Last night, as I was settling down for an evening of binge-watching, a friend sent me a WhatsApp photo of something that had just dropped through her letterbox. It was a piece of direct mail, and I replied with some quip about it being old-fashioned.

Even so, the leaflet had caught my friend’s attention, so much so that she thought it worthwhile sending messages about it. In the same way, earlier in the evening, I had paid attention when I opened the post to find a reminder from the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency that my car tax is due in a couple of weeks. Even though I had seen the notifications on my phone about my car tax, I had done nothing about them. Only the “old-fashioned” item of print caught my attention for long enough for me to take action.

Of course, I can hear you saying, “But Graham is a ‘Generation Jones’, and so he is bound to like these old ideas.” (Yes, there is such a thing as “Generation Jones”, which came after the Baby Boomers and  just before Generation X.)

However, it has nothing to do with age. It’s all about the “marketing mix”. Marketers understand that people need several reminders of a marketing message in a variety of formats before they take any action. Yet these days they appear to be abandoning that basic principle.

Recent reports show that each year marketers are pushing more and more of their spend into just one form of promotion, digital marketing, giving up on those other elements of the marketing mix. Last year, 73% of worldwide advertising spend went on digital-only forms of promotion. In the UK, the picture is worse because we increased our digital advertising spend by 10%, compared with the worldwide average of almost 3%. According to Datareportal, the UK and the USA spend significantly more of their GDP on digital advertising than most other nations. Here in the UK, advertising spending as a share of GDP is among the highest in the world, suggesting we have become unusually dependent on digital visibility. It is as though we have become obsessed with digital marketing at the expense of everything else. Have we forgotten that other forms of marketing and promotion exist?

Industry research from firms working in direct mail consistently suggests that combining direct mail with digital channels can improve response rates, lead quality, and return on investment. For example, this report from Franklin Madison Direct, a marketing firm based in Minnesota, USA, shows that combining digital marketing with direct mail dramatically improves performance. Indeed, marketers in the study reported better lead quality when direct mail was used alongside digital marketing.

The study confirms work from a couple of years ago by the San Francisco software company, Lob. This showed that when direct mail is used, the return on investment is higher compared with other forms of marketing.

In the meantime, despite all this research to the contrary, we appear to be rushing headlong into spending even more money on digital marketing. Decades of marketing research have shown that the marketing mix is fundamental to success. Why are we focusing so much on just one type of promotion and on only one place where customers can find out about us – the digital world? 

Even though I joked with my friend that the direct mail she received was “old-fashioned”, it clearly is not, as it worked by grabbing attention. Perhaps it is time to check on our assumption that digital marketing should reign supreme.  It is only part of the mix.

Source

The other day, I received an email, and I shouted “Hurray” out loud, to the amusement of those around me. The message said a change at work was coming. I was elated because I suggested this change over a decade ago. I wondered why it had taken so long to make the decision.

I often get frustrated by committee-based decision-making. It’s not just where I work, but at every university in the UK as far as I can tell. Decisions take ages to make and even longer to implement. I was once told by an executive board member at Cambridge that the change I was suggesting they make wasn’t necessary. “We’ve survived 800 years without it,” said the professor, “why do we need social media now?” 

However, talking to businesspeople in commercial sectors, there are increasing complaints that decisions and actions are taking much longer than they used to. People of my generation cannot understand why things that would have taken a short time in the “olden days” now take their company months or years.

It’s because, over the past few decades, the notion of “consensus management” has taken hold across businesses worldwide. Everyone has to have an “input” into shaping the way the business proceeds. Committees and teams spring up to support decision-making and to feed their ideas to the Board. The problem is that by the time they reach the board, much has been watered down to ensure everyone is happy. 

The change at my workplace came about after years of discussion, which eventually stalled because it was going nowhere. Then, along comes a new senior manager who chatted to a couple of people and made the decision himself. Gosh, it’s just like those olden days.

So, imagine how happy I was when I read an article in the latest Harvard Business Review suggesting that the era of consensus management could be over. The authors argue that, in the age of artificial intelligence, slow decision-making is no longer an option. Speed will not come from merely talking about agility. It will come from changing structures, responsibilities and ways of working.

The article argues that speed will not come from talking about agility. It will come from changing structures, responsibilities and ways of working. They go beyond the notion of “agile” to suggest that businesses need to alter the way they work.

