experiences, they engage in “surface acting” as they display appropriate, but unfelt facial expressions, verbal interactions, and body language.

Surface acting at work was associated with emotional exhaustion, work-to-family conflict, and insomnia outside of work for more than 70 volunteers in a high stress public service occupation, found Singapore Management University’s David T. Wagner, Christopher M. Barnes of University of Washington, and Brent A. Scott of Michigan State University.

“Emotional labor” was Arlie Hochshild’s earlier term for “surface acting” in customer service interactions when employees present prescribed verbalisations and emotions.

She contrasted “surface acting” with “deep acting” in which the person:

• Exhibits the emotion actually felt,
• Uses past emotional experiences to elicit real emotion and empathic connection with others, in a form of “organizational method acting.”

“Surface acting” at work can lead to occupational “burnout,” characterized by emotional exhaustion, detachment from others, and reduced workplace performance, noted University of California Berkeley’s Christina Maslach and Susan Jackson.

In contrast, high emotional labor with deep acting was associated with a greater sense of personal accomplishment in research by University of Regina’s Celeste Brotheridge and Alicia Grandey of Penn State.

Recipients of “surface acting” are usually accurately detect that it’s an inauthentic display, according to University of Tampere Veikko Surakka and Jari K Hietanen of University of Helsinki.

Similarly, “Facades of Conformity,” impression management, and
unwilling compliance are associated with generalized stress and reduced quality of life outside of work, according to Georgetown’s Patricia Hewlin, University of Lethbridge’s Karen H. Hunter, Andrew A. Luchak of University of Alberta, and Athabasca University’s Kay Devine.

These three experiences are defined as:

• Facades of Conformity (FOC), or behaviours enacted to appear that an employee embraces organisational values.
  
  These behaviours usually are associated with non-participative work environments, minority status, and high self-monitoring.

. Impression management, characterised by ingratiating behaviours in two-person relationships which can favourably influence career outcomes, according to Georgia Tech’s Robert C. Liden and Terence R. Mitchell of University of Washington.

• Compliance, or publicly stating changed beliefs in response to external pressures, without truly modifying personal convictions, according to Leon Festinger.

Most people at work encounter situations in which they choose to behave in “appropriate” ways that are inconsistent with their true feelings, and may experience similar stress spillover from “surface acting” at work.

-*How do you prevent “burnout” when workplace settings seem to require “surface acting”?


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• How Effective are Strategic Threats, Anger, and Unpredictability in Negotiations?
• Emotional Awareness Enables Focus, Risk-taking Even When “Stressed”
• Leadership Roles Reduce Perceived Stress
• Natural Environments Enhance “Vitality” and Reduce Stress
• Consequences of “Facades of Conformity”
• Is Being at Work Less Stressful than Being at Home?

©Kathryn Welds

Emotional contagion iinvolves replicating emotions displayed by others.
Contagion differs from compassion, which enables understanding another’s emotional experience without actually feeling it, noted Virginia Commonwealth University’s S. Douglas Pugh.

“Viral emotions” can be transmitted through social media platforms with no need to observe nonverbal cues, according to Facebook’s Adam D. I. Kramer, Jamie E. Guillory of University of California, San Francisco and Cornell University’s Jeffrey T. Hancock.
This suggests that social media can significantly affect the emotional tone in workplaces and the interpersonal relations that take place there.
In addition, the emotional tone evoked by social media posts can affect workplace productivity.

When positive emotional expressions were reduced in Facebook News Feeds, people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts.
In contrast, when negative emotional expressions were reduced, people reduced negative posts, indicating that others’ emotional expressions influence bystanders’ emotions and behaviors.

People in performance situations are influenced by observing others’ emotions.   
When participants witnessed positive emotions in a decision task, they were more likely to cooperate and perform better in groups, found Wharton’s  Sigal Barsade.

