Regular readers might think this weekend’s heatwave has gone to my head. Last week, I suggested that working from home had its problems and that returning to the office might be a good idea – assuming the office is a nice place to work. Now, I’m encouraging you to give up working in the office and head off to your local coffee shop. I’m not suggesting you give up your career and become a barista. Rather, I reckon you should pick up your laptop and set up your “office” in your nearest coffee emporium or village tea shop. 

The fact that I am suggesting this today, World Productivity Day, might be a clue as to my reasoning. Productivity is not good. Indeed, it has largely flatlined since 2008. Had it continued to rise at previous rates, we would be around 40% more productive by now. 

There are, though, some simple things we can do to improve productivity. For instance, we could check our emails just once or twice a day, rather than constantly. Plus, we could actually deal with the email rather than keep going back to it time after time. Research conducted by Microsoft and MIT showed that revisited email is opened and re-opened an average of 10.7 times. That’s just a waste of time, which affects our productivity. It is also making us stressed, adding another barrier to being productive.

Then there is filing documents. The productivity expert Thanh Pham wrote about this on his Asian Efficiency blog recently. He pointed out that without proper file naming conventions, things could get confusing for any AI agents we use. In turn, that will reduce productivity. Besides, how many times do you open a file thinking it was about one thing, when it turned out to be something else? Backwards and forwards we go, wasting time, because the file names seem sensible but are useless. Just calling it “meeting notes” might sound OK at the time, but when you really need to check some notes, you have no idea which file to look at amongst the collection of files with names like “meeting notes”.

Poorly managed email and a lack of file-naming conventions are examples of technology usage that are defined by the Solow Paradox. The term, named after the Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Solow, suggests that the more technology we use, the less productive we become. However, if we change the way we work to match the technology, then our productivity increases.

So, what does all this have to do with working in a coffee shop? Even if you check your emails too many times a day and have poor naming conventions for your files, you can get a productivity boost by heading off to your local coffee shop. 

This is due to the “novelty effect”. This happens when your brain pays more attention because it perceives something new. When you sit staring at your screen in the same office, your brain switches off a bit. It doesn’t have to do much because it already knows your office. So, it starts to slow down, and you become less productive. Heading out to the coffee shop makes our brain go “oh, this is new, I’d better take notice”. The novelty effect triggers dopamine. That increases your motivation and attention, in turn improving productivity.

Coffee shops have another advantage. They have a gentle level of background noise of people chatting away. Research from the University of Western Ontario showed that such ambient noise improved creativity levels. Those are likely to boost productivity, as increased cognitive flexibility can help you complete difficult tasks. The researchers called it the “coffee shop effect”, and there is an interesting twist in going to such an establishment to do some work.

Researchers from the Business School at Columbia University in New York found that the introduction of Starbucks in an area had a profound impact on the level of entrepreneurship. In areas without a Starbucks, the number of new business start-ups was lower than in areas with a Starbucks. The researchers suggested that the coffee shop facilitated greater networking, which contributed to the production of start-up ideas. So, working at a coffee shop will boost your productivity and help your business in other ways through this networking effect.

Sitting alone in your office is not helping you. A change of scene, particularly if you head off to a coffee shop, can trigger an increase in dopamine that will help enhance your productivity. There is one other thing worth noting as we head into a heatwave. You will gain even more of a productivity boost if you sit at one of the tables outside a coffee shop. Working outside improves our task performance compared with working indoors. At last, we could be close to getting permission to work on the beach…! Happy World Productivity Day.

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All this week I have been working from home. That’s because it is the end of term at university and several rooms near my office are being used for exams. To avoid disrupting students, those of us with offices close to the exam rooms decided to work from home all week. 

Like many people, I work occasionally from home. Most of my work is in the office, but now and then I stay at home. The past five days have been different, with the entire working week spent in my home office. That has advantages. It is next to the kitchen, so drinks and snacks are within easy reach. It also means the daily commute does not stress me, and my travel expenses have plummeted. Fantastic.

But hang on a moment, this working from home malarkey is not all good. For a start, it can be lonely. I’ve been home alone much of the week as my wife has been out working. Secondly, my step count has plummeted, so my watch keeps reminding me to be active. And as if that were not enough, I sat so long looking at the screen that I ended up with a headache. In the office, of course, I would move around much more.

