For a while I have been toying with the metaphor of online lists as playing fields and wondering - how do we set up the rules of the game? It seems to me that without agreement to the rules or principles of our interactions, we all come to these lists and play the game as we have learned to play in life.

From my perspective - having been brought up to play “nicely” - it seems dangerous to play with those who have been brought up to play hard ball. The person who has learned to high tackle others, intellectually or with cruel words, seems to get the last word in and us “nice” players stagger off when we’ve had one too many whacks to the side of the head.

As my husband said about Hall, rough play is part of the game, so it’s not good enough to complain “he goaded me”. But this is not how I prefer to debate nor interact with others on an online list. So the challenge is to see whether and how we can come to an agreement about “how we interact”.

My call to action is for us all to play “fair” not foul, which for me means to interact in such a way that I feel good and I intend for the other person to feel good too - the classic win+win. Whether I am being idealistic remains to be seen.

Many managers and professional people suffer from negative or doubtful thoughts, e.g. I don’t know if I can do this or I’m not confident, which is usually accompanied by, or even triggered by anxious or uncomfortable feelings.

The message in the research is to choose a new thoughts about the feelings. For worry, I like something like “oh that’s my worry radar picking up some interference”. It makes me think of the noise a mobile phone makes when it changes cells.

Try your own idea for three weeks and see what happens. If you cannot think of a new thought, make a comment on this blog and we can come up with one together.

Thanks to Stephanie West Allen from the Ailist for the link.

Bryant’s research shows that when a great opportunity comes along, entrepreneurs use four heuristics (decision making short cuts) when deciding whether to take it up or pass. Effectively, they scan for information to confirm the following unconscious questions:

1. Does it fit our core strategy?

2. Do I know the market?

3. What’s the worst that could happen?

4. Do I trust the other party?

My sense is that analytical decision making attempts to cover the first three, but there’s not much focus on the fourth, even though in my mind that is the first decision not the fourth.

For more information on this topic, read about Peter Bryant and his research at MGSM.

One way to support middle managers is with development programs that cater to their needs for respect, recognition and reinforcement, but beware offering them training - experienced people hate the thought of going to training. So what’s working in the world of middle manager development?

Forums - give the middle managers the opportunity to meet and discuss issues with their peers and executives. Make sure the managers themselves contribute to the topics and clarify whether the purpose is to discuss and understand vs. to set action plans. Too much setting of action plans just looks like more work for middle managers.

Read on to find out about: Games and simulations, study tours, arts-based processes, and futurists and founders.

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I presume he’s talking about the power of our need to appear consistent and how we can use that need.  Let’s look at two ways we can work with ourselves and others and deal with hypocrisy.

Firstly, the traditional way, is to point out the gaps between our rhetoric and our [lack of] actions and trust that embarrassment will generate some change. I used to do this all the time (even to myself) and now I’m not so sure it works. It raises our defenses and the temptation for senior people is to use the power of their position to shut the questioning down. It takes a big person to respond well to this sort of questioning and most of us are normal after all.

The second way is to point out the inconsistencies in a way that keeps reminding the person how great it is that they want to change. If we allow everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume a gap between belief and action, rather than a lack of belief, we support people to take actions to regain consistency.

So let’s all keep reminding ourselves and our leaders how great it is that we’ve said we intend to improve the workplace and environment and contribute to social justice, and support us all to really walk our talk.  Which reminds me I said I’d donate to …… time to take some action.

Read the full transcript of the BOSS interview with Paul Hawken at afrboss.com.au

Google Robert Cialdini for more information on consistency as a tool of influence.

Lots of her arguments resonate, especially the one about making sure you are dealing with a new economy person (who believes in growing the pie) when sharing Intellectual Property, because if you are dealing with an old economy person (who believes in taking your share of a fixed pie) you will lose out.

I also like her discussion about the trustworthiness of social networking and how quickly that leads to a desire to meet and talk and see the sincerity in their eyes.

And of course her discussion about imitating a group and their culture in order to scam it, reminds me of the joke about sincerity being so important, so once you can fake sincerity you’ve got it made!

Lots to digest.

Researchers, Andrew Colman, Briony Pulford and Jo Rose from the University of Leicester, conducted experiments that show evidence of collective preferences and team reasoning. This contrasts with decision theory and game theory, which fundamentally assume that people will always make decisions to maximise their individual best interests.

The research shows that under certain conditions, people will attempt to maximise the collective benefit, rather than their own personal benefit.

The questions this paper raised for me was - what are the conditions under which people will do this and how can we develop team reasoning in our teams?

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Their Hard Facts book provides good evidence to dispel some of our persistent management myths.

The website’s guest column, from Associate Professor Abela, gives us

10 principles for evidence-based presentation design, grouped into two themes:

- spend more time perfecting the content and

- spend less time embellishing.

Its just-in-time information for a workshop on Presenting and Meeting Management Skills that I’m updating at the moment, so I’ll get back to work on the content to make sure it’s perfect!