Individuals who were more influenced by others’ emotions on R. William Doherty’s Emotional Contagion Scale also reported greater:

• Reactivity,
• Emotionality,
• Sensitivity to others,
• Social functioning,
• Self-esteem,
• Emotional empathy.

They also reported lower:

• Alienation,
• Self-assertiveness,
• Emotional stability.

People are more likely to be influenced by others’ emotions when they feel threatened, because this elicits increased affiliation with others, according to Stanley Schachter‘s emotional similarity hypothesis.

Likewise, when people believe that others are threatened, they are more likely to mimic others’ emotions, found Syracuse University’s Brooks B. Gump and James A. Kulik of University of California, San Diego.

Women reported greater contagion of both positive and negative emotions on the Emotional Contagion Scale in research by Doherty with University of Hawaii colleagues Lisa Orimoto, Elaine Hatfield, Janine Hebb, and Theodore M. Singelis of California State University-Chico.

People who are more likely to “catch” emotions from others are also more likely to actually feel emotions associated with facial expressions they display, reported Clark University’s James D. Laird, Tammy Alibozak, Dava Davainis, Katherine Deignan, Katherine Fontanella, Jennifer Hong, Brett Levy, and Christine Pacheco.
This suggests that those with greater susceptibility to emotional contagion are convincing to themselves and others.

Contrary to expectation, people with greater power notice and adopt emotions of people with less power, found University of Hawaii’s Christopher K. Hsee, Hatfield, and John G. Carlson with Claude Chemtob of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Participants assumed the role of “teacher” or “learner” to simulate role-based power differentials, then viewed a videotape of a fictitious participant discussing an emotional experience.
Volunteers then described their emotions as they watched the confederate describe a “happiest” and “saddest” life event.
People in higher power roles were more attuned to followers’ emotions than expected.

The service industry capitalizes on emotional contagion by training staff members to show positive emotions with the goal of increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

However, customer satisfaction measures were more influenced by service quality than employees’ positive emotional displays, according to Bowling Green State’s Patricia B. Barger and Alicia A. Grandey of Pennsylvania State University.

Emotions can positively or negatively resonate through work organisations with measurable impact on employee attitude, morale, engagement, customer service, safety, and innovation.

-*How do you intentionally convey emotions to individuals and group members?
-*What strategies do you use to manage susceptibility to “emotional contagion”?

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• Emotional Awareness Enables Focus, Risk-taking Even When “Stressed”
• Body Language Conveys Emotions more Intelligibly than Facial Expressions
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• Stress Increases Women’s Performance and Empathic Attunement, but not Men’s
• Expansive Body Language Decreases Power for Some
• Non-Verbal Behaviors that Signal “Charisma”
• Stigma Contagion When Women Predominate in Groups

©Kathryn Welds

Coaching is a collaborative process to facilitate coachees’ self-directed learning, personal growth, and goal attainment, according to University of Sydney’s Anthony Grant.

He integrated practices from solution-focused approaches and cognitive-behavioral interventions into Solution-Focused Cognitive-Behavioral (SF-CB) Coaching and a “Coach Yourself” program with Jane Greene.

Participants reported increased:

• Goal attainment,
• Quality of life,
• Mental health

on the Self-Reflection and Insight Scale, developed with Macquarie University colleagues John Franklin and Peter Langford.

Two types of empirical studies provide evidence about coaching’s efficacy:

• Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT), in which participants receive one of several interventions or no intervention.
  
  This is considered the more credible research approach.

. Quasi-Experimental Field Studies (QEFS), which use “time series analysis” but not random participants to measure outcomes.

