It has been a turbulent week in UK politics. Indeed, it has been such a roller coaster of political upheaval that the news has spread worldwide. The troubles for the British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, have made front-page news across Europe, the USA, Brazil, India, and Russia. Several reports made it clear that Sir Keir’s last-ditch attempt to save his premiership lacked charisma.

Meanwhile, up in the vibrant and growing city of Manchester, the Mayor, Andy Burnham, was plotting his return to parliament with the express aim of becoming the new Prime Minister. For years, people have swooned over Mr Burnham, claiming he is highly charismatic. Indeed, Vogue magazine profiled him, saying, “We all fancy Andy Burnham”.

These two men are at opposite ends of the charisma spectrum. One is flat, staid and grey. The other is dynamic and colourful. 

However, before you start suggesting that the UK Prime Minister needs a charisma boost, it might be worthwhile to reflect that the theory of charismatic leadership has been widely criticised.

In fact, Harvard Law School recently published an article explaining that the theory, which was popular 30 years ago, has now been shown to have several weaknesses. Charismatic leaders can often do more harm than good. For example, they can become addicted to the emotional adulation they receive, which then prevents them from acting logically. Similarly, charismatic leaders can trigger increases in unethical behaviour in organisations. Having someone with charisma at the top of an organisation is not necessarily a good thing.

Equally, having someone with little charisma leading a team is not good either. Researchers in Belgium have shown that low charisma leaders tend to avoid strategic behaviours. In turn, this means they are difficult to follow because nobody knows where they are heading. The same researchers have shown that the greatest positive impact of charisma is seen when leaders have charisma in the middle ground between high and low levels.

If you want to know how charismatic you are, you might consider taking the General Charisma Inventory.  That can measure your charisma levels. Or you could just check whether you exhibit behaviours linked to charisma. These include making appropriate eye contact, smiling naturally, speaking with energy, telling clear stories, and using language that connects with the people in front of you.  This is a component of emotional intelligence in which you listen carefully to what someone says and reflect their linguistic style when you speak with them. In essence, you “mirror” their language. Do that, and they perceive you as charismatic.

You may well have worked with someone who lacks charisma. Their eye contact is poor, they rarely smile, and they speak in their own style, often trying to be “professional”. They are the kind of people you might say have had a “charisma bypass”. These are the leaders whose lack of warmth and direction can make them look less strategic, even when they may have perfectly sensible plans in their heads. 

So, can you train people to be more charismatic or to lower their excessive charismatic behaviours? It turns out that charisma training is entirely possible. 

Plus, if your organisation has trained people to achieve that “middle ground” charisma, you do not face the problems caused by the departure of someone with high charisma. When your team has been led by someone highly charismatic, the next leader is inevitably compared with them. If everyone were middle-of-the-road, that issue would not arise. 

The practical lesson, then, is not to manufacture theatrical leaders, but to develop leaders who are easier to trust, easier to follow and easier to talk to. You gain that when you exhibit the psychological characteristics called “capacity” and “willingness”. Capacity is the extent to which you help others achieve their needs. Willingness is the extent to which you show you are motivated to do this. In other words, we can all increase our charisma in one simple way. Just show others that you care about them, that you can help them, and that you are willing to do so.

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Last night was an evening of contrasts. First, I watched the celebratory concert from the Royal Albert Hall in London, which honoured Sir David Attenborough on his 100th birthday. Then I turned to the special “BBC Question Time” programme discussing the results of the UK local elections held on Thursday. The birthday party was joyous and a testament to a remarkable man who has influenced and inspired millions of people worldwide. The political debate was frustrating, annoying and anger-inducing as the participants spent their time shouting and arguing. The difference between the two programmes could not have been starker.

One programme showed a man with immense influence, whom the world celebrates. The other revealed a bunch of people who want influence, yet few are bothered to praise. 

The standout moment from Sir David Attenborough’s 70-year TV career is when he lay down among a group of mountain gorillas in Rwanda. They accepted him, touched him and played with him. But he also came face-to-face with a rhinoceros, went inside a termite mound and climbed into the forest canopy to play with gibbons. During the televised concert from the Albert Hall, some of his colleagues and friends spoke about these remarkable achievements. One thing stood out. When Sir David is with animals, he pays them full attention. He focuses on them in the moment. He is patient, listens to the animals, and tries his best to communicate with them in their own way.

