Have you ever experienced a company with a culture so powerful that you notice it immediately? There is a positive tone in the conversation, a joyful way in which people interact, a different feeling that you get walking through the door.
Those companies are rare.
It is more likely you’ve experienced a company with a culture that is toxic. One where the tone of the conversation is so negative that it instantly brings you down, were the interactions between employees seem hostile, and where you would like to run out the door shortly after entering.
If we were robots, then when we are underperforming or not working, a simple diagnostic process would show us where the issue is. We would need to determine if it was a hardware or software issue, work through the bugs, and identify the component issues. It might be hard, but it is a structured process that a sound engineer can handle. And in the end, you know when you get it right because the issue is solved.
But we are not robots. We are human.
Employees are not robots
We are complex, context-driven, emotional, overstressed, and irrational. We often tell people what we think they want to hear, not what we really feel. We tend to avoid conflict and repress our feelings. Hell, we don’t even understand our feelings a lot of the time.
I’m a behavioral scientist at heart. I look at the numbers and the data and think about how people respond. Right now, I don’t think a lot of people are responding very well.
In the past few
days, I’ve seen Facebook posts talking about how overblown and hyped up the
coronavirus pandemic is.
Would being able to understand the underlying reasons why you and others “do the things you do” be helpful to you in your job? Is there value in having the knowledge to be able to predict and understand people’s responses to your requests or changes? How about being able to anticipate how people will most likely respond in a given situation or environment? Would the ability to make more rational and sound decisions help you in moving your business forward?
For most
people, that answer is “yes.”
Most of us
work in an environment that involves some level of involvement and interaction with
other people. Whether it be coworkers, bosses, employees, vendors, or customers
– at some point in your workday, there is likely a human involved.
How you interact with those humans can change how they respond.
We need to
be able to work effectively with those humans. If we can understand and
empathize with their underlying drives, decipher how they are interpreting our
words and actions, and anticipate how they will respond to what we do, our
interactions with them will be significantly improved.
Imagine getting the chance to earn $2 for doing absolutely nothing. Would you turn this down? Most people say no, yet study after study shows that people often refuse the $2 payout, sometimes more.
You’re probably wondering, “why?”
This strange behavior comes down to how we perceive fairness
and retribution and can be observed in a simulation behavioral scientists call “the
Ultimatum Game.”
Halloween is scary. All sorts of creatures are running wild – ghouls and ghosts, witches and goblins, werewolves and vampires…biases and heuristics.
That’s right, biases and heuristics can be scary too! They can cause us undue harm if we are not careful, but understanding the power that they have over our behaviors can help.
Fall 2019 Update: We recorded an in depth podcast with AMGA Ski Guide and Avalanche expert Chris Brown on this same subject – check it out here!
An exploration into the human factors and heuristics that lead to avalanche incidents and our recommendations on: (1) how to overcome them and (2) how to improve how avalanche education courses teach them.
The American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE) Avalanche coursesare designed to train backcountry users (skiers, snowboarders, hikers, snowmobilers, etc.) in avalanche awareness to help them make more educated decisions in backcountry and high-risk winter alpine environments.
Habit and routine, we often use the two words interchangeably, for example, “It was his habit to wake up at six every morning” is easily replaced with “It was his routine to wake up at six every morning.” For purposes of this article, however, each term has a specific meaning. Habit is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is “an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.” Whereas they define routine as “a regular course of procedure.” The distinction is important.
Got a cool story about applying behavioral science in a unique setting? Send it to us here!
Earlier this year I completed my PADI dive certification in San Diego, CA. Becoming dive certified has been a goal of mine for many years, one that had been consistently pushed off by either alternate priorities or due to time, financial, or geographic limitations.
