Quieting the Self

Another paper on happiness that I was reading had some very interesting advice.  The researchers mentioned three ways that one can quiet the self and become part of an emergent social entity, which leads to a unique kind of hive happiness.

One was is individual.  You can quiet yourself through productive means like yoga and meditation.  You can also quiet yourself through less productive means like drugs and alcohol.  In both cases, you quiet yourself, but don’t necessarily join a collective. So this is only second best (the yoga/meditation, not the drugs/alcohol).

The second is in “hives.”  This is the term they use for groups of 10-100.  They are large enough that your personal contribution is not essential/salient but small enough that you are not meaningless/anonymous.  This is the one they consider ideal.

The third is subservience.  In this way, you let someone else make all the decisions and you are an anonymous part of the group.  Fascism does this at the political level and some cults do this at the religious level.  This is the one these researchers dislike the most. 

I find it interesting because I will expand it to workplace management. Can we use the idea of hive happiness to make our workplace more productive.  I know this sounds kind of touchy-feely, but there is research behind it.  The first insight is to create a sense of community among your team.  Not just work collaboration, but things like a softball team, group happy hours after work, or getting together to watch the local sports team.  Something not work-related that creates a social bond.  The second comes from Robert Sutton at Stanford. He calls it the no a--hole rule.  Just one of these can ruin the hive happiness, even if everyone else gets along.  It’s up to the manager to remove the a—hole from the team.

The pursuit of happiness

As many of you know by now, I am a dedicated reader of the happiness literature. Not the touchy-feely stuff, but the real academic scholarship on the subject. Despite large individual differences, there are several insights that are consistent around the world.

The old stuff you already know. In brief, long term happiness is frequently based on who you are comparing yourself to, which is usually

• your work and life community (office, church, neighbors),
• celebrities (which us unhealthy because they are all rich and beautiful),
• your own past (the most memorable parts, which are often extremes of the good and bad),
• the previous generations you can remember (parents, and for some of us grandparents).

This is why when national GDP or standards of living are growing fast, we tend to be happier, but then if it then plateaus, we lose that extra happiness. It’s not being well off that makes you happy, its comparative well-being that matters.

Some new research I have been reading lately adds to this. They discovered that we are more likely to habituate to some happy experiences than others. For example, when something is constant (the size of your home), you get really happy when you first move in, but then that happiness wears down as you get used to the new house. On the other hand, the length of your commute is hit or miss because of traffic, accidents, etc. So moving to a house that has an easier/shorter commute makes you happy for a much longer time, although the initial boost is not as large. One challenge of this is that human cognition is very focused in instant gratification. So the big initial boost of happiness from the big house usually dominates our choice of where to live. So we pick the option that gives us more short term happiness but less long term happiness.

This study also looked at easy to measure things v hard to measure things. If your happiness is more focused on the past (your own or generational comparisons), measurable things are more effective. The size of your or your parents TV in the 1980s will never change. And it is probably bigger now. So the comparison is favorable and the happiness boost will be more consistent. But if your happiness is more focused on the present (community or celebrity), then measurable things are not effective. Celebrities TVs will always be bigger than yours (just watch “Cribs” once to see what I mean). And at least one of your neighbors will always be boasting about his new big screen high-def TV. The ones with the small ones keep their mouths shut, so all we usually hear about are the ones that are bigger than ours and the comparison is not happy.

On the other hand, unmeasurable things can really make you happy, even comparing to your neighbors. So for example, volunteering at a local charity. You feel good about it and your neighbors can’t really do it “better.” Or watching a good TV show (often with your celebrities in it and maybe even watching with your neighbors). Everyone gets the same options and people all have different tastes. Listening to music, reading a good book, etc. People who enjoy these are happier because they are not always comparing. The study uses the example of investing in a better heating system or in jewelry. The heating system will give you more long term happiness, but the jewelry gives you more instant gratification, so you are more likely to think jewelry will make you happier.

