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Tag: psychology

MyersBriggs *SF* vs *NT*

Published October 25, 2009 by Jo Jordan

The great distinction between the *SF* and the *NT* of the our world!

Overheard in a “period” novel on BBC Radio 4 from one sister to another who is more of a blue stocking:  Things remain the same even when we think them out!  And so we hear the great distinction between the *SF* and the *NT* of the world!

*SF*

.  .  .  say the facts don’t change when we understand how they come about.

*NT*

.  .  . say we will generate opportunities when we understand how the facts came to be.

And herein lies the paradox and limits of psychology

If I had to bet on who was an “optimist”, I would bet on the *SF*.  They are are usually more worldly and easier to get along with.

Yet the *NT* are more likely to be the innovators of the world and what is innovation if not optimism – faith in human nature for a start!

As a good *NT*, I agree with Kurt Lewin that there is nothing so practical as a good theory.  The explanatory power of old fashioned psychology has well-been reached.  We really should encourage psychology students to study literature too and celebrate and enjoy paradox!

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Financial Crisis Watch: We are up to sulking?

Published October 18, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Psychologists have a good 5 point rubric for understanding our reactions to grief, and anything unsettling.

First, we can’t take in the bad news.

Then, we get angry and look for someone to shout at.

When that doesn’t work, we sulk and bargain.

Failing again, we are confused, dejected and flail about without a plan.

Eventually, thankfully, we fall in love with life again.

Working, living and leading the bereaved

When we watch someone dealing with the death of a loved one, these stages are very clear.  Because the death is a fact, it is clear that they are having trouble absorbing the new reality into their life.  We do it easily because the person didn’t play such a big role in our lives and we have less to rearrange.  Our time will come.

Adjusting our identity

When the loss is something more nebulous, like our identity (not our credit cards but our sense of worth), then it is harder to see that someone is travelling a painful path. We just see someone who is being ill tempered, confused, difficult.

When the little boy asked Obama this week, “Why do people hate you?, Obama took great pains to explain to to the 9 year old the grief that his opponents feel in losing the election. He has the political maturity to understand why people are difficult and work with them anyway.

How long does it take to move through the grief cycle?

As a distant observer, I’ve been watching the underlying changes going in the States. Because I am not so close to the action, I watch dispassionately to see what is happening and to learn something that is not written up well in the psychological literature.

How long does it take for a population to adjust to stunning and inescapably bad news .   .   .  .  like Bank crashes, like the assumption of power by a new generation (Gen x)(if you are a Baby Boomer), by the invention of science we did not learn at school?

At lot has happened in the last two years.  When will we find our way out of the grief reaction?

2006 – We couldn’t believe that we were overspending.

2008 – Once Lehman crashed, we railed at irresponsible bankers.

2009 – We don’t want to work with the incoming President, redesign our banks, work with Nobel winning scientists even though they are already in the WhiteHouse.

When will we move into depression, and when will we fall back in love with life?

I suppose we must expect a period of depression and dejection soon.

And after that, we can get on with the job of using new developments in science, reaching out to other countries to build a new world order, include more people at home in the decision making and in the benefits of a strong economy, use the internet to make everything easier and work out the rules of a newer more respectful economy.

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Mana: between ourselves and others

Published October 5, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Introverts often enjoy solitary activities lik...
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In the west, we think about ourselves as individuals

We think of “individuals” as something real. Let me explain, what I mean.

You probably think of yourself as having a personality. You are introverted, or extroverted, for example.

And because that is “you”, you are always introverted or extroverted, wherever you are, and whomever you are with.  What’s more, because you are always the same, we can “measure” you, or your personality, with a test. And of course, psychologists do.

In other cultures, “individual” is not so central to thinking

It is quite hard to grasp, and quite hard to get our heads around the idea that people are not separate from their circumstances.

Where I grew up for example, people are described by their relationships to other people: mother of Jack, daughter of Sam, for example.  This not fuzzy thinking. It is very advanced thinking that we find hard.