This is an issue highlighted in a new study published in the past week in the journal Science. The research was led by the Federal Reserve in the USA, together with economists from Harvard and the University of Virginia. The study examined almost 600,000 people and specifically excluded the COVID pandemic years to ensure the data were not affected by those circumstances. 

The results are stark. Working from home leads to significant loneliness and associated mental distress. The researchers concluded that “our findings suggest that workers may not realize the costs of remote work for their well-being”. 

This coincides with a discussion I had last week with a colleague about working from home. I pointed out that one of the troubles people have when at home, rather than in the office, is the lack of social contact. Human beings are social animals. We are not built merely to exchange files and attend video calls. Much of what makes work productive happens in the informal moments: the quick conversation, the shared joke, the chance encounter, the moment when someone says, “While you’re here, can I ask you something?” 

The problem is that increasing numbers of people are working from home. A six-year analysis from 2000 to April this year shows that although the number of people who work solely from home has fallen after the pandemic, the number of hybrid workers has increased. Indeed, nowadays most people do a job that involves working from home some of the time. Only around 40% of jobs are office-based full-time nowadays.

For businesses, this is a problem. Research has shown that when people work remotely, they are less creative. In turn, this reduces our ability to innovate when we work remotely from the rest of our team. Other research suggests that remote and hybrid work can reduce the kind of spontaneous interaction that supports innovation. Just when the world’s economic and political situation means we need to be creative and innovative, businesses have reduced their ability to do so by sanctioning excessive home working. And that’s before you take into account the need for innovative and creative solutions to deal with the impact of artificial intelligence on business.

Research from Arizona State University also suggests that remote working is worse the higher up the organisation you go. This study of CEOs found that those who worked from home performed worse. The businesses they led ended up with lower performance, reduced valuations, and poorer reviews from staff. 

Senior staff may argue that working from home gives them more family time and that technology allows them to be flexible and productive. However, over eight years ago – before the pandemic – I pointed out that this kind of thinking is allowing the technology to control the business rather than us.

Working from home does indeed appear to improve individual productivity. We can get on without interruption, and we are less stressed. But that boost to individuals appears to come at a cost to the business as a whole. 

That seems to have been realised by many companies that are now revising hybrid work arrangements. However, as more companies force people back to the office, it appears that our love for working from home is leading to remote working going “into the shadows” or “under the radar”. 

The question, therefore, is not why people love working from home, but why they dislike the office so much. Even though the desire to be social is significant, many offices are decidedly unhomely. Old equipment, poor lighting, and a lack of comfort will make people prefer home to the office. If your business wants people to return to the office to boost creativity, innovation and productivity, rather than setting rules, perhaps it is better to consider the working environment and radically change it.

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Earlier this week, I was in a meeting where someone was adamant they could spot “anything” produced by artificial intelligence. They were highly confident in their ability to detect material written by AI. The evidence, though, suggests otherwise. Several studies have investigated whether people can detect AI-generated material, and overall, we are nowhere near as good as we think we are. One study from Cornell University suggested our ability to detect AI material was as “good as a coin toss”. Another group of researchers found that the human ability to spot AI-generated material was “indistinguishable from chance”. And two years ago, in an analysis of 15m academic research papers, almost one in every seven involved AI, undetected, it seems, by the editors. Ultimately, you have no idea whether I am writing this or a chatbot is. (Honest, it is me…!)

So, why do people insist they can spot AI material? It turns out this is all about our fears of this technology. A survey conducted by the HR technology company GCheck found that almost two-thirds of people exaggerate their artificial intelligence abilities. The study showed that one of the key reasons for this level of “fibbing” is our concern that AI will take our jobs. When someone says to you, “I can spot anything produced by AI”, what they might be saying is, “I am not sure I can spot anything produced by AI, but if I admit that, I could lose my job to AI”. 

A recent study published in the Harvard Business Review adds to this likelihood, noting that as AI use increases, anxiety about “surrendering” to artificial intelligence is rising. Indeed, a survey earlier this year by the renowned Pew Research Center found that only 10% of people are excited about AI and its potential. The rest are wary and concerned. 

