Think Big Take Small Steps and Build The Future You Want
Think Big Take Small Steps and Build The Future You Want
Think Big Take Small Steps and Build The Future You Want
THINK BIG
Take Small Steps and Build the Future You Want
WRITE-ON PAGES
Any references to ‘writing in this book’ refer to the original printed version.
Chapter 1: Begin
Chapter 2: Goal
Chapter 3: Time
Chapter 4: Inside
Chapter 5: Outside
Chapter 6: Environment
Chapter 7: Resilience
Chapter 8: Journey
Get in touch
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
About the Author
‘On your journey to thinking big – about yourself and about the world –
Grace Lordan is a wise and winning guide. She’s written the ultimate
primer on enlisting modest changes to achieve monumental goals’ Daniel
H. Pink, author of When, Drive and To Sell is Human
‘Dr Grace Lordan has created one of the most important books anyone can
read to help their working life. Anchored with behavioural science she
shows how all of us can move towards our ambitions while fighting back
worries and self-doubts’ Bruce Daisley, author of The Joy of Work
‘In this must-read book, Grace equips you with the know-how required to
take your career to the next level. This book will not only inspire you to
think bigger, but to take immediate action in turning those dreams of yours
into reality. When you think big and start taking small, consistent steps
forward each day, anything becomes possible!’ Simon Alexander Ong
‘If you know it’s time to aim higher in your career, Think Big provides a
clear and compelling behavioural science toolkit to help you realize your
goals and replace your current reality with something bigger, better and
more enjoyable’ Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You and teacher in the
executive education faculty, Duke University Fuqua School of Business
Begin
It’s not hard to picture someone who isn’t enjoying their job …
Imagine Katie. Katie left university, where she’d studied history, and
entered a graduate training programme at a big advertising company. She
showed a particular adeptness at marketing, and at the end of her placement
she was offered a full-time position. Katie seemed to thrive in this role. At
the time, social media marketing was in the ascendency, and Katie quickly
grasped how she could make it work for her clients – mainly large food
companies. A few big coups followed: a prizewinning campaign here, a
new client there, and she was promoted. Then she was promoted again. Her
twenties were flying by, and Katie seemed to be flying, too. Now, at thirty-
five, Katie is in charge of a global team that delivers online marketing
solutions to some of the world’s biggest food production companies. She is
well-liked by her colleagues, has an amazing salary, and is the envy of her
social circle.
But Katie hates her job. Like many others, she fell into her profession.
Katie feels she should be having the time of her life, but she’s totally
miserable. Something has to change. But what?
Katie represents those who on the surface seem to have it all figured out,
but really yearn for something different. Katie could do with disrupting her
work life and thinking bigger.
And Katie isn’t the only type of person that needs to think bigger …
Imagine Reyansh, who dropped out of university. He always intended to
go back but never did, and instead bounced around a few different jobs in
the service industry. He’s been a barman and a waiter, but has found a niche
as a barista. For the last couple of years he’s been working in a coffee shop,
and since joining, the coffee shop’s fiercely loyal clientele has steadily
grown. Reyansh makes a decent cup of coffee, but that’s not why the coffee
shop is doing so well. The reason people come back is because of Reyansh.
He’s funny, he’s charming, and sometimes – because it’s sunny, or he likes
your coat – he gives you free coffee. (Though the owner cheerfully berates
him for this.) Reyansh isn’t the quickest barista on the books – he’s usually
too busy chatting – and there is supposed to be a loyalty card scheme to
administer freebies. But everybody can see that Reyansh adds inordinate
value to the business. He’s a great shift supervisor, he’s brilliant at teaching
trainees, and even the crankiest, most difficult customers leave the shop
smiling.
But Reyansh isn’t satisfied. Being a barista is fine, but it was always
intended as a stop gap. For one thing, the pay isn’t great. For another, while
making coffee and hanging out with people is fun, he craves something
deeper and more meaningful from his work.
Reyansh personifies people that fail to launch within the specific time
period society expects of them. It can be daunting to launch later than your
peers, particularly when you don’t have a clear idea of what your passion is.
Reyansh could do with thinking bigger, bringing his future self forward and
identifying a more satisfying career pathway.
And Reyansh isn’t the only type of person who needs to reimagine where
their career is going …
Imagine Juan, who is working happily in an investment bank. He likes
his work and his colleagues, and is perfectly fine with the 50+ hour working
week. Juan now manages a team of ten people, and takes great effort to
bring them along. He is a mid-level manager. Over the last five years he has
seen members of his team advance within the organization relatively
quickly, two of whom have been promoted over him. Juan genuinely wishes
them well, but he cannot understand why his own progress has stalled. He is
growing disillusioned but keeps smiling on the outside.
Juan is a good example of people who plateau despite craving
advancement. He could do with rethinking how he approaches the next few
years of his career, so he can move beyond his plateau.
So Katie is miserable, Reyansh has failed to launch and Juan has
plateaued. Perhaps you picked up this book because you’re facing a similar
problem.
Maybe you know where you want to be in your career, but you don’t
know how to get there. Maybe you don’t even know that – you simply
know that you aren’t where you’re supposed to be right now. Or maybe you
feel as though you know where you want to go, and know, on paper, how to
get there, but somebody else is preventing you from doing it – a bad boss,
say, or an unhelpful colleague.
Fear not.
This book is going to help you take small steps to build the
career you want, and it’s going to show you how to do that
using insights from behavioural science.
Equally, there will be times in your career journey when you get a flat
tyre or hit roads where there is nothing worth seeing. You may also choose
to take a break to allow for other key life events. If you buy a book that
promises you a new destination – or a major life change – in one week or
one month, I hope it’s refundable. We all have the potential to achieve great
things, but if it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.
Unless you are in a situation where you can upend your entire life, you
need to get real and realize that big thinking is a medium-term expedition.
We should view this expedition as medium-term because it will take years
rather than days, weeks or months, but at the same time it will not take most
of your adult life to complete it. This approach also allows for a great
work–life balance. It is not do-or-die; if you don’t get it right every single
day, it’s not the end of the world. And having a good work–life balance
should be central to the pursuit of any big-thinking goal.
As a thought experiment, cast your mind back to the person you were
five years ago. Make a mental note of any major changes you have
experienced in your life since then. The major changes do not have to be
work-related; they can include relationship changes, a bereavement, moving
country, having children, starting and finishing a degree, losing a significant
amount of weight, running a marathon, etc. Do you think that your
personality changed? Do you think that your ability to handle situations
changed? Did you change how you physically dress or wear your hair?
Make a list of all the notable changes you can recall. Now, make a list of the
changes you think you will make in the next five years.
I do this exercise sometimes when I am teaching behavioural science
executive students. But rather than asking the group to fill out both
columns, I ask them to fill in one column or the other. Every single time, I
have found that the lists written by the people who are reflecting on the last
five years are much longer, and more ambitious overall, than the lists by
those who are thinking forward to the next five years. And these are people
who have elected to attend a course for business leaders! By default, they
are expecting major future changes, right?
So what gives?
The majority of us see ourselves as having experienced many major
changes when we look backwards. However, we also imagine that the next
five years will not bring any great or significant change. We assume we will
stay more or less the same. But this is simply a behavioural science illusion.
Regardless of age, we tend to underestimate the amount we can achieve in
the medium term going forward, yet we view ourselves as having made
major progress in the medium term in the past!1
So our future selves are underachievers; and, in contrast, our past selves
are overachievers. Imagine what could have been achieved if you had
consciously set a big-thinking goal for the last two, five or even ten years
and committed to small steps to achieve it? Rather than striving for the next
pay cheque, the next pay rise or the next promotion, you could have aimed
for something bigger. You could have aimed for something different. You
could have been striving for something you really wanted. Believe me:
thinking big and taking small steps that support your ideas can reinvent
you!
But, as humans, we are impatient. We generally favour a lofty goal over
short periods because we are excited to walk in the shoes of our improved
selves sooner rather than later. And that’s pretty understandable. But it also
sets us up for failure. Very often we can’t make the changes that we need to
over the short term without completely restructuring our lives. Voices in
your head start shouting that it’s too hard, that you are unhappy and life is
too short. So you quit. And when you do so, you learn a lesson: you are a
quitter. Next time you plan a life change, you are reminded that you are a
quitter – so why even bother starting something?
Have you ever tried to lose weight over a short period by cutting carbs
only to fall off the wagon … by eating a wagon loaded with pasta? It’s the
same phenomenon. Or maybe there is some long-standing New Year’s
resolution that you always make but never keep to? Quitting smoking,
reading more, drinking less alcohol? Maybe every 31 December you pledge
to overhaul your career, but come 31 January you are back on autopilot
wishing for the weekend. All too often, by the end of January we lack the
energy and motivation to follow through on our best-laid plans. That’s
because short-term goals set most of us up for long-term failure.
We are creatures of routine. The easiest way to ensure that you do not
achieve a goal is to jump in too quickly. Of course, there are always
exceptions to this rule – I’m sure you’ve read plenty of stories of people
who turned their life around in two weeks. But we don’t infer a trend from
an anomaly. Besides, if you scratch the surface, you might find their story is
much more complicated. Behind a spectacular two-week turnaround there’s
often years of structured and sustained effort. It is this effort that causes the
success. It doesn’t make for a neat newspaper headline or an exciting party
anecdote – but it’s the truth.
In most cases, the person who is deemed an overnight success has long
been quietly honing their craft and creating opportunities so they can finally
be recognized for their expertise.
There is real truth in the saying: ‘Luck is what happens when preparation
meets opportunity.’
Setting your sights on a medium-term horizon of two, five or even ten
years allows for real change. It is also a sweet spot: you will not feel a
significant drop in happiness if you begin with small steps that are peppered
into your usual routine. Your efforts will not disrupt your schedule too
aggressively, but these small steps still accumulate, and add up to
something big. This is a key insight from behavioural science:
This brings me back to Katie, Reyansh and Juan. Though the outcomes in
their scenarios are totally different, the problem is the same. Reyansh hasn’t
been back to university because he’s told himself he isn’t organized enough.
But being organized is a basic administrative skill that can be learned. If
you can make a cup of coffee and cash up a till, you can learn how to
organize your time. Similarly, his failure to commit to anything is
symptomatic of a fear of failure. Despite being clever and capable, Reyansh
has held himself back by never pushing himself outside his comfort zone.
He doesn’t believe change is possible.
Katie, on the other hand, has never asked what she wants for herself. It
goes without saying that she is also very capable and clever, but she’s
internalized a story of what success looks like, and – even though it isn’t
right for her – she has doggedly stuck to it. ‘What will happen if I try to do
something else?’ she thinks. ‘What will my friends say? My parents? What
if I can’t pay my mortgage?’
Juan is stuck because of status quo bias. He has hit a plateau and has not
yet taken the time to discover what he can control in order to get himself
out of it. His job is like a comfort blanket, and while he craves change,
needing this comfort is holding him back.
What might happen if Katie, Reyansh and Juan worked to overcome their
biases and took a medium-term approach towards changing their career?
A two-year journey is enough time for Katie to set up a boutique
marketing consultancy of her own. Why? Well, that two-year window
would give Katie enough time to disentangle the tasks in her job that she
likes from those she does not, register a new company, hire her first
members of staff and pivot to a happier working life.
A seven-year journey is enough time for Reyansh to become a practising
psychotherapist. How? By tracking backwards and looking at the things
he’s liked doing in his different jobs, Reyansh can identify talents – like his
people skills – and, with this discovery under his belt, choose a university
course that leverages those talents. Seven years is sufficient for him to
complete university while holding on to his barista job part-time, and then
he can make the transition to full-time practice.
A four-year journey is enough time for Juan to work on the things that
are holding him back so he can progress to managing director. What is
holding him back? Well, for one, the tendency for others in the organization
to misinterpret his easy-going manner as a lack of senior leadership
potential. Once the biases of others are recognized, they can be tackled
effectively. In a four-year window, Juan can invest in honing his confidence
and authority so he can make his added value clearer to senior colleagues in
a series of regular catch-ups he takes the liberty of scheduling. Juan is up to
that challenge.
What will happen if you go on a medium-term journey and think big?
Happy planning!
CHAP T E R 2
Goal
IS THE STORY YOU TELL ABOUT YOURSELF TRUE?
When I was growing up in Ireland, I was terrified of needles. Really
terrified. From convincing a friend that looked nothing like me to stand in
for me, to passing out and requiring multiple stitches in my head, having
blood drawn was always a dramatic event. My father likes to tell the story
of him sitting in a doctor’s waiting room chatting amiably to a nun while I
was getting my blood taken. A nurse popped her head around the door and
asked him to come inside. ‘Your daughter is very distressed,’ she said.
‘Perhaps you should be with her when the needle goes in. I can see from her
records that she has previously fainted.’
The nun looked at my father in disbelief and exclaimed, ‘Shame on you!
You should have been in there all this time. Poor little mite. A child needs
their dad at times like this!’
My dad stood up slowly and responded, ‘My daughter is twenty-five.’
My needle phobia continued to haunt me throughout the rest of my
twenties. It sounds hilarious in hindsight, but the cold sweats, shaking,
nausea and fainting weren’t funny to me at the time. So when I was told that
I had type 1 diabetes in 2011, when I had just entered my thirties, it had a
particularly sharp edge. I feel I took the news that I needed to inject myself
with insulin five times a day for the rest of my life pretty calmly, given my
severe phobia. I simply asked the consultant how long I was going to live
without insulin because I had no intention of injecting. In my eyes, my
quality of life would be zero, so what was the point?
This statement was taken so seriously that I was given a firm lecture
about the possibility of being committed into an institution involuntarily. I
was also told I would not be allowed to leave the hospital that night until I
had injected successfully.
Today I inject five times a day, often in public without being noticed, and
it’s no big deal. While before I held tightly to the belief that I had an
unshakeable fear of needles, my personal narrative has well and truly
changed.
Narratives cut across all aspects of our lives, including our ability to
think big and make things happen in our careers.
If you want to change, you need to identify the false stories you have
constructed about yourself. And then you need to do something to combat
them.
Jot down the narratives that you think are holding you back in the first
column of the table below. The second column is for the small steps that
will help change these narratives – you will add these later.
Narrative Change
THE THEORY OF NARRATIVES
It may seem a bit unusual to be asked to reflect on whether your narratives
are holding you back. After all, wouldn’t you know already if this were the
case? Well, not necessarily. Narratives are created unconsciously, and many
of the most powerful ideas in psychology and personal development already
recognize the power of such narratives. Let’s take a whirlwind tour of some
of the most important work that links to the stories we tell ourselves …
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has gained ground all over the
world in treating anxiety and depression. Essentially, this talk therapy
focuses on how your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes affect your feelings and
behaviour. Negative thinking patterns can start in childhood. For example,
if you didn’t receive much attention from your parents, as an adult you may
automatically think ‘I’m just not good enough’ when things don’t go your
way. But there will always be times when you ‘lose’ – whether it’s a client,
a promotion or a project. This narrative may make you feel so bad that you
don’t put yourself out there, and in the future you only seek situations
where you feel comfortable. CBT forces you to challenge your
interpretation of situations. Essentially, it helps you to change your
narrative so you hear a different story.
In her insightful book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Carol
Dweck puts forward a theory which views people as one of two types. The
first has a fixed mindset. They assume that their abilities are innate and
cannot be changed. A person with a fixed mindset might be heard saying,
‘I’m just not good with numbers’ or ‘I can’t speak in public’. A person with
a fixed mindset hates to fail, so avoids situations where they might. If a
person with a fixed mindset is forced to participate in an activity that they
believe they are not good at, they view it through that lens. A fumbled
sentence when speaking in public? That’s evidence that they do not belong
on a speaker’s podium. They decline the request next time round. They lean
on confirmation bias.
The second type of person has a growth mindset. They believe that they
can, at any time, acquire new skills. They thrive on challenges, and embrace
their failures as learning opportunities. They believe that, with effort,
anything is possible. The result is that people with growth mindsets are
open to changing their narrative. They keep an open mind regarding the
possibility that they can gain the necessary skills to become tomorrow’s
leaders, innovators and experts. We know that anyone can acquire new
skills when they put their mind to it, so we should all try to develop a
growth mindset by reminding ourselves of this.
Another powerful psychological theory is locus of control. This is the
extent to which a person feels that they have control over the events that
influence their lives – or their career path. A person who believes that they
have control over what happens is said to have an internal locus of control.
A person who believes that they have no control over what happens has an
external locus of control. For people with an external locus of control,
regardless of what happens, there’s no personal culpability and no lessons
for them to learn. If their business fails, it was down to the economy. If they
lose a client, that client is unreasonable. If their book gets rejected, it
doesn’t need revising.
In contrast, people with an internal locus of control take responsibility.
They seek out opportunities. The narrative is always, ‘I am responsible!’ –
whether the end result is good or bad. Luck has no role for a person with an
external locus of control. They believe only in talent and effort, and claim
you ‘make your own luck’. Think about what that means for someone
whose career faces a series of unexpected setbacks – for example, people
who have lost their jobs because the economy has contracted. Lay-offs
happen to talented people all the time. For those who are laid off and have
an internal locus of control, internalizing the blame for this bad luck has a
deteriorating effect on their well-being.
In Happy Ever After: Escaping the Myth of the Perfect Life, Paul Dolan
highlights the power of narratives and documents how the stories we tell
ourselves can really harm us in areas of life such as marriage, the pursuit of
happiness, and income. He argues that we are addicted to doing what is
expected of us. We internalize these expectations and a narrative emerges of
what we ‘ought to do’ in life, which may not resemble what will bring us
joy. This narrative becomes part of us, regardless of whether we are suited
to it.
All of these psychological frameworks emphasize the importance of
paying attention to personal narratives. You may have positive narratives in
one aspect of your life and negative aspects in another. An ‘I’m not worth
it’ narrative may have you stuck in a relationship that isn’t good for you. An
‘I will never be as good as those people’ narrative may be preventing you
from starting Krav Maga, and keeping you binge-watching Breaking Bad.
But you can always change. And becoming aware of them is the first
step.
Notice that, in the examples above, the process never relies on other people.
This is a necessary condition when choosing the process. Engaging in such
a process repeatedly allows a new narrative to emerge that replaces the
older, negative narrative.
The company ME+ will be working for is ….. (If you are intending
on starting your own company, note that here)
ME+ will be running (/working in) a company that has the following
characteristics …..
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
There is also a blank row at the end of the table. This is a space in which
to write more specific activities. It will be most useful to those of you who
have a clear vision of what ME+ will be doing. It allows you to move from
the very broad activities listed in the table and narrow things down.
For example, building on ‘Making strategic decisions’ and ‘Solving
problems’, you could have something like ‘Deciding what capital structure
will be for a pharmaceutical company, and offering solutions as to what
debt-to-equity ratio should be maintained in the face of economic
turbulence’. Instead of ‘Coordinating the work and activities of others’, you
might have ‘Coordinating the work and activities of others to ensure that
orders are fulfilled and my customers are satisfied with my dog shampoo
company’. Instead of ‘Performing for the public’, it might be more relevant
to write ‘Practising lines for my part in the latest Broadway musical’. And
instead of ‘Assisting and caring for others’, you might write ‘Bringing the
children in my care to the park for a nature walk’.