It reminds me of the research conducted by Professor Robert Solow, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics. He showed that you could see the computer age everywhere except in the productivity statistics. In other words, simply adding technology did not automatically make organisations more productive. It is called the Solow Paradox. The gains came when businesses changed their structures, workflows and management systems to make proper use of that technology.

It appears the Harvard article says much the same. You will only benefit from AI if you change the way you work, structure your organisation and make decisions. Slow decision-making and delayed implementation of change are no longer an option. So, when will you decide to reorganise to adapt to the AI world? Or will that take you a decade to work out, once it has gone through several committees and resulted in a “one-size-fits-all” option designed to make “everyone happy”? It is always worth remembering the adage that when a committee was asked to design a horse, it ended up producing a camel.

Source

I hope you are having a lovely Easter break and looking forward to munching your way through several eggs. Now, don’t go telling me that you don’t have Easter eggs. The latest statistics show that, here in the UK, we are the third-largest consumers of chocolate in the world. Each of us manages to munch our way through 6.9kg of chocolate each year. That’s the equivalent of 153 bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk per person. 

All across the land, people will probably be spending time this Easter promising to give up chocolate after all the eggs have been eaten. Or they’ll be saying they will get back to the diet they started after Christmas, but which the Easter bunny has now destroyed. There’s nothing like the taste of chocolate to make us put off our planned improvements in eating. 

That’s not the only thing we procrastinate about. I am currently busy marking student assignments. The students were notified nine weeks before the deadline of what they needed to do. Yet, judging by the panic calls I had in the days before the clock was about to chime, many students put off writing their assignments until the last moment. Academic procrastination is commonplace.

So, why do so many of us procrastinate? One recent study showed that 99% of people procrastinate. Worse still, the study discovered that when we procrastinate, eight out of ten of us suffer from anxiety as a result. We clearly know that putting things off is going to cause us problems, but we still do it.

Now, new research has provided a clue as to what is going on. The team of British psychologists has discovered that we get anxious about failing the planned task. Even though we can set a goal, know what needs to be done and are happy to do it, we procrastinate because we worry about not succeeding with the individual steps we need to take. It is not the ‘big goal’ that makes us put things off. Rather, it is the small, individual stages along the way to that target that cause us the anxiety. We anticipate the emotions we might feel if we fail at those tasks, and so we avoid them in order to dodge that negative feeling.

This is where the concept of “reframing” can be helpful. This is a component of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Essentially, when you notice yourself putting something off because you anticipate feeling bad about it, the ‘Three Cs’ can help. First, “Catch it”, by recognising that you have anticipated a negative emotion if you start on a particular task. Secondly, “Check it”, by challenging your assumption and thinking carefully about the evidence you are using. Then, “Change it” by replacing your original thoughts with a more balanced perspective.

We can try this with an example. You are putting off eating that Easter egg because you are worried you will feel guilty when you take that first bite. You have just “caught” the negative emotion that is putting you off. Now, let’s challenge the assumption that you will feel guilty. Is there any evidence that eating chocolate is associated with the production of guilt? Yes, perhaps, but there is also evidence that enjoying chocolate without guilt may be better for us than beating ourselves up about it. So, now we can move on to “check” your thinking and realise that by eating the Easter egg, you will experience a positive emotion of pleasure, not guilt.

There you go, I’ve given you a psychologically sound excuse not to put off eating your Easter eggs. My pleasure. One final wrinkle in all this is that modern life does not help. Recent studies suggest that digital overload can increase stress, which, in turn, makes procrastination more likely. Multitasking does not help either. So, if you are putting things off more than usual, it may not just be the Easter eggs. It may be your phone as well.

Source

This week I attended two Graduation Ceremonies at the university where I work. It is one of the few days in the year that feels unapologetically joyful, with smiling students and proud parents celebrating their achievements. 

It’s a shame that not all days are like it. Some days are difficult, to say the least. The pressure of deadlines is constant, as is the apparently endless stream of reports to write and meetings to attend. Like many workplaces, universities are not exactly built around daily joy. 

When I speak with people in other business sectors, they tell me about the difficulties posed by tax changes or the uncertainties caused by global politics. Then they add that they worry their children can’t find jobs or that the NHS is letting down their frail parents. There’s more doom and gloom about than fun and frolics these days. And the people in other sectors don’t have an annual joyous day, like graduation, to look forward to.