People are not focusing on the person and the things around the person

They look at the space between the person and the things. Or, the space between one person and another.

Theory, philosophy, cultures, manners, all describe that space.

If you visit New Zealand, you will hear everyone, Maori and Pakeha, talking about Mana

Loosely, mana is a combination of status and respect.

Explained using our concepts, this is confusing. Mana comes partly from our character – who we are as an individual.  Mana also comes partly from our position, as a teacher, say.

Using our thinking, this seems untidy and undeveloped.

But mana, like concepts in other cultures, describes the space between people. When we we look at this space, mana makes perfect sense.

3 poetic phrases to explain mana for your new week

As a gift for the week, I thought I would share 3 phrases that I keep on my desk.   These quotations are from poets & scholars in the West who write about our need to look at the space between ourselves and others.

“put yourself inside the river”

“everything is waiting for you”

“strength is in contact with the environment”

Have a winning week!

And remember to look after your mana – the space between you and others.

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Is this today’s career choice- invest in crowd sourcing OR in expert filters?

Published October 2, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Absolute Radio launched its online radio last night. It runs under the name Dabbl from 7pm to 6am.  We nominate the tracks that they should play, and the most popular tracks win.

Dabbl as a lens on social media

A critical unresolved issue in social media is whether crowd sourcing can replace expertise.

Are our votes better than the opinions of expert DJ’s on Radio 6, for example?

I think, as ever, the proof will be in the pudding. We will have to see, in other words.

  • Do we take part?
  • Are the averages of our opinions as good as the expert knowledge of DJ’s?

Dabbl : an experiment we should all copy

Whatever the outcome – Dabbl are running a good experiment that every honest industry should finance and run.

  • How good is the filter made up by our average opinions?
  • With this baseline, experts can ask themselves a straight forward question.
    • Can we do better than the average opinion?
  • And if so how exactly do we do better?
    • How can we organize a service that is consistently better?
    • And how can we develop our service over time so that it continues to be better than average opinion?
    • In what way do our consumers think our service is better?
    • And who is so convinced by our superior performance that they are willing to fund it?

Welcome to the 21st century! I reckon Dabbl is beating the path to where we all will be soon.

What would be crowd-sourcing in your industry?

With Dabbl in front of me as a clear example, I am going to be thinking about this.  What would crowd-sourcing look like in psychology, management and consulting?

What would it mean to commit to a career in crowd-sourcing?

And what would it mean to commit to a career in an expert filter that competes with crowd-sourcing?

Is there a third choice?  And if so, what is it?

What will you be discussing with youngsters you coach?

  • Crowd-sourcing?
  • Expert filters that compete with crowd sourcing?

    UPDATE:  I think the third choice is to do both.  I think we should build platforms to crowdsource in our area and add the expertise on top.  Of course some might specialize in various aspects of the enterprise.   As a profession, I think crowdsourcing should be our basic foundation and there should be a seamless gradient to expert opinion.

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    Grittiness is happiness . . and prosperity

    Published September 26, 2009 by Jo Jordan

    smaller Lorenz_Ro28.
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    “It’s about survival, not ego”.

    So said Techcrunch about Pandora’s founder.

    Hmm. Losada used Lorenz equations to find 3 factors to distinguish successful business teams from unsuccessful teams.

    • Sincere requests for information slightly outnumber proposals for action
    • Positive comments outnumber negative statements by 5 to 1 (83% in other words)
    • Talk about the outside world slightly exceeds talk about the team.

    So sometimes the team is complaining that the team is shite.   Inactive, negative and internal.  That’s fine.  As long as later in the day they are talking about what their customers like and the positive points they will push off from.

    Unsuccessful teams get stuck in a place of gloom, or, in a place of self-congratulation.

    Successful teams swoop gloriously around the whole emotional space like a happy butterfly tracing its own shadow and colouring in the outline in 3D technicolor.

    Being in touch with reality in all its forms, good and bad, is what it is all about.

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    RSS’d to make your dream come true?

    Published September 20, 2009 by Jo Jordan

    RSS’d?