You get the idea …
Now that you have identified the skills you need to develop, make an
effort to keep them salient amid the hustle and bustle of daily life. How can
you do that? I suggest writing them on Post-it notes and sticking them
somewhere you look at every day. You need to start gearing your life
towards these skills, and thinking about them as often as possible.
The next step to making your ME+ a reality involves incorporating the
activities you identified in the first table in this chapter into your weekly
routine. By doing these activites regularly, they organically become part of
your narrative, and you hone the skills you have chosen.
How you frame your request when asking someone for help is
important.
1) _______________
2) _______________
3) _______________
You will progress much faster if you meet people outside your
normal circles.
I am talking face-to-face discussions here, which can occur in person or
virtually. One of the big lessons of the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 has to
be how the technology we have at our disposal allows us to build bridges in
the absence of palm-pressing contact.
Decades of research in economics shows that larger social networks
create more and better career opportunities.13 If you are an entrepreneur,
having a larger social network allows you to build your customer base more
quickly. You’ll have better access to talent that can enhance your business,
too. Whether it’s getting help with a one-off marketing initiative, hiring
someone who can create an app, or providing evidence that your product
actually works, you can use your network to find someone reliable to get
the job done. Meanwhile, if you are working in the gig economy and
looking for clients, having a wider network can help bring the clients to
you, allowing you to focus on your core business: finishing projects and
getting paid.
You should commit to paying deliberate attention to expanding your
external network at least once a month. But how do you go about meeting
these people in the first place? First, loop back to the activities that you
have identified your ME+ doing. Your external networking should give you
opportunities to engage in these activities, or expose you to individuals who
do them and are at the top of their game. Because you want to expand your
network, any group event that you attend needs to have time to socialize
before or after. This is a much easier task if you live in a big city, like
London or New York, where there are endless low-cost or free events. In
less densely populated areas, you may have to look a bit harder or be open
to a commute. The important thing is that you broker at least one mutually
beneficial relationship a month. This amounts to having a list of twelve new
external contacts by the end of year one.
Remember that when you are putting yourself out there and attending
talks and events, you will need to actually talk to people. If you are usually
not able to bring yourself to approach people and introduce yourself, try
arriving first so that you will have to speak to those who arrive second and
third.
A seminal lesson from behavioural science is that ego matters. Ego is
our conscious sense of our own self-importance. It causes us to behave in
ways that make us feel good about ourselves. Ideally, you will speak with
your new acquaintances in a way that makes them feel interested and good
about themselves. It is worth creating an elevator pitch that can be drawn
upon to help with these new interactions. Do ensure that the elevator pitch
is interesting, and more specifically that the importance of your personal
added value shines through. I have no idea how many times I have been
asked for advice, followed by a question as to whether I think what the
person is working on is important. This baffles me. If the person who is
selling the idea needs to ask that question, the answer must be ‘no’, right?
I do sympathize with those who do not actively want to network. Having
to talk to people when I am unsure of common ground can be draining. I
also find superficial conversations pretty boring. Thankfully, there is a
viable alternative. Identify people who are in a similar role to what you
want to do, and email or message them and ask to meet. For me, this is
much easier. The probability of rejection is larger (it is easier to ignore you
virtually than face-to-face), but you are less likely to internalize this
because email is less personal. As a rule of thumb, email is preferred for
contacts that you do not know yet, or where there are multiple people who
can answer your request for help.
When sending emails to new contacts, remember that the probability of
getting a positive response increases with the number of people you email.
So aim to email five people once a month, and resign yourself to the idea
that one acceptance is an overall win.
Once you have your meeting in the bag, decide on what you want to
cover. Ideally, this person will stay in your network, so understand that any
pull on their time should also be beneficial to them. Go prepared, knowing
the questions that you want to ask and any opportunities that you want to
explore.
Pull your head out from this book and send five emails right now. There’s
no time like the present!
To be effective in your journey and stay the course, you need to monitor
your ongoing efforts. Set aside an hour a week to log what you have done
over the last seven days. This is also a good time to set intentions for the
week ahead. You should do this type of monitoring for your continuous
learning, as well as your various networking efforts.
Monitoring ensures that you are fully engaged in the processes that will
lead to ME+ being realized. It also serves as a reminder of the benefits you
are accruing as you go. When I have had a particularly good week engaging
in my processes, I feel a sort of smug satisfaction at my accomplishments.
This feeling is likely driven by the fact that I have shown up for myself.
The following is a template for monitoring your activities, with some
examples of how you might fill it in below:
Last week I …
This template can also be used to monitor networking attempts on the job
and out and about:
Last week I …
Compiled a list of twenty people who are doing the job I will
do soon(ish).
Role models motivate. They give their time to help you find the best way
forward when faced with an obstacle. There are no guilt trips. When you are
with a positive role model, you can reveal your future self fully. You can be
vulnerable.
Ideally, you will have at least one positive role model who understands
what you are trying to achieve. If such a person is not already in your life,
you should take the process of finding them seriously. This may be
achieved through your commitments to ‘on the job’ or ‘putting yourself out
there’. I have seen great success when people approach the search for a
positive role model as they would for a romantic partner. Reflecting on the
attributes that you would like in this person can bear fruit. For example, will
you need someone who listens and consoles you? Or should your role
model push you to toughen up? Of course, the beauty of role models is that
there is no need for monogamy. If you are lucky, you will have multiple
people who offer a variety of perspectives for all seasons.
READY, STEADY, GO
Your journey is going to take years. This is a long time. In this window it
really is possible to transform your work set-up from lacklustre to
spectacular – you just need commitment and perseverance. Some of you
will only be aiming for moderate change, and that is okay, too. Having a
purposeful plan will help you get there. If you stick to the recommendations
in this chapter, the commitments you will make are not so significant that
they will disrupt your life in the short term, but they will pay great
dividends in the long run.
Let’s take a moment and recap the behavioural science insights that will
help you create your big-thinking goal and identify the small steps required
to achieve it …
INSIGHT 1: WHAT IS ME+ DOING DAILY?
Start by identifying the things you enjoy doing currently, or
things that you think you would enjoy doing, and allow these
to shape your ideas as you think big.
The weekly commitments you have made while reading this chapter
translate directly to the processes you need to engage in to reach your big-
thinking goal. By auditing how you feel in each activity weekly, you will
have information on how much happiness you got out of taking a particular
small step. Because the commitments are small, your life is not disrupted.
Your narratives should not be telling you to stop.
Happy goal-setting!
Before we move on, make sure that you:
Identify the narratives that are holding back your ability to
think big, and set in place processes to change them.
Work through the behavioural science insights one by one.
Time
‘It’s pretty shocking, Gillian. They ended up with HIV from the hospital –
the place that’s supposed to make you well. I told you, there’s nothing good
that comes from needles,’ I leaned across and whispered to my friend. We
were wrapping up our mock (practice) Irish exam. It was 1997, and I was in
my final year of secondary school in Ireland.
‘What in God’s name are you talking about the Hepatitis C and HIV
tribunal for?’ she replied. ‘That was a hard exam. I still don’t think I’ll ever
understand the modh coinníollach.’1
Thump. Mrs Buckley interrupted my thoughts, banging her hand on my
desk. I rubbed my temple, lamenting the inevitable before it even happened.
‘Grace Lordan! You cannot confer during an examination at this school. I
am cancelling your right to results on your mock exams. Tell your mother
that I want to see her.’
‘My mother, Miss?’ I questioned, despite Gillian’s pleading eyes telling
me to shut up. ‘Why not my father? Isn’t that a bit sexist? You know, I read
recently that we tend to see mothers as both caregivers and disciplinarians
due to a …’
As I rambled on, I could see Mrs Buckley’s eyes bulging bigger and
bigger. I would bet my morning coffee that she would have preferred to
whack me upside the head in that moment, and she presumably only chose
six weeks of Friday detention because flexing her ruler had been deemed
socially unacceptable in Ireland by that time.
I can’t recall why the Hepatitis C and HIV tribunal popped into my head
that day, but that kind of random thought is common for those of us who are
easily distracted or prone to procrastination.
Wandering thoughts aren’t helpful when you are trying to accelerate your
life. They don’t just cause lapses of concentration at moments when you
need your performance to be at its peak (like exams, important meetings,
interviews, etc.); they can also cause you to get distracted by entirely
different activities, like binge-watching TV or staying out too long
socializing with friends – as your real priorities slip through your fingers.
Time is your most precious resource. You cannot get it back, you cannot
buy more, and in today’s world there are oodles of things that grab at it
indiscriminately. Fighting against distraction and procrastination is an
ongoing commitment. You will lose battles, but with perseverance you can
ultimately win the war.
I know this is hard from bitter experience. During my school years I was
shouted at, pleaded with, told to sit at the back of the class and sent outside
the class for being distracted, distracting others and distracting the teacher,
and this happened too many times to count. No drugs, alcohol, sex, or
smoking in the toilets for me. My crime was not being able to pay attention.
Mrs Buckley was particularly grating for me. In the parent–teacher meeting
right before my Leaving Certificate (the equivalent to A levels in the UK),
she told my parents I was unlikely to get in to any tertiary education, let
alone university. My mum was gutted. And yet I am now an associate
professor at a prestigious international university. Was Mrs Buckley just a
terrible judge of character?
Mrs Buckley was certainly a royal pain in my derrière. However, it needs
to be emphasized that she had a valid perspective. My ability to study was
poor because of the limits of my attention. Even though I wanted to go to
university when I finished school, I was not on any kind of visible pathway
towards doing so. It is easy to have ambitions. Figuring out how to make
them a reality is the hard part. This involves hard work and a re-
prioritization of how you spend your time.
So how did I end up scoring high enough in my Leaving Certificate to
study computer science at my local university? All of it is owed to my
doting mum, Rita. In the year running up to my exams, Mum quizzed me
every morning on my daily study schedule. This schedule was written down
the evening before, and stuck up over my desk in my bedroom study area.
Timetables and check-ins served to make salient the activities that I was
actually meant to be doing on a daily basis. This kept the activities in the
forefront of my mind, and gave me the best chance of success. Back then,
my mum did the hard work for me. She put simple structures in place that
meant that I stuck to my plan, studied and ended up at university.
In the adult world, you need to do this for yourself. You need to create
structures and systems that make sure you stay on track. Increasing the odds
of succeeding is your responsibility.
TIME IS FINITE
To stick to the plan you have imagined for yourself, it is pretty obvious that
you need time. But time is a finite resource. I can’t think of one person I
know who doesn’t always feel busy. Chances are you would say the same if
we ever met over a cup of coffee. And I would probably have had to wait
two weeks for you to make the time to meet me.
Why is everyone so time-poor? The majority of us simply feel busy
because – from the moment we wake up – our time is gobbled up by useful
and not-so-useful activities. This happens if you do not pay attention to
time. The first step, then, is to identify where there is time in your current
schedule that can be shifted from not-so-useful activities to your big-
thinking plan.
Have you already figured out how you can make time to realize ME+?
Don’t pat yourself on the back just yet. That’s the easy part. Sticking to the
‘doing’ part of it is what is hard.
Identifying where the time will come from to engage in your small steps
each week is like a dieter identifying where in their daily food intake they
will reduce calories. Okay, that’s easy, I won’t eat all those jam doughnuts.
What’s the hard part? Not eating the jam doughnuts.
What’s the really hard part? Not eating the doughnuts when you are tired,
stressed – or, on the other hand, when you’ve had good news and fancy
treating yourself.
It’s the same thing for anybody who has ever decided to take up running.
It is easy to write a plan to take you from couch to 5K. Run ten minutes,
then walk for ten minutes on the first day; run fifteen minutes, walk five
minutes on another day … It’s only twenty minutes a day, you tell yourself,
so how hard can it be? But fast-forward to run number five, and you’re tired
and a bit achy as you lace up your trainers that are still wet from yesterday’s
rain …
Would going back to bed for half an hour really be so bad?
Having the intention to take up running is easy. Putting a note in your
diary of all the runs you’re going to do before the big race is easy. Even
doing the first run is usually pretty easy. There’s a novelty to it. But not
missing a single training session for three months is hard. Showing up
regularly to execute a plan is where people fall down.
So let’s do the easy bit first: figuring out where you will pull the time for
your small steps. And after that we can get serious about using behavioural
science to help you stay the distance. I’ll highlight ten behavioural science
insights you can draw on immediately, to develop the good habit of
regularly committing time to your new journey.
Your small steps shouldn’t suck time from your health or your
family or the things you do to relax.
TIME AUDITS
Every year, the HMRC in the UK (or the IRS in the US) inspects people’s
income to ensure they are paying an appropriate amount of tax. A time
audit is when you inspect how you spend the hours and minutes of a regular
day. It allows you to see how your plans match what actually happened.
Commit to doing a time audit over the next seven days. I would suggest
breaking each day into fifteen-minute intervals, to allow a level of detail
that makes time-sinkers obvious.
A time-sinker is something that can (and should) be culled, avoided or
cut down. Highlighting the time-sinkers with a neon marker in your audit
can make it easier for you to see where you are unwisely sinking your time.
TIME-SINKERS
So what are your biggest time-sinkers? For me, they are pointless meetings,
time spent checking and responding to unnecessary emails, and binge-
watching box sets. I’m going to focus on each in turn and show you how
much time I used to spend doing them, so that you can work out what your
own time-sinkers are and how to combat them.
I committed to avoiding these time-sinkers partially by creating a
structure that gave me the best possible chance of sticking to my plan.
My time-sinkers
What: Pointless meetings where I am clearly not needed and
don’t add value
Time-sinker 1
What:
Weekly time-cost:
Commit to save:
How?
Time-sinker 2
What:
Weekly time-cost:
Commit to save:
How?
Time-sinker 3
What:
Weekly time-cost:
Commit to save:
How?
You are essentially asking yourself how you can make the activities
related to your big-thinking goal (which you identified in Chapter 2) more
appealing now. A classic example relates to someone who wants to exercise
in the mornings but always hits the snooze button on their alarm. How can
they make it easier to engage in their planned behaviour?
They can put their alarm clock on the other side of the room, so they
have to get up to turn it off. They could then leave their runners and
workout gear next to their alarm, so they can get dressed quickly.
How does this help? Well, the alarm clock being further away serves to
increase the cost of staying in bed (who wants to lie there with an alarm
going off?) and simultaneously reduces the benefits of going back to bed
once the person is up (that lovely dozy feeling has begun to wear off).
Meanwhile, readily available exercise gear lowers the cost of getting ready.
Making small differences to the costs and benefits of the new
habits (small steps) you are trying to adopt can have a
disproportionately positive effect on the likelihood that you
stay on track. For example:
For each plan that you have listed, tick one of the final three boxes
depending on whether you ‘crushed it’ (meaning that you achieved the plan
within the expected timeframe), ‘missed it’ (meaning that you did achieve
the plan but it took longer than expected) or ‘never did it’ (meaning the plan
never got done).
But what if you quit without intention? This happens a lot to people like
me. Like my intention to run a weekly 5K in the beautiful Richmond Park.
The time it takes to complete the training gets nobbled by other plans (or
just my procrastination), and it’s a big tick in my ‘never done it’ column.
Meanwhile, even though you’re reading it now, writing this chapter was a
tick in the ‘missed it’ column – because the planning fallacy was lurking in
the shadows when I set out. I imagined it would take roughly forty hours,
and I could allocate forty hours to a one-week period. But life got in the
way, I got distracted and ran over.
What causes me to run late with my writing deadlines? A myriad of
things! On this occasion, part of the reason is that I spent twenty minutes
zoned out and chewing on my shiny new pencil (no judgement please).
How could I have predicted that would happen? Nobody starts their day
with pencil-chewing scheduled as one of their activities. You don’t usually
plan for distraction.
Auditing all of your planned projects over the last year should convince
you that we consistently overestimate what we can achieve in our daily
lives – and very often the best-laid plans are discarded for no reason. It
should also illustrate that poor planning crowds out good intentions. By not
leaving enough time for writing this chapter, I missed the endorphin rush of
exercising alongside the deer, butterflies and bunnies in Richmond Park.
Your audit in the table above likely makes it crystal clear that you also
regularly succumb to the planning fallacy, which will negatively affect the
execution of your plans across several life domains. Just knowing about this
bias may help you to drop your planning fallacy habit. However, heightened
saliency may not be enough.
To be more proactive, it is worth scaling up the time you predict your
activities will take by a significant factor – say, by 1.5. So for each hour you
have committed to activities related to ME+, you should now allow an hour
and a half.
Next, commit to refining this scaling factor to reflect the areas you
struggle with most in terms of the planning fallacy. Each week, assess what
proportion of the activities you planned to do was achieved within the
allocated time window. Take care to account for any days you worked later
than planned. As the weeks go by and you repeat this process over and over
again, you will begin to more accurately predict the time it takes to
complete tasks – and also the number you need to personally scale by to
offset your optimism, and beat the planning fallacy. You may even need
different multipliers for different activities, which will allow you to refine
your scheduling further. But a rule of thumb of 1.5 is a great place to start.
This can be done alongside one of your more regular weekly planning
sessions. Imagine what it will feel like once you have realized ME+. This
serves to actively keep your goal salient in your mind. The more clearly you
tie your small steps in the present to ME+, the more purpose you will find
in doing them.
While having a specific goal makes you far more likely to achieve it, you
also want to avoid being so focused and closed-minded that you miss out on
other appealing opportunities. Do take care to avoid being a victim of
inattentional blindness, a phenomenon explored by Daniel Simons and
Christopher Chabris in a well-known 1999 study. To illustrate the fact that
when we focus on only one thing we block out the rest of the world, the
researchers got a group of adults to observe two teams passing a ball to
each other on a makeshift basketball court. Their task was simple. They
were to count the passes made by the team wearing white shirts, and
actively ignore the passes made by those in black shirts. The participants
took to their task with gusto, diligently counting away. However, their
super-narrow focus meant that they did not see the person dressed as a
gorilla who came on to the playing court beating their chest. Yes, you read
that correctly! They did not see the gorilla! The participants’ intense
concentration meant they missed this fantastic spectacle.
To avoid missing gorilla-shaped opportunities that come your way
because of inattentional blindness, take some time during your monthly
recommitment to your goal to assess new opportunities that are opening up
to you that may pivot your plans or give you new experiences.
In variable ratios, luck and effort determine your marital status, the
number of children you have, the amount of money you earn, and the work
you do for a living right now. Luck is random and very much outside your
own control. It is being in the right place at the right time. I do like to
distinguish fair luck (for example, winning the lottery) from luck that is
determined by privilege (being born into a wealthy family). However, for
the case of a post-mortem, you can combine luck and privilege because, just
like luck, you did not choose your privilege.
You should undertake a major-milestone post-mortem when you have
had a big win, experienced a failure or an unexpected opportunity has
arisen. This type of major post-mortem should be approached with the
knowledge that it is possible you have experienced a good outcome simply
because luck dominated, and equally you may have experienced failure
because bad luck dominated. View this major post-mortem as a time to
reflect on the decisions and efforts that you made, and how they got you to
where you are on that day. View it as a time to learn, rather than a time to
lament or be too self-congratulatory.
The template below can be used for your milestone post-mortem:
Major Milestone:
Outcome:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Think about the last major milestone that impacted you. This could be
anything from taking an examination at school or university, to unveiling a
product that you have been working on, to attending an interview. It can
even be something outside the world of work if you prefer.