I was discussing this with a colleague when I said it reminded me of going to conferences. They are almost always serious affairs with not much fun attached to them. Other than visiting an interesting city, I said that there’s not a lot to look forward to at most conferences. My colleague challenged me, suggesting I do what a good academic should do: find some research.

It took me just a few moments to find a paper published this month which investigated the use of humour at scientific conferences. The Italian researchers noted that humour is considered unprofessional in scientific communication. However, their study of more than 500 presentations from 14 conferences reached a different conclusion. Speakers who used humour engaged the audience more, the researchers argued. They suggested that, far from being unprofessional, humour can make scientific communication more effective. After all, scientific experimentation itself can be fun and enjoyable, so why should communicating science be boring?

In her forthcoming book, The Playful Way, the author Piera Gelardi likens business seriousness to putting on a suit of clothes. She suggests we need to unzip our seriousness suit and let playfulness in.  As the book says, “In that space—where we’re not afraid to look foolish, where we can laugh at ourselves and with each other—that’s where true brilliance emerges.”

This is supported by a recent article in the Harvard Business Review. It showed that when employees experience joy at work, their performance improves. Indeed, one part of the study found that employees who enjoyed their work achieved sales results 25% higher than those who did not. Clearly, joy and fun in the workplace have a real impact on the business, so much so that the Boston Consulting Group study suggests that “Leaders underestimate the value of employee joy”. 

So, what can you do to make your workplace more fun and enjoyable? The first step is to empower people and give them much more autonomy. People are always much happier when they feel in control of their own destiny.

What about having a board in your reception area where each employee places an emoji next to their name as they walk in, revealing their mood on arrival at work? As they leave the office after work, they could write down one thing they were grateful for during their working day. These activities help people focus on the positives of their work.

Rather than a great big incentive scheme or an “employee of the month”, what about recognition of small things every day? You could have awards each day for the “best smile”, the “most helpful”, or the “best question”, for instance. Regular, small recognitions tend to be more useful in creating a joyful place to work than a formal “employee of the month” system.

Research increasingly suggests that joy at work is not a soft extra. It affects how people communicate, collaborate, and perform. That means leaders should stop treating fun as frivolous. Greater autonomy, regular recognition, flexibility, and a culture where people can laugh without feeling unprofessional all help create workplaces where people do better work. In gloomy times, that is not indulgence. It is good management.

Source

You do not have to look far to discover global leaders who are anything but succinct and to the point. Long rambling speeches are everywhere as world leaders appear to want to outdo one another for the longest talk. If they are not doing that, they give lengthy, tedious answers to an interviewer’s question when a simple “yes” or “no” would have sufficed. I can’t be alone in preferring our leaders to offer more brevity.

However, it can go the other way too. I once worked for a boss who would not allow you to talk to him unless you could describe your needs in no more than three bullet points. Every conversation had to be brief and to the point, otherwise you were chucked out of his office. That was equally as annoying as a world leader rambling on with no focus.

The desire for brevity is made worse these days thanks to social media. If a TikTok video or Instagram reel does not grab attention and make its point in five seconds, most people scroll past to see if the next item is brief enough to convey its message. So important is this rapid scrolling and focus on brevity that Facebook is now offering people $3,000 a week to create such short, brief content. 

However, new research in online dating shows the dangers of brevity. Psychologists in Israel have shown that brief or list-based online dating profiles have lower engagement than lengthier entries that tell a story. The research confirms that these longer profiles enable greater connection with the readers. These longer profiles also increase the perception of closeness.  

This relates to a psychological concept known as “construal level theory”. Essentially, this means that the closer we perceive ourselves to something or someone, the less abstract it becomes. For instance, if you know someone who lives in Melbourne, Australia, they seem more real to you, despite the miles apart. However, if you don’t know anyone who lives there, then the people of Melbourne are more abstract to you. It turns out that when we are only presented with brief, bullet-point material, we feel less close and, as a result, have a more abstract view, reducing our connectedness.

Take the extraordinary outbreak of meningitis in Canterbury, Kent. If all you had been told was that several young adults had become victims of meningitis, you might think that sad. But given that there are 300 cases of this kind of meningitis in the UK each year, you’d probably consider this just a minor blip in the statistics. All you will have heard are a couple of bullet points, creating distance between you and the victims. However, once you hear that 18-year-old Juliette Kenny had been killed by the infection within one day of getting her first symptoms, your reaction would probably have been entirely different. This real human story increases your closeness, and you think much less abstractly.

