WorkPuzzle

What Creates Talent?

Most of us have been brought up to believe that talent is something people are born with- you either have it...or you don't.  This idea is so pervasive that what I'm about to share with you may take a few days to sink in.  For that reason, I'll spend a few days giving you a little information at time, so that you can digest it, and perhaps slowly begin to let it change the way you approach everyone under your management. 

What deeply interests me, is that what you believe about the question, "What Creates Talent?" will determine how you recruit, coach, mentor and parent.  It will determine the questions you ask in an interview, how you train, what you insist on in work performance, etc...

I've recently been devouring the book The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle.  Coyle had the enviable job of traveling the globe, studying the world's most unusual "talent hot beds" - places where unusually high percentages of people excel at what they want to achieve.  He describes the social science and neuroscience around the phenomenon of talent development.  It's truly amazing stuff! 

He convincingly answers questions like:  

• Why is Brazil so dominant in soccer?

• Why has South Korea gone from having one LPGA touring pro in 1998 to 33 in 2008?

• Why has Russia gone from having three in the top 100 Women's Tennis Professionals, to 16 today?

• Why have 12 different boys from the extremely small country of Curacao, made it to the semifinals of the Little League World Series six times, over the past eight years, even taking the title once?

The answers to these questions will surprise you, and will have you doubting your preconceived notions of talent development.  I actually want you to ponder the possibilities today...Sorry, I'm giving no answers until tomorrow.  But, I guarantee that the answers will make you a better manager, mentor and parent.

I will leave you to ponder this quote:  Robert Lansdorf, tennis coach of former number one players Pete Sampras, Tracy Austin, and Lindsey Davenport, all who grew up miles from each other said this:

"It's not about recognizing talent, whatever that is.  I've never tried to go out and find someone who's talented.  First you work on the fundamentals, and pretty soon you find where things are going."

There is much, much more than meets the eye with regard to this quote.  I will chip away at the science around talent tomorrow...

The Benefits of Failure - Part 3

The last two days, and particularly Friday, I discussed failure as an integral part of learning.  You now understand that the brain grows best by experiencing multiple failures.

Today, I'll focus specifically on the big failures in life... You know, the ones where you feel like the sky is falling, you're an idiot for making that decision, how could you let this happen, life will never be the same....those kind of failures.

In a recent Psychology Today article, I found a helpful list to consider in those darkest days of (what seems like horrible) failure.  Here are nine ways to fail better:

"1.  Lighten up - Most people who bounce back from setbacks have a sense of humor.  They know when they're taking things—and themselves—too seriously... It's hard to find the funny in the fine grain.  Humor is about stepping back for fresh perspective.  We assume that's something we're born with, but we can become better at seeing the lighter side by sheer exposure to that way of thinking.  And it does take the edge off of failure.  After all, an embarrassment today makes for an entertaining story tomorrow.

2.  Join the club - Misery loves company.  Just look at the growth of Web-based support groups like '15,000,000 Recession-Touched People' (on Facebook) and Global Depression Support Group (on meetup.com).

There's real value in commiseration.  When Montrealer Sylvain Henry started a Facebook support group called 'Recession Survivors' after being laid off from a software company, the group became a lightning rod for pain and blame.  'You've gotta blame someone, right?'  Henry says.  'Whose fault is this?'  People vented about the lost house, the failed marriage.  It was cathartic.

Then something happened.  'People vented themselves out,' Henry says.  'After that came another impulse:  Let's do something about this.'  The members began posting productive hints, little money-saving tips about budget-friendly cookie recipes or how to throw a good garage sale.  The site transformed into a clearinghouse of resourceful coping strategies for hard times.  Call it Failing Better:  the Open-Source Edition.

3.  Feel guilt, not shame - The difference between guilt and shame is the reason we assign as to why failure occurs, notes Richard Robins, a psychologist at the University of California at Davis.  Guilt says it's 'something I did.'  But shame means feeling failure occurred because of 'something I am'—in which case, you expect failure and don't act to avoid it.

But the cycle of learned helplessness can be broken.  Instead of thinking 'I'm a failure,' think 'I'm a good person who made a mistake I can learn from.'  If your story about failure is, 'It's all my fault,' you might need to practice looking outward and ask yourself, 'What other things—things that aren't about me—might have caused this negative event?'

