Episode 55: Practical Tools For Every Day Joy, Building Confidence In Your 20’s And 30’s And Being “Un-You” With Dr. Samantha Boardman.
Tune in on iTunes and it is available on Georgie’s wonderfully curated website http://init4thelongrun.com/
Do You Perform Differently When Someone Is Watching?
What is the simplest way to make tastier food? According to a study from Harvard Business School, cooks make significantly better food when they can see their customers. It seems that the mere sight of the customer motivates and inspires them to do a better job. The lead researcher, Ryan Buell, explains the findings:
We’ve learned that seeing the customer can make employees feel more appreciated, more satisfied with their jobs, and more willing to exert effort. It’s important to note that it wasn’t just the perception of quality that improved—the food objectively got better.
Seeing the impact of their work made a world of difference. As one chef in the study put it:
When the customers can see the work, they appreciate it, and it makes me want to improve.
Customer satisfaction went up 10% when the chefs could see the customers. Even more striking, when both customers and cooks could see one another, satisfaction shot up 17.3%. Seeing the hard work that goes into preparing the food enhanced appreciation. In a separate related study, customers didn’t mind waiting in line for sandwiches, as long as they could see them being made. In other words, it’s not just about the final result. Understanding the process has great value too.
The benefits of transparency are not limited to kitchens. Seeing “behind the curtain” cultivates appreciation and gratitude for all those involved. Adam Grant, PhD, professor of management at The Wharton School of Business, has research that highlights how powerful this can be. When radiologists were showed a photograph of a patient, their diagnostic accuracy improved by 46%.
Similarly, when people are aware of how much effort goes into something, they value it more. Watching an artist at work in their studio or a craftsman in their workshop increases appreciation of the artwork. Effort is so often hidden from customers. This is predicated on the faulty idea that people only care about a finished product. As these studies demonstrate, this is clearly not the case. A connection to how something is made and who made it has impact and raises a number of questions.
As Buell explains:
What if you could watch your car being made? Would it change how you felt about the company? Would it change how you took care of your car? There is something refreshingly human about the idea that just seeing each other can make us more appreciative and lead to better outcomes.
Mutual appreciation and gratitude are powerful forces that shape our experiences and how we feel. Human connection is at the heart of it.
I wish you all the best,
Dr. Samantha Boardman
What Makes Some People More Successful Than Others?
What makes some people more successful than others? Top network scientists have an answer. They found that half of the difference in career success is due to one variable.
Journalist Michael Simmons explains:
The bottom line? According to multiple, peer-reviewed studies, simply being in an open network instead of a closed one is the best predictor of career success.
How do we define an open network?
To understand the power of open networks, it’s important to understand their opposite. Most people spend their careers in closed networks; networks of people who already know each other. People often stay in the same industry, the same religion, and the same political party. In a closed network, it’s easier to get things done because you’ve built up trust, and you know all the shorthand terms and unspoken rules. It’s comfortable because the group converges on the same ways of seeing the world that confirm your own.
In other words, a closed network is full of like-minded types who agree with one another. Although a closed network may be comfortable, the downside is that it limits exposure to new ways of thinking and seeing the world.
In comparison, people in open networks are constantly exposed to new people, experiences and ideas. This may be challenging but there are clear advantages of assimilating different and conflicting perspectives.
Simmons outlines four benefits of an open network:
1. A more accurate view of the world:
It provides people with the ability to pull information from diverse clusters so errors cancel themselves out. Research shows that people in open networks are better forecasters of future trends than people in closed networks
2. Ability to control the timing of information sharing:
While open networkers may not be the first to hear information, they are usually the first to introduce information to another cluster. As a result, they can leverage the first move advantage
3. Ability to serve as a translator / connector between groups:
People in open networks create value by serving as intermediaries and connecting people and organizations that can help each other
4. More breakthrough ideas:
People in open networks are more likely to create atypical combinations. For example, research shows that the top performing academic studies have references from outside their primary field.
In open networks, people, ideas, experiences and disciplines intersect and cross-pollinate. The diversity of experience provides perspective and insight. It’s about connecting the dots in unexpected ways. It takes courage and curiosity to bust out of the comfort zone of a closed network but the rewards are worth it.
Steve Jobs describes it best:
A lot of people…haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
I would say it makes for a more interesting life too.
I wish you all the best,
Dr. Samantha Boardman
Throw Money At It
“There just isn’t enough time in the day,” explained Jennifer, a new patient. Jennifer had initially come to see me because of a conflict with a co-worker but it had become increasingly clear to me that the conflict was amplified by Jennifer’s ongoing daily stress. In addition to having a full-time job, Jennifer felt bogged down by the many other responsibilities in her life. Because of the “time famine,” she felt she never had any time to spend with friends.