That’s what the Israeli researchers have really confirmed in their online dating study. The longer, story-style profiles clearly improve the closeness between the profile writer and the reader. In turn, that cuts out the abstract thinking.

These days, we are often encouraged to be brief, to cut out the detail and just give the facts. Yet, all that does is to reduce closeness and increase abstract thinking. From a psychological perspective, it is much better to tell a complete story to reduce the “construal” of abstract ideas. 

It reminds me of a consultancy job I did many years ago. I had been asked to provide an independent view of a new piece of software being introduced that was going to “revolutionise” business communication. It was called “Persuasion” and was a slide production software program to compete with PowerPoint.

As part of the job, I was asked, “If there was one thing you could change in the software, what would it be?” My answer was clear: remove the ability for it to include bullet points. Here we are, 30 years later, and we are swimming in a sea of bullet points in every presentation. The software forces us all into this. But do we feel closer to the topic? Are we thinking less abstractly? 

As Annette Simmons says in her book, Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins, “Nothing is more important to your success than the stories others believe about your work, personal and community life.” Stories mean so much more than bullet points.

Brevity has its place, and rambling helps nobody. But when communication becomes too stripped back, it loses the very thing that draws people in: human connection. Facts inform us, but stories make us care. If you cut everything down to bullet points, you may also be cutting away your impact.

Source

I am increasingly confused about what is going on in Iran. One minute, the US President tells us that everything is obliterated in Iran, and then moments later, he says it is almost 90%. Later on, he tells us that all of the drones have gone, only to then say the Iranians have 25% of their drones left. Quite apart from being confusing, this suggests a significant misunderstanding of mathematics. For a self-proclaimed business expert, that is concerning because ultimately, business is all about numbers.

Yet I teach business students who constantly tell me they don’t like anything to do with numbers. One said they didn’t like the accounting modules, but preferred the ones I teach on psychology. I then reminded them of the statistical tests we covered in the course that are fundamental to understanding psychology. It might seem a “soft”, non-numerical subject, but psychology is all about numbers. So too is marketing, human resources, leadership, or any other aspect of business you care to consider. You can’t be in business if you “don’t like numbers”.

However, I’d hazard a guess that someone you know, maybe even you, says “I’m no good with numbers” from time to time. Oh, and to understand that phrase “time to time”, you have to understand numerical concepts because time is only numbers. Hey ho.

Yesterday, on the radio, I heard a classic case of “I’m no good with numbers”. A caller had phoned in to complain about petrol retailers’ supposed profiteering due to the global rise in oil prices. The caller said that we should just start drilling in the North Sea to get our own oil. Quite apart from the fact that this would take a couple of years to set up and start production, the phone-in host could not make the caller understand the notion of market prices. He explained that even if we did manage to quickly get more oil from the North Sea, it would enter the market and therefore would not provide us with cheaper fuel. All the caller could say was “but it’s our oil”, suggesting we can set our own price. After several attempts by the host to get him to understand, the man ended the call by saying he didn’t understand “all that market stuff” as he was “no good with numbers”. His mind was closed to understanding something because it was blocked by his fear of mathematics.

It is estimated that almost half the population suffers from “maths anxiety”. Indeed, some people can develop the physical symptoms of anxiety, such as nausea, trembling, or rapid breathing, when asked to do anything involving numbers. This affects about four in ten people, making it a significant issue in the workplace. I suspect you have been in meetings where it is clear that some people haven’t grasped the numbers being discussed. That’s because they are scared of numbers.

One of the reasons, according to a study just published, is that it is our parents’ fault…! If they tell us as children about their inability with numbers, we tend not to understand numbers either. It is a never-ending circle. 

Another recent study shows that age, culture and gender matter too. Women get more maths anxiety than men, and as we age, we tend to worry more about our supposed lack of numerical understanding. Indeed, so many groups are affected by fear of numbers that the Maths Anxiety Trust was created by the author Shirley Conran to help reduce maths anxiety.

So, why am I telling you all this? It’s because today is the International Day of Mathematics, which is designed to focus our minds on the joy of numbers. It is also the day that could prompt people who “don’t like numbers” to start to take steps to reduce their anxiety about maths. And there’s an important reason for this. Artificial intelligence is based on numbers. To interpret the output of AI tools, you need numeracy. 