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) found several effects among executives who received 360-degree feedback and four coaching sessions over ten weeks:

. Lower stress, according to Grant and University of Sydney colleagues Linley Curtayne and Geraldine Burton,

• Greater goal attainment compared with an eight week educational mindfulness-based health coaching program, reported by University of Sydney’s Gordon B. Spence, Michael J. Cavanagh and Grant,

• Increased goal commitment, and environmental mastery, compared with peer coaching among adults in a Solution Focused/Cognitive Behavioral (SF/CB) life coaching program, according to research by Spence and Grant,
  

. Increased cognitive hardiness, mental health, and hope among female high school students in a 10 session solution-focused cognitive-behavioral (SF-CB) life coaching program, found University of Wollongong’s L.S. Green, Grant, and Josephine Rynsaardt,

• Increased goal striving, well-being, hope, with gains maintained up to 30 weeks, reported by Grant and Green with University of Wollongong colleague Lindsay G. Oades.

Increased hope is crucial to pursue any goal, according to University of Kansas’s C.R. Snyder, Scott T. Michael of University of Washington, and Ohio State’s Jennifer Cheavens.

Individuals seeking change are more effective when they:

• Develop one or more ways to achieve a goals (“pathways”),
• Use these routes to reach the goal (“agency”).

Three additional elements contribute to goal achievement, suggested University of Rochester’s Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan:

• Competence,
• Autonomy,
• Relatedness.

According to their Self-Determination Theory (SDT), these characteristics are associated with increased:

• Goal motivation,
• Enhanced performance,
• Persistence,
• Mental health.

The other category of research, Quasi-Experimental Field Studies (QEFS), reported that coaching for managers of a federal government:

• Increased expectations of self-efficacy and goal achievement, in research by Will J.G. Evers, Andre Brouwers and Welko Tomic of The Open University.
  

• Decreased anxiety and stress among UK finance organization participants, in findings by Kristina Gyllensten and Stephen Palmer of City University London.

These empirical studies validate coaching’s contribution to participants’ increased goal attainment and increased satisfaction, well-being, and hope.

-*How do you “coach yourself” and others toward increased goal attainment and performance?

-*What are the “active ingredients” of effective coaching practices?

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• Asking Yourself Questions Enhances Performance More Than Self-Encouragement
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• Working toward Goals with “Implementation Intentions”

©Kathryn Welds

“Sunk-cost bias” is the tendency to continue unsuccessful actions after time and money have been invested.
Frequent examples include:

• Holding poorly-performing stock market investments,
• Staying in unsatisfying personal relationships,
• Continuing ineffective military engagements.

In these cases, people focus on past behaviors rather than current circumstances, leading to emotion-driven decision biases.

Brief meditation sessions can help decision makers consider factors beyond past “sunk costs,” reported Wharton’s Sigal Barsade, with Andrew C. Hafenbrack and Zoe Kinias of INSEAD.

Meditation practices can:

• Increase focus on the present moment,
• Shift attention away from past and future actions,
• Increase positive emotions.

The team asked volunteers to complete Mindful Attention Awareness Scale, developed by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Kirk Brown and Richard Ryan of University of Rochester.

They also measured participants’ ability to resist “sunk cost” bias using Adult Decision-Making Competence Inventory, developed by Leeds University’s Wändi Bruine de Bruin with Baruch Fischhoff of Carnegie Mellon and RAND Corporation’s Andrew M. Parker.

In a decision task, participants could take an action or to do nothing, as a measure of sunk-cost bias.
Taking action indicated resistance to the sunk-cost bias, whereas those who took no action were influenced by the sunk-cost bias.

Volunteers who listened to a 15-minute focused-breathing guided meditation were more likely to choose action, resisting sunk-cost bias, than those who had not heard the meditation instruction.

Barsade’s team noted that, “People who meditated focused less on the past and future, which led to them experiencing less negative emotion. That helped them reduce the sunk-cost bias.”

Mindful attention enabled negotiators to craft better deals by “claiming a larger share of the bargaining zone” in “fixed pie” negotiations, found Singapore Management University’s Jochen Reb, Jayanth Narayanan of National University of Singapore, and University of California, Hastings College of the Law’s Darshan Brach.

Effective negotiators also expressed greater satisfaction with the bargaining process and outcome. 