Customer experiences are more complicated than they appear

This is a great example of understanding the complexity of the customer experience. I just bought eggs at CVS. Usually the expiration date is on the outside of the container. But because there are always one or two cracked eggs in each container, you have to take two or three out and find 12 that are whole. But if there are different expiration dates, you can mix up your own as well as the next persons.

So this company (not sure of the vendor) stamps each egg with the expiration date. They understand these two competing customer requirements (expiration dates and no broken ones) and were willing to spend a little extra on their packaging process to give it to them.

Salmonella is not pretty. I'm not sure a new container design would be better at preventing breakage. So a good tradeoff I think.

Heat and revenge

Two different streams of research have found the same conclusion. When it is hot, your aggression goes up, but not in general. Mostly it is the revenge component that goes up.

One of the studies looked at baseball. The chance of a pitcher retaliating for hit batsmen is much higher in 95 degree weather than 55 degree weather.

The other study looked at indoor environments. People were more likely to view others’ actions as hostile and it lowered the threshold at which people took revenge for the hostile action.

The benefit of the baseball study is that it isolates all of the other cultural variables that interact with perceptions and actions. The benefit of the second study was that it is more ecologically valid (more like our real lives).

So if you are managing a hot workplace, whether it’s outdoors or just near hot machines and processes, this is something you have to worry about. Try to keep the temperature below the 90s. And if you can’t, take some preliminary actions to prevent revenge and hostility. That can really destroy workplace morale and productivity.

HF and food labels

As I said in the previous post, I was volunteering at a food bank today. I discovered something very related to some research I have done in the past (and blog about frequently). Food labels.

My job today was running the tuna section. This may sound simple, but tuna is an inexpensive and nonperishable protein. Probably the least expensive and least perishable of all meat proteins. So it is very common for food banks. We get donations of canned tuna from individuals and grocery stores. I had at least 20 different kinds. There were brand names and store brands, there was oil-packed and water-packed; there was chunk light, chunk white, and solid white. There was regular and low-sodium. There were even a couple of onesies that were yellow-fin or some other special tuna species.

I had to keep them all separate because people came in with different needs. Children should stick with the chunk light because there is less mercury. Many of the elderly clients need low sodium because of diabetes, hypertension or some other medical condition. Those on diets wanted water-packed. Some asked for a brand name to make sure it was Kosher. So I had to get very familiar with the labels. Here are some things I discovered that are certainly not clear on the label.

There are 5oz and 7oz cans, which are hard to tell apart by size or by label.

The sodium ranges from 6% RDA to 10% RDA. Most of the cans that are actually labeled “low-sodium” are 6%. But so are most of the others. There was one can that was only 2% and didn’t have any low-sodium label. And there was one at 8% that said “not a low-sodium product.” So apparently the labeling has no rhyme or reason to it. You have the check the back if you care.

The serving sizes are smaller than they used to be. In the 90s, the regular size cans were all 6oz. Now they are all 5oz and the 7oz cans are labeled “larger cans” (although not clearly). The serving size is now two in a 5-oz can and three in a 7-oz can. It used to be two in a 6-oz can.

The number of calories is all different, which means some of the cans have more water and less tuna in them, even though the cans are the same size. Some brands are cheating you by putting in extra water. And the ones packed in oil assume you will drain the oil so that isn’t included on the nutrition label.

There were no labels about mercury anywhere. I happen to know that chunk light has less than solid white albacore so it’s better for kids. But if not for me, the other packers would have had no clue. You’d think this is even more important than most of the information they did label. Especially if the different between regular and low sodium is 2%

The libertarian in me doesn’t want to see this regulated by the government. If I was to eat high fat or high sodium tuna, I should be able to. But in order to make an informed choice, I need to be able to tell which is which and what is what. If a product as simple as canned tuna has this much variation in the label, I can’t imagine families trying to eat smart and buy the right foods for their kids. My 1990s research showed that people don’t look at detailed labels and rely on the front labels that say “low” this or “no” that. They don’t know exactly what it means, but if they need something to be low (or high), this is all they go by. Apparently, they are wasting their time. Either you have to study the detailed nutrition table or you are just wasting your time.

