Your Brain Is Hooked on Being Right

Your Brain Is Hooked on Being Right

I'm sure it's happened to you: You're in a tense team meeting trying to defend your position on a big project and start to feel yourself losing ground. Your voice gets louder. You talk over one of your colleagues and correct his point of view. He pushes back, so you go into overdrive to convince everyone you're right. It feels like an out of body experience — and in many ways it is. In terms of its neurochemistry, your brain has been hijacked.

In situations of high stress, fear or distrust, the hormone and neurotransmitter cortisol floods the brain. Executive functions that help us with advanced thought processes like strategy, trust building, and compassion shut down. And the amygdala, our instinctive brain, takes over. The body makes a chemical choice about how best to protect itself — in this case from the shame and loss of power associated with being wrong — and as a result is unable to regulate its emotions or handle the gaps between expectations and reality. So we default to one of four responses: fight (keep arguing the point), flight (revert to, and hide behind, group consensus), freeze (disengage from the argument by shutting up) or appease (make nice with your adversary by simply agreeing with him).

All are harmful because they prevent the honest and productive sharing of information and opinion. But, as a consultant who has spent decades working with executives on their communication skills, I can tell you that the fight response is by far the most damaging to work relationships. It is also, unfortunately, the most common.

That's partly due to another neurochemical process. When you argue and win, your brain floods with different hormones: adrenaline and dopamine, which makes you feel good, dominant, even invincible. It's a the feeling any of us would want to replicate. So the next time we're in a tense situation, we fight again. We get addicted to being right.

I've coached dozens of incredibly successful leaders who suffer from this addiction. They are extremely good at fighting for their point of view (which is indeed often right) yet they are completely unaware of the dampening impact that behavior has on the people around them. If one person is getting high off his or her dominance, others are being drummed into submission, experiencing the fight, flight, freeze or appease response I described before, which diminishes their collaborative impulses.

Luckily, there's another hormone that can feel just as good as adrenaline: oxytocin. It's activated by human connection and it opens up the networks in our executive brain, or prefrontal cortex, further increasing our ability to trust and open ourselves to sharing. Your goal as a leader should be to spur the production of oxytocin in yourself and others, while avoiding (at least in the context of communication) those spikes of cortisol and adrenaline.

Here are a few exercises for you to do at work to help your (and others') addiction to being right:

Set rules of engagement. If you're heading into a meeting that could get testy, start by outlining rules of engagement. Have everyone suggest ways to make it a productive, inclusive conversation and write the ideas down for everyone to see. For example, you might agree to give people extra time to explain their ideas and to listen without judgment. These practices will counteract the tendency to fall into harmful conversational patterns. Afterwards, consider see how you and the group did and seek to do even better next time.

Listen with empathy. In one-on-one conversations, make a conscious effort to speak less and listen more. The more you learn about other peoples' perspectives, the more likely you are to feel empathy for them. And when you do that for others, they'll want to do it for you, creating a virtuous circle.

Plan who speaks. In situations when you know one person is likely to dominate a group, create an opportunity for everyone to speak. Ask all parties to identify who in the room has important information, perspectives, or ideas to share. List them and the areas they should speak about on a flip chart and use that as your agenda, opening the floor to different speakers, asking open-ended questions and taking notes.

Connecting and bonding with others trumps conflict. I've found that even the best fighters — the proverbial smartest guys in the room — can break their addiction to being right by getting hooked on oxytocin-inducing behavior instead.

Post by Judith E. Glaser

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/02/break_your_addiction_to_being.html

Developing Feedback Skills

The purposes of this article are to show you the importance of providing both positive and negative feedback and to identify specific techniques to help make your feedback more effective.

Positive Versus Negative Feedback
Positive feedback is more readily and accurately perceived than negative feedback. Furthermore, while positive feedback is almost always accepted, negative feedback often meets resistance. Why? The logical answer seems to be that people want to hear good news and block out the bad. Positive feedback fits what most people wish to hear and already believe about themselves.