On the other hand, if your story is, 'It's never about me,' you may need to seek out some aspects of the problem you can do something about.  Because let's face it, you do mess up—everyone does.  In which case you need to own the failure, see what you can learn from it, and move on.

4.  Cultivate optimism - Of the seven learnable skills of resilience—emotion awareness, impulse control, multiperspective thinking, empathy, the belief that you can solve your own problems, taking appropriate risks, and optimism—the most important is optimism, says Karen Reivich, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania.  'There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so,' said Hamlet, and indeed, paying attention to the positive infuses the world with hope—and creates a climate in which failure loses its sting.

The key to resilience is thinking more flexibly and learning to increase your array of options.  The psychologist Martin Seligman advocates disputation, in which you think of your mind as a courtroom where negative thoughts are instantly put on trial.

You can rebut these thoughts, and you should.  Now you're acting as your own defense counsel, throwing at the court every bit of evidence you can think of to prove the belief is flawed.  The bad thought is no longer a lock, and it dies amid the doubt.

5.  Ask not what the world can do for you... - Getting fired and left without savings or health-care coverage is rough, but for some, it carries an unexpected message:  'Now you are free.'  Free to do something more meaningful with your life—like volunteering overseas.  If you don't have to earn money right away, ask yourself:  How can you be of service to others?

6.  Scale down your expectations for yourself - When we succeed, we tend to just ratchet up our expectations for ourselves and not get a lot of pleasure out of it.  But when we fail, it's much harder to ratchet down our expectations for ourselves.  'That might be what failing well is,' says psychologist Jonathan Haidt.  'A willingness to lower our sights when that's realistically required.'

7.  Harness the Bridget Jones Effect - Keeping a journal can help you cope with failure.  Jamie Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas, studied middle-aged engineers who'd lost their jobs.  Those who wrestled with their feelings about the trauma through journaling were far more likely to find reemployment.  It wasn't simply the tension-relieving 'catharsis' of getting their feelings out.  Nor was it that they were more motivated to get out there and pound the pavement—they didn't receive more phone calls, make more contacts, or send out more letters.

Rather, writing helps create meaning — finding coherence and building a personal story that lassos all the question marks hanging in the air and making sense of them.  Writing about their feelings forced them to come to terms with getting laid off.  It also boosted their social skills—making them more likeable, less vindictive, and better able to get on with things.  They were less wrapped up in their past.  They could listen better and were more optimistic and less hostile.

8.  Act! - Failure is an opportunity to change course.  Seize it."

And I'm going to provide one of my own:

9.  Use major failures as a reminder to return to the things you value most in this world - These things are less transient: Your faith, your family, building community, etc...

Research has found quite clearly that the values listed above are associated with much higher levels of well-being than are the values of materialism, physical attractiveness, and financial success.  Know where you can bank on the deepest satisfaction... 

The Benefits of Failure - Part 2

In yesterday’s post I introduced some of the newer thinking around the concept of failure.  Specifically, I revealed that failure is a fairly important ingredient for future success.

As promised, today I am going to update you on what the brain does with failure.  It’s actually quite fascinating to learn that how you handle failure either gives, or takes away, your brain’s ability to grow and learn.

Your brain is made up of millions of neurons and synapses, all with the ability to build super highways of super speed.  All that is needed to build these connections is a substance called Myelin.  Myelin, it’s recently been found, has the ability to grease the skids between neurons so that large pathways are formed to create mega bandwidth learning and growth, if given the opportunity.  And guess what gives your brain the greatest opportunity for Myelin production?... Failure!  Not just failure, but lots of failure…the more the better!  And not just large doses of failure, but failure and correction, failure and correction, failure and correction…

Here’s an example:

In 1997, Soccer Coach, Simon Clifford, was so curious about what caused Brazilian Soccer to be so successful, that he temporarily moved to Brazil and lived in a dimly lit dorm-like setting to find out first-hand.  What he found has changed the way many elite youth soccer teams practice, and has made Simon Clifford a very wealthy man, given that he has founded worldwide “Brazilian Soccer Schools” all over the globe.

What he found was that everyone, except the professionals, were playing a much smaller game of soccer on a small, hard court, with a heavier ball.  Given the small space, the game moved quickly and frantically, with split-seconds to decide where to pass, to whom, and how.  In other words, unlike American Soccer, Brazilian Soccer offers many more chances to fail and succeed in each minute of play, for each player – Every player touches the ball six times more per minute, to be exact.

