In a recent workshop, I asked all the leaders to spend some time getting to know people during their work week. When they came back to the follow-up session, they all reported that their staff looked suspicious and confused when they simply asked how they were and tried to have a normal conversation.

If you are a manager, here’s one of the most nerve-racking things you can do to your staff. Just walk up to them and say ‘How are you going?’

It seems innocuous enough. You might even be genuinely interested in their weekend or their wellbeing. But the reality is that the vast majority of employees think that if you are talking to them, then there’s a problem.

I have dealt with so many organisations, whose staff believe that the only reason management talks to them is when something is wrong. Is this the truth? I am sure it isn’t – I am sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle of what management thinks and what the staff think. Whether this is actually true or not, though, is inconsequential. Their perception is their reality.

The vast majority of staff think: ‘no news is good news’. If no-one’s talking to you, then things must be ok.

Why does this happen?

There are two reasons:

Firstly, leaders in general, don’t talk to their staff enough. And the staff are actually right – they hear more about the bad than the good. If they do a good job, they are doing their job, right? No need for praise when someone just ‘does their job’. But, if they do a bad job, there is a flurry of activity. Now, even if you don’t actually get angry at the team member, there is a still a flurry of activity trying to rectify the situation. Therefore the bad gets more attention than the good.

Secondly, humans are hard-wired to be more sensitive to negatives than positives. This is a throwback to our evolution. As a survival machine, I couldn’t afford to miss a threat – like a predator – but I didn’t see an apple tree, it wasn’t going to kill me. So we learnt to become hypersensitive to negatives.

So, here’s what you need to do:

1) Just talk

This seems like a waste of time to a lot of people, but you would be surprised at how much you find out by just having a normal conversation with someone. They might bring up work or problems they are facing, and that’s ok, but that shouldn’t be your agenda. Your agenda should be learning about your people, and in particular what they like and what motivates them. It’s a chance to build rapport – and we tend to trust people with whom we have a good rappport.

2) Praise the good – a lot

To combat our natural tendency to remember negatives and not positives, we need to make sure that positive feedback outweighs negative. Make a set time each week to go through the team’s accomplishments and give them a verbal pat on the back. Do this without any negatives at all. Save them for another time.

3) Analyse the negatives

When there is some negative feedback to deliver, force your staff to analyse. When we wwitch on the analytical brain, it dulls the noise from our emotional centre. Ask ‘how’ questions – these make us analyse. Avoid ‘why’ questions, because this analysis actually switches the emotional brain on and makes us ruminate.

These are three simple things that you can do to help your people see that management isn’t all about dealing out punishment and bad news. Next time you ask ‘How are you going?’ you might be greeted with a smile rather than fear.

How often to you agree to something trivial, only to forget to actually follow through with it? Well, that trivial thing might have more impact than you think. Research shows that when we set expectations but don’t deliver, it has an enormously negative effect on people’s motivation.

We’ve all done it. We say “yes, sure. I’ll get onto that tomorrow.” And we forget. If you are a leader, then your ability to deliver on these commitments and expectations is paramount if you want your people to do their best work.

The Expectation Effect

Some recent research showed what happens to the dopamine levels inside our brains when we set expectations and if they are delivered. Remember, dopamine is the chemical that signals motivation, reward, makes us feel good, and keeps our attention. In short, it is THE performance chemical.

The researchers measure the level of dopamine in subjects under a number of conditions. When the researchers told people they were going to get a financial reward, the level of dopamine went up dramatically. Later, when those people received their financial reward, the level of dopamine went up again – to exactly the same level.

This shows us that expecting to get a reward is produces the exact same effect on our dopamine levels as actually getting the reward.

But what happened when the reward wasn’t given? In this case, the dopamine levels didn’t only drop back to baseline, nor did they stay the same as previously. When subjects found out that they weren’t ogint to get the expected reward, dopamine levels dropped off the scale. This represents a severe decline in motivation, attention and even problem solving, amongst other performance traits.