Emotion and long term memory

There is a good deal of research on the relationship between emotion and long term memory. I have blogged about this before. It came to mind today because I was volunteering at a food bank, which is my favorite thing to do. I would rather do this than take a vacation to an exotic island.

The research shows that looking back on past events (i.e. long term memory), what matters is the peak emotional feeling and the final emotional feeling of the event. So no matter if your vacation was a day, a week, or a month, if you had one really incredibly exciting activity and the last activity was enjoyable, you will have good long term memory of the vacation, even if the rest sucked. And the opposite is also true. If you had one really terrible disappointing activity and argued with the reception desk on checkout, you will have a very negative emotional connection to the memory, even if the rest of it was great.

Why did this come to mind while volunteering today? The last thing I did was grab a cup of coffee to go. They have one of those single serving machines. One of the other volunteers was working on that counter and she said in a really snitty voice “please throw your trash away this time.” I am usually good about throwing away trash and other basic consideration things and I didn’t remember leaving trash anywhere, but I will take her word for it that I had. Of course, there isn’t much trash in these things. All I could have left was the used coffee pack. Not exactly a mess. I am guessing there was something else behind her comment.

But it bothered me because I really value being considerate and polite. One of my favorite memories was being complimented on the way out of an airplane by the flight attendant who told me I was the most polite passenger she had ever served. And this was ten years ago. And since this was the last thing I did before I left, it ruined the day. On the way home, I was thinking about how happy the rest of the morning made me and wondered how such a little thing could have brought me down so far, so fast. Then I remembered the research and it dawned on me. I should have gone back in and loaded a few more delivery packages before leaving so that wouldn’t have been the last thing.

As usual with my posts, you have to get to the end to find out how to apply this. In both team management and in customer service management there are some insights you should draw from this. Imagine you are running a retail establishment. What is the last thing that the customer experiences on the way out? If it’s the cashier, then you want to hire/train/motivate cashiers to be very friendly, not just good at math. If you are managing a hotel, you want the checkout process to be exceptionally smooth.

For the team manager, you can focus on the peak activity. No matter how challenging and stressful a job is, if there is one really fun exciting event, let’s say once every month or so, then your employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention will go up. Think about something you can do, just every once in a while, that will bring a big smile to each employee’s face. Perhaps for one it could be simple recognition – a pat on the back and a “you really did a great job today.” For others, it might be being surprised with a pizza at the end of a long shift.

Sports Fan Science - Final

Well, I finished the book so here is the last sports fan science post. This highlights the differences between being a fan of the live sport, sports video games, and sports fantasy leagues. Some of the motivations are the same (need for achievement, need for social), but perhaps at a different magnitude. And others are true for only one kind of fan but not the others.

Fantasy sports leagues of all kinds have become incredibly popular – football and baseball are the biggest, but there is NASCAR, World Cup Soccer, golf, and lots more. Some of the differences in motivation may be obvious. People with a strong need for control get into fantasy sports because you actually manage the team. Also, people who enjoy problem solving, especially quantitative problem solving. Also, people with a high need for self-esteem and competition like fantasy sports because wins and losses are really your own. Some of the research finds that people try harder in leagues where they know the other people more than the anonymous leagues run by ESPN, Yahoo etc. And even just having your real name instead of an alias makes people try harder. It changes the need for aggression outlet too. You don’t get that through playing fantasy sports, but you do if there is an active discussion board. The trash talking that goes on in these boards is pretty astounding. Fantasy sports also change the effects of a need for socialization. With real sports, you can go into a random sports bar, find people with a hat or shirt from your team, and get an instant bond. You can’t do this with fantasy sports. But the bonds you develop with other “managers” in your league can get very strong.

