From visions to explanations: sketches do help to clarify, too.

Positive and negative words are best being kept in your memory, if you don´t write them down, but draw. Why is that so? Because of 3 reasons: 1. Drawing as such is a perfect mnemo technique due to the movements of your hand, 2. Emotions do produce a stronger footprint in your mind than neutral or emotionless information and 3. the combination of both stands for another quantum leap when it comes to memorizing or remember something.

These are the cristalclear insights after a couple of experiments two Canadian psychologists from the University of Waterloo have gotten to. The researchers recommend therefore to ordinary people to use a sort of sketch diary for everyday life. And forensics they tell to let witnesses draw pretty quickly whatever they might have seen of any criminal act. Don´t trust spoken testimonies alone, is their message.

Tran/Fernandes, “Drawing Enhances Memory for Emotional Words”, in: Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology”, 2023, vol. 77, nr. 4, 296-307.

From the practise:

I am a fan of the drawn word. For years I motivate clients to better draw their vision than to put down some bullet points in the first place. By drawing your real intentions, your wishes, your fantasies are surfacing perfectly.

Additionally drawing is a brillant technique, though, for questioning the conclusiveness and the understanding of explanations. According to the motto: what you cannot draw, you cannot explain, too, I am advising all clients to draw their argument first – particularly when preparing a speech or a presentation. Whether you draw a process chart or a press graphic or a big emotional picture – this is a matter of taste. In any case you are not only doublechecking if your explanation hits the point, you very often are also getting metaphors by the drawing. And so a sketch creates spoken pictures which as metaphors return to your rhetoric.

The Pandemic has left remarkable traces, though

Within a decade, between 2012 and 2022 the relevance of soft skills at the working place has changed substantially. And you may presume that the pandemic has its role in it. Nowadays superiors are looking for people in their teams who are easy-going when challenges pop up on the horizon (adaptability) and who are willing and able to move proactively and work with a lot of self-leadership (Conscientiousness).

10 years ago general abilities like “communication” or “Courtesy” were ranking highest and being associated as match winner for getting a really good job. Unchangedly at the top of all soft skills integrity is residing – demonstrating that trust or ethics forever matter.

These are at least the results two US-American female researchers are getting to when repeating Roble´s Soft Skills Study of 2012. Last but not least: soft skills have become more important at all.

Fletcher/Thornton, “The Top 10 Soft Skills in Business Today Compared to 2012″, in: Business and Professsional Communication Quarterly”, 2023, vol. 86 (4), 411 – 426.

From the practice:

I am curious: will social competencies finally be judged equally with classical expertise when people run for executive jobs in hearings? Will the methodology used in these types of finding and selection processes be adapted to better identify how many promising candidates deal with others nicely – with or without hierarchy, in seemingly easy, but then also in complex phases, being aware of home offices and online-Meetings? If yes, Covid-19 actually would have brought a priceless added value into recruiting. I am thinking here particularly about cognitive professionals, scientist, consultants, legal experts – just to name a few. Whether we like it or not: classical expertise does not pay off in case of executives who fail in cooperation.

Or: How you could plan your time in the office even more efficiently

A current Chinese-US-American study delivers new insights:

1. It´s the relation between meetings and individual work that counts and not the accurate number of meetings per day which is stealing more and more energy from us. The more we are sitting in meetings the less we are able to load our batteries. And this we actually need to do particularly as white collar people when we have to solve tasks on our own.
2. Having the level of stress in mind helps keeping the balance. The more a meeting is pressing big responsibility onto you the easier and more relaxed any individual work should be on this specific day. And vice versa.

The researchers conclude: all superiors in any branch are much better off if they anticipate more precisely while planning their schedules and if they avoid stressful meetings AND demanding individual work on one single day under all circumstances.

Zhang/Spreitzer/Qiu, “Meetings and Individual Work During the Workday: Examining Their Interdependent Impact on Knowledge Workers’ Energy “, in: Journal of Applied Psychology, 2023, vol. 108, nr. 10, pg. 1640-1661.

From the practice:

This study confirms what is common sense for decades: who hurries constantly from meeting to meeting misses the time to proceed with the agreements, to delegate or to communicate them to the employees affected. And still: managers are cramming and overloading their calendars with meetings – neglecting that their latent mental and also physical fatigue will surface sooner than they wish.