When the brain experiences this incredible frequency of failure and correction, it grows Myelin like mad!  Super highways are formed that can ultimately lead to amazing talent.

So what does all of this have to do with us?

I’d love some comments about how you believe this can be applied…but here is one broad idea:

As you coach or mentor others, encourage them (and place them in positions) to fail.  Then have feedback sessions, then allow them to fail some more, then more feedback, etc, until they get it.  And when they do, more than likely, they will thank you for the growth you enabled them…

Reference:  The Talent Code, by Daniel Coyle

The Benefits of Failure

If you recruit, coach, mentor or parent others, you will benefit greatly from the next few blogs...  Ask yourself these questions:  How do you deal with failure as a coach?  As a recruiter?  How do you deal with your own failure?

No one likes the feeling of failing - It can be devastating to our egos.  Failure in one area of our life has a way of impacting every other domain.  So, many of us try to avoid failure at all costs.  Consequently, many of your employees and those you are attempting to recruit become frozen in a fear of failure.  So, what is an effective way to address this fear?

There is a rapidly growing body of evidence revealing that failure is not only essential to learning, but can also have a positive effect on our psyches.  The more rapidly you fail, pick yourself up, and then try again, the faster you perfect your skills.  Interestingly, the most successful people attribute their successes to countless failures.

The following is an excerpt from the June edition of Psychology Today:   

"Some psychologists, like the University of Virginia's Jonathan Haidt, ...argue that adversity, setbacks, and even trauma may actually be necessary for people to be happy, successful, and fulfilled.  'Post-traumatic growth,' it's sometimes called.  Its observers are building a solid foundation under the anecdotes about wildly successful people who credit their accomplishments to earlier failures that pushed them to the edge of the abyss.

Last fall, J.K. Rowling described to a Harvard grad class a perfect storm of failure—broken marriage, disapproval from her parents, poverty that bordered on homelessness—that sent her back to her first dream of writing because she had nothing left to lose.  'Failure stripped away everything inessential,' she said.  'It taught me things about myself I could have learned no other way.'

Apple founder Steve Jobs describes three apparent setbacks—dropping out of college, being fired from the company he founded, and being diagnosed with cancer—that ultimately proved portals to a better life.  Each forced him to step back and gain perspective, to see the long view of his life.  'I have failed over and over and over again, and that is why I succeed,' said Michael Jordan—as did Oprah, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Winston Churchill, and Thomas Edison, in slightly different words.  Indeed, so oft-repeated is the trope that we lose sight of how strange it is.'
 
...'Failing better' boils down to three things.  It's a matter of controlling our emotions, adjusting our thinking, and recalibrating our beliefs about ourselves and what we can do in the world.

'Chess is a game of failure,' says Bruce Pandolfini, an American chess master known for his work teaching young chess players.  (Sir Ben Kingsley played him in Searching for Bobby Fischer.)  'At the beginning, you lose—a lot.  The kids who are going to succeed are the ones who learn to stand it.  A lot of young players find losing so devastating they never adapt, never learn to metabolize that failure and to not take it personally.  But good players lose and then put the game behind them emotionally.'

Pandolfini teaches his students this calming sense of perspective.  The present moment is laid out against the past.  What you see is compared to your memories of what you've seen—and mastered—before.  What you have in the end is a kind of coherent story.  He calls it chess instruction, but really, it works with anything.  In fact, it's not so different from the way writing down your feelings in a journal helps you process failure and move on, a phenomenon demonstrated by James Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas.

Teachers, studies reveal, can foster resiliency among students, creating students who don't flinch from failure but actually welcome it as a learning opportunity."

As a manager, how can you adopt this way of teaching, coaching and encouraging your employees/agents?  How can you begin to teach "chess instruction?"

Tomorrow, I'll discuss the neuroscience of failure and success... It will have you yearning to fail more! 

Articulating Your Value

On Friday, Dave challenged each of you to figure out the compelling value that your company offers to a prospective employee.  If you’re not able to offer something that distinguishes you from your competitors, then being successful at a recruiting process will be difficult.

Over the last several years, we’ve had the occasion to work with a few companies that really struggle with this principle.  They want the benefit of bringing in many new recruits, but they don’t want to do the work of making their environment the most attractive option.  When companies are operating in such a manner, the “blind spot” that develops is atrocious.