    If you aren’t, it probably won’t!  As a work psychologist, that was a subterranean text that I was hearing at the Oxford Social Media Convention on Friday.

    Matthew Hindman, for example, a political scientist from Arizona, tracks how the internet is used in politics in the US.  While we are raving about my.barackobama.com, Matthew is noting details that pass us by.

    For example, Obama won Ohio through marginal gains in Republican states which, in turn, were made on the back of careful statistical analysis of voting patterns.  I live in a small town in rural England, and RSS’ed or not, putting my hands on his book, The Myth of Digital Democracy, over the weekend is not a possibility.

    [If anyone knows how to efficiently read 200 page pdf files on a screen, please doooooo tell me the secret]

    Internet politics is not for the faint-hearted

    What I gathered of the overall message is this.

    The internet is a powerful tool in the hands of people who understand statistics, who understand politics, and who are motivated to get out there and do the work.

    What can political scientists (who watch the way we use the internet) teach those of us in business?

    Without benefit of the book and not knowing how to read long pdf documents efficiently on screen, I’ve been thinking about what I heard against what I already know.

    • When the barriers to entry are low, as they are on the internet, “every man and his dog” is able to enter the space.
    • Because so many people are in the space, competition is fierce, and profits are low.
    • Because profits are low, consolidation and scale is important.
    • And people who have already invested hugely (think TESCO’s for example) will protect their investment and are going to play hardball with we ‘noobes’.

    Porter’s 5 factor model and my internet business

    I like messing around with numbers and seeing what they can tell us about what we are doing and where we are going.  So I look forward to seeing the data Matthew has put together and seeing what analyzes we could do here in UK in both the political and business arenas.

    The progress that I’ve made so far, is that I am hearing the principles of Porter’s 5 factor model of business conditions.

    • The internet is an unattractive industry precisely because it is easy to get into. [Barriers to entry are low]
    • When we work in the internet, we have to organize our work to “take care of the pennies”. [Cost leadership]
    • We also have to get quite big to have enough volume to make a profit.

    Can I conclude from this train of thought that in the internet world, organizing and organizational skills are critical?  Have we even thought about the challenges of “taking care of the pennies”? [Not a lot! Time to begin!]

    And am I RSS’d to do the work involved?

    Which of my ventures can I be RSS’d to do ALL the work it takes to win?

    [I am trying to remember who made the RSS joke. Iain Dale! Politicians do not know their RSS from their elbows!]

    Parallels with running a psychological practice

    This isn’t a new problem for me.  I am a psychologist by trade and I’ve spent countless hours over the years talking about exactly the same issues in our businesses. . . oops!. . .professional practices.

    We have exactly the same ‘problem’.   Anyone can dispense psychological advice – and they do.  My profession tries various tricks like protecting the name and putting up artificial licenses to stop other people using various procedures.

    We do all that to escape the the hard reality that we need both organization and professional knowledge to run a profitable practice.  The amateur sees our interaction with our clients.  They copy that.  They pinch our materials and copy what they see us do.   What they don’t see and don’t copy is the back end.

    That infuriates us because the back end is expensive.

    When we get over being annoyed, we can turn this relationship around. Our back end is worth what we pay for it because it allows us to answer three questions consistently and better than the amateur who trying to copy us without sufficient investment in the ‘going concern’.

    • Do we understand our clients deeply in ways that they care about?
    • Are we there for them when they need us?
    • Does our analysis of their issues and concerns help them act and act effectively in the mess, rough and tumble of their own lives?

    It feels so ‘wrong’ to have to compete with amateurs. And ‘noobes’ deeply resent the cost of the the organization structure to deliver a competitive service and the time it takes to put it together.  Oh, the conversations I’ve had and the time I’ve spent getting my head around this.

    But that’s business when barriers to entry are low.  It is part of our professionalism to know that.  Porter’s Five Forces does explain that – in every first year business text.   We should know that we need a professional organization to give our message efficiency, effectiveness and edge.  Sadly, the internet is not easy pickings in politics or business.