But for people with high need for self-identity, fantasy sports are not good. You have to pick players from all different teams, even the ones that rival your favorite teams, if you want to be competitive. Some of the research shows that playing fantasy sports decreases the attachment you have to your favorite teams in real life. I suspect these last two are the reasons I never got into fantasy sports, despite my high need for control and love for problem solving.

Sports video games have also become very popular. Madden football is huge. And they come out with new versions every year to reflect new players and updated player statistics. These are popular with people with high need for achievement, aggression (it’s amazing how gory some of these games can be), and problem solving. It also changes the effects of socialization. You can play against other people, either in person or on-line. But you can also play against a computer by yourself and decrease the social aspect of it.

How are these differences relevant here, other than what I have previously posted about customized motivation? It shows that subtle differences in context also impact motivation and incentives. You can take a worker from a manufacturing environment, shift him/her to R&D or marketing department, and their needs change. Or if you switch industries, there can be fundamental changes in the motivations and incentives that work. Even just changing organizational cultures can have a huge impact. This is perhaps the primary reason for mergers and acquisitions to fail. We saw that when Time Warner bought AOL a decade ago.

Sports Fan Science Part IV

There was a chapter that I thought was really interesting regarding what it said about different motivations for different people. This leads to different emotional responses based on how a sports event progresses.

For example, if you are a fan because of a need for self-esteem/self-identity/achievement, then a win makes you feel really good and a loss makes you feel really bad. No duh, you say? Well think about these other examples.

If you are a sports fan because of a need for stimulation, then you feel really good from a close game and not from a blowout. It is less important who wins. If you also have one of the above, you want a close game and a win.

If you are a sports fan because of a need for an outlet of aggression, then you get a lot our of rivalry games and less out of less relevant games like interleague in baseball. If the players get into fights or other aggressive behaviors, you get your outlet.

If you are a sports fan because of a need for social interaction, then it matters more how many people you are watching the game with and how excited they get. The actual game becomes less important, regardless of whether it’s close or not or who wins.

Some people have more than one motivation for being a sports fan, but some are dominated by one of these motivations and therefore have different reactions to different games. Two people can watch the same game, cheering for the same team, and one feels really good afterwards and the other doesn’t.

Again, you may ask why I am posting this here. Well, motivation is critical for understanding human cognition and information processing. Understanding different motivations is critical to being a good team leader. This same kind of analysis needs to be done on your team and then you need to differentiate the incentives and motivations you offer to each person depending on what will get them to be the most productive.

For example, there is a lot of research showing that financial and competitive incentives are good for people doing individual physical labor or rote cognitive tasks. But they are counterproductive when creativity and/or teamwork is needed. And some people are more motivated by financial incentives than other people are. Some people are more motivated by competition than other people are. Knowing the difference can make you a much better manager.

Long term fix for the job market

Great editorial in WaPo this morning about the job market and training. They discuss two basic improvements the government can make that would not be very hard but would have a significant benefit to jobs. One is process-based. As any IE knows, the two things that kill a process are delays and uncertainty. So they suggest that the administration revisit the way that new businesses and new business initiatives are regulated and streamline it so that it is faster and more reliable. The good thing about this is that other than the cost of doing the upfront investigation, it would save money in the long run.

The second recommendation is training-based. Most college graduates don’t have all the skills that companies want (and I’m a professor!!). Even worse, ten years after graduation, by the time their communication and teamwork and leadership skills are finally up to par, their technical skills have gotten old. So they suggest the government support training and retraining programs to solve these two challenges. To make this acceptable to both parties, I would recommend doing it in a way that the private sector decides on the content (because the government is not particularly good at this), but the government perhaps provides matching funds or tax credits to support the programs.

These are just my initial thoughts. I am sure you can all add some additional improvements. Please use the comments section to add.