Does this mean that you should avoid giving negative feedback? No! What it means is that you need to be aware of potential resistance and learn to use negative feedback in situations in which it's most likely to be accepted. What are those situations? Research indicates that negative feedback is most likely to be accepted when it comes from a credible source or if it's objective in form.

Subjective impressions carry weight only when they come from a person with high status and credibility. This suggests that negative feedback that's supported by hard data?numbers, specific examples, and the like?is more likely to be accepted. Negative feedback that's subjective can be a meaningful tool for experienced managers, particularly those in upper levels of the organization who've earned the respect of their employees. From less-experienced managers, those in the lower ranks of the organization, and those whose reputations haven't yet been established, negative feedback that's subjective in nature is not likely to be well received.

Developing Effective Feedback Skills

There are six specific suggestions that we can make to help you be more effective in providing feedback.

Focus on Specific Behaviors. Feedback should be specific rather than general. Avoid such statements as "You have a bad attitude" or "I'm really impressed with the good job you did," They're vague and while they provide information, they don't tell the recipient enough to correct the "bad attitude" or on what basis you concluded that a "good job" had been done so the person knows what behaviors to repeat.

Keep Feedback Impersonal. Feedback, particularly the negative kind, should be descriptive rather than judgmental or evaluative. No matter how upset you are, keep the feedback focused on job-related behaviors and never criticize someone personally because of an inappropriate action. Telling people they're "incompetent," or "lazy," or the like is almost always counterproductive. It provokes such an emotional reaction that the performance deviation itself is apt to be overlooked. When you're criticizing, remember that you're censuring a job-related behavior, not the person.

Keep Feedback Goal Oriented. Feedback should not be given primarily to "dump" or "unload" on another person. If you have to say something negative, make sure it's directed toward the recipient's goals. Ask yourself whom the feedback is supposed to help.

Make Feedback Well Timed. Feedback is most meaningful to a recipient when there's a very short interval between his or her behavior and the receipt of feedback about that behavior.

Ensure Understanding. Is your feedback concise and complete enough that the recipient clearly and fully understands your communication? Remember that every successful communication requires both transference and understanding of meaning. If feedback is to be effective, you need to ensure that the recipient understands it.

Direct Negative Feedback Toward Behavior That the Recipient Can Control. There's little value in reminding a person of some shortcoming over which he or she has no control. Negative feedback should be directed toward behavior the recipient can do something about.

Seven Communication Principles

To compose effective message you need to apply certain specific communication principles. They tie closely with the basic concepts of the communication process and are important for both written and oral communications. Called the “seven C’s”, they are: completeness, conciseness, consideration, concreteness, clarity, courtesy, and correctness.

Completeness: Your business message is "complete" when it contains all facts the reader or listener needs for the reaction you desire. Remember that communicators differ in their mental filters; they are influenced by their backgrounds, viewpoints, needs, attitudes, status, and emotions.

Completeness is necessary for several reasons. First, complete messages are more likely to bring the desired results without the expense of additional messages. Second, they can do a better job of building goodwill. Third, they can help avert costly lawsuits that may result if important information is missing.

As you strive for completeness, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• Answer all questions asked.

• Give something extra, when desirable.

• Check for the five W's and any other essentials.

Conciseness: A concise message saves time and expense for both sender and receiver. Conciseness is saying what you have to say in the fewest possible words without sacrificing the other C qualities. Conciseness contributes to emphasis. By eliminating unnecessary words, you help make important ideas stand out.

To achieve conciseness try to observe the following suggestions:

• Eliminate wordy expressions.

• Include only relevant statements.

• Avoid unnecessary repetition.

Consideration: Consideration means that you prepare every message with the recipient in mind and try to put yourself in his or her place. Try to visualize your readers (or listeners)—with their desires, problems, circumstances, emotions, and probable reactions to your request. Then handle the matter from their point of view. This thoughtful consideration is also called "you-attitude," empathy, the human touch, and understanding of human nature. (It does not mean, however, that you should overlook the needs of your organization.)

In a broad but true sense, consideration underlies the other six C's of good business communication. You adapt your language and message content to your receiver's needs when you make your message complete, concise, concrete, clear, courteous, and correct.