If you are scared of numbers, you are going to find it tougher in the future. So, why not take today, the International Day of Mathematics, to explore ways in which you can reduce your fear of maths? National Numeracy is a good place to start.

Source

My goodness, a lot has happened since last week’s update. Just as people were starting to read my article at 10.00 am last Saturday, Donald Trump was announcing “major combat operations” in Iran. Here we are seven days later, and thousands of munitions have been used, while more than a dozen countries have been brought into the conflict. Worse still, according to The Times, more than 1,230 people have lost their lives.

All week, commentators and reporters throughout the media have been asking, “What’s the plan”? They want to know how this will all end. Sadly, the White House has provided contradictory and vague statements about the “end game”. That may be deliberate. Confusing your opponent can be a tactic in itself. Or it may suggest that the consequences of these actions have not been fully thought through.

That is not just a problem for world leaders. It is a feature of leadership more generally. I am sure you have worked for companies where the bosses come up with a plan and passionately follow it through. All the time, members of staff say, “This will never work,” and chat among themselves about the consequences of the changes implemented by the boss. 

Indeed, the former CEO of BrewDog recently admitted to making such mistakes. The British brewer and pub chain that he founded went into administration this week, resulting in the loss of 484 jobs after a takeover by the American cannabis brand Tilray. It appears that BrewDog did several things without fully thinking through the consequences.

The fact is that when we lead, we can become overconfident in our ideas and blind to data that contradicts them. We are cognitively biased toward our own suggestions. This means we do not fully explore the consequences of our actions.

Just think of the case of Mario Costeja González. He is the Spaniard who got into financial difficulties in the late 1990s and later took legal action against Google, arguing that links to details of those problems should no longer appear in search results. His case became central to what is now widely known as the “right to be forgotten”. Yet the consequence of his action is rather ironic. In trying to become less visible online, he became internationally known precisely because of the legal battle over his privacy. I doubt that was the outcome he had in mind.

It is really easy to think you are doing the right thing when the consequences of your action could be the reverse of what you were intending. Leaders often focus on the immediate objective and congratulate themselves for decisive action, only to discover later that they have created a fresh set of complications.

It doesn’t matter whether you are a world leader or the head of a small team in your office, the chances are you will not fully think through the consequences of your actions. However, there are some steps we can take to make it more likely that we can predict the consequences.

First, remember that much of human behaviour is more predictable than we might like to think. People tend to respond to change in familiar ways. They worry about what they might lose, they resist uncertainty, and they interpret events through their own interests. That means the real challenge is not to focus only on the responses you expect, but to consider the unusual and awkward reactions you may be overlooking.

If you can form the habit of imagining the strangest and most awkward reactions to your plans, you are more likely to spot consequences that would otherwise escape your notice. When you focus on the expected responses, you are only helping to confirm your cognitive bias about your plans. 

Another thing you can do is known as “wicked testing”. In this, you consider the most self-centred and socially reprehensible things people could do if you were to implement your plans. That can open your eyes to factors you may not have considered.

One other way you can consider potential consequences is to do a “pre-mortem”. You do this by assuming your project has already failed. Then you analyse what could have gone wrong. You work backwards from your project’s “failure” to determine the potential reasons why.

Thinking through the consequences of our actions and ideas is possible. You just have to get into the habit of doing it. Otherwise, you will fall into the habit of assuming that your ideas will produce only the outcomes you want to see. Now, who could possibly have done that recently?

Source

If I were to ask you to name the planets of the solar system in order, could you do it? If you are of a “certain age”, the answer would probably be positive. I remember having to learn them at school by reciting them for what seemed like hours on end. If you want to test your memory, stick your head out of the window tomorrow evening around dusk, and you’ll see six planets in a straight line in the sky, when there is a rare planetary alignment above the UK. These days, of course, there is no need for children to learn the order of these planets. Google can tell them in an instant. The offloading of the need to remember things to an online system means we are not always exercising our mental muscle of memory. 

Added to this is the idea that as we age, our memory starts to falter. That’s not strictly true. It is partly reinforced by a social belief in which we stop actively trying to remember things because “there is no point,” assuming we’ll forget them as we age. We remember less as we get older, partly because we actively stop trying to store memories. Though it is true that the speed of cognitive processing does decline. 