Make a note of the milestone that you are thinking about, along with its
final outcome, at the top of the table. Before your day of reckoning came,
there would have been a series of decisions you made which partially
determined how successful you were in terms of that milestone. List them
in the spaces above. Notice that I have left space for five decisions. This is
to encourage you to reflect on all the decisions that got you to that point.
People often try to distil the success or failure of major milestones down to
one or two key decisions, but this rarely reflects reality. Try to stretch
yourself and identify at least five decisions. Now take the opportunity to
write out what went right and what went wrong for each decision.
Why is this useful?
After all, outcomes conflate luck with effort. You will no doubt notice in
your ‘What went right?’ and ‘What went wrong?’ columns that you
encountered luck. Perhaps you made a decision to study only a subset of
questions, and they came up in your examination. Was this an informed
decision guided by the teacher or did you take a risk in order to reduce the
effort you would have to make? Or maybe you only tested your product on
a millennial audience prior to unveiling. Was this strategic? Or did you
exclude a large proportion of your customer base?
A major post-mortem also allows you to ask yourself if the outcome
encountered in the milestone – good or bad – came about because of
intentional actions. If the reason you’re flying high right now is because of
a lucky break, you can’t guarantee that you’re going to keep getting lucky
breaks. By all means ride the wave, but don’t expect it to have any bearing
on future outcomes. For example, if you put yourself forward for a
freelance project and get the gig, it is worth assessing the level of effort that
you put into the bid, and where possible find out what your new client liked
about your pitch. This might teach you more about how much preparation
time you need to give yourself to ensure the best chance of success. It also
allows you to identify which attributes of your product or services are doing
the heavy lifting in securing new clients, and which are not being noticed. It
is possible that, during this process, you recognize that your pitch was
lacking in some ways, even though it succeeded. Perhaps you notice that
you were affected by the planning fallacy when writing it, and had some
sleepless nights trying to get it finished on time. Perhaps you recognize that
your bid had blind spots. Maybe you excluded some people from the
service you were offering without meaning to. Or maybe you realize that
this kind of pitch is going to take an extraordinary amount of time, and
while it provides a pay cheque right now, it doesn’t serve your longer-term
purposes very well.
On occasions when you didn’t get the gig, the major post-mortem keeps
the same format. You reflect on whether or not you truly gave the pitch your
best shot in terms of preparation time, and where possible find out from the
client that turned you down about why your pitch wasn’t successful. Even if
you cannot access such feedback, you can actively ask yourself whether the
bid represents your best work by rereading it. Or maybe there was some
other aspect of the bid that clearly negatively affected the outcome – were
you asking for too much money, perhaps?
It can happen that when you reread your pitch, you still view it as
excellent. On this occasion, maybe you just got unlucky. It’s important
when you don’t succeed to not always blame the world for being unfair,
particularly if you encounter the same problem again and again. Rather than
blaming others for your failures, try to salvage the positives from the
experience. Glean as much information as you can from any failed process.
Proactively make a list, using the template above, of all the things that you
did to make it go well, and also where you let your efforts slip. This is a
process that will stop you judging yourself only by successful outcomes –
which are, in part, driven by luck. Learning provides a silver lining in the
face of failure, helping you persevere.
There will be many situations in your journey when you intentionally put
yourself forward for something that requires time and effort up front. It
could be anything – job interviews, public speaking, article-writing, pitches
to potential investors, an oral examination in a foreign language, leading a
meeting, or even elections for office. A major milestone post-mortem using
the template above is always beneficial.
You can help the post-mortem process along by defining what a good
outcome looks like to you before you even put your hat in the ring. This is
pretty clear when you are bidding for a freelance gig, but what about when
you are public speaking or leading a meeting? How will you define
success? Having a clear idea of what a good outcome is will help you when
it comes to doing your post-mortem after the event. You will know for sure
what ‘good’ looks like.
This is particularly relevant when you are about to either quit or start
something that will have a big impact on your big-thinking goal. It is also
useful when there is a trend of you not showing up for your regular
activities. You should consciously probe the emotion behind your decision.
Are you not showing up because you fear failure? Or is it that the learning
curve is so steep you are trying to avoid feeling frustrated?
Your big-thinking plan is ambitious, and on some occasions you’re going
to feel out of your depth. This is natural. If it were easy, everyone would be
achieving the goals they set for themselves. Accepting that whatever you
are feeling – a fear of failure, a frustration at your lack of progress – is
transitory can help you persevere.
In 2007, Paul Slovic and colleagues showed that emotional reactions feed
into our performance and the decisions that we make. There are two
categories of emotions that can disrupt us. First are those emotions that are
integral to the task at hand. For example, the fear you legitimately feel
before an interview, an important pitch or a public speaking event can cause
an emotional reaction that impacts your performance. Second are so-called
incidental emotions, caused by the other things that are going on in your life
– like dealing with toxic co-workers, caring for an ill relative, or worries
about personal debt – that also impact your performance.19 Both types of
emotional response are more readily handled by individuals with higher
levels of emotional intelligence, a skill that is learnable and worth
developing. (We will talk more about building resilience and handling
emotional reactions in Chapter 7.)
The bottom line for now? Beware of your emotions when making
decisions, and do not make big decisions in haste.
In behavioural science, when emotions impact on actions it is called the
affect heuristic. This interplay between heart and mind means that, when
assessing options for ME+, you may have a tendency to view some through
rose-coloured glasses simply because you have positive feelings towards
them, and conversely you may overlook options for which you have
negative feelings. When any opportunity arises, question the direction of
your response, and probe if it is being driven by emotion. Maybe it is your
gut reaction to turn down opportunities when asked by people you do not
yet know or have built a rapport with. Or perhaps you are spending your
precious time doing tasks that do not stretch you with people whose
company you enjoy.
You may also make errors in judgement because of your emotions when
you are deciding how to allocate time among the small steps for your big-
thinking journey. All the steps are necessary, but engaging in them gives
you different levels of pleasure. If two skills are necessary for ME+, you
may find yourself overinvesting in small steps that hone the skill you find
the easiest. Behind this decision is likely an emotional reaction. No one
feels good about themselves when they are engaging in an activity they do
not find easy or enjoyable.
What can you do about this? Remind yourself that the emotions you have
towards that particular activity are transitory, and will pass as soon as you
have reached a certain level of mastery. Make the promise to turn up ten
times and engage in the activity you find difficult. After you have done this,
reassess to see if the unpleasant emotions have disappeared with the time.
In practice, this means asking for time to let thoughts settle when you are
put on the spot by other people. For some, this time can be used to make a
list of the costs, benefits and risks associated with the various pathways that
are available to you. This process can allow you to more closely mimic
rational decision-making, in which you account as much as possible for the
upside, downside and risk of each option. For others, the simple fact of
having some time is enough to prevent knee-jerk reactions and allow you to
feel certain about your choice. Although it is possibly not the most romantic
tactic if someone proposes marriage, this approach should help you feel
more satisfied with your decision-making come post-mortem time in your
big-thinking journey!
TOP TIP: JOURNALING CAN HELP WITH DECISION-
MAKING
Being more mindful of the role emotions play in determining
whether you show up for your activities – and how you react
to big opportunities over the course of your journey – can be
helped by journaling frequently. Keep in mind that you should
never make a decision that will impact ME+ when you are
angry, aroused, hungry, upset, disgusted, fearful, exhilarated,
or feeling any other intense emotion. By all means discuss
options with others in an emotional state, but put some time
between that moment and when the decision needs to be
made.
This is also a good rule of thumb for when someone
irritates you – don’t immediately react in person, via email or
on the phone. Give yourself some time to put emotional
reactions behind you, and respond when you are more
measured and calm. In the meantime, don’t let anyone poke
the bear!
What happens if you fail: You lose the cash or item of value
you have committed. In practice, it can go to a charity, or you
can even pledge to give to a cause that you really disagree
with. For example, those who are anti-guns could promise to
give money to the National Rifle Association, and those who
are anti-hunting could pledge to donate to a hunting club. This
may be more effective than promises of charitable giving.
Why? Because to give money to a cause that you hate would
mean you are acting in a way that is out of line with how you
see yourself. Your ego helps ensure that you avoid doing this
because if you did there would be an unpalatable
psychological cost.
Happy intervening!
Before we move on, make sure that you:
Do a time audit and identify time-sinkers that you can free
yourself from.
Select one behavioural science insight that you will incorporate
into your daily life from tomorrow.
Inside
It was September 1997, and I had managed to get into university to study
computer science. There was a lot of fuss made in my family, particularly
by my mum. She oscillated between mega proud and mega sad, celebrating
and lamenting the loss of her youngest child in equal measure.
Because I had attended a school where few girls went to university,
nobody had bothered to tell me that girls normally don’t pursue science,
technology or engineering at university. This was a stereotype that I was
never presented with, and so I never internalized it. In fact, I had never
really thought about what a computer scientist should look like, and I hadn’t
noticed that all of my role models over in Silicon Valley were male. It
should, then, have been quite the surprise to attend my first Java coding
lecture on a wet Monday morning at 9 a.m. only to find that, of the 150+
students on my course, fewer than ten were female. I say should have been,
but again I didn’t really notice.
My lack of awareness of the stereotypes was to my benefit. These kinds
of social stereotypes usually form expectations about what sort of life we
should lead. But social stereotypes have next to nothing to do with our
skills, abilities or hard preferences. Or, to put it another way, girls are told
so often that they don’t like computer science and they are no good at it,
that eventually they start to believe it – even though there is no evidence to
suggest that girls are any less suited to computer science than boys are.
Sigh.
We have explored how the human need for immediate gratification can
stop you fulfilling your big-thinking goal. Now we will look at how a
number of cognitive biases have the potential to make you veer off course,
too.
Cognitive biases are errors in our thinking that occur because
of our brains’ attempts to simplify the world and make
decisions quickly.
Think about the role models and peers you expose yourself
to.
Let’s imagine that Justin is accepting a new job and he’s been asked to
state his salary expectations. Justin is going to give this a lot of thought. He
will take into account the knowledge he has about the firm and the standard
of living he’s hoping to achieve, and he may even get advice from friends
and family. But despite this, his current pay will be one of the main factors
that drives what he asks for. He may end up asking for 10, 20 or even 30 per
cent over this number, but it is still the primary reference point in his
negotiations.
Our current salary is such a powerful anchor that it may even stop us
leaving our current job. This is certainly the case for my friend Cara. Cara
is so obsessed with securing a salary that is better than her current financial
package that she has turned down many opportunities that would help her
get to where she wants to go more quickly. Fair enough, I suppose. Nobody
wants to take a pay cut. But do you want to hear something funny? Cara
hates her job. She barely sleeps or sees her friends, and she doesn’t enjoy
the work she has to do at all. Cara’s anchor is keeping her stuck and
unhappy.
The superpowers of anchoring also imply that it is possible you are being
underpaid. You may be selling your innovative product too cheaply. The
rates you are charging for consultancy work might be too low. And you may
not ask for enough of a raise during your annual review simply because you
are anchored to your current salary.
How can you tackle this? You need to reset your anchors. In some cases,
for example if you are selling a physical product, this will be very easy to
do, as the prices of your competitors are known. For freelancers offering a
service, rates are often not published and they are agreed upon when you
connect with a new client. This means that with each new client there is an
opportunity to reset your anchor. Why not let them suggest the rate, and see
if it is higher than you have previously been charging? Or why not increase
your rate by 5 per cent and monitor the reaction?
If you are working in a large firm, very often the distribution of pay
across job types is published, allowing you to easily compare your salary to
that of your peers. If the pay distribution is not available, this is information
that you can gather from your network and (if you are brave enough) by
pursuing an outside offer. How we are rated within our own firm is affected
by other people’s cognitive biases. The fastest way to blast a fuzzy or
negative perception of you away is to get an outside offer for a job that is
clearly better than your current role. After that? You are due a conversation
with your boss!
From getting advice on how to think big to asking for the conditions that
we deserve in the workplace, we often baulk at the idea of that level of
intimacy in a professional conversation. We dislike feeling vulnerable. We
fear the uncertainty of what the response may be, and put it off for too long.
Is the thought of having a conversation with your boss about promotion
filling you with dread? Is the thought of asking for help in accelerating your
goal making you want to cancel the meeting with your mentor? Maybe
broaching the subject of salary anchoring with human resources gives you
goosebumps? Some of us fear that asking will make us look too greedy or
too needy.
Take conversations about increased income. I have heard so many people
relay how much they love their work and how wrong it seems to ask for
more pay. And many owners of small- and medium-sized enterprises avoid
having this conversation with their clients in case they look money-
grabbing. But this is a very upside-down way of looking at the world. When
we go to work each day and produce something of value, we deserve to be
paid at a rate that reflects the value added. Our work is a transaction that
should be mutually beneficial. Leaving money on the floor with your
employer or client is not the right way to think about avoiding greed.
Accept getting paid your worth, and quell any fears that you are being
greedy by paying your taxes and giving to charity.
Or perhaps it is not a fear of greed that is holding you back. Perhaps you
have faith that your boss will let you know when the time is right for any
advancement or pay rise. That they are watching you closely and will
ensure that you get your just deserts. Is this realistic? Not always. It might
be that you are affected by the curse of knowledge. Try and be cognizant of
the fact that when you know something is true, it can be difficult for you to
imagine not knowing it. You think that your boss has the same insights as
you do regarding how good you are. You sit at work all day long and
assume that your manager sees how productive you are, and tailors their
advice appropriately.
The curse of knowledge can also lead to something called the tiara
syndrome. This is the expectation that if you work hard every day, a time
will come when you are rewarded and someone will effectively put a tiara
on your head. But the people who you are relying on to give you this
reward are navigating their own paths in work. They are busy. Perhaps they
themselves are beginning to think big. So it is up to you to draw attention to
your value and your desire to move forward. It is always your responsibility
to ask for what you need in terms of advice and guidance.
Showing others the progress you are making and where you want to go
will bring more opportunities your way. Better yet, identify opportunities
yourself that are mutually beneficial: remember that it is always best to
understand the perspective of others when making requests for help.
Who the best people are to seek feedback from depends on what your
specific big-thinking goal is. If you are staying in a similar role but plan to
accelerate your career, feedback from managers and executives within your
firm is relevant. If you plan to improve the product you are offering in your
business, your current customers and potential new customers are relevant.
If you are changing jobs entirely, people who are currently in a role like the
one you want are worth talking to.
The best feedback that you can get involves a critical aspect, and
highlights the areas in which you need to improve. Don’t expect the person
offering this type of feedback to give you a solution to every problem they
have identified. If they do, that is a bonus, but their job is not to solve the
problems they raise for you. Try not to view critical feedback emotionally.
Depending on the personalities involved, emotions can render the feedback
process redundant. There is a reason why meta-analysis suggests that over
one-third of feedback causes performance decreases.9 So if somebody says
you do something poorly, don’t become overly focused on the fact that you
do something poorly – concentrate instead on what steps you need to take to
improve. Remember that the affect heuristic (when the emotions you are
experiencing at the time influence your decision-making) may determine
how you hear feedback. So if you feel emotional during the process, take
notes and reflect on what was said when you have a cooler head. Assume
that the person giving the feedback had good intentions, and try to see
things from their point of view.
Always approach feedback with an open mind and a thick skin,
regardless of how clumsy the person advising you happens to be with their
words. People who aren’t well versed in the politics of how to deliver
feedback are often the folk who have the most astute comments to make. It
is also important to disentangle content from fluff. Regardless of how the
conversation goes – clumsy or otherwise – every person you meet is still
only one data point. Any criticism raised should be verified by additional
feedback sources or objective data before you go and upend your entire
goal and big-thinking plan.
If you recognize a problem identified in your feedback session as
accurate, make sure to remind yourself that it can be addressed. A problem
in your performance is not a fixed trait, and it can be modified by adjusting
behaviour and actions. Whatever it is, it can be changed with effort.
Do watch out for attentional bias in any feedback session. This is when
your perception of the feedback you are receiving is skewed by whatever is
dominating your mind at that time. In the same way that we are more
sensitive to the smell of bread when we are hungry, you may pay more
attention to any criticism that aligns with your existing view of where your
weaknesses are. Note-taking can help here, as can giving your mentor a
chance to speak freely at the beginning of the session without interruption,
rather than immediately guiding their commentary. Pay attention to whether
their attention is drawn to areas that you don’t necessarily focus on
yourself. Of course, there is no reason to believe that the mentor isn’t also a
victim of attentional bias, but assuming you rely on more than one person
for feedback, this should not pose a major problem.
Feedback from your diverse external network is a golden opportunity for
you to identify elements of your plan that are not working out, and which
need to be refined or sunk. You must avoid the sunk cost fallacy – when
you continue with a plan simply because you have already invested time in
trying to execute it. Academics succumb to the sunk cost fallacy when they
continue to write a paper even after they notice that something nearly
identical has been published elsewhere. Inventors are victims of the sunk
cost fallacy when they continue to invest money in a product, even after
becoming aware that an identical product has already been launched.
Freelancers commit the sunk cost fallacy when they keep chasing a client
who asks for endless meetings but is yet to commission them for any paid
work.
If you receive feedback that causes you to believe that an element of
what you are doing isn’t working, it’s time to reflect on how you can pivot
to what does work. For the academic in the above example, they need to
determine how they can add value compared to the paper that beat them to
the punch. For the inventor, they need to go back to the drawing board and
consider how they will differentiate their product. For the freelancer, they
need to devote their time to approaching and nurturing new client
relationships.
Remember, if you receive feedback that an element of your planning is
futile, it should be verified elsewhere. After all, one person’s opinion does
not a trend make. You also need to remember that these pivots will take
time, and that bad luck happens. But make sure you don’t fall victim to the
ostrich effect – that is, sticking your head in the sand and avoiding negative
information that can ultimately help you.
TOP TIP: HOW TO SEEK FEEDBACK
Start any session by allowing the person giving you feedback
a chance to speak freely without interruption. This could be in
response to a document you sent, or to a short elevator pitch
of what you are trying to accomplish.
Next, ask for very specific feedback on what you are doing
right, and what you should work on – noting that you are
particularly interested in critical feedback. Great feedback
allows you to translate the points raised into workable
objectives. An objective is workable if you will easily know
when you have achieved it. For instance, ‘Get better at time
management’ is hard to track. Whereas ‘Deliver project x by
such-and-such a date’ is very easy.
With positive feedback, a workable objective will allow you
to identify which small steps you should be doing more of. If
you are freelancing and receive positive feedback more than
once on a specific product, you may want to consider
doubling down and making this your speciality. If you are
seeking to be a leader in your organization and receive
positive feedback on the way you ran a meeting, you may
want to self-reflect on what went right so you can make it your
individual style. If you are seeking a career change and your
feedback sessions repeatedly identify the same strengths,
you may want to devote some time to identifying formal ways
that you can signal to a new employer that you have these
strengths on the CV that you submit. Signals of this kind
might be formal qualifications or recognizable work
experience.
For negative feedback, a workable objective will allow you
to identify the small steps you need to focus on to address
gaps or deficiencies in your CV or product. It is also an
opportunity to identify any small steps that you should stop
taking, in order to focus on those that are more likely to get
you to where you need.