For example, we occasionally hear of hiring managers poking fun at candidates who choose to work at other companies.  They’ll say something like:

“I can’t believe that Kristine went to work for XYZ company just because they offer a better marketing system to support their salespeople.  I told her that individual effort is what really makes the difference between those who are successful and those who aren't, but she wouldn’t listen.  What an idiot.”

There is an idiot in this story, but it’s not Kristine!  Kristine responded in a way that is common for people making important decisions.  Assuming other significant factors are somewhat equal, a candidate looks for smaller things to differentiate one option from another.

This is a critical juncture in the fight to win the decision of a candidate.  People respond to concise messages that articulate value.

For example, I met with the owner of a real estate office last week whose business model is focused on offering support to full-time agents who are well-established in their careers.  On the surface, this business model seems expensive, and the owner has to constantly fight off the marketing messages of other companies who seem to offer similar services at reduced fees.

He’s boiled his marketing message down to something very simple:

“If you’re a full-time agent who is able to consistently execute two or more transactions per month, there is no better place to work in [his State] than this office.”

Of course, he can back up his statement with tangible benefits and results.  But, the singular focus (agents who execute two or more transactions) and the sense of being elite (it’s not for everyone) articulate the value that he offers to prospective agents.

What is the differentiating value that you can offer your prospective candidates?  Once you figure this out, spend some time boiling the concept down to a single sentence that you can repeat to those around you on a regular basis.  By doing this, you’ll internalize this value and be able to naturally communicate it to your candidates.

What's Your Value?

We are in the midst of preparing a series of articles on how to become a great recruiter.  No matter what business you're in, recruiting should always be a priority if you want to grow your business.

For our clients, recruiting is always considered a top priority.  But saying this and actually doing it, are two very different things!  Before we go into all the specifics regarding great recruiting, I want to address the fundamental foundation of recruiting.  You MUST be able to answer, with certainty and conviction, the following questions:

First, what distinguishing value do you provide, that's not provided by every other company in your industry?  And second, what, specifically, do you have to offer that is unattainable elsewhere?

If you don't know the answer to these questions, even the most steadfast discipline and best system of recruiting won't get you where you want to be.  

Here's a personal example:

When I began building a private practice as a Clinical Psychologist in 1987, I had to market my practice.  But, the problem was that the Seattle market was saturated with Psychologists.  So, I had to ask myself fairly quickly, what set me apart from others?  It became very clear to me, early on, that the busiest Psychologists were the ones who had gone beyond the work they had done to receive their Ph.D., and had invested in several years of extended supervision to learn a specialty, or a very specific way of offering great psychotherapy.

So, after some due diligence, I found an orientation of psychotherapy that made a great deal of sense to me.  I paid thousands of dollars each year for five additional years (beyond the initial nine years of school) to become proficient at delivering this very intense and disciplined way of helping people heal.

Now of course, all the while, I was marketing myself, by speaking publicly, meeting with physicians, etc... all the normal things you do to get your name out there.  However, what caused my practice to reach a state of critical mass, where marketing took care of itself, was offering services that people knew worked for them, services that were above and beyond the standard.

This is what will create the buzz - It's what caused me to pay top dollar to seek specialized training, and what caused my clients to follow a referral to my door.  Oh and by the way, it also happens to be the right thing to do... to offer something of true quality is in everyone's best interest; In my case, I improved myself by undergoing the intense training, and my clients benefited from my unique set of skills as well.

So, if you want to become an exceptional recruiter, ask yourself:  What do you offer that other managers or owners don't?  What value do you add, that's difficult to find anywhere else? 

Hiring Managers who can clearly articulate answers to these questions, and stand behind them, can recruit with confidence... 

The Wide Application of Your Talents

One of our readers recently wrote in with the following question:

"I left a  major  home building company after 12 years - after starting in an entry level field position, working up to a position managing the contracting for 40 to 70 million dollar projects.  I was responsible for scopes of work; contract negotiation and coordination.  It was my dream job, but I was unhappy with some ethical issues and left for a new company building low income housing in the inner-city where I was handed more responsibility, control and money.  My new company folded four months later and I have floundered ever since.  Some days I'm confident and hopeful, and others I wonder if a career change is inevitable and I'm just not seeing the writing on the wall. 

To finally get to my question, how, if the change from construction is inevitable, do I market my universal skills and experience (minus a degree) to companies outside my industry.  I know I am good and have the skills to transition, anyone I have worked for or with will tell you that.  How do I get that across?  How do I get the opportunity to prove this?"