    Our RSS’d about boxes

    So we’d better know what we are RSS’d about!  And hang out with people who are RSS’d about it too.

    Maybe we can have two boxes?

    Hobby – enjoy it, but can’t be RSS’d to win.

    Profession – sooo committed that being RSS’d to do the details comes easy.

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    3 Easy Sunday Ways to Master the 3 Principles of Design

    Published August 30, 2009 by Jo Jordan

    It is Sunday today, and I want you to do three things for me.

    1    Watch Dan Pink’s TED lecture on Motivation

    2    Flick through Jane McGonigal’s slides for SXSW 2008 or  fixing reality.

    If you have seen them before, remind yourself of slides 22 through 24.

    3    Login in to Facebook and play FarmVille.

    Why?

    First, today is Sunday. I know you want to catch up with your reading but you should also be having fun.

    Dan Pink, former speech writer, speaks good too.  Jane McGonigal’s Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) is to win a Nobel prize for games design and she designs games that ‘give a damn’.  And FarmVille, though childish looking, is actually fun, and will probably get you chatting with a couple of old friends over your farmyard gate.

    Learn about the Ryan and Deci (2000) 3 principles of design (ARC) in an enjoyable way

    But mainly, because if your goal today was to keep up-to-date with what the gurus are saying, you should know that leading gurus are popularizing the research results of Ryan & Deci (2000).

    Ryan & Deci boiled down the principles for designing for work, games and events that are compelling, engaging and ‘moreish’ to

    Autonomy.     Can we make our decisions in this place?

    Competence. Does the game, work, or event help us learn, and do the conditions keep pace with our growing ability?

    Relatedness.  Can we play with others? Is this event socially-rewarding?

    Dan Pink and Jane McGonigal may use slightly different terms, but these are the 3 attributes that are being described.

    9m people are playing FarmVille (for free) on Facebook

    As you play FarmVille, you can admire the ‘assets’ the games have deployed for our leisure and imagination and marvel that 9 million people will seriously attend to their farmyard online and nip over to their neighbours to chase the cows out of the strawberries.

    You can also admire the way FarmVille draws you into the game by appealing to your autonomy.   This is your farm and your avatar.   They gently guide you through the possibilities and in a short time, you are as keen as mustard to develop some competence.

    FarmVille has levels. I mysteriously found myself at level 3 – possibly it starts at three.   There is clear feedback that tells you how well you are doing and lets you work out the best strategies.   There are rewards that entice you to make an effort.   And there are levels that are both badges of honour and opportunities to try new things.  FarmVille even throws in some random rewards which, of course, are massively reinforcing.

    And it is social.  You can see at a glance whom of your friends are playing.  You can send them free gifts.  And they can reciprocate.  You can visit their yards and admire their work (and aspire to catch up.)  You can ask them to be your neighbour.  You can rush over to help on their farm when you they are out and something urgent needs doing.

    So a Sunday well spent?

    Master the Deci & Ryan model.  When the gurus start propagating a model, you know it will become common knowledge very fast. Everyone will be quoting Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness soon (ARC).

    And when we are all talking about the psychology of design and trying and learning to use ARC in our own work, Jane McGonigal will achieve her dream of seeing our ‘broken reality’ fixed and become a lot more like a game.

    Will you fix reality with the 3 principles of design?

    Will you be up there with the games designers, event managers and entrepreneurs who can design work and play worth living?

    Or at least understand why some tasks are tedious beyond belief and others bring a light to your eyes, a bounce to your step, and a gentle smile, if not the singing of your soul?

    Have a good Sunday, and if you are in the UK, a good Bank Holiday weekend.

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    Quickly tell an internet optimist from an internet pessimist

    Published August 24, 2009 by Jo Jordan

    LOGO2.0 part I
    Image by Stabilo Boss via Flickr

    20 questions: which do you agree with?