However, in four specific ways you can indicate you are considerate:

• Focus on "you" instead of "I" and "we."

• Show reader benefit or interest in reader.

• Emphasize positive, pleasant facts.

• Apply integrity and ethic.

Concreteness: Communicating concretely means being specific, definite, and vivid rather than vague and general. The following guidelines should help you compose concrete, convincing messages:

• Use specific facts and figures.

• Put action in your verbs.

• Choose vivid, image-building words.

Clarity: Clarity means getting your message across so the receiver will understand what you are trying to convey. You want that person to interpret your words with the same meaning you have in mind. Accomplishing that goal is difficult because, as you know, individual experiences are never identical, and words have different meanings to different persons.

Here are some specific ways to help make your messages clear:

1. Choose short, familiar, conversational words.

2. Construct effective sentences and paragraphs.

3. Achieve appropriate readability (and listenability).

4. Include examples, illustrations, and other visual aids, when desirable.

Courtesy: Courteous messages help to strengthen present business friendships, as well as make new friends. Courtesy stems from sincere you-attitude. It is not merely politeness with mechanical insertions of "please's" and "thank-you's." To be courteous, considerate communicators should follow these suggestions regarding tone of the communications.

• Be sincerely tactful, thoughtful, and appreciative.

• Omit expressions that irritate, hurt, or belittle.

• Grant and apologize good-naturedly.

Correctness: The correctness principle comprises more than proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. A message may be perfect grammatically and mechanically but still insult or lose a customer and fail to achieve its purpose. The term correctness, as applied to a business message, means the writer should:

• Use the right level of language

• Include only accurate facts, words, and figures

• Maintain acceptable writing mechanics

• Choose nondiscriminatory expressions

• Apply all other pertinent C qualities

Ref: Herta Murphy, Herber Hildebrandt and Jane Thomas

Communication is the door to Business Success.

Communication is one of the most talked about yet least understood areas of human behavior. Yet, we have been communicating with each other since the very dawn of our history. Our ability to communicate in a variety of ways is unique on earth to us humans.

However, effective communication is rarely taught and even more rarely learned. When we are young, we are taught the well known “3 R’s” – Reading (W)riting and (A)rithmetic and then progress to other areas and subjects – but what about the art of effective communication?

How do you make sure that you are passing on the message you intend, to ensure that what you mean is being correctly understood, how do you use means other than words to express yourself, accentuate meaning and in turn how to comprehend and interpret correctly what others are communicating to you.

Communication skills are more important than any other for, if we cannot express ourselves adequately, how can we impart and absorb information and knowledge? Superior communication skills are unquestionably important to living a life by design and vital to success in the business world.

Even people who do not possess the ability to speak can be wonderful communicators - the loss of one or two senses can impair particular dimensions of communications, but it certainly does not stop communication altogether.

Interpersonal communication is the exchange of any information between people. Being social beings, we communicate with each other whenever we get together whether it involves passing on important data or letting others know what we think and feel. All of us have an inherent need to communicate and we do so even when we have nothing or little to say.

When we are with our family, friends or colleagues we spend most if not all our time communicating with each other. Even when we are with strangers we will communicate with them if we are brought together by circumstances such as on a train journey, waiting in a long queue or at a public gathering.

This kind of interpersonal communication also occurs constantly at any workplace and is an integral part of any business. The way colleagues communicate with each other directly impacts on any business. Your approach and feelings towards your business, towards your colleagues and your job itself, are made evident through communications.

Thus, while communications may not specifically be a part of a business plan, interpersonal communication always has a direct and major effect on its success or failure. Business environments where anger, heated words and irritation with others is common, people are never going to be effective or productive. On the other hand, if constant joking, and having a riotous good time is commonplace, the effect will be the same.

Both these are extremes and both will adversely affect performance, cause chaos and ultimately failure. A balance between these two extremes is what is best; performance levels are optimized when people have high comfort levels when interacting with their colleagues, knowing that messages sent and received are being correctly and objectively interpreted.