Meanwhile, in the Question Time studio, there was no listening to one another. There was shouting over each other. There was no attention to what people were actually saying or how they were communicating. There was just a group of people, all keen to make their pre-planned points and crowd out everyone else’s voices. Juvenile and petty stuff that Sir David would have witnessed in young monkeys, I am sure.

When I started my first job and trained as a journalist, I recall my editor, Ted Adams, telling me that it was not the questions reporters asked that mattered. Rather, it was paying attention to the answers and listening closely to what people were saying. It is the same principle that Sir David Attenborough clearly uses in his engagement with the animal kingdom. However, it is not the territory of politicians, as judged from last night’s Question Time.

I suspect that you have witnessed a lack of listening and paying attention in your business meetings. I know that I have. People come along with their preset point of view, keen to get their “argument” across. This sets them up for anything from a minor skirmish to a larger battle. They sit impatiently, not really listening, waiting for the moment they can pounce and “prove” they are right and everyone else is wrong. It is not the Attenborough way, is it?

It turns out that when we behave more like Sir David does with animals, life improves. Recent research has shown that when counsellors are trained to listen effectively, it can significantly improve the outcomes of their work. Similarly, a study last year showed that when fundraisers engage in effective listening, they improve their relationship with major donors. It is the same kind of issue raised on The Sales Chat Show podcast, which explained that if you want to increase business revenue, “shut up and listen”.

One theme emerging from the political turmoil following Thursday’s local elections was clear from the questions asked by the Question Time audience. Many people felt that politicians were simply not listening.

Central to Sir David Attenborough’s remarkable work with animals over the past 70 years has been his focus on listening, even when he may not understand what the creatures are saying. We could all improve our business if we took on board his approach and listened more. Indeed, we may discover that being a good listener is one of the secrets to reaching 100 years. To help improve your listening skills, “You’re Not Listening” is an excellent book to start with. You will also find the resources and coaching available from one of my readers, Jane Adshead-Grant, The Listening Coach, invaluable. If you want to help celebrate the life of the inspiring Sir David Attenborough, you could do no worse than learn how to listen like him.

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The British politician, Zack Polanski, has apologised for a social media post he published this week. The Tweet criticised the Metropolitan Police for the way they arrested a man suspected of stabbing two Jewish men in Golders Green, London. To be fair to Mr Polanski, he did not write the critical post. Instead, he just re-tweeted what someone else had published. Following a highly unusual and extremely critical written rebuke from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Mr Polanski apologised for sharing a post “in haste”.

He is not the first person to share material online in a hurry. He won’t be the last. Indeed, you may have regretted acting on impulse on social media. Mostly, it has little consequence beyond embarrassment or a minor hit to your personal reputation. However, as in the case of the Green Party Leader, it can have potentially serious consequences.

Human beings find it very difficult to stop impulsive urges, though. The classic “Marshmallow Test” showed that we struggle to delay gratification. Children were offered one marshmallow immediately, or, if they waited, they could have two. Waiting proved difficult for many. Their desire for instant gratification meant they ended up with half of what they could have achieved by waiting a few minutes. It is a neat demonstration of how difficult delay can be, especially when the reward is sitting right in front of us.

I saw this in a meeting this week. One of my colleagues jumped into the conversation, made a comment, and later had to retract it, clearly having reflected on it. The initial impulsive comment was their immediate emotional response. I can’t criticise them, because I’ve done the same. And so have you…!

You and I have probably also acted on impulse in online shops. A recent report on e-commerce shows that 70% of US shoppers make impulse buys. According to the Detroit-based consultancy, Invesp, 54% of Americans admit to spending more than $100 on an impulse purchase. At the same time, half of them regret what they did. Their emotions got the better of them. Indeed, according to Google, impulse buying has become “the norm”. That’s why, almost 15 years ago, I explained how online stores can tap into that to drive even more impulse purchases.