Along with approaching feedback with an open mind and a thick skin, it is
worth encouraging the person giving the feedback to move away from
vague statements towards relaying things in a straightforward manner. It is
also helpful to pursue feedback in a timely fashion – when you pass key
milestones like suffering a failure or experiencing a success. Feedback that
is current has been shown to be more effective and more likely to be acted
upon.10
The selection process can involve some trial and error, but if you find
yourself getting feedback that is ill-thought-out, cruel or patronizing, you
can repay the feedback ‘favour’ by not returning for round two. After all,
time is your most precious resource, so it makes sense not to schedule time-
sinkers that will waste it.
Get out there and hone the skills ME+ actually needs. You may have
some bad experiences on your new learning curve, like me choking at
NYU, but it is all part of the journey!
Don’t be discouraged when you realize just how many biases you need to
watch out for. Remember that while a lot of these biases operate
unconsciously, they are not fixed. Using the behavioural science insights
highlighted in this chapter can limit the influences of your cognitive biases
on your big-thinking journey and stop you holding yourself back.
Happy de-biasing!
Before we move on, make sure that you:
Slow down and recognize that most of the decisions you make
are affected by cognitive biases and blind spots.
Read through the ten behavioural science insights and adopt
some of these tips and tricks, in order to reduce the impact of
biases and blind spots on your big-thinking journey.
Outside
I met Alex after a public talk in 2018. Rather than asking me loads of
questions on biases and other behavioural-science-related matters that
linked to my talk, Alex jumped right in and started describing a new
product idea.
Alex was an extraordinarily enthusiastic individual, filled with
entrepreneurial spirit. Alex also talked at me rapidly, blissfully unaware that
I was zoning out. I captured some soundbites that told me Alex was certain
that this product was mass-market. These included, ‘Every person needs it!’
and, ‘Parents will love it!’ Something was also said about weight loss, and
something else about bulking up. In a nutshell, Alex was seeking world
domination.
But then Alex kept talking. It was now getting to the time in the evening
where I should be making my exit, but despite scanning the room
repeatedly I couldn’t see my coat. It was getting harder and harder to
concentrate on this uninvited monologue. That’s until one sentence snagged
in my brain – ‘I’ll show them all, they’re wrong!’ – to which my knee-jerk
response was: ‘What people exactly?’
Alex’s story turned out, in the end, to be pretty interesting. But I only
realized this once I turned my attention more fully to what was being said,
and turned (or rather forced) it into a conversation rather than a speech.
Alex had been pitching a new product idea to syndicates of angel
investors all over London. Something was working because Alex had
secured meetings with more than twenty groups of very busy people.
Despite being turned down repeatedly, Alex still had enough energy left to
keep pushing. That in itself was very admirable. The problem? Alex wasn’t
listening to feedback.
The feedback received at these meetings was remarkably similar across
all of the groups. So what was it? Well, they’d all said that while the
product idea was creative, Alex was too disorganized to pull it off. I could
have had an hour of my life back if I’d been told this to start with.
I looked at my watch. ‘Alex, we’ve been speaking for almost an hour
after you declared that you’re going to show everyone just how wrong they
are. I can hear your enthusiasm about your business idea, but how will you
prove to them that you aren’t disorganized?’
This totally stumped Alex. I took the brief silence to say my goodbyes,
and made my exit.
I have already used the old adage, ‘If everyone says you are dead, lie
down.’ It is one of my favourites, and it definitely applied to Alex. Alex
was ignoring really valuable feedback on being disorganized from more
than twenty different groups of people, and being held back by a blind spot.
But the blind spot didn’t belong to other people. It belonged to Alex.
The key factor here is that Alex had elicited feedback from (far) more
than one person or group, and they were independent of each other. In other
words, it wasn’t just a case of a few people taking a dislike to Alex and
going to town.
The really sad part? Alex had wasted so many valuable opportunities in
front of credible future funders by not taking feedback seriously and
addressing it. You’d think by the fifth, or even the tenth presentation, the
penny would have dropped.
And as a critique, being called disorganized isn’t even all that bad. It can
be easily fixed. The solution can also be outsourced. A more organized
partner can be brought to the table, or Alex could have employed a personal
assistant. Maybe it was Alex’s ego that was getting in the way. Even in our
short tête-à-tête, it was obvious that Alex needed to listen more. Or maybe
Alex was truly too disorganized to take in the feedback. Either way, Alex
was being blocked by an inability to address the only thing that made Alex
a bad investment choice. Alex was self-sabotaging. Alex clearly needed
Chapter 4!
All of us at one time or another won’t get out of our own way. We are
held back by our biases and blind spots. I see cases of useable feedback
being ignored time and time again! An executive assistant who is repeatedly
given feedback that their communication skills need some work, insists that
all the naysayers are against them. They stagnate. A junior manager
working in retail whose staff give them feedback that there is a better way
to do the rota, with no negative effect on customers, refuses to listen and
leaves their staff’s morale in the gutter. A leader is told every year that they
intimidate their colleagues; they tell their colleagues to grow up. A school-
leaver being offered advice on their university choices declines to listen.
Yes – all around the world, great advice gets cast aside by people who keep
doing the same thing and somehow expect a different outcome.
However, it is not just your own cognitive biases and blind spots standing
in your way.
How people see you may not reflect your abilities, skills and
talent at any one moment in time.
Others may hold a different narrative about your suitability for jobs,
leading projects or heading up a company, and this narrative may relate to
factors that have nothing to do with your capability to do the task at hand.
Even if you have developed a keen self-awareness of what you can offer, do
not expect this to match the belief that others hold about you. Other people
see you differently from how you see yourself, and their own cognitive
biases and blind spots tint their view.
So why does this matter?
At any one time, you know many people in the world. How each of those
people views you differs. How do I know? It is easy to demonstrate, when
you think about people in the public domain. Take Donald Trump. His
presidency in the US has been plagued by contradictory narratives. Some
people view him as a superhero, here to bring American jobs back to the US
from far-flung shores. The ultimate warrior against globalization and the
establishment. For others, Trump is an incompetent bully, crossing
boundaries at every given opportunity and setting America back decades.
These narratives, although totally contradictory, are held at the very same
point in time by different people. They co-exist, and are espoused by the
two sides as if they are facts. These narratives cause fights around dinner
tables. These narratives divide nations.
Try it yourself. Think of someone in the public domain who you think is
perfect in each and every way.1 Now google ‘I hate [insert name here]’,
and you will see plenty of evidence that other people hold the exact
opposite narrative to you. The fact that you are seeing so many webpages
with negative comments tells you that people are even willing to pay a cost
– time – to vent their frustrations. As I emphasized earlier, time is our most
precious resource. Those people have spent their most precious resource
telling the world how much they hate this person you like.
So should you care if people differ in their opinion of you? As a flippant
response, it is very easy to say ‘no’, you shouldn’t. Sod them! Why should
you care about the sentiment of someone else when you have big thinking
and small steps to be getting on with? You know who you are – and if they
don’t see it, stuff them!
But what if the person – or persons – with the biases and blind spots can
influence your progress? What if they can derail your planning altogether?
This can happen if the people who will review your work do not accurately
see your skills, abilities and talents. It can happen if the people who will
determine whether you get investment, a gig or a stretch assignment do not
accurately assess your capabilities, potential, or the value you can add.
This chapter will help you identify big moments when the behavioural
biases and blind spots of others are likely to get in your way. If I met you
and you were the manager, leader or owner of an organization, we would
have a conversation about how you should change structures and processes
in your place of work, so that such biases do not disrupt the progression of
talent. If you were an investor, we would discuss structures and processes
that would allow you to navigate the same types of biases and blind spots in
others, to ensure your investment choices give you the highest return. But in
this case, I am going to take the behaviour of the other person as a given,
and provide you with advice for navigating it. This is not satisfactory for
those of us who want to live in a more socially responsible and equitable
world, and once you make some real progress on your journey you will be
in a better place to challenge and change structures that you do not like or
that are unfair, thereby ensuring that those coming up behind you have to
worry less. But for now, the behavioural science insights I outline in this
chapter will focus on tools that allow you to circumvent the biases and blind
spots of others and give yourself the best shot of realizing your big thinking
sooner rather than later.
But before we get to these insights, it is worth spending a little bit of time
trying to understand how the behavioural biases of others manifest in the
first place. Like many unhelpful phenomena, there is not one single cause,
and nor are the causes mutually exclusive. Let’s take a moment and explore
the three main causes …
UNCONSCIOUS BIAS
There are many people who deny they see the world with biases and blind
spots. If I am speaking to a group of a manageable size, I often try an
experiment to illustrate this. I managed to do this pretty successfully about a
year ago, with a group of around forty people who worked in IT. Each
person in attendance sat at a table of two. Seating was randomly assigned,
based on a list of names I received before the event. I let the group know
that their task was to prove their skills of negotiation and that there was
£100 at stake.2
Within each pair, roles were assigned. One person was the proposer.
Their job was to write on a piece of paper how much they were willing to
give their partner out of the £100. At the same time, their partner – the
responder – wrote down the minimum offer they would accept. In this
situation the proposer wants to get as close as possible to the minimum
acceptable offer, to prove they are master negotiators. Too low and there is
no deal – and neither the proposer nor responder receive anything. Too
high, and the proposer is giving away money unnecessarily.
However, I was being ever so slightly sneaky. In reality, I didn’t care who
was a master negotiator. I was trying to find out if people would be treated
differently by some observable characteristic like gender, age or whether
they were wearing a suit. Would the proposers consistently offer less to
certain groups of people?
Within this group of IT professionals, unconscious bias was clearly
revealed. On average, male responders were offered more. (It should be
noted that both male and female proposers offered more to men.) Older
responders also garnered more generous offers. This held true no matter the
age of the proposer. And yes, those who were wearing smart clothes also
received more generous offers.
Why?
You might not think you judge on looks, but you do. The fact
that you don’t think you do is why it’s unconscious bias.
There are many published academic studies that draw the same
conclusions with sample sizes that allow for credible statistical analysis.
One study focused on gender, and had two distinct scenarios.3 In the first
scenario, the proposer and responder cannot see or hear each other.
Therefore gender is invisible. In the second scenario, the responder and
proposer sit opposite each other, as in my exercise with the IT
professionals, so they are aware of one another’s gender and the pair get to
exchange pleasantries.
The findings? Regardless of the scenario, the average proposer offer did
not depend on the responder’s gender. Fantastic! The second result was
more troubling, and consistent with my own findings. The responder was
usually offered more when they were male. The third headline result? Male
responders often got the best offers from female proposers.
This is a pretty neat way to illustrate the potential for individuals to be
treated differently because of visible aspects of themselves (for example,
gender, race, age or presentation) that do not correlate with the things that
actually matter: skills, ability and talent.
‘So what?’ you may be asking. ‘This is all low-stakes stuff, right? No one
is getting hired or fired. No life-changing opportunities are forgone.’
Not true. There is enough evidence from high-stakes field experiments to
convince me that this is something which could, for instance, seriously
disrupt your big-thinking journey. Other people’s unconscious bias is
something to take seriously.
Consider the stock of knowledge that has come from CV experiments.
Here, the basic idea is to send CVs in response to real job adverts, randomly
varying the name that appears on the top. For example, by gender to test
whether males are more likely to get picked than females. Choosing names
with a particular ethnic origin demonstrates whether screeners have an
unconscious preference for candidates with a particular ethnicity.
One of the most influential CV studies was carried out by Marianne
Bertrand and Sendhil Mullainathan. In 2004, they sent out 5,000 CVs in
response to 1,300 job adverts in Boston and Chicago. They randomly
assigned African-American- or white-sounding names to these CVs, to test
whether ethnicity mattered for callbacks. What did they find? The fictitious
white CVs received 50 per cent more calls for face-to-face interviews.
What’s more, this stark favouritism for the candidates with white-sounding
names was found across all occupations, industries and firm sizes.
Experiments based on fictitious CVs have also provided convincing
evidence that people are discriminated against for being too old, being a
woman, and being a woman of child-bearing age.4
But surely, you cry, things have moved on in the last fifteen years? I’m
not wholly convinced they have. Meaningful gaps are still being found in
more recent work, too. A study in the UK, published in 2019 and conducted
by the Centre for Social Investigation at Nuffield College, Oxford,
highlights this dismal fact. The study included candidates from thirty-three
different minority ethnic groups who were randomly assigned to different
job vacancies. The findings? White applicants received one call for
interview for every four applications sent. For other ethnicities, the number
dropped to one in seven.
Still don’t believe me? There is even more evidence that people may be
treated differently for reasons that have nothing to do with ability, skills and
talent. Combining twenty-four labour market experimental studies in a
meta-analysis in 2017, Lincoln Quillan and colleagues illustrated that since
1989 there has been no decrease in the discrimination against African
Americans in the United States. A very well-known study by Claudia
Goldin and Cecilia Rouse illustrated that the adoption of ‘blind’ auditioning
by US orchestras in the 1970s and ’80s increased the probability that a
woman advanced to selection rounds by 50 per cent. In a study that I carried
out with David Johnston in 2016, we presented evidence strongly
suggesting that, in times of recession, non-white workers are losing their
jobs more than white workers because of racially prejudiced employers and
managers.
In times of scarcity all workers are more likely to rely on creating in-
groups (an exclusive group of co-workers that share information,
opportunities and comradeship) to keep them safe from losing their job.
Quite often, in-groups are created around characteristics that have nothing
to do with skills, ability or talent, so they are bad news for organizations.
What is more, the creation of in-groups is often unconscious.
REPRESENTATIVENESS HEURISTIC
In the opening paragraphs of this chapter I introduced you to Alex, the
wannabe start-up rock star who was refusing to listen to feedback. The
person who cornered me to tell me how great their new product idea was.
The person who had blown twenty pitches for funding … (If you are not
with me, take a moment now to flick back a few pages.)
Got it? Did you come up with an image of Alex in your mind when you
read that story? Pause. Notice the gender, age and any other attributes you
conjured up for this person?
Now take a moment to reflect on your choices.
Was your image of Alex a man? If it looks like a duck and walks like a
duck …
Guess what? Alex is a woman!
When we judge the probability that a person belongs in a particular job
simply by looking at the degree to which that person resembles the majority
of people already in that job, we are employing the representativeness
heuristic. In this case ‘resembles’ might mean a shared gender, age,
ethnicity, or any other attribute that can be inferred upon first meeting a
person: their levels of extroversion, for instance, or how organized they are.
Consider the following: Jess is a movie buff who enjoys attending film
festivals around the world. Growing up, he enjoyed putting on one-man
plays and entertaining his family members and friends.
Which of the following statements is most likely? ‘Jess is a film critic for
a major newspaper’ OR ‘Jess works in banking.’
In the same way that many readers will have assumed that Alex is a man,
a large share of readers will naturally assume that Jess is a film critic.
Why? Because Jess’s description matches the stereotypes many of us
hold about film critics far more than the stereotypes we hold about bankers.
In reality, Jess is most likely working in banking because employment in
banking makes up a far larger share of jobs in the world and in any country
in which you happen to be reading this. There just aren’t that many film
critics, and plenty of bankers are movie buffs on the sly.
And why will many of you assume that Alex is a man? Because
entrepreneurs are more often male.5 I didn’t tell you Alex’s gender, so you
likely made an assumption based on the representativeness heuristic. We all
use mental shortcuts to make judgements and inferences. In this case the
mental shortcut relies on you having a stereotypical image in mind of what
an entrepreneur should look like. You rely on your image of what an
entrepreneur is from your past encounters with entrepreneurs, or how they
are represented on TV. This is not problematic here, as Alex is blissfully
unaware and, so far as I know, you cannot hurt her future prospects.
However, the representativeness heuristic is problematic in high-stakes
decision-making, and can affect your big-thinking journey by causing
people to judge your suitability – whether you have a particular ability,
talent or skill – on unrelated characteristics that you possess.
STATISTICAL DISCRIMINATION
I met Julie at a lunchtime roundtable that discussed the behavioural science
lessons for honing resilience. Julie had emailed me ahead of time and asked
that we get a coffee afterwards. What keeps the memory of Julie in my
mind is that she suggested a walk-and-talk coffee so we could get some
fresh air and I could make my way to my next destination (in other words,
she made it easier for me). Julie ended up walking me the two miles to the
LSE campus. On the way, we took in some London sights and she told me
about coming back to the office seven weeks ago, after two months’
maternity leave. Yes – not a typo! – two months. Julie had been working on
the day she went into labour and delivered Jack at a healthy 7 lbs 2 oz. She
had planned to take only four weeks, which turned out to be a classic
planning fallacy, and delayed her return by a few weeks to allow herself to
recover and get into a regular breastfeeding routine. At that point, Jack was
being taken care of by Julie’s mum, and Julie returned to her job ready to
throw herself back into serving clients and generating money for her firm.
But Julie’s clients had been reallocated while she was away, and there
was a reluctance from her colleagues to give them back. This wasn’t totally
unexpected. Julie had seen it happen before. She could also see why. Her
colleagues were rewarded based on how much income they brought in, so
pinching lucrative clients could bring them benefits.
Julie had been prepared to have a strongly worded conversation with her
manager to get her client assignments back, but she was not expecting the
soft-toned approach she got instead. Julie’s manager Helen reminded her
that most women in their company took six months’ maternity leave, and
while it was great that she was back, she was not expected to perform to the
same level given her new commitments at home. Helen recommended that
Julie slow down and take on a supporting role to her colleagues.
Julie had become a victim of statistical discrimination. Helen had
assumed that the preferences of a group (other new mothers in the same
firm) would apply to Julie. But Julie wasn’t like the other mothers at her
firm.
If I asked you to tell me five things that describe somebody you just met,
you would likely describe their age, gender and ethnicity, plus a couple of
things about their appearance (scruffy or dapper, hair colour, facial hair,
etc.).
For example, it is a stylized fact that women take more time out of the
labour force than men because they rely on maternity leave when they have
children and also take on more responsibilities in the home environment. So
people may then assume that Jane is likely to do the same. In the UK, on
average, black people receive a lower level of education than white people,
so people may incorrectly assume that Frank has a relatively low education
level.
Why does this matter? It matters to Jane if an interview panel makes
these assumptions. The job may go to John, who they expect to take less
time off. It matters to Frank if people at a networking event make these
assumptions because they may not invest their time in talking to him.
When I teach at the LSE I like to differentiate occasions of statistical
discrimination from stereotype discrimination. Jane and Frank are being
unfairly held back because of what Arlie Hochschild called the ‘second
shift’ in her 1989 book of the same name and because of inequality in the
British education system, respectively. These averages are then being
applied to them without pause for thought.
The evidence of these inequalities can be seen in data. However, it is also
possible for false stereotypes to affect groups as well. A false stereotype is
one that is applied to a group with no data to back it up. For example,
unfounded beliefs about ability differences in maths between the genders
undoubtedly affect career outcomes. Boys are considered to be better than
girls at maths. Are these differences supported in the data? Definitely not!
Biases are formed based on stereotypes and statistics. These biases feed
into the representativeness heuristic. An image is painted of the type of
person who suits a particular role, even if intuitively these images do not
make any sense. We are faced with these biases throughout our lives, and
many of you will experience them as you work towards your big-thinking
goal.
So is there anything you can do about it?
Of course there is!!!!!
Who better to rock the boat than you? Make it your mantra, embrace the
lessons from Chapter 3 – remembering that self-belief is malleable – and
keep moving forward.
But how can you deal with those who interview you, those you need to
fund your business idea or those you rely on as advocates holding these
same images of what the usual mould looks like – and, worse, acting on
them?
The easy (but utterly depressing) answer? You have to be better than
everyone else.