To compensate, we start to exaggerate. The GCheck research found that 40% of people speak confidently about AI during meetings simply to avoid appearing to be left behind. The study also revealed that a quarter of people have taken credit for work which AI did for them. And almost one in five actually admit to lying about their AI experience. People tell me all the time that they don’t trust AI, but this research suggests we shouldn’t trust humans.

Artificial intelligence is advancing at such a pace that we need to start being honest with one another about it. First, it is not going away. We need to accept it for what it is and not complain that it shouldn’t do what it is doing or that AI companies ought to be developing things differently. We are where we are. Let’s move on. The question is no longer whether AI should have arrived. The question is whether we are prepared to use it honestly and intelligently. 

Next, we need to get to grips with the technology and avoid telling fibs about our understanding. A good place to start is Google’s AI Essentials course, available on Coursera. Microsoft has a similar course on its website. You can find out about other courses at the UK Government’s AI Skills Hub.

With more understanding about AI under your belt, it’s then essential to keep up with the constant change. The website “There’s an AI for that” has a daily newsletter which provides constant updates. Another daily newsletter is “The Deep View”, which is well worth getting. Or you can subscribe to the podcast. You might think “oh no, I don’t need daily newsletters”. However, this is such an advancing field that unless you keep up to date regularly, you can easily fall behind. And all that will do is cause you to start exaggerating your knowledge and understanding, as you feel further left behind. 

Three weeks ago, the fledgling AI company Recursive Superintelligence raised $650m in funding and was valued at $4.65bn. Their idea is to produce artificial intelligence that can improve itself and create new AI software without human intervention. Just 20 days later, yesterday morning, Anthropic, the company behind the AI software Claude, announced that the idea of self-developing artificial intelligence was closer than we think. Within the space of a month, you have one company saying they want to investigate this and another saying it is almost a reality anyway. That’s how fast things are moving.

If you don’t keep up, you will be left behind. Otherwise, you will need to become very good at telling very believable fibs. And frankly, that sounds like harder work than learning how to use AI properly.

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A few weeks ago, I was in a meeting when one of my colleagues said that they would “socialise” the decision after “circling back” with us. I didn’t say anything, but I sat there thinking, “I’m too old for this game, I no longer understand what people are saying to me.”

As a psychologist, I use the term ‘socialisation’ to refer to the process by which children learn and internalise society’s norms and customs. I had no idea that “socialisation” also meant “sending out an email”. For that, dear reader, is what my colleague was really saying. 

If you are a regular reader, you will know that I have an issue with people using jargon instead of speaking in plain English.  However, I make no apology for raising this topic again. That’s because new research shows that we need to be especially careful to avoid “corporate speak”, as it means you could be bad at your job.

Psychologists at Cornell University have developed a new tool called “The Corporate Bullshit Receptivity Scale” – I kid you not. When people score highly on this, they tend to have lower analytical thinking skills and less fluid intelligence. It also means they have lower decision-making skills and are less able to make good judgments. In other words, if you use a lot of corporate speak style jargon, you are likely to be demonstrating you are not very good at your job.  

This adds to previous research from last year, which demonstrated that if you can’t spot nonsensical jargon in your office, you tend to overestimate your own abilities to do your job. In other words, if you are impressed by corporate-speak jargon, and especially if you repeat it uncritically, you may be advertising weaker judgement rather than greater professionalism.  Equally, the Cornell study now suggests you become less capable of making decisions and doing your job well. You are on a downward spiral to poor work.

That’s the kind of thing that upset Elon Musk as far back as 2010. He sent an email to staff asking them to use less jargon and fewer acronyms. He warned that “people don’t want to seem dumb in a meeting, so they just sit there in ignorance”. That was me when I was told something was going to be “socialised”. I had to look it up…! 

So, what do we do about it? If we ask people to explain the jargon, we risk exposing our ignorance to others, which can be embarrassing, so we avoid it. Equally, if we call it out, we risk being judged by those who use jargon. And that’s a problem, because people who use jargon a great deal are poor at judgment, according to that Cornell study. 