    1. The internet allows me to reach out and meet people I would never otherwise meet.
    2. The internet allows me to find what I want and organize it the way I like it.
    3. I love the way I have internet friends all over the world.
    4. I am amazed by the diversity of opinion that I encounter on the net.
    5. The beauty of the web is that I can hear the opinions of less powerful people before we make a decision.
    6. We can make our voices heard on the internet.
    7. It’s great the way that so much on the internet is free.
    8. I love the way people reward each other with gifts on the internet.
    9. It’s incredible the way we put together Wikipedia by donating whatever knowledge we each had.
    10. I love the way that my little contribution makes something bigger like Flickr work.
    11. It terrible the way people only talk to their own friends on the net.
    12. The information on the internet is so disjointed.
    13. I fear that people on the internet follow their own interests and disregard the views of others.
    14. I get so tired of the same opinions being voiced over and over again.
    15. It’s too easy on the internet to manipulate the opinions of vulnerable people
    16. It is too easy to bully someone on the internet.
    17. Valuable industries like newspapers will die because of the internet.
    18. If we don’t have property rights, then there will be no reason to compose good music or write good books.
    19. Wikipedia will drop to the “lowest common denominator”.
    20. At the end of the day, great works are accomplished by talented people who have worked hard and practiced long.

    Are you an internet optimist or internet pessimist?

    Scoring. The top 10 questions describe internet optimists and the bottom 10 describe internet pessimists.

    The original list, in much more academic language, was written by Adam Thierer He is looking for a publisher, btw.

    Your score? Are you an optimist or pessimist about life with the internet?

    With my psychologist’s hat on

    I ask:

    • What are the defensive positions that we want covered by the pessimists?
    • And would we trust them, anyway, to cover the weak spots?

    It’s funny how the difference between optimists and pessimists is a canyon of trust.

    • How can pessimists lay out an approach to the internet that makes optimists trust them?
    • How can optimists lay out the internet so pessimists can trust it?

    Have I got the questions right?

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    Little known secrets about what a work and organizational psychologist will do for you in a recession

    Published March 24, 2009 by Jo Jordan

    My job is to help you find forward momentum

    I’m a psychologist. What this means, in short, is that you come to see me when you feel frustrated and it is my job to help you find a way forward.

    Clinical psychology, social workers, lawyers & doctors

    For some people getting out of a bad situation is complicated.  Quite often they are in extremely difficult circumstances and they need social workers, doctors, lawyers, etc. to help them solve practical problems.

    They may also have lived in difficult circumstances for so long that they no longer recognize easy circumstances.  Helping them unravel their view of life and live an easier life is the work of clinical psychologists.

    Work & organizational psychologists

    Most people who come to see me are not in a bad situation.  They are at one of the normal turning points in life where they have to make a decision and they do not have sufficient information.  These turning points are often frustrating and scary, but they are essentially about questions like which organization should I join?  Or, how do I improve my status and my income?  Psychologists like me work less like clinical psychologists, who work with what is in your head, more like social workers, doctors and lawyers.  We help you understand and manage the external world, and in particular the world of organizations and work.

    Indeed, we are quite often work for organizations rather than individuals and when we do, we are architects of systems.  We design selection systems.  We design disciplinary codes.  We design bonus systems.  HR systems are just formalized ways of making a lot of personal decisions about what we are doing and where we are going.  When we design the systems well, we give people an easy framework to make their own decisions well.  And we also strengthen the organization, by providing a place where we live and work comfortably and easily.

    Work & organizational psychologists ask a lot of questions about work & business

    To design good systems, we need to know a lot about jobs and business.  Of course, we don’t know as much as the people who run the business and who have worked in it all their lives.  Businesses and technologies change fast too.  So we are less in the business of knowing, and more in the business of asking questions.

    Learning about the financial crisis

    I started writing this post this morning after I read a post from the redoubtable Alice Cook, who provides a graph showing that financial debt has grown disproportionately to consumer and corporate debt in the UK.  I knew that generally but didn’t have a graph at my finger tips.  So thank you.  I like to have data stored away neatly.