Evidence from behavioural science does suggest that those who do not fit
the mould can make it, but they need to be better than those who do fit the
mould by a decent amount. It is pretty awful to be advised simply to be
more than twice as good to get the same opportunities. In fact, it is grossly
unfair. There must be an easier way! But while we wait for the world to
change, is there anything else that you can do to tip the odds back in your
favour?
Yes. There are lots of things you can do. Chief among them: research.
You should research the signals that are associated with the job or skills
ME+ will do or is looking to acquire. What does this mean? You know you
will be great in the job, but the people you want to hire, fund or take you on
as a consultant or freelancer do not have the same information as you. You
can get this information to them by acquiring signals related to the job you
want to do.
In the same way that stereotypes and the representativeness heuristic
cause people to associate certain types of people with specific roles, there
are also certain signals that will identify you as being a good match for that
role. These signals include attending certain conferences, and networking in
certain circles. These are all things you can do in the short term. Research
the signals for your big-thinking goal and any associated major milestones.
If you do not find the information easily, ask your new networks (see
Chapter 2). Then set about acquiring as many of these signals as possible.
Along with these signals, make your skills, abilities and talents crystal
clear to the world. Make them salient. As previously mentioned, you can do
this by having an elevator pitch that is short and sweet, which tells people
what you bring to the table. You can also do this in a brief biography at the
top of your CV, LinkedIn profile, or somewhere prominent on the
application form or tender you may be filling out.
There is one big proviso. If you receive negative feedback and cannot see
yourself in it (this can happen: everyone has an ego), get a second opinion.
Ideally, get three. Why three? Because you need to figure out if it is your
biases that are stopping you hearing legitimate feedback, or if the
behavioural biases and blind spots of others are affecting what is being said.
The three people should be as independent as possible from each other. That
is, they should not know each other, or at least not converse regularly.
What then? If there is agreement among your three chosen people, view
it as a trend and take it seriously. As I’ve said before, if you are dead, you
really should lie down. It is time to address the issue(s) that they raise.
But what if the feedback of one person isn’t echoed by the other two?
Discard it. You have experienced feedback that is tainted by behavioural
biases and blind spots. If it is from somebody you can learn a lot from, it is
fine to go back – but with a poop filter. The second time around you should
not approach them. If the nay-sayer actually knocks on your door touting
pearls of wisdom, ask them for facts to back up their words. Third time?
Don’t answer the door.
Whose opinion should you care about? Those who are willing to take the
time to give feedback that will improve something that is important to your
big-thinking plan. This might include a product you are launching, skills
you are honing or a network you are building. Over time, you will figure
out who they are, particularly if you adopt the three-person rule mentioned
above. The people who you listen to regularly should be authentic in their
motivations to move you forward.
When searching for feedback that will help you advance your strengths
and reduce your difficulties, you are putting your head above the parapet.
By doing so, you may attract the attention of people who take joy in cutting
you down to size. You are experiencing tall poppy syndrome – the tendency
for people to knock down others who are achieving great things. Of course,
what is thought of as ‘great’ is subjective, and simply moving from a status
quo is enough for you to be viewed as a tall poppy in some circles.
Tall poppy syndrome has been found to affect a variety of groups, such as
owners of start-ups, established business-owners, and high-achieving
women and managers.7 It is therefore important that you always filter the
feedback you receive, and stick to the three-person rule of thumb.
At that point, confirmation bias steps in, ensuring that we search for and
recall additional information in a way that confirms a particular belief we
hold. In Jim’s case, this would mean that the senior executive’s ears pricked
up when other colleagues talked negatively about Jim. Conversely, the
senior executive’s ears would have closed when more positive anecdotes
about Jim were being relayed.
Rigorous research shows that fundamental attribution error
corrupts high-stakes decision-making. Let’s say you are
starting your own company and have a view to scale beyond
the monies you personally have – you are probably
researching access to venture capital. Beyond money,
venture capitalists often provide expertise and capabilities
that give a competitive advantage to the start-ups they back.
They also provide a signal to other investors that those they
back are high-quality and worth watching. This signal can
potentially cause a virtuous cycle that ensures a backed start-
up gets an unprecedented crack of the whip at success.8 A
question then arises as to how good venture capitalists are at
picking start-ups to back in these high-stake decisions. After
all, they could make or break a company!
A 2004 paper by Joel Baum and Brian Silverman highlights
that while venture capitalists are pretty good at picking certain
winning traits, fundamental attribution error is alive and well.
Specifically, it causes them to overestimate the human capital
in the start-ups they back. Basically, if the companies they are
vetting have experienced good luck, it is attributed to the
people involved in the company rather than being in the right
place at the right time.
What does the fundamental attribution error mean for your big-thinking
journey? It implies that if you get lucky, that luck is going to be attributed
to you – with the knock-on effect that your journey is accelerated. On the
flip side, this means that if you hit a bit of bad luck, the negative outcome
could be attributed to you rather than the random event that caused it. For
example, let’s imagine you are making a product and a company in your
supply chain is exposed for paying its workers below the minimum wage.
You have done due diligence that you can easily demonstrate. However,
your customers and investors will associate these types of practices with
your company. This bad luck damages your reputation and loses you money
when they stop backing you.
It should also be noted that fundamental attribution error cuts both ways
– and who knows? Maybe good luck will come your way and you will get
to ride the wave of a positive image shock because of it …
INSIGHT 4: CASCADES
I recently attended an event to hear senior people in finance talk about how
to ensure inclusion of all talent in banking going forward. The panel
members were leaders from a variety of industries, and all of them spoke at
events like this pretty regularly.
I am particularly interested in inclusion and ensuring that people get
opportunities based on their skills and abilities alone. I was excited to be
there and meet some new people, many of whom could rock the boat in
their own organizations if they desired.
The conversation started off with a couple of people emphasizing how
well their firms were doing on inclusion (though you’re not going to change
the world if you already think it’s great). The third person to speak
emphasized confidence and an ability to network as what people really need
in order to be included. ‘Come to events like these,’ they said. ‘Take
responsibility for yourself. Spend time with us. We are here and want to
meet you.’ Now, I am all for people taking responsibility and determining
their own future. But responsibility is a two-way street. We cannot put our
heads in the sand and assume the playing field is level. If you are in a
position to level the playing field, you have a duty to do so.
You may shrug and think, ‘It was one opinion. What was said next …?’
Actually, not a lot else was said, thanks to the informational cascade this
speaker caused. An informational cascade occurs when we follow the lead
of the person who speaks before us, and don’t reveal our unique thoughts
that could add real value. Why do we do this? When we discuss information
that is familiar and feels right to the group we are in, we are liked by those
around us as we are all on common ground. Challenging thoughts cause
discomfort.
The person who spoke third was clearly looked up to by others on the
panel, and as such they had started a reputational informational cascade. I
had come along that night to get some fresh insights. But I was
disappointed. The overall discussion did not reflect the knowledge in the
room.
There are two main situations in which informational cascades may
hinder your progress. The first is when you are presenting to a group of
people, who will then deliberate on whether you got to some desired
outcome or on how well you performed. You may experience this if, for
example, you are pitching a project idea to a client, showcasing your
business idea to potential funders, presenting a new way of doing things to
senior management or defending a piece of work that you are being
assessed on. If one person says something negative, the others might follow
with other negative things.
The second is when you have a voice in a discussion that is important to
you. Your performance in this meeting may be relevant for your big-
thinking journey if you need to show leadership potential, creativity or
innovation. If you are part of a start-up with two or more other owners,
group meetings often decide what your product looks like. Essentially, as
I’m sure you are aware, important stuff is regularly decided by group
deliberations. Are you certain your voice is being heard equally with
everybody else’s, or is one person or one viewpoint dominating the
conversation?
There are two important things to remember. First, important decisions
that affect your progress are going to happen in meetings that you are part
of. Second, the decision-making process in these meetings is going to be
plagued by biases.
Are you surprised? Did you assume that group decision-making would
lead to better outcomes than decisions made by individuals? Two heads are
better than one, right? If one person has a blind spot, it’s likely that the
other person doesn’t and so cancels it out. You expect, then, that the
outcome from a group would be greater than the sum of its parts.
But for this to hold true, everyone needs to participate freely and have
their voice heard. Everyone needs to be motivated by goals that are
collective rather than individualistic. Empirical evidence from the lab and
field suggests that this is not always the case.9 In fact, most of the time
meetings are affected by groupthink.
One of the first major problems of groupthink is that it causes people to
focus on shared information – as I experienced at that panel event – just so
they can feel good about themselves. In the next meeting you are in, sit
back and wait for the cascade.
When we are in a group setting, it makes us feel good about ourselves to
talk about things that are familiar to everyone at the table. There is no
discomfort. No uncomfortable pauses. Everyone is on the same page.
What does this imply for decision-making? You can have the most
diverse and intellectual team in the world, but if they don’t reveal
information that is unique to them as individuals, the quality of group
discussions will be poor. Spending too much time in group discussions
reiterating what is already known is clearly a waste of time. Focusing on
well-known information may make us feel good about ourselves, but that is
where the benefits end.
The second major problem is that many of the cognitive biases that affect
our daily decisions are actually exaggerated when groups meet. We have
already met a myriad of these biases, which include the planning fallacy,
representativeness heuristic, sunk cost fallacy and framing. Along with
exaggerating these individual biases, groupthink causes an over-focus on
information that members of the group have in common.
How can you fix groupthink when you are not leading the meeting? If
you are a participant (rather than helplessly there to hear the panel’s
feedback) you won’t gain many supporters by blurting out an opinion that is
very different from the group’s halfway through a cascade. So what can you
do? It may help to start with reiterating some shared information, so you
stick with the group’s unconscious etiquette of saying the same point over
and over again. No need to entirely spoil the party. Re-emphasize a point
that has been made already that you genuinely liked.
Next, state your unique opinion in as few sentences as possible, tacked
on to the end of your reiteration. You will also help your case if what you
say is based on facts and evidence rather than personal musings. If there is
hard evidence that signposts your idea is the right one, the group needs to
hear it. Too many people rely on personal anecdotes and gut feelings when
responding in meetings, and these people are hard to take seriously. If you
really care about an issue, do the preliminary work and change minds with
hard facts and data.
Assuming you know ahead of time the people who will be at the meeting,
also make an effort to appeal to ego by personalizing your pitch to the tastes
and preferences of the people in the room. If you are proposing something
entirely radical that departs from shared information and viewpoints, this
gives you the best chance of cutting though the groupthink.
Once you have had your say, rather than allow the cascade to flow at the
chair’s will, nudge somebody specific to speak next. You can do this by
saying something like, ‘The second point I made could benefit from
opinions from my colleagues in the room, such as [insert name here],
because …’ One great tip for meeting leaders to break a cascade in their
meeting is to call colleagues in random order (rather than allowing people
to speak by raising their hand). If you aren’t leading the meeting and don’t
have the luxury of choosing the order of speakers, you can still nudge who
gets to speak after you. By relaying that you want to keep the conversation
centred around your unique insights, you make the points you raised more
salient. You also increase the likelihood that any subsequent cascade will be
focused on information relevant to the topic discussed.
You could also go one step further. Let people know that because time is
sensitive, after the meeting you would like to receive written feedback from
the entire group. This serves two purposes. First, it allows for introverts and
others who are not usually heard in meetings to become a real part of your
discussion, giving you more diversity in the feedback that you receive.
Second, if agreed by the chair, a decision won’t be made until the next
meeting. Putting some time between raising a new idea which is counter to
the cascade and when the option to ‘go with’ is chosen will take the
emotion out of the decision and give your idea the biggest chance of
success.
If you are in a meeting where you are being judged ‘live’ and have an
opportunity to give feedback, your power to change a cascade is more
limited but the strategy is the same. If the cascade is positive, just let it
flow. After all, you are there to have a good outcome. If the panel need to
engage in shared-information back-scratching to get you there, so be it. We
all get our jollies somewhere. Chalk it up to luck, and thank the stars.
If the cascade is negative, raise a new point in your reply, and nudge a
particular panel member to speak next by calling them by their name and
asking for their reaction to what you have said. Remember: put emphasis on
facts and hard data where possible.
But what about the occasions when we are to be judged by a panel and do
not have a voice in the ultimate decision-making process?
INSIGHT 5: JUDGEMENTS
I met Henry at a large conference designed to bring lawyers who support
financial services together. I was giving an overview of how behavioural
science insights can help teams work better. During the live Q&A, Henry
threw me a curveball and asked about pitching. He specifically wanted to
know the best position in the order to request when pitching for new
business with his own team. This was not a question related to my
presentation, but I recommended he go last if offered the choice. Provided,
that is, the last position was not just before lunch.
Henry wrote to me about eight weeks later and said he had tried this and
it had worked. He had secured new business. I was quick to respond that a
one-time success is not a winning streak and he should audit other
outcomes going forward. However, Henry had got me interested in thinking
about what determines whether someone is successful when they pitch,
interview, or perform ‘live’ and face a panel of judges. Turns out this is a
pretty interesting area of research in behavioural science.
We are constantly being judged in many areas of our life … When we
interview for a job. When we submit a piece of writing. When we give a
public talk. When we pitch our best idea. When we debate, audition, speak
up in a meeting, or even when we meet up for coffee with a colleague. In all
these situations we are being watched, and someone else determines if we
are successful. Someone else determines if we are to be taken seriously.
Even if we come fully prepared, the process of judging is riddled with
behavioural biases and blind spots. But can we tip the odds in our favour?
Planning on delivering a competitive pitch for funding? The time or place
in the order in which you get to present to your funding panel has been
shown to make a real difference to the outcome. If each person presenting is
rated with a score, you may be better off presenting as late as possible in the
day.10
If it’s a situation where rating scores are not being calculated officially,
like in an interview setting, there are two effects to keep in mind if given a
choice of slots. The first is recency effect. Some research suggests you are
better off going as late as possible, as this way you remain fresh in the
judge’s memory. However, pulling in the opposite direction is primacy
effect – the person who is seen first is judged most accurately.
If you know you have a stellar idea, you should always present first. But
you should choose to go last if you don’t have 100 per cent confidence in
your idea, and if you know that the judges will cross-compare at the end of
the day. This harnesses the well-known peak-end rule that the most
emotionally intense points and the end of an experience are most
memorable. You are more likely to be successful if the judges recall what
you actually said, and going at the end ensures that happens!
The slots you definitely want to avoid? Try not to get stuck in the middle
unless you are certain your pitch will be the peak of the judges’ day.11
TOP TIP: THE PEAK-END RULE AND PITCHING
In Chapter 3 we discussed the role of the affect heuristic (our
emotions) in our decision-making. The upshot: our emotions
weigh heavily in our decision-making. This also means that
emotions influence how a panel, audience or judge perceive
you. So what does this mean for your pitch?
1 Take care to avoid time slots where the judges are more
likely to be grumpy, like just before lunch or when there
won’t have been a break for a while.
2 Remember the influence of emotions when you are
preparing your pitch. Peak-end rule implies that pitchers
who emotionally connect to the judges are more
memorable. Connecting your pitch to a bigger meaning via
a simple narrative will give the judges the best chance of
connecting emotionally to you and your ideas. If you are
pitching for investment or a consultancy gig, use stories to
bring to life the added value that your product or service will
bring to the world. If you are pitching for a job, use stories
to help the panel fully understand your relevant work
experience. If you are pitching for a stretch project at work,
use stories to explain what taking responsibility for this
project will mean for you professionally.
Does it matter?
On the surface, no. While some people suffer from the fear of missing
out, I personally suffer from the fear of being included too often. I am
probably not alone. A lot of people like their own company and dread
weeks when their social calendar is back-to-back, especially if it is work-
related. I have no problem with people arranging a variety of activities and
not including me. I wish they would do it more often. However, with all of
the cognitive biases floating around, could close in-group dynamics cause
you to be excluded from opportunities that matter in your big-thinking
journey?
The simple answer is ‘yes’.
A myriad of biases ensure that in-group members look after their own.
This includes informing them of opportunities when they arise. The
familiarity effect ensures that individuals that are in the in-group are
favoured. The halo effect also comes into play here – if someone has the
positive attribute of being a friend or confidant, other positive attributes like
skill, ability and talent are more likely to be associated with them.
Intergroup bias also causes members to evaluate those in their own group
more favourably. In periods of uncertainty, people who are in the in-group
are more likely to stick together, with the potential to leave others out in the
cold when times get tough.
I have no time for toxic in-groups that exclude people from meetings and
conversations that they should be part of. This is a clique. If you feel that
you are being excluded by a clique, it is important you call it out. You will
probably be met by a defensive reaction, but exclusion is exclusion
however it is dressed up.
Toxic in-groups are distinct from collegial in-groups. As humans, we
need to connect with each other. Collegial in-groups form when groups of
individuals in close proximity spend time together and hone relationships
that contribute to a common good. At a university, in your serviced office
space, at networking events or at your regular day job, you should make
time to be part of these groups.
Why? First, it is good for you to expose yourself to others and their ideas.
It helps you grow. Second, having a good social network enhances your
well-being.
It also doesn’t have to be all or nothing. There is ample evidence that
being a weak tie – that is, being an acquaintance rather than a close friend
(i.e. a strong tie) – is beneficial in terms of advancing career goals and
access to opportunities.12 Throughout your big-thinking journey, make an
effort to connect to collegial in-groups either as a weak or a strong tie.
If you are trying to get a ‘yes’ vote for an idea, talk about it regularly and
often. Why? The exposure effect ensures that if people are exposed to
something, they are more likely to endorse it. It also demonstrates that there
is a method in talking to others about your ideas. A happy side effect is that
it opens the door for feedback that will help you refine your ideas.
You can also leverage commitment bias. If there is someone in a meeting
you need a yes from and you sense the mood is right, put them on the spot
for an answer. Commitment bias ensures that once someone has publicly
committed to endorsing you, it is difficult for them to retreat from that
support. Cognitive biases also ensure they will likely feel good about this
endorsement. Win-win!
So how does it work? Once people make their mind up, they don’t like
changing it and confirmation bias sets in. As new information comes along,
they discount information that proves them wrong and over-focus on
information that reaffirms their endorsement.
If this all sounds a bit Machiavellian for your taste, don’t worry. Mine
too. I am someone who is prone to reciprocity bias – sometimes to my
detriment, but often to the gain of yeses. Essentially, I begin by treating
others how I like to be treated, and over time I find that this tendency
results in a further tendency to gain acquaintances and confidants who are
happy to support my various plans, with me reciprocating when needed. A
different approach to the Barnum effect, and much easier for those of us
who can’t stomach office politics and BS (and I don’t mean behavioural
science)!
When you are told no, you may find evidence of glaring mistreatment
and be filled with certainty that the people blocking your path are plagued
by behavioural biases and blind spots. What should you do about this?
There are two main options at your disposal. First, speak with the people
who turned you down. Relay your disappointment with their decision and
ask them to take another look at the value your idea could bring. As we
discussed in Chapter 2, the bizarre thing about human behaviour is that,
when you ask for help, you are unlikely to be turned down twice by the
same person. What often stops us trying a second time is the saving face
effect. So consider putting your pride to one side and having a direct
conversation where you ask for the decision to be reversed.