A little disappointment goes a long way

Most people think this only works for significant rewards, but it also happens for relatively ‘trivial’ things. Have you ever been waiting to cross the road at a set of lights, maybe you’re in a bit of a hurry, you press the button to get the walk signal and wait patiently. The other direction gets their walk signal and start crossing the road. Surely your turn’s next. The cars start racing through the intersection again for a while, then comes the red light. It should be your turn, but instead, somehow the other crosswalk lights up again and you are left waiting.

The expectation was that it was your turn to cross next. When it didn’t happen, you most likely got really irritated. This is a trivial thing, but it still set that dopamine response into action. If you were really in a hurry, chances are it also elicited some irrational behaviours and thinking.

And so it is with our people. Send that dopamine response on the downslide and you’ll find that they can’t do their best work – they might become irrational and exhibit some behaviours that aren’t productive.

Upholding expectations is a simple process that has very effective results. Stay on top of this if you want your people to do their best work.

Why do we cooperate?

The simple explanation is that cooperation is evolutionarily rewarding. The story goes like this:

�We were only able to defeat much larger, more dangerous species because of our ability to work together � to cooperate, work in teams and help each other out. That�s how we became the earth�s dominant animal�.

But this only makes sense at a species level. If we look at our own individual survival, it would be far more beneficial sometimes not to cooperate. We could hoard more resources for ourselves, benefit from other people�s misfortune and generally get ahead.

And this sometimes happens. People forgo cooperation in favour of their own individual benefit.

So how do we enforce cooperation and fairness? There are some simple rules, spawned from evolution and game theory, that tend to work for all species. And, whether inadvertently or be design, eBay has implemented these principles to create one of the true self-regulating markets of the information age. So let�s take a look at the principles

Principle #1 � Open-Book Play forces cooperation

Open-Book Play simply means that all people participating in the �game� are able to see how everyone else has played in past games. If everyone knows what sort of strategy you adopt (do you cheat regularly or do you usually do the right thing?) then you are more likely to cooperate. eBay publishes your feedback right alongside your username. If people can see what you�ve done in the past, you�re more likely to do the right thing.

Principle #2 � Repeated Interactions

We are most likely to cheat if there is a one-off interaction with no future consequence. eBay can�t stop people having only one interaction, but this is obviously rare. And even though you might have only one interaction with a particular buyer or seller, you will have repeated interactions with the eBay community. This works in conjunction with Principle #1 to ensure cooperation.

Principle #3 � Third Party Punishment

One of the most compelling �rules� of cooperation is the idea of third party punishment. Cooperation flourishes when A does something bad to B, and C, an observing bystander, punishes A for doing so. eBay makes this happen again through the publishing of past performance. If you do the wrong thing, you can essentially be �punished� by way of others excluding you from the game. At eBay, that means that no one will want to sell to you or buy from you.

So how can we apply this in an every day business setting? Here are four things you can start doing straight away.

Make the rules transparent

Rules are the first thing that we need to focus on. Before we are able to hold people accountable for any behaviours, we need to make the rules of engagement clear. Work through these with your team. How do you want to treat each other? How do you want to treat clients?

Enforce the rules in public

There is an age old management saying: praise in public, punish in private. This is a great thing to remember, but there also needs to be a delicate balance. If someone breaks the team rules, people within the team need to know that something is being done about it. If they think that you are not paying attention to these behavioural discrepancies, they won�t understand that the rules are genuine.� Also, as the above principles of cooperation demonstrate, if your team members don�t understand that their reputation is on the line � they can break the rules without fear of damaging their reputation.

Make working together a part of every day

Make sure there are repeated, mutually beneficial interactions amongst your staff in some way, shape or form every single day. You�d be surprised how little cooperation is necessary in most teams � because we don�t create common goals that people genuinely need to work together to achieve.

Create mutual accountability

Mutual accountability is the holy grail of teamwork. Set an expectation that you want your staff to hold each other accountable � that it shouldn�t be up to the leader to do it all the time. After all, what happens when the leader isn�t there to see something happen? This is something you can do only once you have a high level of trust and support in the team and a commitment to open and honest communication.

