Psychology of Performance – 40: Management of Chronic Illness

The expectations and beliefs we have about receiving a diagnosis of a chronic illness such as diabetes, heart problems, asthma, liver disease, addictions, depression, and so forth have a direct impact on how we manage that illness.  The beliefs may vary from “that’s not fair,” to “this is too much to handle,” to “I don’t have to check my blood today for diabetes sugar levels, I can get by,” or “I can have one drink or one deep fried snickers bar.” These beliefs are directly tied to how well a person follows their medical plan and how far they may fall when not adhering, otherwise known as relapsing.

I had the privilege and honor of facilitating a discussion group for Adult Type I diabetics. Some of them had been managing their diabetes for over 50 years. One member said, “I am so tired of shots and blood tests 4-5 times a day, I just don’t care anymore.” The member went on to say that her sugar levels were elevated on her A1C tests, were rising, and she was resigned.  This is a good example of a subtle, yet eventually serious, psychological impact issue related to her health and wellbeing.

If you or a loved one is diagnosed with a chronic illness, please pay attention to how they think about their illness as the psychological consequences, as well as the health and final consequences, can be overwhelming if they are not managed well. Depression and anxiety negatively affect health outcomes in most chronic illnesses.  A qualified mental health professional can be a very useful resource under these circumstances.

Exchange love and happiness with all those you meet today,

Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.,
CEO and Psychologist

Psychology of Performance – 39: Legalization of Marijuana

The states that passed legalization of marijuana in all probability made a good decision for all the well known reasons such as quality control, lowering prison costs (half of our world highest inmate population are in for drug possession charges), increased tax revenue, and squeezing out organized crime in this area. The epidemiology incidence of people who use marijuana for self medication or recreation is not going to go up or down. They are using it regardless, similar to alcohol during prohibition. What does this have to do with the psychology of performance?

The evidence is clear that individuals do not perform most tasks or think clearly when impaired. Employers already have the right to drug test their employees and are required by law to provide a safe work environment. Just because alcohol has been legal does not mean that employees are entitled to drink at work or come to work under the influence of alcohol. The precedents are already in place and should also apply to marijuana. The rest of the story for marijuana users is that even recreational use will show up for a month in random or “for cause” drug testing. So until impairment levels can be defined by the enforcement side of these laws, it would be prudent for those individuals inclined to use marijuana to continue to refrain from such usage. Bottom line, both alcohol and marijuana will impair performance despite stories such as the one in the movie “Flight.”

Remember to exchange love and happiness with everyone you meet.

Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.,
CEO, and Psychologist

Psychology of Performance – 38: Cognitive Bias Part 3

In this installment of the role of cognition in performance, Arielly has noted in his book, Predictably Irrational, that there are a number of salient variables related to performance in various domains. For example, a version of “where your mind goes the energy goes” is related to honesty. When people are asked to think about honesty, their awareness of honesty goes up as well as their honest behavior. He has further examples related to how an honor code can decrease cheating behavior. On the other hand performance in this area decreases (more cheating) as the distance in time, value, and so forth increases.  Another variable worth noting in the psychology of performance is that “loss aversion” appears to be a more powerful motivator on performance than potential “gain.” This has other implications for performance.

What are the implications? As a leader, manager, executive, or coach, it is relevant to have clear expectations that your group thinks about actively. The standards of behavior required to achieve the goals, and how to behave in the workplace, need regular mental rehearsal to increase compliance with the types of performance expected. To neglect this may result in group drift which results in under-performance. The implications of the “loss aversion” have many applications. For example, in the area of wellness and benefits, the fear of losing a benefit will predictably result in greater compliance than the allure of a reward. This is also true for individual work performance. People will work more to avoid losing their job than to get a reward. This is counter-intuitive from many business practices related to motivation and performance.

Remember to extend love and happiness to everyone you meet,

Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.,
CEO and Psychologist

Psychology of Performance – 37: Leadership and Thinking

In the last Psychology of Performance blog, I introduced you to Kahneman’s seminal work (Thinking, Fast and Slow) on cognitive bias and decision making. This blog post continues that discussion.

System 1 continuously monitors all input and information. As a function of this it produces assessments of the variables of the situation with no specific intention and little effort. Kahneman refers to these as basic assessments (p. 90). The important point about basic assessments is that they are easily substituted for more difficult questions.  He goes on to say that basic assessments evolved to provide continuous assessments on questions of survival: How are things going? Is there a threat or a major opportunity? Is everything normal? Should I approach or avoid? We use a “mental shotgun” approach to situations and produce more computations than we need.  With this as background, we are vulnerable to substituting questions without knowing we did so.