---

Thanks for this great question, as it it cuts to the heart of 21st century hiring.

Allow me to break this down a bit:

First, let's address the overall philosophy that is inherent in your question.  That is, talent is talent...period.  We are moving away from 20th century recruiting, where managers made hiring decisions based solely on one's education, credentials, and match-for-match job descriptions.  The smartest employers and most confident, forward-thinking individuals are considering a wider definition of talent application these days.

These companies and individuals are realizing that prior job description isn't as crucial for predicting great performance as are general core strengths, talents and capacities.

We each have natural capacities to tackle certain tasks.  Even though these talents require some development, from the very beginning, they seem natural to us.  We all have a knack for certain activities - they give us energy and fulfillment.  These talents don't belong solely to a specific title or position, nor do they belong to a single profession.  These core talents can be applied to hundreds of positions.

Here is an example:  My brother was once (years ago) an excellent Jr. High School Teacher.  He then worked in software account management and development, and eventually for his state government as the go-to guy for pushing through major legislation and integration from their innovative IT department.  A few years ago, an international label & packaging company was in need of a Director of Project Development.  Instead of searching for someone with that exact job description, they searched for the talents they needed to fit the job they envisioned.  They sought someone who had shown a natural pattern of excellence in friendly negotiations among several stake holders, while diplomatically and systematically coordinating the efforts of multiple contributors toward a project completion. 

He was hired, despite the fact that he never had the title or job description of Project Director before.

So, I would recommend the individual who asked the question do the following:
 
Consider your talents carefully, and continue to push forward confidently, knowing that there is a company out there in need of your specific talents.  Diligently pursue companies that interest you.  Find a position that you'd like to fill, ignore what experience they are asking for, and figure out how your talents can be used to do the job well.

Be persistent in your efforts to get interviewed.  Good hiring managers will respond to persistence.  Your chance to "prove yourself" will come once you're on the inside...sitting in the interview chair.  During the interview, humbly, subtly and respectfully take charge.  Ask how that position contributes to the bottom line and overall company mission.  Once you thoroughly understand the core tasks and goals of the job, boil down your talents to brief descriptions and tell them how they can be used to accomplish the overall purpose of the position.  Encourage them to contact your references for feedback on how you would meet that challenge.

If they don't hire you after this, move on.  There are plenty of companies looking for this kind of desire to contribute to something great, rather than to just fill a position...

Knowing Your Business

A friend of mine, who once grew an accounting firm from four million to 400 million annual revenue, recently told me that an important epiphany for him was the day he realized that he was actually in the recruiting business, not the accounting business.  Yes, his company provided accounting services and always needed to provide top notch and often specialized services.  But in order to do this, he realized his company had to be exceptional at recruiting.

He realized that if his company focused on the goal of being the best recruiter in the accounting business, they would rise above and beat out their competition.

I don't know about you, but that gave me goose pimples!  How insightful and how true.

What business are you really in?  I know that many of you are our clients - And most of our clients are in the "Real Estate" business.  But is this really your primary business?  What separates you from your competition?  I suspect, more often than not, the most successful Real Estate companies are not so coincidentally, also the best recruiters.

So what is good recruiting in Real Estate?

Is it waiting for people to knock on your door?  Believe it or not that is what many companies really do.

Is it going after the lowest hanging fruit in your pipeline; the ones that you only have to call once?  Again, many Real Estate companies operate with this focus.

If you are only accepting people who take little effort to recruit, you're going to get the most desperate people.  Is this really how you want to define the core of your business?

Here is a analogy we can all appreciate:  When you were dating, did you only date people who approached you, or did you pursue someone, or at least flirt with someone, that you had your eye on?  If you waited to be asked, you might have settled...  Generally the pursuit is well worth the work.

The most talented candidate for any given job is out there doing something else right now.  They are doing a very good job and they are not desperate, and more than likely, they are not actively looking for work.  To entice those individuals to join your team will take time, patience, creativity, and persistence (not to mention a well-run system to track the pipeline).

So, get your team together, and make sure that you are in agreement regarding your key business and how you'll pursue the best talent out there...