If you can somehow implement the cooperation principles, then your level of collaboration is going to go up enormously. It�s a tough thing to do, but it�s worth the investment.

See www.tony-wilson.com.au for more

This is the third in the series on creating a Vision that means something.

For Part One �Vision, Emotion and the Five Million Dollar Question� � click here

For Part Two �Times Table, Humiliation and Two Tips for an Emotional Vision� � click here

Last week my wife was sick. So it was up to me to look after the kids (lunches, school drop off, pick up, organise activities for the ones not at school etc). But I also had a couple of impending deadlines that I had to meet. I juggled this for four days, and felt pretty proud of myself. However, when my wife finally rose from her sick bed (and I told her how easy her job was � big mistake), she pointed out that I hadn�t done a lot of things she usually does: Namely the washing and grocery shopping.

It wasn�t that I didn�t think these things were important, or that I didn�t really have time � I just didn�t �see� them. With all the other stuff going on, these things didn�t even get my attention, so they didn�t get done.

Our actions are the sum of what we pay attention to.

If we pay attention to the right things, and shut out distractions (the wrong things) we end up choosing the most productive behaviours. If we attend to the wrong things, the opposite happens.

Those domestic chores weren�t front of mind because they weren�t going to affect me that week, and they hadn�t affected me before. I didn�t pay attention to them.

Vision Front of Mind

In many ways, a Vision acts the same way for people. If the Vision is front of mind, we find ways to affect it more often. We look for opportunities to contribute, we find time to do things that actively help us work towards it. If it isn�t front of mind, it ends up like the washing � with no attention and therefore no effort.

In the last post, we discussed how to make a Vision appeal to emotion � thereby making it somewhat memorable. Here are two other tips keep it front of mind:

1)�� It needs to be short

If your Vision is more than a couple of sentences, then it is not going to be memorable. There is enough research to suggest that we only remember about 4-7 bits of information (words, numbers etc) at any given point in time. For a Vision � the shorter the better

2)�� Hang it on something people already know

In their breakthrough book �Made to Stick� the Heath brothers mention that information is easier to process if it attaches to something we already know.

Their example is in the description of a fruit called the �polemo�. The first explanation talks about the rind, the colour, the flesh etc and it gives you a certain interpretation. The second, more effective explanation merely says �a polemo is basically a supersized grapefruit with a very thick and soft rind.� Much easier.

If we can attach the Vision to things that people already know, we capitalise on current interpretations

3)�� Make it sound familiar

An extension of #2 above, the more you can make the vision sound like something they already know, the better. Think of current slogans, proverbs and popular culture and then try to design your vision to sound somewhat like those.

This is Part II in our series on creating a Vision that means something. See the related posts below for the others

We want people to remember our vision, right?

Well it pays to understand exactly what we remember and why. Think about these two things that I am sure you have no trouble remembering: 1) the equation 3×3=9, and 2) a time in your life when you were humiliated.

How do we learn?

Whether it is memory or motor skills, learning is the result of something called Long Term Potentiation (LTP). Very simply, as we learn (say, 3×3=9) we build a �pattern� of neural activity, which is essentially an electrical current. Now, at first this electrical current travels slowly � we may need to count 3×3 on our fingers � like the �wires� don�t carry the signal too well. But eventually 3×3=9 becomes automatic and at this point the �wires� seem to become super-conductive and the electrical signal literally races along the neurons. This is learning � or LTP � the neural pattern for a certain memory or behaviour is so well trained that it happens automatically. And it only takes place when the electrical signal is �strong� enough.

There are two ways that this electrical signal becomes �strong� enough.

Firstly, the signal itself may not be that strong, but if it happens over and over again, the cumulative effect can be strong enough. Take the case of 3×3=9. Why do you remember it? Because you have heard it so many times. While the signal isn�t that strong, the cumulative strength of hearing it over and over again is.