However, in the AI-enhanced world of the future, we are going to need our memories more, not less. To interpret what AI is telling us, we will need higher levels of analytical thinking. And that depends on memory. You can’t analyse the output of ChatGPT, for instance, if you can’t remember anything that will help you counter what the AI is telling you. For example, AI can surface data. It cannot supply lived experience. It cannot recall the failed strategy from 2009, the 2013 regulatory fine, or the cultural backlash from 2018. Only human memory can do that.

Enter then, the world of the “SuperAger”. These are elderly people with remarkable memories who can recall things much more easily than people 50 years younger can. In a study published this week in the scientific journal Nature, researchers at the University of Chicago have discovered a significant finding about older people with great memories. 

These “SuperAgers” are producing new nerve cells in an area of the brain known to be involved in memory formation. People with poor memories tend to lose brain cells. Back at the start of the 20th Century it was widely believed that we are born with a fixed number of brain cells and that new ones could not be made. We now know that is not true. Thirty years ago, we discovered that our brains are capable of “neurogenesis”, in which new brain cells can be created at any time in our lives.

If we are to make the most of artificial intelligence without being controlled by it, we will need brains that remain capable of renewal. We will need to have “SuperAger” capabilities of storing memories so that we can interpret AI effectively. So, what do you need to do to make sure your brain continues to develop?

It turns out, like many things to do with human biology, to be remarkably simple. Research shows that there are just a few things we need to do to improve our memory by encouraging neurogenesis. These are getting more exercise and reducing stress. Being social, rather than isolated, is also a key factor. 

These are also the activities that reduce the risk of heart disease and long-term conditions such as diabetes. And guess what, those health issues are also linked to poor neurogenesis. It is almost as if the body is an interconnected set of systems that require “healthy living” practices to function properly. Who knew? Well, neuroscientists at Harvard, for a start, who five years ago proposed a new field of healthcare called “preventative neurology”. 

Our brains are capable of so much more if only we cared for them to encourage neurogenesis. It is surprisingly simple to achieve that – live a healthy, social life. 

The chances are some people will have forgotten the order of the planets because some of their brain cells have disconnected due to a lack of use. We cannot allow that to happen in the AI future. Otherwise, your business will be led by artificial intelligence, rather than you and your colleagues. Artificial intelligence will not take control of your business. But intellectual laziness might allow that. In an AI world, cognitive fitness is no longer optional. It is a leadership responsibility.

Source

Well, what a week it has been. We can’t move for people breaking the rules. Yesterday, the Supreme Court in the USA ruled that President Trump’s tariffs were illegal. The day before, the former Prince Andrew was arrested on suspicion of breaking the rules while serving as a Trade Envoy. And the day before that, the Canadian curling team was accused of cheating during a game at the Winter Olympics. It rather looks like rule-breaking is “on trend” at the moment.

Except it’s not. Breaking the rules is commonplace and has been around forever. Indeed, yesterday the Royal Mint revealed that it was celebrating one of the world’s most famous rule-breakers on a special new coin. In recognition of his 75 years of rule-breaking success, the new 50p honours “Dennis the Menace”. That naughty boy has been in the Beano comic since 1951 and is still entertaining children today. 

Dennis is a “loveable rogue” who falls into the category of rule-breakers we don’t mind. Yet he still breaks rules, just like President Trump and (allegedly) Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. We clearly forgive some people who break the rules but want others punished. 

In your office, as in mine, some people break the rules and seem to get away with it. In contrast, others do something wrong and get hung out to dry over it. The issue is, why are we so inconsistent? 

Studies show that we allow people to break the rules when we perceive their behaviour as prosocial or moral, as in the case of Rosa Parks. If we think rule-breaking is for the greater good of our friends or colleagues, we do not mind it. We also tend to forgive rule-breakers if their behaviour is seen as creative, as in entrepreneurs. In other words, we don’t mind people breaking the rules if there is something in what they do “for us”.

However, the tables get quickly turned when we think the rule-breaker is in it for themselves. As soon as we think the person breaking the rules is doing so to exert power or does so from a position of arrogance or entitlement, we get cross. Think ex-Royals or Presidents here.

We want such people punished as an example. However, research from Germany shows that we tend to punish people closer to us more harshly than those in distant relationships. We judge those in our immediate circle more harshly because their behaviour reflects on us. No matter how much you might want to punish a transgressing ex-Prince, his family would want him hit harder. 

