Just Like Me

Are we really all the same?

There is a great deal of interest in behavioral research over the past several years, and the energy around the topic hasn't waned. From pop psychology books to academic studies of leadership, there is renewed interest in what makes people behave the way they do. To research these differences, large samples are often taken from across several companies and disciplines – this ensures the data is statistically relevant to a larger population.

This practice alone surfaces an implicit assumption that shared behavioral traits exist within certain functions and organizations.

During a guided visit to a busy trading floor, the people there were described as pampered, very hardworking, and compensation driven. A recent stop at a financial advisory office struck me because every person dressed alike, and had shared vocal intonations, mannerisms, and gait. At a recent nonprofit gathering, the similarities in personality were absolutely striking. At a funeral I attended a few years ago, someone looked at my pin-striped suit, cuff-links, and polished shoes and said “oh, you must be a banker” - which I was.

Every day we are able to function more efficiently by thin-slicing parts of our world (nod to Gladwell's book Blink), ascribing characteristics to particular people and things based on our prior experiences with similar people and things. We know that, generally speaking, similar people have similar traits.

Think about these statements, one by one. Likely an image will form in your mind as to characteristics of the people.

• He's a boxer


• She's a ballerina


• He's an administrative assistant


• She's a president

Is it valid to think this way?

Eat That Frog, by Brian Tracy

I've just finished Brian Tracy's 2007 book, Eat That Frog, 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, and found it to be a quick and interesting read.  Brian is a writer, speaker, and consultant focused on both personal and corporate development.

The major themes of the book:

• Determine what's really important to you, where you want to be/go/become in the future.  Do so from both career and personal perspectives


• Determine which tasks (frogs) are most important in achieving these goals


• Tackle the biggest, ugliest frog first, and finish that task all the way through.  To achieve this, carve the big task into smaller, bite-sized tasks (insert eating an elephant reference here :) ).  With that one complete, tackle the next hardest and finish it as well


• While doing these things, be sure to get plenty of sleep, time away from technology, and exercise at least 250 minutes per week

MarketWatch article:"What I've Learned From the Market Bubbles"

Quick hit:  check out "What I've Learned From the Market Bubbles" on MarketWatch.  Very quick read, and a nice macro view of a repeating bubble trend.

Lunch

It's almost always enjoyable to connect with someone over food or coffee.  I really like sitting down with someone over lunch, learning more about the individual's purpose, work, and what makes him or her tick. There are lots of reasons to connect with others, and each type of interaction has its own benefit:

• History. The other person's experience reminds me of things I've done before, maybe not as well, or maybe better


• The Now. We're experiencing the same pains or joys, and compare notes and next moves


• Virtual Travel. I get to take a vicarious journey to an situation or place I've never been (skydiving, anyone?).


• Improvement. We philosophize or have a mental jousting of sorts, sharpening one another with competing logic and new information

I have a very strong preference for the other person to select where we'll have lunch. Very.  There are specific reasons for this:

Better Speakers, Better Leaders, Better Communicators

I've just completed a term as president of my local Toastmasters club, Gateway to Speaking Excellence. During my year in office, the theme of the club was the same as the title of this blog post. When asked to describe Toastmasters, I say something like this:  “Toastmasters is a safe-to-succeed, safe-to-fail environment in which we practice becoming better speakers, better leaders, and better communicators every single day.”

Wondering about the cheesy name?

Insubordination and followership

Browsing Bloomberg the other day I found Rosabeth Moss Kanter's review of Obama's firing of General McChrystal from a management and leadership perspective.  It was a reprint from a Harvard Business Review blog.  HBR has a couple of other posts around the firing that might be interesting, including this one and this one.

Two energy giants

With all of the emotional charge swirling around BP as of late, I thought it might be interesting to look at a couple of other players in the energy markets.

BP is sitting at just under $30 a share and market capitalization just under $93B, about half of where it was pre-Gulf-oil-spill crisis.  The dividend has been canceled for the first three quarters of 2010, and it's being reported in Bloomberg and elsewhere that a cash injection could be coming in the next few days to stave off takeover bids.