Conflict Strategies for Nice People - Liane Davey by Liane Davey | 12:00 PM December 25, 2013 Do you value friendly relations with your colleagues? Are you proud of being a nice person who would never pick a fight? Teams need conflict to function effectively. Still, I meet people every day who admit that they aren’t comfortable with conflict. Sure, pulling your punches might help you maintain your self-image as a nice person, but you do so at the cost of getting your alternative perspective on the table; at the cost of challenging faulty assumptions; and at the cost of highlighting hidden risks. To overcome these problems, we need a new definition of nice. The secret of having healthy conflict and maintaining your self-image as a nice person is all in the mindset and the delivery. To start shifting your mindset, think about your value to the team not in how often you agree, but in how often you add unique value. Here are a few tips on improving your delivery: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Reading the Seven Universal Expressions | Big Think Mentor The human face is a universal signal system. In fact, it is the most precise signal system we have for our emotions. We can read seven different emotions and we can read whether they're being falsified or whether they are genuine expressions. These emotions are: AngerFearSadnessDisgustEnjoymentSurpriseContempt As renowned psychologist Paul Ekman explains, each of these emotional words stands for a family of feelings. We also experience different types of anger. In a new 5-part workshop on Big Think Mentor, Ekman introduces viewers to key principles and techniques for mastering the art of reading emotions. Sign up for a free trial of Big Think Mentor and learn more about microexpressions and other non-verbal communications here: Why was the universality of emotions so important to Charles Darwin? Darwin published his thoughts in the book The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals, published in 1872. How important are our facial expressions and why did they evolve the way they did?
The Steve Jobs emails that show how to win a hard-nosed negotiation The US government’s price-fixing lawsuit against Apple goes to trial next month in New York. Ahead of its court date, the US released emails that purport to show Apple was the “ringleader” in a scheme to set artificially high ebook prices with some of the largest American publishers, which have already settled the case. The emails have mostly been viewed in the context of the lawsuit, but they also provide an extraordinary view of high-stakes negotiation between the leaders of two powerful firms, Apple and News Corp. They start far apart, but over the course of five days, Apple’s then-CEO Steve Jobs successfully pulls the son of News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch over to his side. Jobs was a famously hard-nosed negotiator who won these kinds of battles all the time. News Corp.’s opening move It was a Friday morning, January 22, 2010. Those were the stakes as Eddy Cue, Apple’s head of iTunes and the App Store, visited executives of HarperCollins and its parent company, News Corp. Jobs digs in
Crisis Leadership: Are You Always Putting Out Fires? When I was in city management, I worked with the fire chief. A good fire chief knows how to put out fires. When the fire truck arrives at the scene of the fire, everyone’s role has previously been defined. Everyone knows what they’re supposed to do. There’s a “standard operating procedure” for just about every scenario. At the scene of a fire, there’s no time for collaborative decision-making. Crisis situations require decisive action. On the other hand, the same characteristics of leadership in a crisis situation will be ineffective and counter-productive if there is no crisis present. Ironically, some people are leading like there’s always a crisis. Non-crisis situations require collaborative action.
Can bytes save the future? The money value delusion King Midas got his highest wish granted: All he touched turned to gold. Here seen with his golden daughter. He starved to death shortly after. On behalf of us all, investors make the same mistake as King Midas did. Mate choice and sexual selection is the ultimate evolutionary force that has shaped the human mind. Fortunately, attractive mate strategies also include the urge to display generosity and cooperation. "I’ll die before I’m 25, and when I die I will have lived the way I wanted to." The universal locations of cognitive mechanisms are now read with brain scanning techniques. A model of the ultimate representative democracy, adjusted for Norway. Cultures are in this way manifestations of the roots of sexual selection. 1. 2. Is it possible to design a democratic, solidary and sustainable society, stabilised by human ingroup drivers? 1. 2. 3. A safer future can be planned.
Who Can You Trust? Imagine that you’re negotiating a multiyear deal to provide outsourcing services to a large company. The client tells you that her firm wants to sign on for a certain level of services, but she’d like you to be willing to deliver more on the fly, trusting that you’ll be able to work out terms for the additional resources as the need arises. Should you agree? Or imagine that a potential business partner wants to buy $12 million worth of services from you but can spend only $10 million because of temporary budget constraints. He dangles the prospect of long-term revenue opportunities in exchange for the discount but says he can’t commit to anything yet. Should you give him the deal? Situations such as these present dilemmas for any manager. The two scenarios above come from a friend of mine—let’s call him Rob—who is a partner at one of the world’s largest consulting firms. Success in business unquestionably requires some willingness to cooperate with and have faith in others.
Influential Leaders Ask These 6 Questions The key to being a powerful leader isn't giving orders -- it's extending your influence. And one important way to do that is by spreading and soliciting new ideas. As an influential leader, you are a conduit of ideas. Zig-Zag Into Interactions Many great ideas originate (or are developed) organically, often through informal interactions rather than formal meetings -- the adult version of midnight discussions in the hallway of your college dorm. What do you think about this idea I have? Rather than schedule these interactions, which can feel too formal and potentially stifling, you should budget five or ten extra minutes to zig-zag your way to meetings, lunch or even the restroom. While some of your interactions might be in-depth, most of them should simply about connecting with people for no immediate business reason. Start small: Try zig-zagging into these conversations once a week for a month ... and watch your leadership influence grow.
6 studies of money and the mind Paul Piff shares some of his research on the science of greed at TEDxMarin. How does being rich affect the way we behave? In today’s talk, social psychologist Paul Piff provides a convincing case for the answer: not well. Paul Piff: Does money make you mean? The swath of evidence Piff has accumulated isn’t meant to incriminate wealthy people. The good news: it doesn’t take all that much to counteract the psychological effects of wealth. To hear more of Piff’s thoughts on the effects of having—or lacking—wealth, watch his compelling talk. Finding #1: We rationalize advantage by convincing ourselves we deserve it The study: In a UC Berkeley study, Piff had more than 100 pairs of strangers play Monopoly. The results: The rich players moved their pieces more loudly, banging them around the board, and displayed the type of enthusiastic gestures you see from a football player who’s just scored a touchdown. Finding #2: People who make less are more generous…on the small scale