The bottomless “to do” list was a major source of angst—doing her laundry, buying groceries, vacuuming, changing her sheets, and cleaning up her closet were ongoing demands and drains on her energy and time. And those were just the “basics.” The list was always growing with more tasks—pick up a present for three year old nephew, drop off the sweater she borrowed from a friend, take computer to Apple store for repair, and on and on.
The daily grind was taking a toll on Jennifer’s wellbeing and she is not alone. Many people I know and patients I meet feel pressed for time and overwhelmed by the thankless demands of daily life. People with “time stress” have lower life satisfaction, more anxiety, poorer eating and exercise habits and more difficulty sleeping. In a study entitled The Burden of Stress in America, running errands and doing household chores were not surprisingly among the top ten daily events that contribute to stress. Handling car problems, commuting to work, and handling household repairs are also high on the list. These mundane but necessary activities of everyday life hang over our heads and gobble up precious time.
If you feel overwhelmed by life’s daily demands, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers a suggestion: throw some money at the problem. The researchers found that people are happier when they spend their money in ways that help them save time. In a survey of over 6000 people who earned a variety of incomes, those who outsourced household time-sucking chores reported greater life satisfaction.
To better understand why buying time boosts happiness, the researchers gave $40 to 60 adult participants to spend on two separate weekends. During one weekend, they were asked to use the cash for time-saving purchase, like hiring a housecleaning service or having groceries delivered. During the second weekend, the same people were give $40 to spend on a material purchase like clothes or games.
Spending money on time-saving purchases put the participants in a better mood. Why? Because it provides a sense of control according to researcher and Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Ashley V. Whillans:
Given its benefits, why don’t more people spend their money on time-saving purchases? Feeling embarrassed about hiring someone to do something they could easily do or not wanting to be seen as lazy may explain why people don’t outsource more. Women, in particular, bear the burden. After a full day of work, many feel obligated to take on a “second shift” and complete household tasks even when they can afford not to.
You don’t have to do it all. Ordering in dinner, calling a cleaning service, and hiring someone to run errands for you isn’t wasteful. Nor should it ever make you feel guilty. If it minimizes irritation and buys you time, it is worth every penny if you spend it wisely.
Just ask Jennifer. Instead of spending a weekend painting her bedroom, she hired Task Rabbit. What did she do with the recovered time? She had a time feast with friends.
I wish you all the best,
Dr. Samantha Boardman
What Sacrifices Would You Make To Save Face?
Who cares about what other people think? Despite the contemporary mantra that it doesn’t matter, most of us care a great deal about how others see us. People will go to extraordinary lengths to protect their reputation. In fact, many are willing to sacrifice life and limb to save face.
In a survey, 40 percent of respondents said they would choose a year in jail and a clean reputation over no jail time and a criminal reputation. In another, over half said they would rather die than have a lifetime reputation as a child molester. Seventy percent said they would rather lose a hand than be thought of as a Nazi sympathizer. Of note, these surveys were conducted online and were, by definition, hypothetical.
Do the findings hold up in the real world? To find out, researchers asked volunteer college students to take a test that assesses racism. The researchers gave a number of the students falsely high scores and then presented them with a choice—either an email with the results of the racism test would be sent out to the campus at large or they could submerge their hand in a bucket filled with disgusting writhing worms. Thirty percent chose the worms (think Survivor). Over 60% held their hands in ice cold water to prevent the incriminating email from being sent out. As you can imagine, many of the students doubted the email threat, so it is likely that the number would have been much higher if the students truly believed their reputations were at risk.
Why does reputation matter so much? The answer lies beyond the individual. If you have a reputation as a cheat, nobody wants to do business with you. If you have a reputation as a liar, nobody trusts you. Our very existence and survival depends on being accepted by the communities in which we live. No wonder blackmailers manage to extort exorbitant sums from their victims. Over time, a tarnished reputation may be repaired, but, as Joseph Hall observed, the damage is rarely forgotten:
“A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.”
For the most part, the desire to maintain a good reputation promotes moral behavior. But it’s a double-edged sword. The threat of exposure or losing one’s honor can take a dark turn and lead to immoral behavior.
Even children are not immune to the pressure to maintain a certain reputation. As a recent study demonstrates, children who were praised for being smart ( i.e. “You are so smart!”) were more likely to cheat than children who were praised for their performance on a specific task (i.e. “You did very well this time.”).
Professor Li Zhao of Hangzhou Normal University in China, explains that if children are told they are smart, they feel pressure to live up to these expectations and are willing to cheat in order to maintain a reputation for being smart. Instead of complementing your child’s brilliance, comment on the behavior instead. They are more likely to repeat it.
It is important to point out that there is a different between reputation and character. As Abraham Lincoln observed, “Character is like a tree and reputation its shadow. The shadow is what we think it is and the tree is the real thing.”
Yes, character is the real thing. Never sacrifice your character in an attempt to save your reputation.
I wish you all the best,
Dr. Samantha Boardman