The other way is if the signal is so great that LTP happens immediately. For a signal to be this strong, it needs to be tied to an emotional signal. While 3×3=9 is not emotional, that humiliating event definitely was. So, although that event hasn�t happened over and over again (I hope), you still remember it vividly.

The Vision that you want people to remember needs to have the same components: it needs to be repeated often and it needs to be emotional, which is what I�m dealing with in this post.

How do we make a Vision appeal to emotion? Here are two tips:

1)���� Create an Imbalance

Most theories of motivation and behaviour propose that all behaviour and learning is the result of an imbalance between what we currently have and what we would ideally like to have. For the majority of workers, there is no imbalance � they are quite happy going about their work everyday.

To create an imbalance, we need to contrast what their position is currently, versus what it could be in the future. Painting a picture, and a contrast, between the current state and the potential future state is a surefire way to create an emotional response.

We all like to hold onto our positive self-perceptions and when we see a better alternative to what we have now, we are pulled in that direction.

One caveat � the future state has to reflect something that your staff actually wants.

2)���� Use common language

Consider these two differing statements that I heard recently at a management retreat:

a) “We set high business outcomes for our clients and we deliver on those expectations in a timely and complete manner”

Does that inspire you? Probably not. Now consider this alternative:

b) “We do what we say we’re going to do”

The second option actually makes you feel something and one of the reasons is that it uses common language. Or more accurately because it doesn�t use business-speak.

The problem with humans is that we have competing parts of our brains for emotions and logic. If you�ve ever had an emotional argument and left thinking: �I had so many great retorts, but I couldn�t think of them!� then you know this is true.� In fact, it is impossible for us to switch on our Limbic System (emotions) at the same time as our Pre-Frontal Cortex (analysis and logic).

Business-speak forces us to analyse. It makes us turn on the analytical part of our brain and this switches off the emotional part. A Vision with too much analytical language literally forces people to switch off emotionally.

To create a Vision that means something, you have to go out on a limb. That is why it is so hard. Go out on a limb to create something that means something emotionally to your people, set a path for something better, and go out on a limb and sound like a normal person instead of a manager.

Only 5% of People can actually recite vision:

While speaking at a lunch the other day, I asked the same questions I ask every audience:

1) Who has a company Vision?

At this point the entire audience raises their hands. The other day, there were two hundred people in total, and I couldn�t see one person without their hand up in the air.

Then comes the follow up question:

2) Who can clearly articulate that Vision? And I mean, come up on the stage, take the microphone for 60 seconds and let everyone know what the Vision is and what it means.

Now at this point, without fail, only about 5% of the room puts their hands in the air.

This is disturbing.

The $5m Question:

After all, almost every organisation has a Vision, but why do we create these? Is it just something to put on the wall and walk past every now and then? Clearly not. We build a Vision in order to guide people�s actions and inspire them to turn up to work everyday.

There is something I like to call the �5 Million Dollar Question�. Put simply, it�s this: if one of your employees won $5 million today, would they still turn up to work tomorrow. The answer for most organisations is �no way�. But a clear vision that inspires people and causes them to come to work everyday with a sense of purpose has the potential to supersede financial motivation.

So where do we go so wrong?

A compelling vision needs three main attributes if we really want it to do it�s job:

1) It needs to be EMOTIONAL
It has to appeal to people�s emotions in order to incite the kind of motivation and purpose that people really want. Without an emotional response, the next two factors are hard to execute.

2) It needs to be MEMORABLE
The Vision needs to be constructed so that people can recall it easily. One of the key roles of Vision is to shape people�s actions. And since we make choices on an hourly basis about the behaviours we undertake, the guiding Vision needs to be front of mind so that people make the right choice more often than not

3) It needs to be CREDIBLE
Without credibility, people won�t believe. If it�s too far fetched, has no evidence or is something that didn�t work in the past, then be prepared for people to actually disengage.

So these are the three main criteria that a Vision needs to fulfil. If yours doesn�t match up, then scrap it and start again. Don�t keep the Vision alive just because it�s always been there.

In the next few posts, I am going to elaborate on each of the three factors and talk about the usual stumbling blocks that people face.