Kahneman stated that if a satisfactory answer to a hard question is not quickly found, System 1 will find a related question that is easier and will answer it (p. 97). The danger is that System 2 is lazy, and following a path of least effort, will endorse an answer to a simpler question from System 1 without much evaluation or analysis regarding whether the answer actually is for the original question asked.  Furthermore, people do not tend to realize that this substitution has occurred.

How does this relate to leadership and thinking? From a psychology of performance perspective, leadership in organizations is just as vulnerable to these thinking errors as anyone else. Awareness of these processes requires intentional System 2 thinking about business and organizational problems. It also puts the burden on the leader to listen carefully to the answers provided by their reports and colleagues as they may be giving right answers to different questions than the original and not even be aware of it. This has potential to further negatively impact the performance of the organization or the individuals involved.

Have a day filled with mindfulness,

Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.,
CEO and Psychologist

Psychology of Performance – 36: Leadership, Black Swans, and Thinking

Ill-Structured Problems and Business Decisions

Leadership articles often focus on a variety of variables. These variables may include personality traits, born or made, demographic variables, attractiveness, communication skills, vision, and intelligence. These variables have varying degrees of research behind them. One aspect of leadership that is universal in business is that leaders get to make complex decisions on ill-structured problems for which there are better and worse answers, rarely right or wrong answers (Mines, Hood, Wood and King, 1990). Given the number of “Black Swans” business leaders have run into, a discussion of some of the cognitive and thinking errors that can be made follows in this article (Taleb, 2007).

Kahneman has written a ground breaking book on thinking heuristics and errors in thinking. As business leaders look at their success and failure rates, it is a reasonable question to ask why so many decisions result in under-performance, if not outright failure. Kahneman’s work contributes to our understanding of these predictable thinking errors. This blog is a partial summary of Kahneman’s work. All acknowledgement of its scholarship goes to Dr. Kahneman and any errors attributed to the author of this summary.

Thinking Fast and Slow: The Operating System

Kahneman described two systems related to thinking.

System 1 operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort. System II allocates attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration. System 1 effortlessly originates impressions and feelings that are the main sources of explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2. The automatic operations of System 1 generate complex patterns of ideas, but only the slower System 2 can construct thoughts in an orderly series of steps (Kahneman, 2011, p. 20-21).

These two systems constantly interact. System 1 runs continuously and System 2 is normally in a comfortable, low-effort mode, in which only a fraction of its capacity is engaged. System 2 is a “lazy system.” System 1 continuously generates suggestions for System 2, impressions and intuitions, intentions and feelings.  If System endorses them, they are turned into beliefs and impulses turn into voluntary actions. System 2 endorses the suggestions of System 1 with little or no modification. System 2 is utilized is called into play in order to proved more specific and detailed processing. It is mobilized to control impulses, to increase effort when it detects that an error is about to be made. System 1 has biases, however, systematic errors that it is prone to make in specified circumstances. It sometimes answers easier questions than the one it was asked and it has little understanding of logic and statistics. It cannot be turned off (p. 24).

Bias and Thinking Errors

In order to give the reader a flavor of the types of thinking errors and to encourage the reader to study the book in more depth, the following are a partial list of bias and thinking errors.

People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations. An effort of will or self-control is tiring, requires effort, and is unpleasant – known as ego depletion (Kahneman, 2011, p. 42).

Association. The Associative Machine is in play when two ideas are associated and System 1 tries to make them associatively coherent. An idea that has been activated does not evoke just one other idea, it activates many other ideas which in turn activate even more ideas. Only a few of these will be conscious.

Priming. Words and events can “prime” the next sequence of words or thoughts in a way that they are related and we don’t even know it. Priming can also affect our behavior. People who were asked to think about aging, walked slower down the hall than people asked to think about another topic, for example. Common gestures such as nodding yes or no prime our emotional responses to a situation. Money-primed people become more independent, more reluctant to be involved with others, less willing to depend on others, or to accept demands from others, than they would be without the associative trigger.