Here is the problem for us in business. We allow some people to break the rules because it seems there is some benefit for the office. We let others do wrong because “everybody knows” they are creative. But then, when someone does not fall into these categories, we want them punished and publicly shamed, especially if they are in our team and not at some remote office where we hardly know anyone. It is this inconsistency that leads to conflict at work. It also leads to perceptions of unfairness, thereby reducing trust in management. When staff cannot predict how rule-breaking will be treated, they become cautious and defensive.

The solution is surprisingly straightforward and one that has a spin-off benefit in terms of job satisfaction and resulting loyalty to the firm. Research at a Japanese bank found that when you give your staff a variety of tasks, they are more likely to follow the rules. This implies that job boredom and repetitiveness are key triggers in rule-breaking.

Perhaps you should not be so tough on your employees, particularly those close to you, when they bend the rules. Rather, you should look at the way you have designed their jobs. When was the last time you redesigned a role rather than reprimanded a person?

Source

Obviously, with today being Valentine’s Day, I was going to mention love.  However, over in the USA, it appears that people are falling out of love with celebrating today. The National Retail Federation’s “Valentine’s Day Data Center” shows that fewer people plan to buy gifts today than in previous years. Worse still, they aim to spend less when inflation is taken into account. Over the past 20 years, fewer people have celebrated Valentine’s Day, down from 63% to 55%. That’s not good news if you are a gift company or a florist. 

Part of the reason for falling out of love with Valentine’s gifting is that we have “commercialisation fatigue”. We are simply fed up with the constant advertising for chocolates and flowers. Of course, there is the cost-of-living crisis to consider as well. Plus, there are significant demographic shifts, with more people living alone than before and a rise in the number of people still living with their parents into their mid-30s. That makes it tough to be romantic. 

According to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, love depends on three things. These are passion, closeness and commitment derived from Sternberg’s Theory of Love. It’s hard to be close and passionate when your mum and dad are sitting opposite. And if you are living alone, closeness to others is not easy either. Solving such problems involves costs, such as booking a hotel room. That’s tough when financial pressures are high. So, it is hardly surprising that fewer people want to celebrate romance than they did 20 years ago.

Interestingly, though, people are increasingly celebrating their love for the products and brands they admire. Social media is full of people declaring their love for a brand. Indeed, 94% of us say something positive about our favourite brands on social media. Just try stopping an iPhone user from uploading an image of their device to some social network. Or see the look you get if you criticise a Nike footwear fan for telling the world how comfy their feet are. You do not have to go far in your journey on social media before you bump into someone telling you about the latest product they have fallen in love with. 

In a recent study, YouGov investigated the Top 50 Brands across 28 global markets. This research showed that the brand the world loves the most is WhatsApp. Yet in the USA, it does not even feature in the list. That’s because even though the rest of the world loves WhatsApp, the vast majority of people in the USA regularly use Apple iMessage instead. You might notice a “love factor” from that Norwegian research here. Closeness. The brands people are closest to are the ones they love most. Here in the UK, for example, the most loved brand is Marks & Spencer. You can’t move for M&S in garages and service stations up and down the land. Most of us are never far away from M&S. Closeness again. But closeness is not just physical. It is a habitual presence in daily life.

There’s another of those three love factors in play again here. Commitment. Repeated use of WhatsApp or Apple iMessage, for example, shows a commitment to the brand. No wonder you love it. Equally, the convenience of M&S or that Amazon app, for example, means you gain commitment and thereby start to fall in love with the brand. 

That only leaves passion. You are probably not passionate about an M&S egg, tomato and salad cream sandwich, even though it is tasty. But you cannot mistake M&S’s passion for food. It helps build the “romance” and confirms your commitment to the company.

The question, therefore, is what you can do in your business to demonstrate you love your customers. First, show some passion for your company and its products and services. None of your customers is going to fall in love with your firm if you don’t show them you are enthusiastic about what you do. Secondly, get closer to your customers. Never miss an opportunity to meet, talk to, or engage with them. Third, demonstrate your commitment to them. You can do this with exemplary customer service, for example. In “business speak,” this means passion is your internal culture. Closeness is your distribution and engagement strategy. Commitment is about service reliability and trust-building.

If you are among the majority and do not celebrate Valentine’s Day by showering your loved one with chocolates and flowers, you could use the occasion to start a new romance instead. Be passionate for what you do, get closer to your customers, and show them you are committed to them. Before long, you will have something far more valuable than Valentine’s flowers: customers who choose you repeatedly.

Source