Second, you should explore revising your idea, taking into account any
feedback you have received. After revising, try asking again. If that doesn’t
work, look for other doors that you can knock on that have different people
behind them. When faced with people with behavioural biases and blind
spots, remember that there are many more people in the world without the
hang-ups that you are experiencing. It is never the case that you have to be
reliant on one person or one group of people to move you forward. You may
need to do some work to figure out who the next people you contact are, but
don’t ever get stuck on having the same door slammed in your face.
Insanity, after all, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a
different result.
Think of your big-thinking journey as a game of snakes and ladders. A
‘no’ vote is like sliding down a snake. It’s a setback. But if you persevere,
you’ll find a ladder that helps you make up what you lost. Today and in the
future you will still encounter snakes, but they are declining in numbers.
There are many more ladders than there used to be, and once you succeed
the ladders will become more frequent if you remember to pay any help you
receive forward. You just need to turn up regularly and take your small
steps to discover the ladders available to you now, and keep going if you
end up slithering down a snake.
INSIGHT 4: CASCADES
An informational cascade happens when a group gets
together and focuses on what they already know. Pay
homage to the shared information before you outline a
different course. This will ensure that you’re heard. Put
particular emphasis on data that backs up your ideas.
INSIGHT 5: JUDGEMENTS
When your journey relies on being judged by strangers, it is
best to take the last slot of the day. Use narratives to connect
the benefits of your idea to the real world, ensuring that you
end your presentation well to leverage the peak-end effect.
Happy circumventing!
Before we move on, make sure that you:
Have read through the ten behavioural science insights.
Spend some time to anticipate any occasions when you think
you may need these insights. Set reminders in your diary so
you remember the relevant insight(s) when you’re approaching
the event.
Environment
‘It’s been a hell of a day,’ I mumbled to myself, putting my key in the front
door. It was January 2020, and from the moment I put my feet on the
ground to salute the sun, to the last steps of my journey home, it had been
awful. In fact, I had spent the whole day shovelling poop, only for various
people to pick it up and start throwing it at each other again. I was
exhausted. I was glad to be home.
Each and every day, I am lucky. I get to decompress in an environment
where I know that I will be happy, healthy and safe. Whether it’s crashing
on the couch with my bulldog Kacey, soaking in a hot bath, or reading
novels in my love seat, there is something about getting to spend time alone
in my sanctuary that can ease the stresses of even my worst days. Waking
up each morning and reminding myself that I will get to relax at the end of
the day allows me to roll with the punches (or poop!) the day throws at me.
This may be an entire house if you live alone, your bedroom if you
house-share, or just a nook somewhere at home if you have a gaggle of
toddlers to raise. The surroundings that we find ourselves in, whether
consciously or unconsciously, affect our behaviour in myriad ways,
including our performance, stress levels and happiness.
In behavioural science there is a well-worn adage that context matters.1
How we behave is affected by the cues we experience on a moment-by-
moment basis in our environment. We process these cues unconsciously.
For example, people buy more French wine when French music is playing
in a store, and more German wine when German music is playing.2 Why?
The music acts as a subconscious cue, nudging a person towards a
particular choice. But we are blissfully unaware of the cue.
External stimuli alter our mood and the decisions that we make without
us even knowing it, and stimuli are all around us, both strategically placed
(like the music in the shop in the example above) and totally accidental. At
the LSE, one of our student prizes even has the name ‘Context Matters’, to
remind students to think about the context in which they did their research
when interpreting their findings.
All of the preceding chapters have needed you to be on high alert. In
order to make the messages of these chapters work, it was necessary to take
continuous small steps. You were experimenting to see what behavioural
science insights would help you change your own behaviour, and trying to
circumvent the damaging effects of other people’s biases and blind spots.
But this chapter is different. It is about making decisions about the
environment in which you do your work.
INSIGHT 1: INTERRUPTIONS
I struggle to ignore distractions. A ding on my smartphone to signal a social
media notification or text message jolts me out of flow. If I’m not paying
attention, I can find myself mindlessly surfing the internet. A knock on my
office door can cause me to return home with the same to-do list I started
my day with. My System 1 even decides to check my email on autopilot,
setting me up to be distracted by the random thoughts and requests of
colleagues and friends.
In 2018, after a particularly bad day of distractions, I decided to do an
audit. I counted and logged the number of distractions that I experienced
over seven one-hour slots that fell between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., my core
working hours for one day. The final tally was 5, 9, 4, 7, 5, 3, 11 – 44
distractions in one working day! That was the day I decided to do
something to stop distractions for good.
Interruptions are a problem for all of us. In order to work out just how
much they are affecting you, I suggest you do your own workday audit.
Interruptions nobble the most precious resource you have: time. They are
the ultimate time-sinker. Thanks to an ability to be contacted in person, on
the phone, or via email, WhatsApp, Skype, Messenger, LinkedIn, Twitter,
Slack, Teams, Zoom and Meets, as well as an ever-increasing list of other
mediums that I am blissfully unaware of, we relinquish control of our time
to the whims of other people.
RAPID-FIRE INSIGHTS
In 2018, I kicked my digital distractions habit. Given my success, the
concept of making small changes to my environment that would have
disproportionate effects on my productivity continued to pique my interest.
I approached my exploration of additional environmental tweaks from a
cheap and cheerful DIY perspective.
I am willing to bet that interacting intentionally online, rather than
allowing sporadic distractions to grab your time, will do the heavy lifting in
terms of carving out hours to devote to your big-thinking journey. It will
also mean that networking is more pleasurable as you concentrate fully on
the person in front of you. As you come out of your online existence and
into the physical world, it is worth looking around you with a question in
mind: Does this physical space help or hinder my ability to think big, take
small steps and build the career I want?
If you take the time to visit me at the LSE and pop in unannounced, you
will notice that one of my difficulties in life is that I tend to be messy. But I
am much happier in less cluttered environments – and it is not just a matter
of happiness. I am also better able to concentrate and more productive when
my workspace is tidy. I can more easily put my hand on what I need. So I
wasn’t surprised to see emerging evidence that links clutter to higher levels
of distraction.12
Decluttering any devoted workspace that you have will make it easier to
achieve flow when you need to get in the zone. For those of you who, like
me, are naturally on the messier side of things, this will involve recycling
and selling some of your possessions. When doing this, be careful not to fall
into the endowment effect trap. This operates by causing an emotional
attachment to your possessions and describes the tendency for people to
overvalue things that they own. If you have ever sold your house, it
probably caused you to overvalue the painting and decorating that you did
when talking to the estate agent about the valuation. It is also what is
causing you to hold on to old books, clothes and knick-knacks that are no
longer of use and might find better homes elsewhere. But once you toss
something, you will adapt quickly to the loss. Remind yourself of this so
you toss more rather than less, and give yourself that clutter-free zone.
Resilience
• You sit an exam and do not know the answers to a lot of the
questions.
• You failed.
• You ranked in the bottom 20 per cent in your class.
• You missed an exam because of bad traffic and have to wait
one year to retake it.
• You got a lower grade than expected.
Public speaking …
• You are sweating with nervousness before you go on to
speak.
• A person tells you a point you’re making is wrong.
• People are yawning throughout your talk and playing with
their phones.
• You faint in the middle of giving your talk.
• You are asked a question you cannot answer during the
Q&A.
• The feedback from your talk contains one response that
provides detailed commentary on why you should be
discredited.
• The feedback from your talk is largely negative.
Luckily, there are some insights from behavioural science that can help
build stores of resilience. These insights, if followed regularly, will allow
you to be more resilient when you fail or have bad luck, and perhaps get
you to a place where you do not notice everyday punches at all.
As in the other chapters, I will present ten behavioural science insights.
These are insights that lend themselves to helping people hone resistance,
while being relatively easy to integrate into even the busiest daily routines.
Don’t forget that while each behavioural science insight will help some of
you, they will not necessarily help all of you. Remember to evaluate the
success of each item you adopt personally after a week. Keep what is
working for you and discard the rest.
For me, one of the best things I ever did was give the Interrupter an
opportunity to give feedback on what I saw as bad behaviour. I learned a lot
by engaging with him then, and we are still talking and learning from each
other today.
Please do not misunderstand me here. I do not want you to put yourself in
a position where you are consistently being exposed to bad behaviour by
any one individual. That would make the big-thinking journey you are
about to undertake miserable, and quickly erode your resilience stores.
Rather, I am asking that you give second chances. Put the boot on the other
foot; it will also be much easier for you to hone resilience if you know that
second chances are possible when you make mistakes!
This doesn’t need to be a big deal. You don’t even have to write it down
– although many people enjoy practising daily gratitude in this way. All that
is required is taking five minutes each day (setting a regular time will help
make it a habit), and purposely drawing your attention to all of the feel-
good moments you experienced over the last twenty-four hours.
From big wins to small positive moments, drawing attention to these
occurrences on a daily basis, however ordinary they are, engages your slow
brain (System 2). Ensuring that these moments don’t go unnoticed helps
rebalance how you feel about losses when they do happen. This allows you
to put negative occurrences into perspective.
We all have ups and downs, and it is good to curtail tendencies that focus
too much on losses and ignore gains.
So start now, and write three small wins you experienced so far today:
1) ______________
2) ______________
3) ______________
You will draw less on your own resilience reserves if you focus
on your absolute progress, and avoid comparisons with
others.
This requires a mindset shift. Are you inclined to keep up with the
Joneses? Do you compare your wins to those of people that you know or
are exposed to regularly? Or do you view wins absolutely, by monitoring
your own progress? If I compare myself to other people, I am making
relative comparisons. If I am monitoring my own progress over time, I am
making absolute comparisons.
It can be hard to focus only on absolute comparisons, but it will pay
resilience dividends.
Imagine you are trying to lose weight. Relative comparisons would mean
that you judge your progress compared to what others in your weight-loss
group achieve each week. You would only be happy with a three-pound loss
in weeks where others lost relatively less. Sound absurd? On too many
occasions, we automatically measure our progress in terms of relative rather
than absolute comparisons.
When you were younger and got your exam grades, did your parents ask
you how others in the class did when they were reacting to your grades?
Did you compare yourself to how well your friends did? If you were given
a pay rise, and at the same time learned that everyone else in your
workplace got more than you, would you be miffed? Would it take the shine
off of your fatter pay cheque?
Focusing on absolute over relevant comparisons will help keep you
performing better, speeding up your progress and maintaining your
resilience reserves. Alongside my anecdotes are gold-star academic papers
that support these sentiments and emphasize that relative comparisons hurt
performance.3 And if better performance isn’t a reason to shun relative
comparisons in favour of your own progress, then do it for your well-
being.4 What’s the point in looking over your shoulder for someone else to
compare yourself to? For a healthier attitude to progress, simply make
salient your own progress compared to yesterday.
1) _______________________
2) _______________________
3) _______________________
4) _______________________
5) _______________________
6) _______________________
7) _______________________
8) _______________________
9) _______________________
10) _______________________
It also frees up time to spend on the small steps you need to take to
realize your big-thinking goal. Up to this point, these small steps have
related to the skills that you wish to develop and the activities you want to
be engaged in for your big-thinking goal. Now I would ask that you
reassess how you are spending your time, and replace activities that drain
you (like unnecessary emails) with things that replenish you. The
cornerstone of this has to be eating healthy foods and moving your body
more. If you eat better and get more exercise, you will find you have more
energy and a clearer head. This can motivate a virtuous cycle where you
become even more focused and confident in your ability to achieve your
big-thinking goal, and also more resilient.
In the last section, you identified activities to engage in when you need a
timeout. You chose these activities because engaging in them makes you
feel better. Along with setting intentions to eat better and move more, why
not incorporate one or more of these timeout activities into your weekly
planning? You don’t wait until your car breaks down to invest in its
maintenance, so why wait until your resilience reserves are empty to top
them up?
The joy of not sweating the small stuff is that the small stuff is
not even remembered. This frees up your time to focus on
what really matters.
PERSEVERE
Higher levels of resilience make you more likely to persevere. This
particular life skill also correlates with higher levels of happiness, better
mental health, fewer days lost to ill health, higher levels of innovation, and
improved motivation. This makes investing in increasing your resilience
levels very much worth your while.7
Back in 2004 when I made the move from Cork to Dublin, my resilience
reserves were low. Lucky for me, my friend Kevin was in the driving seat
(both literally and figuratively) that day to take my mind off things and
assure me that the feelings would pass. It is worth emphasizing that at times
when you aren’t able to rely on your own resilience reserves, you can and
should lean on a friend. Life is too short to always face the punches alone,
particularly when we don’t have to.
Of course, dealing with punches is not all bad. Being exposed to negative
situations in itself builds resilience. Weathering storms brings benefits. It
provides evidence of your coping skills. When you fail and persevere, you
are building evidence that you are gritty. When you come out the other end
of bad office politics with collegial relationships intact, you build evidence
that you are respected. When you don’t internalize someone else’s
negativity, you build evidence that you are strong. When you emerge from
change intact, you build evidence that you are a survivor. Evidence creates
a new positive narrative about your character that you then internalize.
This chapter has been about providing behavioural science insights that
can help cultivate resilience. Let’s recap them …
INSIGHT 1: RESILIENCE AND THE FUNDAMENTAL
ATTRIBUTION ERROR
Next time you have a negative encounter, remind yourself of
fundamental attribution error. It may help you downgrade the
encounter so it doesn’t affect your mood.
Happy honing!
Before we move on you should have:
Made a list of the negative events that you experienced over
the last week and sorted these events into three separate
categories: ‘These things happen’, ‘I will have regrouped and
got over it in a day’ and ‘This would really affect me and stop
me in my tracks’.
Chosen one or more of the insights in this chapter to
incorporate into your journey.
Journey
Across the world, every day, people decide that they need to make a change
at work. Many of you will have come to this book aiming to shake things
up. You want to earn a living doing something better than what you do
currently. What ‘better’ means will be personal to each and every one of
you, but that doesn’t mean that the principles to get there are different.
You may want to be happier at work, be more autonomous or do
something that motivates you. You could be seeking personal fulfilment or
looking for work that is socially responsible, or aiming for more money,
status or power. You may want to work with people or work in solitude.
You may want to be creative, innovative or work with numbers. What
determines your wants are your values and preferences. These are different
for all of us, and they change as we go through life.
The size of the goal you are shooting for will also differ. Some will plan
to accelerate their career. Others will want to do a lateral move. More still
will start a side hustle. Others will want to change career track altogether.
What you all have in common is that you are more likely to succeed if
you put in place a plan that has structures to help circumvent your own
biases and blind spots, as well as those of others.
Making the big-thinking journey a medium-term expedition is going to
increase the odds of succeeding because the upheaval to your life is not too
great. The core of this book set out a framework to help you do that, and
there is value to returning to these pages throughout your big-thinking
journey.
As you leave these pages you will have salient in your mind some well-
defined goal to aim for, as laid out in Chapter 2. This is your big-thinking
goal. You created it when you took the time to think big and decided on
what work you wanted ME+ to be doing for a living. Linked to this goal
you will have identified a set of activities that allow you to achieve it. These
are the small steps, which if taken regularly will allow you to realize your
goal. In Chapter 2, you also spent some time reflecting on the personal
narratives that are holding you back. Once these narratives are identified,
they can be changed by engaging in processes that align with the new story
you want to write for yourself. For example, if you hold a belief that you
always quit striving for goals that you set for yourself, focus on showing up
for the small steps you also identified in Chapter 2. The small steps are then
a process. By engaging in this process repeatedly, a new narrative emerges
that replaces the older, negative narrative. Draw attention to the progress
you are making by having weekly check-ins. Making the progress salient
brings the benefits of the process to the forefront of your mind, motivating
you further.
Time is your most precious resource. Spend it well. To give you time
back so you can take regular small steps and realize your big-thinking goal,
in Chapter 3 you identified your time-sinkers and made commitments to
curtail them. To help keep these promises you made to yourself, you were
given ten behavioural science insights. Do remember to pay attention to the
effects these insights have on you as you incorporate them into your regular
routine. You are unique and special, and different things work for different
people. If you adopt an insight and it works for you, keep doing it.
Otherwise, stop. This is trial-and-error learning.
As you finish this book you should recognize that your own cognitive
biases will interfere with both your planning and the journey itself. Don’t
underestimate the challenge associated with curbing these biases. Many
biases are engaged by System 1, your fast brain, at an unconscious level.
You might be able to see logically how you could develop a bias, but it is
difficult to stop automatic responses. To help yourself with this, you should
have chosen some insights from Chapter 4 to integrate into your big-
thinking journey. Doing so makes it more likely that your journey will be
successful. Bon voyage!
Of course, it isn’t all about you. In Chapter 5 we discussed how the
cognitive biases of others can hold you back. Should you care? It is all very
well to say no, you shouldn’t – sod them! But what if the person – or
persons – with the biases and blind spots can influence your progress? It is
probably best to circumvent the issue, rather than suffering the progress
blow. To help with this, Chapter 5 provided insights that will help you
navigate around the biases and blind spots of others. You should refer back
to these insights when other people get in the way of your progress. This
includes hindering your ability to take regular small steps, and putting
major obstacles in your way. Remember you can always reach out if you
find yourself in a situation that seems insurmountable!
The environment that we live and breathe in most definitely affects our
performance, motivation, perseverance, and the choices we make at any
given moment. Learnings from behavioural science provide insights into
what modifications may help reinforce your big-thinking journey. In
Chapter 6 we covered tweaks that you can make to your own physical
environment which can improve the chances of you reaching your big-
thinking goal. The fantastic thing is that giving a small amount of attention
to air, green, light, temperature, noise, space, clutter and colour can pay
dividends. This chapter also covered changes you can make to your
environment to stop digital interruptions – the ultimate time-sinker! You
should now be leaving this book with a commitment to engage with online
communications differently. We discussed picking your biggest distractor
and intentionally setting up your digital environment so you only engage on
one device and at particular times of your day. Trust me – it works!
And last but definitely not least, Chapter 7 discussed behavioural science
insights that can help you hone resilience. Here we focused on developing
resilience that will allow you to roll with everyday punches. Investing in
honing resilience can also have positive impacts on your life outside your
big-thinking journey. This core life skill correlates with higher levels of
happiness, better mental health, fewer days lost to ill health, higher levels of
innovation and improved motivation. Higher resilience levels also allow
you to bounce back more easily from (or not even notice!) setbacks in your
journey, setting you up to realize your chosen goal.
These six chapters, and the six key messages within them, are a
framework for your big-thinking journey. Return to this book to remind
yourself of the insights in each chapter from time to time. Although I have
been writing with career-building in mind, the lessons in these chapters can
also help you pursue other goals. For instance, Chapter 3, which discusses
time-sinkers, is relevant when you need to make more space for family,
self-care and your social life. Some of the messages on curbing your own
biases in Chapter 4 are useful when trying to understand why you don’t
show up for yourself when you set health or financial goals. And paying
attention to the tools described in Chapter 7 with respect to honing
resilience will serve you well in all areas of life.
I hope the content of this book helps you reach your big-thinking goal
with time to spare. It is exciting to set off on a career journey with intention.
As I’ve emphasized throughout the book, any outcome is the product of
luck and effort. So let me take this opportunity to wish you lots of good
luck! I have every faith that you will put in sustained effort and meet your
ME+ in the next few years. In the meantime, enjoy the journey!