Cognitive Ease/Cognitive Strain.  The mind is constantly monitoring.  Ease is a sign that things are going well – no threats, no major news, no need to redirect attention, or mobilize effort. Strain is affected by both the current level of effort and the presence of unmet demands.  Cognitive ease is connected to a number of variables such as clarity and ease of understanding which is commonly implemented by marketers when choosing fonts, colors, and copy. When you feel strained, you are more likely to be vigilant and suspicious, invest more effort in what you are doing, feel less comfortable, and make fewer errors, but you also are less intuitive and less creative than usual.

Illusions of Remembering. Memory and thinking are vulnerable to illusion. Familiarity as an experience has a simple but powerful quality of ‘pastness’ that seems to indicate that it is a direct reflection of prior experience. Words or names you have seen before produce greater cognitive ease and it is this ease that gives you a greater sense of familiarity.

Illusions of Truth.  Predictable illusions inevitably occur if a judgment is based on an impression of cognitive ease or strain. Anything that makes it easier for the associative machine to run smoothly will also create bias. A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.

Strain and Effort. Performance is better when there is strain as it mobilizes System 2, which is more likely to reject the intuitive answer suggested by System 1. The mere exposure effect, pairs an arbitrary stimulus and mild affection for the stimulus. It does not depend on conscious experience of familiarity. It does not depend on consciousness at all.

Ease, Mood and Intuition. Good mood, intuition, creativity, gullibility, and increased reliance on System 1 form a cluster. At the other end, sadness, vigilance, suspicion, an analytic approach, and increased effort go together. A happy mood loosens the control of System 2 over performance: when in a good mood people become more intuitive and more creative but also less vigilant and more prone to logical errors.

Summary
As a business leader, it starts becoming apparent where your executive team and subordinates may be vulnerable to thinking errors and not even know it. Kahneman reviews many other cognitive errors and bias. It is incumbent upon all leaders to be as aware as possible of these errors and review decision processes in strategic planning, operations, and within the finance arena closely so as to avoid your organization’s own personal black swans.

Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.
CEO & Psychologist

Over the next three months future blogs will address further cognitive bias categories and provide business examples.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Mines, R.A., Hood, A., King, P., & Wood, P., (1990). Levels of Intellectual Development and Associated Critical Thinking Skills in College Students. Journal of College Student Development, 31 538-547.

Taleb, N. (2007). The black swan: the impact of the highly improbable. New York: Random House.

Psychology of Performance – 35: Attachment to the Status Quo

In over 35 years of working with people on making change, improving their performance, and living more fully it is still interesting to me how many people persist in doing the same self-defeating actions over and over despite saying they want to improve, grow, or change for the better (whatever that means). So the following are four questions worth asking yourself if you want to improve your performance in some area of your life.

1. Situation Questions – Tell me about your life? How is it working now?
2. Problem Questions – Can we be specific about what is not working? Are you concerned about your current quality of performance?
3. Implication Questions – What happens if you don’t do something different?
4. Need-Payoff Questions – If you act and it improves – how does that impact your life?

Take time to reflect on these questions, write down your answers, and be curious about where this may take you. If you find yourself resisting the questions or process, look more deeply into that instead.

It’s up to you….as they say “no one can do your push-ups for you.”

Exchange love and happiness with everyone you meet today.

Bob
Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.
CEO & Psychologist

Psychology of Performance – 34: Spark!

The book, Spark, by John J. Ratey, M.D. is the holy grail of research applications related to the interaction of exercise, neuroplasticity, and performance. The information on brain chemistry changes in the areas of learning, addictions, anxiety, depression, women’s issues, ADHD, and aging is priceless. The essence of the book is that the data indicated the brain is able to create new neuronal connections, grow new nerve cells throughout life, manage major psychological conditions, pain conditions, and learning is significantly enhanced through exercise. Ratey stated that “exercise is the single most powerful tool you have to optimize your brain function”- based on hundreds of research studies (p.245). Ratey suggested that the more fit you get (regardless of where you start), the “ more resilient your brain becomes and the better it functions both cognitively and psychologically. If you get your body in shape, your mind will follow” (p. 247).

How much is enough? Ratey stated that walking is enough. Low-intensity exercise is at 55 to 65% of maximum heart rate, moderate is 65-75% and high intensity is 75-90%. “The process of getting fit is all about building up your aerobic base” (p.251). Ratey goes on to discuss the role of strength training and flexibility as important elements of optimizing your brain chemistry and hormone levels.

