Yesterday I wrote about how we are not rational. Today, we look at how sometimes we don’t even see things that are right in front of our eyes! Take a look.
Did you see the bear the first time? I know when I first did this test, I didn’t. How long did it take you to notice the changes in the 2nd video? I didn’t catch it until about 3/4 the way through and I was looking for it.
Over the past 18 years I have conducted a team building event called the Electronic Maze® with hundreds of companies and thousands of participants. Sometimes called the “Magic Carpet” the Electronic Maze is extraordinary, not because it is magic, but because of the team behaviors and emotional responses it elicits.
Those behaviors and emotional responses are surprising similar across a wide variety of groups: senior managers, line workers, middle management, cohesive teams, strangers, international audiences, men, women, and every group that we’ve ever done this with.
Those behaviors are also very insightful as to how we perceive the world, work with each other, and get things done.
Riding a bike My 4-year old son just got his bike a few weeks ago. He is in heaven. Ask him what his favorite thing in the world to do is, and he will tell you, “Ride my bike!” He wants to ride it everywhere…which is fantastic. He is definitely motivated!
I have one problem…he won’t ride it without training wheels.
We tried. The first four days I was out with him every day, running up and down the sidewalk, holding on to the bike as he peddled. But he was too scared. He would stop peddling anytime the bike tilted. He would always look back to make sure I was there (which caused him to turn the wheel and tilt the bike to one side and then stop peddling). He would stop and say he wanted to go slower.
And the problem was he was actually doing a good job riding on his own. He was able to go a fair way with me just running beside him and not supporting the bike. I would let go and he would be riding just fine.
Here is the link to the webinar I did with Economic Growth Centers (ECG), a 501C non-profit that I’m on the board of. ECG’s mission is to strengthen the economic vitality of the Twin Cities Metro area.
One program that we are working on is to create an electronic small business education curriculum that can be freely accessed from our website by small business owners, managers and employees. Our goal is to have an entire curriculum of educational webinars available free of charge, hosted by various experts in their fields. This type of training or consulting would be cost prohibitive for many of the small businesses we aim to help.
If you would like to donate your time or expertise – please let me know kurt@lanterngroup.com or leave a comment. We are looking for people to work with to create a one hour webinar that would teach small business leaders and employees a key business skill. If you are interested, let us know -we would love to hear from you!
I read this article recently, “PowerPoint Does Rocket Science–and Better Techniques for Technical Reports” by Edward Tufte.
Read this article. Seriously, read it.
It is technical and it gets into details and isn’t constrained to just one page. It has long paragraphs. Read it anyway.
It highlights how we have come to depend on Power Point and its conventions – even when that medium or those conventions don’t work. And how, in this instance, might have led to disaster.
I was reading an the transcribed copy from a conversation between Ira Flatow and Dr. Paul Bloom on the NPR show Science Friday. This show was titled, “Why we like the things we like” and I think it highlights some very interesting insights that we could all learn from.
The following excerpt is a great example of the Drive to Challenge and Comprehend.
FLATOW: Well, you led into a topic I wanted to ask you about, and that is the pleasure of just learning about things. It’s – you know, just knowing more. I mean, I find that extremely pleasurable, and I’m sure a lot of our listeners do, or else they wouldn’t be tuned to this program.
The 4-Drive Model of Employee Motivation’s 3rd drive is the Drive to Challenge and Comprehend. The drive focuses on our innate desire to learn more about the world around us and to not be bored.
I like to call this the “4-year old drive.”
If you’ve ever tried to get a 4-year old dressed quickly, you know what I mean – they want to do it themselves. It is the challenge of being able to button their shirt or put on their own shoes that they are striving for. Or think about a 4-year old sitting at dinner with a group of adults who are talking (i.e., boring) and think of the trouble that they get themselves into trying to add some excitement (or learn something new). For instance, my 4-year old was bored and decided to see what meatballs in a glass of milk would taste like…you see what I mean.
Here is the presentation I made based on yesterday’s blog. Let me know what you think. You can also see on Slideshare.net
Are there certain people who just can’t be motivated? Are there Wally’s who render the motivation fairy powerless? While I would like to believe that isn’t the case, I have to wonder…
One of the core beliefs that I have is that motivation is very personal. People are individuals with different motivational triggers and drives. While there are basic underlying motivational drives (see 4-Drive Model), those drives impact each of us differently and create a unique motivational profile.
This implies that if one can understand that motivational profile of a person, one should be able to understand what to do to motivate them…right?
That is the implication…however I believe reality is a little different.
The plan was to take this week off and use it to get some much needed down time and relaxation. I was going to use it as a mini refreshabattical and recharge my batteries, get a fresh perspective on the upcoming months and years, and maybe even have some fun.
I had intended to go to the Minneapolis Institute of Art and actually get to spend time there without feeling rushed; take a few walks around Lake of the Isles or Lake Calhoun – maybe sit on a bench and just watch the people go by; spend a few hours in the garden; go to a daytime Twins game at the new stadium; sit back with a drink on the front porch in the afternoon and say hi to all my neighbors; go camping for a night with my four year old son; take some time to do some fun reading and writing…but then, real life comes crashing in. A client decides that they finally need to finish some compensation plan books that we started in January – and now there are changes that require significant rework. Tenants call and complain about sash cords being broken – and need them fixed now (even though they’ve been that way for a few months). Dissertation committee needs to have a draft of Chapter 5 – sooner than expected.
I have to say that I started to feel pretty bummed out about this yesterday. I had these expectations for this week and those expectations were definitely not being met (not even close to it). Then I started to really think about it – was this week that bad?
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Confidence is Key, Until It’s Not: The Overconfidence Bias at Work
Knowing When to Abandon Ship: The Sunk Cost Fallacy at Work
The Power of Possession: Understanding the Endowment Effect in the Workplace
Navigating the Complexities of Co-Workers: One Common Cognitive Error We All Make
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