On your journey, remember that those you meet along the way are also
striving for their best lives. They have doubts, worries and feel pain just like
you. Whenever you encounter people, you don’t know what is going on in
their lives. They may be hitting obstacles, or having a tough time. They
may be falling victim to their own or others’ biases and blind spots. They
may not have high resilience levels. They may need you to help them with
their journey. We’ve seen how other people can scupper your best-laid
plans. For the people you meet, you are ‘other people’. So when you meet
others, pause. It takes just a moment to give a kind greeting. There is
always room in your diary to lend a helping hand. Practise patience when
others make mistakes. Respect them as you expect to be respected. Slow
down and pay attention. When we are racing around, System 1 allows us to
perform pretty well on autopilot, but it can also cause us to miss moments
when other people need us to notice them. Those moments are worth giving
time to.
Happy beginnings!
You can contact me by emailing g.lordan@lse.ac.uk
Acknowledgements
The saying goes that it takes a village. For this book it took a city. London. I
am particularly grateful to all of the people who have shared their stories
and anecdotes with me in the City of London and beyond. It is learning of
their experiences that has allowed me to get a clearer image of how
behavioural biases hold people back in their careers, and what can be done
about it. The number of people who have welcomed me into their offices
and lives – across all levels of industry and beyond – since I landed in
London in 2011, continues to astound me. Thank you for trusting me with
your stories, pushing on my theories, and for your friendship.
Thank you to Michael Alcock, my utterly fantastic agent, and also his
colleagues at Johnson and Alcock. Thank you to Teresa Almedia, who
helped me for the last mile to finish on time. Thank you to Penguin Life for
taking a chance on me, and Julia Murday for managing me through this
process. Thank you to Jack Ramm and Lydia Yadi, my editors, who worked
in the shadows to push this project to a different level. Thank you to all the
other great people at Penguin who contributed to this book, with a special
mention for Gemma Wain. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience
than I was given.
I am grateful every single day that I work at the LSE, and for the
opportunities it has afforded me to meet the brilliant people who work
within its walls. I would like to thank all of the colleagues who have
supported me across the school over the years. Time is truly our most
precious resource, and I have benefited greatly from taking the time of so
many others at the LSE across a multitude of departments to discuss the
ideas in this book and beyond. A good colleague has pointed out to me that
if I forget someone I will be in trouble, so leveraging the Barnum effect, I
will simply say a big thank you and ‘you know who you are’. I will, though,
specifically thank all of my co-authors, scattered around the world, for
pushing me to do better work and actually finish papers! And also the
behavioural science gang. I have been truly privileged to work with you as
we grow behavioural science at the LSE together. A special mention goes to
all of my students, and in particular to the first cohort of the MSc in
Behavioural Science students, who joined us in 2019 and were with me
while I wrote this book and through the COVID-19 lockdown. And also
thank you to all of my colleagues who have helped work towards launching
The Inclusion Initiative at the LSE.
I am indebted to my partner, Kieran. He has been a sounding board for
my ideas, has read various drafts, never lets me down, and made me
uncountable cups of tea while I worked every weekend and every evening
on this book for months on end. Thank you. Dog lovers will understand
why I can’t leave these pages without mentioning Kacey, my beautiful
bulldog, the perfect mascot. Walking and relaxing with her adds
unmeasurable value to my life. Having her snoring next to me while I hit
flow in my own work is the perfect background music.
I deservedly dedicated this book to my mum, who I continue to miss
dearly. Mum paved the way for all of my opportunities in life, always
cheering me on. To know her was to know someone who was extraordinary.
I also need to thank all of my family and friends in my home town of Cork
for their encouragement. I give special mention to Olive Desmond, my first
boss, who all of those years ago showed me leadership through kindness.
And to my dad and my aunt Marie, I could not have done this without you.
You consistently welcome me home and take care of me whenever I want to
drop by. You have been unwavering constants in my support system
throughout my life, and this has meant the world to me. You are also
fantastic company and I cannot wait to see you both soon.
And last but by no means least, I need to thank you. As a reader you have
given me your time while reading this book. This has been my privilege. I
hope you do think big, take small steps and build the career you want.
Happy endings!
Notes
Chapter 1: Begin
1 This comes through most clearly in research published by Dan
Gilbert and colleagues in Science magazine in 2013. They studied
more than 19,000 people and got them to report on how much
they perceived themselves having changed in the past decade, and
also asked them to predict how much they would change in the
next ten years. People of all ages consistently said they had
changed lots in the past but expected relatively little for the
future. See J. Quoidbach, D. T. Gilbert and T. D. Wilson, ‘The
end of history illusion’, Science 339/6115 (2013), pp. 96–98.
Chapter 2: Goal
1 In behavioural science we know that most of us want to follow
what the crowd is doing. This is called ‘herding’. I therefore want
to take this opportunity to tell you that 80 per cent of the readers
of this book will likely complete this exercise – in an effort to
harness social norms, and increase the likelihood that you will
complete it, too.
2 It is even possible to consider the effects of stereotype threat by
introducing an intervention to a random selection of children that
primes them explicitly prior to taking a maths exam. An example
of an explicit prime is to include an illustration of a girl failing to
solve a maths problem. A random selection of students taking an
exam sees this picture, and gets a heavy hint that girls are bad at
maths. This was the research approach taken in a study of 240
six-year-old children. The researchers gathered data prior to the
maths test being taken or the picture being seen which indicated
that there was no difference in actual perceptions regarding the
mathematical ability of girls versus boys held by the children in
the study. The authors highlight that, even without prior beliefs
that girls are worse at maths than boys, being exposed to the
stereotype threat caused them to perform worse than when they
had no stereotype threat. See S. Galdi, M. Cadinu and C.
Tomasetto, ‘The roots of stereotype threat: When automatic
associations disrupt girls’ math performance’, Child Development
85/1 (2014), pp. 250–263.
3 The heritability of intelligence is estimated to be between 20 and
60 per cent, depending on the life stage the sample is in. See C.
Haworth et al., ‘A twin study of the genetics of high cognitive
ability selected from 11,000 twin pairs in six studies from four
countries’, Behavior Genetics 39/4 (2009), pp. 359–370; and also
R. Plomin and I. J. Deary, ‘Genetics and intelligence differences:
Five special findings’, Molecular Psychiatry 20/1 (2015), pp. 98–
108.
4 The estimates range from 50 per cent down to 33.3 per cent. See
D. Lykken and A. Tellegen, ‘Happiness is a stochastic
phenomenon’, Psychological Science 7/3 (1996), pp. 186–189; J.
H. Stubbe, D. Posthuma et al., ‘Heritability of life satisfaction in
adults: A twin-family study’, Psychological Medicine 35/11
(2005), pp. 1581–1588; M. Bartels et al., ‘Heritability and
genome-wide linkage scan of subjective happiness’, Twin
Research and Human Genetics 13/2, (2010), pp. 135–142; and J.-
E. De Neve et al., ‘Genes, economics, and happiness’, Journal of
Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics 5/4 (2012), pp. 193–
211.
5 See Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (London: Allen
Lane, 2011).
6 See R. Koestner et al., ‘Attaining personal goals: Self-
concordance plus implementation intentions equals success’,
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83/1 (2002), pp.
231–244, for a discussion on why the commitment should be both
challenging and attainable.
7 See Heidi Grant-Halvorson, Reinforcements: How to Get People
to Help You (Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2018)
for a full discussion of studies that cover the psychology of asking
for help, backed up by experimental evidence.
8 See V. K. Bohns, ‘(Mis)understanding our influence over others:
A review of the underestimation-of-compliance effect’, Current
Directions in Psychological Science 25/2 (2016), pp. 119–123.
9 Vanessa Bohns has studied such requests, and her research
illustrates that face-to-face requests for help are more likely to
result in success as compared to email.
10 See D. A. Newark et al., ‘The value of a helping hand: Do help-
seekers accurately predict help quality?’, Academy of
Management Proceedings 2016/1 (2017).
11 See M. M. Roghanizad and V. K. Bohns, ‘Ask in person: You’re
less persuasive than you think over email’, Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology 69 (2017), pp. 223–226. They
show that, in general, people underestimate the probability of
success for face-to-face requests, but overestimate the likelihood
of a positive response from an email request.
12 When asking for help, we are essentially giving the other person a
choice. They can say yes or no. Any choice can be framed in a
way that highlights the positive or negative aspects of the same
decision, and framing it in a positive light means a person is more
likely to say yes. For seminal work in this area, see D. Kahneman
and A. Tversky, ‘Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under
risk’, Econometrica 47/2 (1979), pp. 263–291; I. P. Levin et al.,
‘All frames are not created equal: A typology and critical analysis
of framing effects’, Organizational Behavior and Human
Decision Processes 76/2 (1998), pp. 149–188.
13 See Y. Ioannides and L. Loury, ‘Job information networks,
neighborhood effects, and inequality’, Journal of Economic
Literature 42/4 (2004), pp. 1056–1093, for a review of a large
body of evidence which emphasizes evidence of the benefits of
social networks to search for and find jobs. Other convincing
studies that link social networks to labour market outcomes
include P. Bayer et al., ‘Place of work and place of residence:
Informal hiring networks and labor market outcomes’, Journal of
Political Economy 116/6 (2008), pp. 1150–1196; and J.
Hellerstein et al., ‘Neighbors and coworkers: The importance of
residential labor market networks’, Journal of Labor Economics
29/4 (2011), pp. 659–695.
Chapter 3: Time
1 The modh coinníollach is a weird tense in the Irish language,
which relates to affirmative statements in the conditional mood.
It’s used when you’re talking about something that might or
might not occur. For example, ‘If I were a successful author, I
would be very happy.’ The modh coinníollach is still terrorizing
Irish schoolchildren at exam time today.
2 There is an emerging evidence base that links social networking to
poor mental health outcomes. For example, spending too much
time on social networking websites (see K. W. Müller et al., ‘A
hidden type of internet addiction? Intense and addictive use of
social networking sites in adolescents’, Computers in Human
Behavior 55/A (2016), pp. 172–177), and being exposed to
images that suggest that everyone else leads a better life (see H.
G. Chou and N. Edge, ‘“They are happier and having better lives
than I am”: The impact of using Facebook on perceptions of
others’ lives’, Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking
15/2 (2012), pp. 117–121).
3 I would still find it hard to estimate the time-cost of constantly
checking my email even with a minute-by-minute time audit. But
I can say for sure that the endless checking of my emails prevents
me from doing good work – so much so that on the days that I
didn’t intentionally stop checking my email, nothing really got
done.
4 This lack of ping-ponging actually reduced my email flow, as
fellow ping-pongers realized that I was no longer in their club. I
assume they went off to ping-pong with others.
5 The personalization of interventions is still a young topic in
behavioural science, but there is a growing literature that
emphasizes its potential across a growing number of life domains.
For example, personalizing feedback based on a person’s
behaviour and circumstances has been shown to be effective in
cutting down smoking (see J. L. Obermayer et al., ‘College
smoking cessation using cell phone text messaging’, Journal of
American College Health 53/2 (2004), pp. 71–79; and A. L. Stotts
et al., ‘Ultrasound feedback and motivational interviewing
targeting smoking cessation in the second and third trimesters of
pregnancy’, Nicotine and Tobacco Research 11/8 (2009), pp.
961–968) and managing diabetes (for a study of type 2 diabetics,
see J. H. Cho et al., ‘Mobile communication using a mobile phone
with glucometer for glucose control in Type 2 patients with
diabetes: As effective as an internet based glucose monitoring
system’, Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare 15/2 (2009), pp.
77–82; and for a study for type 1 diabetic patients, see A. Farmer
et al., ‘A real-time, mobile phone-based telemedicine system to
support young adults with type 1 diabetes’, Informatics in
Primary Care 13/3 (2005), pp. 171–178), as well as helping
people lead a more healthy and active lifestyle in general
(examples include a study by F. Buttussi et al., ‘Bringing mobile
guides and fitness activities together: A solution based on an
embodied virtual trainer’, Proceedings of the 8th Conference on
Human-computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services
(2006), pp. 29–36; and H. O. Chambliss et al., ‘Computerized
self-monitoring and technology assisted feedback for weight loss
with and without an enhanced behavioural component’, Patient
Education and Counseling 85/3 (2011), pp. 375–382). HMRC
also regularly personalize their letters to ensure that tax is paid on
time (see the 2012 report from the Cabinet Office’s Behavioural
Insights Team, ‘Applying behavioural insights to reduce fraud,
error and debt’).
6 Some great studies exploring the impact of peer effects on
academic outcomes include S. E. Carrell and M. L. Hoekstra,
‘Externalities in the classroom: How children exposed to
domestic violence affect everyone’s kids’, American Economic
Journal: Applied Economics 2/1 (2010), pp. 211–228; S. E.
Carrell et al., ‘Does your cohort matter? Measuring peer effects in
college achievement’, Journal of Labor Economics 27/3 (2009),
pp. 439–464; D. J. Zimmerman, ‘Peer effects in academic
outcomes: Evidence from a natural experiment’, Review of
Economics and Statistics 85/1 (2003), pp. 9–23; and B. Sacerdote,
‘Peer effects with random assignment: Results for Dartmouth
roommates’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 116/2 (2001),
pp. 681–704. There is also evidence to suggest that peer effects
can change other outcomes, such as teaching quality (C. K.
Jackson and E. Bruegmann, ‘Teaching students and teaching each
other: The importance of peer learning for teachers’, American
Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1/4 (2009), pp. 85–108),
the propensity to commit crime (P. Bayer et al., ‘Building
criminal capital behind bars: Peer effects in juvenile corrections’,
The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124/1 (2009), pp. 105–147)
and the likelihood of smoking weed and drinking alcohol (A. E.
Clark and Y. Lohéac, ‘“It wasn’t me, it was them!” Social
influence in risky behavior by adolescents’, Journal of Health
Economics 26/4 (2007), pp. 763–784).
7 See E. O’Rourke et al., ‘Brain points: A growth mindset incentive
structure boosts persistence in an educational game’, Conference
on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings (2014),
pp. 3339–3348.
8 See J. Aronson et al., ‘Reducing the effects of stereotype threat on
African American college students by shaping theories of
intelligence’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 38/2
(2002), pp. 113–125; D. Paunesku et al., ‘Mind-set interventions
are a scalable treatment for academic underachievement’,
Psychological Science 26/6 (2015), pp. 784–793; and D. S.
Yeager et al., ‘Using design thinking to improve psychological
interventions: The case of the growth mindset during the
transition to high school’, Journal of Educational Psychology
108/3 (2016), pp. 374–391.
9 See G. L. Cohen et al., ‘Reducing the racial achievement gap: A
social-psychological intervention’, Science 313/5791 (2006), pp.
1307–1310.
10 See J. J. Heckman and T. Kautz, ‘Fostering and measuring skills:
Interventions that improve character and cognition’, (No. 19656)
National Bureau of Economic Research (2013); and D. Almond et
al., ‘Childhood circumstances and adult outcomes: Act II’,
Journal of Economic Literature 56/4 (2018), pp. 1360–1446,
which provides a compelling argument backed by empirical
evidence that soft skills can be changed throughout the life-
course. Notably, the authors also suggest that these are far more
malleable than cognitive skills in later childhood.
11 See G. M. Walton and G. L. Cohen, ‘A brief social-belonging
intervention improves academic and health outcomes of minority
students’, Science 331/6023 (2011), pp. 1447–1451, who
leveraged administrative data for ninety-two freshmen students at
a large university campus.
12 See A. C. Cooper et al., ‘Entrepreneurs’ perceived chances for
success’, Journal of Business Venturing 3/2 (1988), pp. 97–108.
13 In 2006, G. P. Latham and E. A. Locke reviewed over forty years
of goal-setting research and concluded that once the person is
committed to their goal, having a specific goal enhances a
person’s performance and also the likelihood of them getting to
where they want to go.
14 See R. Koestner et al., ‘Attaining personal goals’ (2002); and E.
A. Locke and G. P. Latham, ‘Building a practically useful theory
of goal setting and task motivation’, American Psychologist 57/9
(2002), pp. 705–717.
15 See E. A. Locke et al., ‘Separating the effects of goal specificity
from goal level’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes 43/2 (1989), pp. 270–287.
16 For the link to happiness, see Paul Dolan, Happiness by Design:
Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life (London:
Penguin Books, 2014); for the link to motivation, see Emily
Esfahani Smith, The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That
Matters (New York: Crown, 2017). For the link to lower levels of
stress and cynicism see Kim S. Cameron, Positive Leadership
(San Francisco, CA: Berret-Koehler Publishers, 2008); D.
Chandler and A. Kapelner, ‘Breaking monotony with meaning:
Motivation in crowdsourcing markets’, Journal of Economic
Behavior and Organization 90 (2013), pp.123–133; and B. D.
Rosso et al., ‘On the meaning of work: A theoretical integration
and review’, Research in Organizational Behavior 30/C (2010),
pp. 91–127.
17 This draws on the framework laid out by Cameron in Positive
Leadership (2008).
18 See R. Koestner et al., ‘Attaining personal goals’ (2002), which
highlights that when people see that they are making progress
towards a goal they subsequently perform better.
19 For example, see N. Rothbard and S. Wilk, ‘Waking up on the
right or wrong side of the bed: Start-of-workday mood, work
events, employee affect, and performance’, Academy of
Management Journal 54/5 (2011), pp. 959–980. This study
considers start-of-workday mood and looks to see how it affects
call centre workers. The authors give clear evidence that the
mood of the workers at the start of the day has a significant
influence on performance quality and how the employee engages
with customers. It is worth bearing in mind that your mood
distorts how you see and act in the world. While you cannot
always control your feelings, you can be more sensitive towards
yourself when you are having a bad day.
20 The compromise effect has been well studied in marketing, and
explains purchase decisions pretty well. It implies that if you are
buying anything and are presented with three options, the
majority of people will opt for the mid-priced choice. See, for
example, A. Chernev, ‘Context effects without a context:
Attribute balance as a reason for choice’, Journal of Consumer
Research 32/2 (2005), pp. 213–223; N. Novemsky et al.,
‘Preference fluency in choice’, Journal of Marketing Research
44/3 (2007), pp. 347–356; and U. Khan et al., ‘When trade-offs
matter: The effect of choice construal on context effects’, Journal
of Marketing Research 48/1 (2011), pp. 62–71. If humans tend to
prefer a moderate option when making purchase decisions, what’s
not to say that we don’t also prefer a more moderate option when
allocating our time? Perhaps you have a hidden Goldilocks
persona, and this approach will allow you to hit on a workload
that’s just right!
21 See Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving
Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2008); J. Bhattacharya et al., ‘Nudges in
exercise commitment contracts: A randomized trial’, NBER
Working Paper Series 21406 (2015); and K. Volpp et al.,
‘Financial incentive-based approaches for weight loss: A
randomized trial’, JAMA 300/22 (2008), pp. 2631–2637.
Chapter 4: Inside
1 Yes, we behavioural scientists do have an answer for everything!
Don’t believe our theory? Well then you must be biased! Handy,
eh?
2 See Scott Page, The Diversity Bonus: How Great Teams Pay Off in
the Knowledge Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2017).
3 See R. Stinebrickner and T. R. Stinebrickner, ‘What can be learned
about peer effects using college roommates? Evidence from new
survey data and students from disadvantaged backgrounds’,
Journal of Public Economics 90/8-9 (2006), pp. 1435–1454.
4 See S. Pinchot et el., ‘Are surgical progeny more likely to pursue a
surgical career?’ Journal of Surgical Research 147/2 (2008), pp.