What does this have to do with optimizing your performance at work and in all areas of your life? Everything! Get started today and stick with it.

Have a day filled with optimal brain chemistry,

Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.
CEO & Psychologist

Psychology of Performance – 33: Skills, Systems, or Other

In our work with client organizations around the country a recurring theme in the work force has to do with employee performance management by supervisors and managers. We train our colleagues in these organizations to look at performance problems as either, a skill issue, a systems issue, or “other.”

Skill issues need to be addressed by the immediate supervisor. This can be done by providing additional training, individual coaching on specific skills for the job, or other developmental activities.

Systems issues are best addressed by the manager, as the employee or supervisor does not typically have the authority to access the systems, much less make changes within them. A recurring theme in the psychology of performance literature is that 80% of performance problems are systems-based. If this is indeed accurate, then resources are best directed at systems analysis and refinement rather than the individual, per se.

“Other” is the catch-all category for personal, psychological, family, financial, substance use, legal, and additional stressors that an employee may bring to work. The same goes for any areas that may be negatively affecting the employee’s job performance. For instance, if an employee had a fight with their spouse or child, their job performance may suffer, and although they may be present, they are unable to function. In general, “Other” is beyond the expertise or boundaries of a supervisor or manager’s level of intervention and the employees may benefit from counseling or support. At this point the supervisor or manager needs to make note of it, refer them to an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and hold the employee accountable for their work performance. Whether the employee uses the EAP as a voluntary or mandatory client, it does not exempt the employee from doing their best within the organization. The EAP is simply an employer-provided resource to help each employee. It is ultimately up to the employee to make good use of the Employee Assistance Program. The good news for supervisors or managers is that over 70% of employees who have substance-use problems become sober and continue to be good employees. After 31 years as a firm, we have received countless thank you notes from recovering employees for saving their lives and their jobs after they were sent to their supervisors. (This is after they were done being angry about the referral of course).

Have a day filled with appreciation and gratefulness,

Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.
CEO & Psychologist

Psychology of Performance – 32: Nutrition, Depresssion, Alcoholism and Performance

I ran across some interesting information on the role of niacin, depression, and alcoholism in performance at www.doctoryourself.com. It is well documented that depression and/or alcoholism may negatively affect performance across just about any domain one can perform in. In the treatment of depression and alcoholism there are very effective cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy interventions. In addition, exercise and medication may add additional therapeutic effects. The role of nutrition may have further potentiating influence.

According to this site, Bill W., the founder of AA, was successfully treated for depression with 3,000 mg of niacin a day. Unfortunately, this information has not been widely discussed or published in the media. I would be interested to hear from any of you who have used niacin as a means of treating depression or alcoholism and what your results were. Please let us at MINES know.

Have a day filled with mindfulness,

Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.
CEO & Psychologist

Psychology of Performance – 31: Tim Tebow, Coach John Fox, and the Denver Broncos – A Case Study in Managing Hardening of the Attitudes

The Denver Broncos are now 5-5 and have a chance to lead their division this week. In the NFL, a common assumption is that you can only win with a pocket passing quarterback. Coach John Fox made a decision that challenged the attitudes, cognitive bias, and current assumptions of what it takes to win in the NFL. Tim Tebow has been criticized for his lack of throwing ability, his technique, his propensity to run, and other elements. Yet with Tebow at quarterback and the defense improving every game, the Bronco’s win-loss record is 4 and 1. The assumption that a quarterback has to pass and should not run is being refuted by the data. This will continue until a worst-case scenario – Tebow gets hurt – then another cognitive bias will happen, which is a peak-end bias. This cognitive distortion occurs when something is going along at a certain intensity, pace, or level of satisfaction or performance and then either something really good or really bad happens. The entire memory sequence now changes and decisions are based on the one-time event. In this case, no quarterback should be running the ball. This, of course, ignores the current data of how many passing quarterbacks have been injured this season already.

What Coach Fox has done is adapt his system to fit Tebow’s strengths rather than focusing on rectifying his limitations. Tebow, for his part, appears to have maintained his focus on “getting the job done” – whatever that takes. The rest of the cognitive changes appear to be shared by the majority of teammates who like winning over losing. (Who doesn’t?)

Reflect on your organizations, your individual performance, and make note of any hardening of the attitudes. They are fair game for intervention.

Have a day filled with success and perseverance,

Robert A. Mines, Ph.D.
CEO & Psychologist