Smart? No. Avoidable? Yes. Certainly you cannot circumvent tough times when you are member of a board or sliding into a crisis. Exhaustion as a permanent state, though, is a damage to everything and everyone involved: to the case, to the acting personell and to the organisation.

Better understanding or better recollection is your choice

YOU decide whether your gestures provide a better understanding of your words or whether they are simply better remembered. According to a current Turkish study gestures differ. The scientists have analysed what sort of gesticulation is better perceived and how gestures then contribute to a better understanding of what you tell.

1. The more your hands move beyond the outlines or your body the stronger the impact. 2. If gestures underline your messages they are much better GesprächspartnerInnen – almost nobody remembers your gestures per se, though, since words and visualizing merge. 3. Your gestures are much better remembered when they complement your speech as an additional message. But then there is no benefit for your understanding – disagreements follow too often.

Özer/Karadöller/Özyürek/Göksun, “Gestures cued by demonstratives in speech guide listener´ visual attention during spatial comprehension”, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General”, 152(9), 2623–2635.

From the practise:

Two recommendations added: a) When you use a gesture as an added message to your text, then shut your mouth and explain what you meant later. This will result in a double effect – best possible understanding and best possible recollection for your thoughts. b) Keep in mind that the authenticity of your gesticulation is key! Scripted movements are perceived as unlikely, artificial and awful.

Office behavior prevents or brings insomnia

A new option how we can care for our own sleep´s sake has popped up: start asap expressing promotive voice at your working place and you definitely will be slumbering better. Way better than those at least who are sticking with pure critique for procedures or content and than those who don´t manage to deliver solutions, too. Why is this? According to a newly published US study solvers are more able to relax from a heavy working day and to fall asleep with pleasant feelings. Actually it is a vicious circle: one who sleeps not well is lacking energy on the very next day for bringing in solutions and good ideas. And one who is rolling over problems all over the day without giving birth to innovative answers does sleep badly.

Heydarifard/Krasikova, “Losing Sleep Over Speaking Up at Work: A Daily Study of Voice and Insomnia”, in: Journal of Applied Psychology”, 2023, vol. 23-103033108, nr. 9, 1559-1572.

 From the practice:

It is logical somehow, and still fabulous to listen to it explicitly: that the feeling after having made a constructive contribution, after haven given one´s part to accomplishing a project, is satisfying AND makes us sleep well.

So if you ask me, organizations of any kind do face right now a typical win-win-situation: those who want their staff to have enough sleep overnight, are nourishing number and quality of promotive voice, and those who are fostering an open culture of discussion and transparency where solutions and ideas from the staff are appreciated do support indirectly a healthy team qua good sleep.

And you, dear employees, you do have another brilliant reason to develop a more stringent orientation towards goals and solutions. Good luck to all!

Polish study: Any manager can improve in writing

Precise, clear, supportive and optimistic: that´s how emails in the working place are meant to be. And this is going to materialize even without any specific linguistic or writing talent, at least a new study from Poland is pointing at. Managers ought to raise the following 7 questions before sending their emails, though:

1. Why am I going to write instead of talking?
2. What sort of wording can I use to address the aim of my message right at the top?
3. Am I more interested to foreground that a task is to be done or that the relationship to the recipient/s is to be taken care of?
4. How is my working relationship to the recipient/s and how do I intend to strengthen or change it?
5. How may structure and messages contribute to the success of my email?
6. How explicitly and honestly do I want to deliver my goals?
7. What sort of politeness strategies and phrases of kindness can I use to accomplish my targets?

Molek-Kozakowska/Molek-Winiarska, “Managing in Writing: Recommendations from Textual Patterns in Managers´ Email Communication”, in: Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 2023 Sept; 86(3): 296-321.

From the practice:

These 7 questions are hillarious!

Being a former journalist I do know how exactly you have to weigh any single word to actually achieve what is to be accomplished. My technique to date: to put myself in the position of the recipient/s the moment he/she is opening and reading the emails and to feel as precisely as possible how this or that sentence will come across then. That applies particularly for the very beginning and the very end of my emails. Without any training and experience this procedure takes way too long.