253–259, which illustrates occupational inheritance for medical
doctors; V. Scoppa, ‘Intergenerational transfers of public sector
jobs: A shred of evidence on nepotism’, Public Choice 141/1
(2009), pp. 167–188, which looks at public sector jobs; B.
Feinstein, ‘The dynasty advantage: Family ties in congressional
elections’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 35/4 (2010), pp. 571–
598, which considers positions in US government; and L. Chen et
al., ‘Following (not quite) in your father’s footsteps: Task
followers and labor market outcomes’, MPRA Paper 76041
(2017), which highlights that children choose jobs involving
similar tasks to those their parents do.
5 See R. Brooks et al., ‘Deal or no deal, that is the question: The
impact of increasing stakes and framing effects on decision-
making under risk’, International Review of Finance 9/1-2
(2009), pp. 27–50, and J. Watson and M. McNaughton, ‘Gender
differences in risk aversion and expected retirement benefits’,
Financial Analysts Journal 63/4 (2007), pp. 52–62, for evidence
on gender; C. C. Bertaut, ‘Stockholding behavior of US
households: Evidence from the 1983–1989 Survey of Consumer
Finances’, Review of Economics and Statistics 80/2 (1998), pp.
263–275, and K. L. Shaw, ‘An empirical analysis of risk aversion
and income growth’, Journal of Labor Economics 14/4 (1996),
pp. 626–653, for evidence on education levels; J. Sung and S.
Hanna, ‘Factors related to risk tolerance’, Journal of Financial
Counseling and Planning 7 (1996), pp. 11–19, and D. A. Brown,
‘Pensions and risk aversion: The influence of race, ethnicity, and
class on investor behavior’, Lewis & Clark Law Review 11/2
(2007), pp. 385–406, for evidence on ethnicity gaps in the US; W.
B. Riley and K. V. Chow, ‘Asset allocation and individual risk
aversion’, Financial Analysts Journal 48/6 (1992), pp. 32–37, and
R. A. Cohn et al., ‘Individual investor risk aversion and
investment portfolio composition’, The Journal of Finance 30/2
(1975), pp. 605–620, for evidence on differences by wealth.
6 See P. Brooks and H. Zank, ‘Loss averse behavior’, Journal of
Risk and Uncertainty 31/3 (2005), pp. 301–325; and U. Schmidt
and S. Traub, ‘An experimental test of loss aversion’, Journal of
Risk and Uncertainty 25/3 (2002), pp. 233–249.
7 See M. Mayo, ‘If humble people make the best leaders, why do
we fall for charismatic narcissists?’ Harvard Business Review (7
April 2018).
8 See John Annett, Feedback and Human Behaviour: The Effects of
Knowledge of Results, Incentives and Reinforcement on Learning
and Performance (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books,
1969) and Albert Bandura, Principles of Behavior Modification
(New York, London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969).
9 See A. Kluger and A. DeNisi, ‘The effects of feedback
interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-
analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory’,
Psychological Bulletin 119/2 (1996), pp. 254–284. This meta-
analysis combines 607 effect sizes that relate to 23,663
observations in a statistical analysis that examines the effects of
feedback on performance.
10 See V. Tiefenbeck et al., ‘Overcoming salience bias: How real-
time feedback fosters resource conservation’, Management
Science 64/3 (March 2013), pp. 1458–1476, which highlights that
real time feedback changes energy intensive resource
consumption.
11 See T. Gilovich et al., ‘The spotlight effect in social judgment: An
egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one’s own actions
and appearance’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
78/2 (2000), pp. 211–222.
12 For a good discussion on these two biases, see J. Baron and I.
Ritov, ‘Omission bias, individual differences, and normality’,
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 94/2
(2004), pp. 74–85.
13 See, for example, I. M. Davison and A. Feeney, ‘Regret as
autobiographical memory’, Cognitive Psychology 57/4 (2008),
pp. 385–403; T. Gilovich et al., ‘Varieties of regret: A debate and
partial resolution’, Psychological Review 105/3 (1998), pp. 602–
605; and M. Morrison and N. Roese, ‘Regrets of the typical
American: Findings from a nationally representative sample’,
Social Psychological and Personality Science 2/6 (2011), pp.
576–583.
14 See S. Davidai and T. Gilovich, ‘The ideal road not taken: The
self-discrepancies involved in people’s most enduring regrets’,
Emotion 18/3 (2018), pp. 439–452.
15 For an example study, see D. M. Tice et al., ‘Restoring the self:
Positive affect helps improve self-regulation following ego
depletion’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43/3
(2007), pp. 379–384.
Chapter 5: Outside
1 I would choose someone myself, but of course I don’t want to
isolate a specific set of readers.
2 Sadly for them, the £100 was hypothetical!
3 See S. J. Solnick, ‘Gender differences in the ultimatum game’,
Economic Inquiry 39/2 (2001), pp. 189–200; and C. Eckel et al.,
‘Gender and negotiation in the small: Are women (perceived to
be) more cooperative than men?’, Negotiation Journal 24/4
(2008), pp. 429–445.
4 For evidence on age, see D. Neumark at al., ‘Is it harder for older
workers to find jobs? New and improved evidence from a field
experiment’, Journal of Political Economy 127/2 (2019), pp.
922–970; for evidence of gender in England, see P. A. Riach and
J. Rich, ‘An experimental investigation of sexual discrimination
in hiring in the English labor market’, Advances in Economic
Analysis & Policy 5/2 (2006), pp. 1–22; and for evidence on
women of child-bearing age, see S. O. Becker et al.,
‘Discrimination in hiring based on potential and realized fertility:
Evidence from a large-scale field experiment’, Labour Economics
59 (2019), pp. 139–152.
5 In the UK, for every ten male entrepreneurs there are about five
female. In Australia, the US and Canada the ratio is slightly
better, at 10:6. In the UK (see The Alison Rose Review of Female
Entrepreneurship, 2019), only 1 per cent of all venture funding
goes to businesses founded by all-female teams, inhibiting scale-
up (see British Business Bank, Diversity VC, and BVCA, UK VC
& Female Founders report, February 2019).
6 See D. O’Brien et al., ‘Are the creative industries meritocratic? An
analysis of the 2014 British Labour Force Survey’, Cultural
Trends 25/2 (2016), pp. 116–131, which demonstrates that
working-class persons are under-represented in the creative
industries. Also see S. Friedman et al., ‘“Like skydiving without a
parachute”: How class origin shapes occupational trajectories in
British acting’, Sociology 51/5 (2017), pp. 992–1010, which
demonstrates a similar conclusion specific to acting.
7 See J. Miller, ‘Tall poppy syndrome (Canadians have a habit of
cutting their female achievers down)’, Flare 19/4 (1997), pp.
102–106; P. McFedries, ‘Tall poppy syndrome dot-com’, IEEE
Spectrum 39/12 (2002), p. 68; H. Kirwan-Taylor, ‘Are you
suffering from tall poppy syndrome’, Management Today 15
(2006); and J. Kirkwood, ‘Tall poppy syndrome: Implications for
entrepreneurship in New Zealand’, Journal of Management and
Organization 13/4 (2007), pp. 366–382.
8 Research shows that VC-backed start-ups outperform, comparable
to non-VC-backed start-ups. See W. L. Megginson and K. A.
Weiss, ‘Venture capitalist certification in initial public offerings’,
The Journal of Finance 46/3 (1991), pp. 879–903; and Jeffry A.
Timmons, New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st
Century (Boston, MA: Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 1999).
9 For a fantastic summary of experimental and observational
research related to groupthink, see Cass Sunstein and Reid Hastie,
Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter
(Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2015).
10 See W. Bruine de Bruin, ‘Save the last dance for me: Unwanted
serial position effects injury evaluations’, Acta Psychologica
118/3 (2005), pp. 245–260, for evidence from figure skating and
the Eurovision song contest; and L. Page and K. Page, ‘Last shall
be first: A field study of biases in sequential performance
evaluation on the Idol series’, Journal of Economic Behavior and
Organization 73/2 (2010), pp. 186–198, for evidence from TV
talent contests.
11 For more detailed insights on sequential order contest, see F. B.
Gershberg and A. P. Shimamura, ‘Serial position effects in
implicit and explicit tests of memory’, Journal of Experimental
Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20/6 (1994), pp.
1370–1378; and N. Burgess and G. J. Hitch, ‘Memory for serial
order: A network model of the phonological loop and its timing’,
Psychological Review 106/3 (1999), pp. 551–581.
12 W. S. Harvey, ‘Strong or weak ties? British and Indian expatriate
scientists finding jobs in Boston’, Global Networks 8/4 (2008),
pp. 453–473, highlights that British and Indian migrating
scientists had gains from both strong and weak ties in job
searches; D. Z. Levin and R. Cross, ‘The strength of weak ties
you can trust: The mediating role of trust in effective knowledge
transfer’, Management Science 50/11 (2004), pp. 1477–1490,
highlights that both weak ties and strong ties play an independent
role in knowledge transfer within companies; D. W. Brown and
A. M. Konrad, ‘Granovetter was right: The importance of weak
ties to a contemporary job search’, Group and Organization
Management 26/4 (2001), pp. 434–462, illustrates the benefits of
weak ties over strong ties in job search and salary garnered, a
stylized fact replicated in work by V. Yakubovich, ‘Weak ties,
information, and influence: How workers find jobs in a local
Russian labor market’, American Sociological Review 70/3
(2005), pp. 408–421. T. Elfring and W. Hulsink, ‘Networks in
entrepreneurship: The case of high-technology firms’, Small
Business Economics 21/4 (2003), pp. 409–422, emphasizes the
gains from weak ties for emerging entrepreneurs in technology.
13 If you are interested in this topic there is a fantastic account of
how women have a harder time in economics as compared to
other disciplines. See S. Lundberg and J. Stearns, ‘Women in
economics: Stalled progress’, Journal of Economic Perspectives
33/1 (2019), pp. 3–22.
Chapter 6: Environment
1 The person I know who uses this adage the most is Professor Paul
Dolan from the LSE. In fact, the name of the ‘context matters’
student prize on the executive masters in behavioural science
came about from him saying those two words more than any other
in his teaching. And there is lots of evidence in the behavioural
science literature that illustrates this adage holds weight. For
example, for a discussion on how environments can be used to
change health-related behaviours, see G. J. Hollands et al., ‘The
TIPPME intervention typology for changing environments to
change behavior’, Nature Human Behaviour 1 (2017).
2 See A. North et al., ‘The influence of in-store music on wine
selections’, Journal of Applied Psychology 84/2 (1999), pp. 271–
276.
3 E. M. Altmann et al., ‘Momentary interruptions can derail the train
of thought’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143/1
(2014), pp. 215–226, found that interruptions less than three
seconds long disrupted and caused more errors on sequence-based
cognitive tasks in a lab experiment; G. Carlton and M. A. Blegen,
‘Medication-related errors: A literature review of incidence and
antecedents’, Annual Review of Nursing Research 24/1 (2006),
pp. 19–38, linked interruptions to medication-related errors in
hospitals; A. Mawson, ‘The workplace and its impact on
productivity’, Advanced Workplace Associates, London 1 (2012),
pp. 1–12, argues that distractions bring individuals out of flow
state.
4 Interruptions have been linked to lower levels of job satisfaction
(for a study of nurses, see B. D. Kirkcaldy and T. Martin, ‘Job
stress and satisfaction among nurses: Individual differences’,
Stress Medicine 16/2 (2000), pp. 77–89), increased levels of
irritability (for a study of call centre agents, see S. Grebner et al.,
‘Working conditions, well-being, and job-related attitudes among
call centre agents’, European Journal of Work and Organizational
Psychology 12(4) (2003), pp. 341–365), and even depression (for
a study of GPs, see study by U. Rout et al., ‘Job stress among
British general practitioners: Predictors of job dissatisfaction and
mental ill-health’, Stress Medicine 12/3 (1996), pp. 155–166).
5 For the link between airflow and productivity, see P. Wargocki et
al., ‘The effects of outdoor air supply rate in an office on
perceived air quality, Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) symptoms
and productivity’, Indoor Air 10/4 (2000), pp. 222–236; and for a
study that links air conditioning to sickness, see P. Preziosi et al.,
‘Workplace air-conditioning and health services attendance
among French middle-aged women: A prospective cohort study’,
International Journal of Epidemiology 33/5 (2004), pp. 1120–
1123.
6 For a study that highlights how indoor plants increase attention
capacity in an office setting, see R. K. Raanaas et al., ‘Benefits of
indoor plants on attention capacity in an office setting’, Journal of
Environmental Psychology 31/1 (2011), pp. 99–105.
7 See M. Münch et al., ‘Effects of prior light exposure on early
evening performance, subjective sleepiness, and hormonal
secretion’, Behavioral Neuroscience 126/1 (2012), pp. 196–203;
S. Joshi, ‘The sick building syndrome’, Indian Journal of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine 12/2 (2008), p. 61;
and V. I. Lohr et al., ‘Interior plants may improve worker
productivity and reduce stress in a windowless environment’,
Journal of Environmental Horticulture 14/2 (1996), pp. 97–100.
8 For a paper that links creativity to dim lighting, see A. Steidle and
L. Werth, ‘Freedom from constraints: Darkness and dim
illumination promote creativity’, Journal of Environmental
Psychology 35 (2013), pp. 67–80; and for a discussion of bright
lights and concentration, see H. Mukae and M. Sato, ‘The effect
of color temperature of lighting sources on the autonomic nervous
functions’, The Annals of Physiological Anthropology 11/5
(1992), pp. 533–538.
9 See L. Lan et al., ‘Neurobehavioral approach for evaluation of
office workers’ productivity: The effects of room temperature’,
Building and Environment 44/8 (2009), pp. 1578–1588; and L.
Lan et al., ‘Effects of thermal discomfort in an office on perceived
air quality, SBS symptoms, physiological responses, and human
performance’, Indoor Air 21/5 (2011), pp. 376–390.
10 See H. Jahncke et al., ‘Open-plan office noise: Cognitive
performance and restoration’, Journal of Environmental
Psychology 31/4 (2011), pp. 373–382.
11 See S. Banbury and D. C. Berry, ‘Disruption of office-related
tasks by speech and office noise’, British Journal of Psychology
89/3 (1998), pp. 499–517.
12 See P. Barrett et al., ‘The impact of classroom design on pupils’
learning: Final results of a holistic, multi-level analysis’, Building
and Environment 89 (2015), pp. 118–133.
13 See studies by A. S. Soldat et al., ‘Color as an environmental
processing cue: External affective cues can directly affect
processing strategy without affecting mood’, Social Cognition
15/1 (1997), pp. 55–71; R. Mehta and R. Zhu, ‘Blue or red?
Exploring the effect of color on cognitive task performances’,
Science 323/5918 (2009), pp. 1226–1229; S. Lehrl et al., ‘Blue
light improves cognitive performance’, Journal of Neural
Transmission 114/4 (2007), pp. 457–460; and Z. O’Connor,
‘Colour psychology and colour therapy: Caveat emptor’, Color
Research & Application 36/3 (2011), pp. 229–234.
14 See Mehta and Zhu, ‘Blue or red?’ (2009), which summarizes
studies on red versus blue.
15 See K. W. Jacobs and J. F. Suess, ‘Effects of four psychological
primary colors on anxiety state’, Perceptual and Motor Skills
41(1) (1975), pp. 207–210. They considered the effects of red,
yellow, green and blue on self- reported measures of anxiety, and
found that higher anxiety scores were correlated with red and
yellow, and conversely blue and green were correlated with lower
scores. See also A. Al-Ayash et al., ‘The influence of color on
student emotion, heart rate, and performance in learning
environments’, Color Research and Application 41/2 (2016),
pp.196–205, which demonstrates that blue increases calmness as
compared to red and yellow.
16 See Al-Ayash et al., ‘The influence of color’ (2016). They
investigated the effects of six colours – vivid red, vivid blue,
vivid yellow, pale red, pale blue and pale yellow – on reading task
performance in students’ private study spaces.
Chapter 7: Resilience
1 See D. Laibson and J. List, ‘Principles of (behavioral) economics’,
American Economic Review 105/5 (2015), pp. 385–390, which
outlines some neat behavioural science factoids as a way to
encourage innovative teaching of the subject in the classroom.
2 A. Killen and A. Macaskill, ‘Using a gratitude intervention to
enhance well-being in older adults’, Journal of Happiness Studies
16/4 (2015), pp. 947–964, makes the link between practising
gratitude and higher levels of self-esteem; F. Gander et al.,
‘Strength-based positive interventions: Further evidence for their
potential in enhancing well-being and alleviating depression’,
Journal of Happiness Studies 14/4 (2013), pp. 1241–1259, makes
the link between gratitude and lower rates of depression; and M.
E. P. Seligman et al., ‘Positive psychology progress: Empirical
validation of interventions’, American Psychologist 60/5 (2005),
pp. 410–421, makes the link between gratitude and higher levels
of happiness.
3 See N. Ashraf et al., ‘Losing prosociality in the quest for talent?
Sorting, selection, and productivity in the delivery of public
services’, LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 88175,
London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library
(2018).
4 My own work with Paul Dolan shows that when it comes to
intergenerational mobility, downward mobility deteriorates life
satisfaction and mental health far more than upward mobility
improves these life domains. We came to these conclusions when
studying the British Cohort study in 1970, a fantastic UK data set
that follows children born in 1970 throughout their lives.
5 See P. Grossman et al., ‘Mindfulness-based stress reduction and
health benefits: A meta-analysis’, Journal of Psychosomatic
Research 57/1 (2004), pp. 35–43, which combines the effects of a
number of studies to illustrate the stress-lowering health benefits
of mindfulness based on stress reduction therapy; and more
recently M. Goyal et al., ‘Meditation programs for psychological
stress and well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis’,
JAMA Internal Medicine 174/3 (2014), pp. 357–368. This was a
meta-analysis of forty-seven randomized trials, which highlights
moderate evidence of improvements in anxiety, depression and
pain but no effect on mood, attention, substance use, eating
behviour, sleep quality or weight.
6 G. Bonanno, ‘Loss, trauma, and human resilience: Have we
underestimated the human capacity to thrive after extremely
aversive events?’, American Psychologist 59/1 (2004), pp. 20–28,
emphasizes hardiness as a pathway to resilience; S. Maddi, ‘The
story of hardiness: Twenty years of theorizing, research, and
practice’, Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research
54/3 (2002), pp. 173–185, shows hardiness enhances resilience in
the face of everyday stressors and demands; M. E. P. Seligman,
‘Building resilience’, Harvard Business Review 89/4 (2011), pp.
100–106, highlights enhancing mental toughness as a way to
increase resilience.
7 See B. Smith et al., ‘The brief resilience scale: Assessing the
ability to bounce back’, International Journal of Behavioral
Medicine 15/3 (2008), pp. 194–200, which illustrates that
resilience is positively correlated with social relations, physical
health and mental health; Q. Gu and C. Day, ‘Teachers’
resilience: A necessary condition for effectiveness’, Teaching and
Teacher Education 23/8 (2007), pp. 1302–1316, for evidence that
resilience makes teachers more motivated and committed; L.
Abramson et al., ‘Learned helplessness in humans: Critique and
reformulation’, Journal of Abnormal Psychology 87/1 (1978), pp.
49–74, which emphasizes that innovative thinking and resilience
are correlated for college students.
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