    Personal action during the financial crisis

    I am amazed, though, that anyone is amazed by these figures.  Like many people, I feel that the managerial classes in the UK have a lot to answer for.  They should have known these figures intimately and acted accordingly.

    The trouble is that blaming others is pretty useless as a psychological technique.  Professionals & business leaders may be to blame.  We might be right to hold them in contempt.  And personally, I wouldn’t feel unhappy if they were prosecuted.  But blaming others doesn’t help us feel better, and more importantly, it doesn’t help use get things right.  So I’ll leave that to others.

    As a psychologist, what I have to say is this.

    Until we are all a lot better informed, we will simply lurch from one crisis to another

    Listed below are the bare bones of an information system that I am used to having at my disposal.

    • Trends in our industry
    • Current economic figures supplied monthly by our bank
    • People around me who read the figures
    • Key figures pertaining to our industry
    • Data on databases so that computer savvy people (including youngsters) can play with data and ask questions
    • Key figures that show the strength and resilience of our business
    • Key figures readily available so computer savvy people can play with them and ask questions

    It is true I have not seen this information being made freely available to employees since I have arrived in the UK but I’ve lived elsewhere where a key player in the provision of information to people in business has been, ironically, British-listed banks.

    If we want to get out of the biggest mess since the great Depression, we are going to have to do something. And to do something, we have to begin.  The first steps I will tell you, being a psychologist, is to ask questions.

    Some easy no-cost first steps that individuals and small business owners should take

    You have a computer and internet?  So let’s go.  If you haven’t already done it, it’s time to set up your own economic intelligence system.

    FIVE steps will do it.  Set up folders on your email, feeds reader, bookmarkers and hard drive,  and a page on your blog.

    1. Google Alerts.  Set up Google Alerts for your industry.

    I have alerts for UK jobs and UK GDP and use a ‘rule’ to send them straight to my “intelligence” folder in email.  I read them once a week or when I need a break from other tasks.

    2.  As you find useful blogs, subscribe in your feeds reader.

    I scan these at my leisure and make a point of reading The Economist on Thursday evenings.

    3. Bookmark articles you might want to come back to.

    One big folder works better than many little ones.  Bookmarks saves you Google-time when you want to re-call something.

    4.  Save useful graphs, data and pictures on your hard drive for the presentation you will make later!

    5. Blog from time to time to organize your thoughts.

    Then make an index of useful posts on a separate page where your readers can find all your writings on the future of your industry and local economy.

    So will being economically-savvy help?

    Keeping an eye on the economy does not stop other people from being foolish, of course.  And it can also make you feel panicky when you see a trend that no one else seems to care about.

    I find that understanding the economy is like knowing the motorway ahead is congested.  I have created choice for myself.  I can keep driving and join the throngs inching along and losing their tempers.  Or I can pull off, and take a longer route through the back roads.

    Neither may be a great outcome and it is also possible to put far too much effort into deciding the best alternative.  But I prefer a leisurely drive down the back roads enjoying the country view than boiling with frustration on an ugly motorway.

    And I quite happy to leave behind badly run organizations for a business venture that is smaller and more likely to be here tomorrow.

    Follow the good money

    If you haven’t already done so, begin.  Spend a few hours a week following the economic data.  It gets easier.

    And if we all do it, we won’t be routed by unscrupulous managers, at least for a while.

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    79 flowers to brand your work

    Published March 3, 2009 by Jo Jordan

    Carnation~
    Image by edzahid via Flickr

    I’m carrying a torch for you!

    A red carnation.  I think that is mine.

    I set 5 hard questions about business models in the age of the internet that I am having difficulty answering myself.

    So let me start close in, so to speak.  Which flower represents the commitment a psychologist has to client?

    A red carnation – I am carrying a torch for you.

    Which flower captures the heart of your work?

    Do bookmark my blog and come back to tell me.  Please.

    Sorry, the flower page seems to have been removed.  I’ve looked around the internet and haven’t found one I like so much.   Have a look at pages listed under “flowers meaning”,  just to help you put your finger on the essence of your relationship with your customers.

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