Mindful attention also leads to a lower negativity bias, the tendency to weigh pessimistic information more heavily than positive, reported Virginia Commonwealth University’s Laura G. Kiken and Natalie J. Shook of West Virginia University.

The team assessed negativity bias with BeanFest, a computer game developed by Shook, with Ohio State’s Russell Fazio and J. Richard Eiser of University of Sheffield.

Participants associated novel stimuli with positive or negative outcomes during attitude formation exercises.

Volunteers who listened to a mindfulness induction correctly classified positive and negative stimuli more equally, expressed greater optimism, and demonstrated less negativity bias than those in the control condition.

Mindful attention improves decision-making and enhances negotiation outcomes by reducing biases linked to negative emotions.

As a result, taking a brief mental break (“time-out”) during decision-making can improve choices and can reduce the possibility that “the wrong emotions cloud the decision-making process.”

-*How do you reduce bias in making decisions and crafting negotiation proposals?

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• Decision Maximizers, Satisficers and Potential Bias
• Overcoming Decision Bias: Allure of “Availability Heuristic”, “Primacy Effect”
• Detect and Mitigate Decision Biases
• “Productive Pause”, Intuition for Better Decisions
• Beware of Seeking, Acting on Advice When Anxious, Sad
• Anxiety Undermines Negotiation Performance
• “Everything is Negotiable”: Prepare, Ask, Revise, Ask Again
• Do You Accept Bad Deals?

 ©Kathryn Welds

Goal motivation changes as people move closer to their target, according to Stanford’s Szu-chi Huang and Ying Zhang of University of Texas.
This finding confirms Heinz Heckhausen’s earlier studies of goal motivation.

In the first stages of effort toward a goal, multiple paths  makes the target seem attainable, noted Huang and Zhang.

This perception of “self-efficacy,” belief in ability to achieve a goal, provides motivation to continue goal striving, reported Stanford’s Albert Bandura.

When people are close to achieving a goal, a single goal path provides greater motivation.   
This observation is consistent with Clark Hull’s finding that motivation increases closer to the goal.

A single route to the finish reduces the “cognitive load” of considering different approaches, supporting Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper’s finding that “more choice is not always better.” 

Huang and Zhang also demonstrated the motivational impact of number of choices.
Volunteers with fewer choices were more likely to achieve the goal in a study of incentive to claim a reward.
“…relatively rigid structures can often simplify goal pursuit by removing the need to make choices,” explained Huang.

These stages of goal pursuit are characterised by different mindsets.
“Deliberative Mindset” describes considering effort toward a goal whereas “Implemental Mindset” characterises planning actions toward a goal, according to NYU’s Peter Gollwitzer, Heinz Heckhausen, and Birgit Steller of University of Heidelberg.

Motivation toward a goal is also determined by:

• Goal value,
• Expectancy of success, based on probability, difficulty, sufficiency, necessity,

reported Tel Aviv University’s Nira Liberman and Jens Förster of Jacobs University of Bremen and Universiteit van Amsterdam.

A practical application of these findings is that nonprofit organizations can increase fund-raising campaign participation and contributions by offering fewer and simpler contribution options when a fund-raising target is nearly met.

-*How do you maintain motivation when you are close to achieving a goal?

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• Still Fulfilling Your New Year’s Resolutions?
• Clearly-Imagined Future Self Enables More Effective Goal Planning
• Recasting Unattainable Goals into Refreshed Options
• Hacking Human Behavior with “Tiny Habits” 
• How to Change Habits
• “Grit” Rivals IQ and EQ to Achieve Goals
• Working toward Goals with “Implementation Intentions”
• Minimize “Quest for the Best” Bias
• Decision Maximizers, Satisficers and Potential Bias
• Paradoxical Bias against Innovative Ideas in the Workplace
• Reframing Non-Comparable Choices to Make Them Simpler, More Satisfying

©Kathryn Welds