The fact is, businesses are making money because our self-control is easier to bypass than we like to admit. We don’t think, we just act like the children who wanted the marshmallow. However, they did not have the Internet. Nowadays, much of our impulsive behaviour appears to be connected to modern technology. 

We no longer have to wait to find things out. You can get instant information, instead of having to get the bus to the library only to find the book you need is out on loan, and you’ll have to wait a fortnight. In those “olden days”, we were more patient, perhaps. Several studies suggest a link between Internet use and impulsivity, although it is not always clear whether the Internet makes us more impulsive or whether impulsive people are simply drawn more deeply into online life.   

It is all connected to that neurological rascal, dopamine. This is involved in reward, anticipation, and motivation, making it central to many of our online habits. Recent research has identified the concept of “dopamine scrolling,” in which people keep scrolling through online content in search of the next tiny reward. British researchers discovered back in 2010 that dopamine is linked to impulsive behaviour. Once our brains learn that another click, scroll, or purchase might lead to a reward, it becomes tough to resist the impulse. 

The fact is, the Internet gives our impulses more opportunities to escape. So what can we do to avoid blurting out inappropriate things in meetings, posting damaging Tweets, or buying things we don’t need? The answer is hidden within the marshmallow test itself. The children who waited and were rewarded with two marshmallows were the ones who distracted themselves from the situation. Years ago, when we went to meetings with pen and paper instead of laptops, we all did that by doodling. Doing things like this that break the boredom are essential for reducing the risk of acting on impulse. If you find yourself being more impulsive than you would like, just distract yourself for a moment by counting backwards from 10. That gives your brain enough time to stop reacting and start thinking. It gives the impulse a chance to fade before your finger, mouth, or credit card does the damage.

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Last night, I switched on the radio to hear Margaret Thatcher declare victory at the end of the Falklands War. I wondered, for a moment, if I had been transported back in time. Instead, it was the opening to a news item about a leaked Pentagon document. The memo suggested that the USA would no longer recognise the UK’s administrative rights over the Falkland Islands. The idea was that this would exact revenge on the UK for not supporting Donald Trump in the Iran war. 

Presumably, the author had never heard Gandhi’s remark that “an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”. Or perhaps the memo’s writer had not checked up on what Einstein might have said on the topic. When asked about revenge, he supposedly said, “Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore.”

I was discussing this with a friend the other day, who told me that one of his bosses at his company is busy plotting revenge. Apparently, this senior manager was annoyed by a junior colleague who challenged the boss’s ideas. Rather than discussing the challenge, the younger member of staff was admonished for his suggestions. But at subsequent meetings, the boss has been telling other colleagues how he plans to “get his own back” on the “young upstart”. I told my friend that this is not leadership but insecurity dressed up as authority. I said that the boss needs to be challenged, perhaps even formally, through an HR procedure. That’s because, if left unchallenged, the behaviour will damage the business culture. 

My friend’s colleague might want to read the latest research from Everett Worthington, a psychologist whose work has specialised in the study of forgiveness. This study confirms the findings of many other research projects, demonstrating that seeking revenge is bad for your health. Trying to exact revenge on someone will actually make you ill. 

Yet, some people cannot avoid seeking revenge. Research published a few months ago in Toronto, Canada, showed that people hold a grudge when their feelings are hurt, which makes them angry. The combination of hurt feelings and anger appears to be the source of the problem. Also, people who hold grudges perceive the person who has made them angry as immoral. 

The business leader at my friend’s firm clearly saw the criticism from a more junior colleague as immoral, which upset and angered him. Equally, the misguided belief that the UK has a moral duty to support the US President lies behind the decision to take revenge by refusing to recognise the sovereignty of the Falklands. 

There is an answer to this problem. According to Japanese researchers, you can get rid of your anger – and thereby the need for revenge – in a straightforward way. All you do is write down what has made you angry. Then screw that paper up and throw it in the waste bin. In the Japanese study, this simple action completely eliminated participants’ anger. 

If you feel the urge to get your own back at work, don’t. Write it down. Screw it up. Throw it away. Then get on with doing something useful instead. Because revenge doesn’t make you stronger. It just makes you smaller.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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