According to the Harvard Business Review, there are steps companies can take to reduce BS. The deeper problem is often organisational. Jargon flourishes when people feel pressure to sound strategic, important or aligned, rather than when they are rewarded for being clear.  When you give people roles that lack autonomy and feel empty, they start using BS to dress up the fact that they are not doing much. If you are a boss, rather than criticise people for using jargon or inventing madcap schemes such as having yellow and red cards at meetings, look to yourself and the way you have structured your organisation and the jobs within it.

You can also take your organisation further by getting training in plain speaking or by achieving a “Plain English Crystal Mark” from the Plain English Campaign to prove that your business is crystal clear in its communication. 

So, I hope that is clear. As I have tried to explain, we need to leverage our core competencies to synergise across all verticals. By utilising an agile, omnichannel ecosystem, we can circle back, touch base, and drill down into our KPIs to maximise the impact of the paradigm shift. Socialise that…!

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A series of events this week made me think about how we make plans. It all began when I started my lecture on Tuesday about marketing planning. One student wanted to know if there was a “right way” to do planning. I said that there was definitely a wrong way to plan. All they had to do was read what the UK Transport Secretary had been saying about the plans for our national embarrassment, HS2.

Another idea about planning occurred after the lecture when I met one of the university’s volunteers who teaches our overseas students how to improve their English. She told me that she had recently celebrated her 90th birthday and that she had no intention of giving up her voluntary teaching. She said she planned to continue teaching right up to her 100th birthday.

What is even more stunning about this wonderful but simple plan is that she will achieve that milestone within a decade, well before the ill-fated HS2 railway line carries a single passenger. If you are not aware, HS2 is Britain’s answer to the French TGV high-speed trains. HS2 was announced in 2009 and will not carry passengers until the mid-2030s, with the full system not being ready until 2043. Yes, that’s 34 years in the making. In France, the TGV line from Paris to Lyon took roughly 7 years to build. 

This relates directly to what I discussed in my lecture, which was the concept of “The Planning Fallacy”. This happens when we believe our preferred version of the future.  Even though we know that a project is likely to take a certain amount of time, we convince ourselves that we know better and that we can pull it off in record time. We underestimate the time taken to complete the required tasks. When the inevitable happens, and we fail to meet the deadline, we blame the plan and so create another plan. We get sucked into the notion that because we have a plan, all will be well. This is precisely what has happened with the HS2 project. The politicians think it must be OK simply because they have a plan. Then, when it is not all right, they just create another plan, believing that the new one will solve the issue. And so on it goes.

Every place I have worked has produced plans that looked convincing on paper but struggled once reality intervened. Yet, the old adage that if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail can be heard in offices up and down the land. The result is that there are plenty of plans. The problem is that many of these plans are fallacies. They are based on the optimism bias. Humans tend to be more optimistic about what will happen in the future. We are biased towards positivity in our plans. 

That’s a problem in the workplace, as it doesn’t allow for factors that can interrupt our plans in ways we hadn’t predicted. Achieving our plans requires a complex interplay of psychological factors, including attentional control, memory, and decision-making. With complex plans, it is easy for people to lose attention, to forget particular aspects and make poor decisions.  The result of all that is that the plan fails.

This is also related to the fact that many plans in business are too complex and rigid. For a major project like HS2, planners argue that every little detail needs to be planned for. The result is that the plan is cognitively complex, and humans cannot follow it easily. That leads planners to make even more detailed, specific, and small plans that can be followed, which merely delays the project.

The answer to this is to plan as you go. Rather than having a big, detailed plan, it is better to start with an outline plan and then work out what to do as you go along. This is a nimble and agile process that Harvard Business Review recommends for salespeople, for instance.

But think of it like using a SatNav. Nowadays, you enter your destination into the software, and it plans your route. You then stick to that plan, not cognitively engaging with it, but merely following its directions. Then you find yourself in a traffic jam that the SatNav did not predict. Or extensive roadworks have closed roads that the software did not know about. Your plans are scuppered.

But in those “olden days” before SatNavs, we knew roughly where to go or had a printed map as a guide. However, we adapted that plan as we went along, depending on each new circumstance we encountered. That’s the essence of agile planning: changing things depending on what we find along the way, rather than clinging to a complex plan simply because it exists. The danger is not in having a plan. The danger is falling in love with it. Once we do that, we enter the world of the planning fallacy, where the future looks neat, predictable and manageable, until reality turns up and proves otherwise.

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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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