The Brain Science of Management - Part 2 - Incorporating Metrics

Yesterday I summarized a review of Jacob's new book, Management Rewired.  I opened with this statement:

"First, we need to relinquish the fact that people are rational.  Recent research has shown emotions hold more sway over our decisions than reason; we turn to logic merely to justify our choices after the fact." (Ellen Gibson, Newsweek)

I discussed the author's plea to refrain from managing out of reward and punishment, and focus instead on building ownership and meaningful connections to peoples' work - It takes more forethought and tact, but is far more effective.

However, what the book doesn't address well, is how metrics fit into all of this.  I agree, wholeheartedly, that much of the conventional wisdom taught to managers produces the opposite effect from what is intended (carrot/stick), but we can't throw the baby out with the bath water... The better path is frequently counter-intuitive.

Measurement will always be part of how we gauge success.  Take sports for instance:  Sure the goal is to build teamwork, meaning, and aspirations for greatness into each player's motivational mindset.  But without measurement, this goal is meaningless.  Measurement will always be a part of determining an individual's contribution to a team.  Measurement is how we gauge progress and improvement, and how we calculate our standing against the competition.

As most of you know, we at Tidemark, place a great deal of importance on measurement.  We measure pretty much everything.  It is through measurement that one can make rational decisions, instead of justifying bad decisions through emotion.  Measurement doesn't inherently lead to the atmosphere of "carrot and stick" -- Lazy management does...  

The Brain Science of Management

"First, we need to relinquish the fact that people are rational.  Recent research has shown emotions hold more sway over our decisions than reason; we turn to logic merely to justify our choices after the fact."  (Ellen Gibson, Business Week).

This excerpt is one of the summaries to a review of Management Rewired:  Why Feedback doesn't Work and Other Surprising Lessons from the Latest Brain Science, by Charles S. Jacobs.

If you've read the latest Workpuzzle blogs by Ben Hess (1,2) trying to rationalize his coffee addiction, you have witnessed, first hand, this principle at work.  He is physically, and therefore emotionally attached to coffee, and continues to look for evidence to justify his addiction.  He does a pretty good job of this, I might add.

What Jacobs details in his book has actually been conveyed previously in countless other ways - Jacobs has just written a book using the latest brain research to justify a well found truth.  The truth is that people respond more to their emotions than they do to rational motivations.

It's long been known, for instance, that people respond best when they are performing meaningful work and striving to do their best, and when managers don't manage out of reward and punishment.  Professor John Seddon from the University of Cardiff in his work, Freedom from Command and Control, states that:

"Dysfunctional behaviour is ubiquitous and systemic, not because people are wicked but because the requirement to serve the hierarchy competes with the requirement to serve customers."

When management becomes out of control,

"...people's ingenuity is engaged in survival not improvement.  By causing managers and staff to lose sight of their customers, they can ultimately contribute to putting the organization out of business altogether."

In Gibson's article, The Stop-Managing Guide to Management, Gibson explains:

"Whether we're a chimpanzee or a corporate employee, we don't like being controlled by others.  Instead of trying to alter behaviors by fiat, he recommends that managers stop managing.  Employees should set their own objectives, critique their own performance, and come up with their own strategies for improvement.  People are self-motivating, Jacobs says, especially when they feel they're doing meaningful work.  (In case this strikes anyone as a dubious assertion, the author points out that engaging tasks stimulate the brain's dopamine system and deliver the same 'high' we get from food and nicotine.)"

So what's a boss to do? 

"Managers are better served by using subtle tactics to influence employees. Understanding that people are strongly motivated by emotion, he recommends that leaders create evocative 'narratives' about an organization's mission. For a small startup, it could be as basic as a David-vs.-Goliath plotline.

Here's an example of a rewired manager in action:  A team with a specific goal feels it's understaffed.  Jacobs suggests the manager defer to the team's point of view rather than react irritably.  Acknowledge that the team is shorthanded, he advises, then convince members that adding staff would dilute their accomplishment.

The book draws parallels between the couch and the cubicle.  The goal of the talk therapist is to guide the patient away from self-defeating mindsets.  But it's hard to imagine the average boss having the patience to apply these techniques, and Jacobs acknowledges that his approach takes more effort than employing carrot and stick.  Even so, reading Management Rewired might soften the touch—and boost the effectiveness—of many a corporate drill sergeant."

Keep in mind that most of you who have been raised under the reward and punishment system, with little exposure to the more subtle motivations, are emotionally attached to that way of relating, and will find ways to justify that management style.  But if you do this, you'll be rationalizing something that's not good for you or your team, much like Ben continues to rationalize his coffee addiction.