That´s why, once again: these 7 questions are simply top and of big help!

High confidence in declared insecurity

When being asked about your point of view or advice about developments to come you always have four options: a) you say “I don´t have a clue” or similar, b) you are simply estimating, c) you are determined with a fixed forecast, d) you are declaring your insecurity by adding confidence interval to your guess. According to a newly published US study the last one proves to be the most trustful – just imagine sentences like „I think the weather will become good tomorrow, at least up to 80%.“

This is independent from how close or far away one´s own estimates is from the confidence interval: we follow insecurities which are openly declared in such a way preferably. „Fake knowledge“ appears to be outdated – at least in specific circumstances.

Gaertig/Simmons, „Are people more or less likely to follow advice that is accompanied by a confidence interval?“, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology – General, 2023, Vol. 152, No. 7, 2008–2025.

From the practice:

Good news for all seriously and professionally communicating experts and advisers! Hence we need not to pretend to know everything and to be able to evaluate any development which is approaching on the horizon. On the contrary: if we declare our reading of the coffee grounds transparently by adding concrete probabilities we may even increase the number of our followers (this is true even outside of social media).

Why is this so? Perhaps because more and more people are fed up with boasters who want to cover up that they do not have any clue. Perhaps because numbers even when they are used „only“ as confidence intervals basically enjoy high credibility. Or perhaps because this type of communication comes across differentiated, reflected and likable. This is what I believe in at least up to 90%.

 😉😉😉

German study finds visual bias in analysis of 5 „chancellor“ TV debates

True objectivity in televised political debates should be reflected also in the very same covering by cameras. Particularly in visual media it is not sufficient at all to maintain equality between candidates only by supervising the speaking time or by raising the very same questions by the interviewers. These are the conclusions drawn by German researchers after having found visual biases in those 5 TV debates from 2002 – 2017 where candidates fought for the chancellery.

According to their analysis politicians of the CDU have been there depicted by means of the cameras (more movements, more zoom-ins, more close-ups) more dynamic than their respective opponents of the SPD.  And once, in 2009, it was the extremely static camera work per se that made viewers judge the debate between Angela Merkel and Frank-Walter Steinmeier as dull beyond average.

Hence the German scientists recommend to literally keep an eye on the potentials of visual bias during TV debates.

Maier/Glogger/Bast, „Is there a visual bias in televised debates? Evidence from Germany, 2002–2017“, in: Visual Communication, vol. 22, issue 2, May 2023, pp. 221-242.

From the practice:

Press speakers do know meanwhile that addressing the camera work before TV debates is key. But how much can debaters rely on that? Of course supervisors of TV debates can ask their staff behind the cameras to keep even more a balance in the way they depict actors on stage. Still I think in this context the idea of a 100% equal treatment is an illusion. Camera operators not only act, but react to things happening in the studio, too.

So any politician does have great a many opportunities to present himself/herself as a dynamic person: nonverbally by gestures and movements and by the presentation of things which underline their words or verbally by vivid examples and an attentive personal dialogue with the interviewer or the opponent which comes across always as much more dynamic than standing texts.

Curtailing Fake News means to bring back sharers from isolation

There is one key reason why Fake News are shared on Social Media: because one is being kicked out, not contacted anymore or blocked by the community as quickly as if you have posted the truth. Conservative groups are even faster in doing that than liberal ones, smaller groups more consequent than bigger ones. Hence Fake News are primarily shared by people who fear the virtual isolation = people whose self esteem is dependent from being group member in the internet. This is at least the converse conclusion being the resume in an international research project (Duke University, INSEAD, IIT Delhi) where 100.000 tweets have been recorded and been analysed within six studies.

The scientists recommend therefore to consider this emotional aspect in the fight against Fake News unconditionally.

Lawson/Anand/Kakkar, „Tribalism and Tribulation: The Social Costs of Not Sharing Fake News”, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General”, 2023, vol. 152, no. 3, 611-631.

From the practice:

This is my moment of proceeding: according to these new insights we ought to strengthen the resistance against Fake News not only rationally with dates, facts and figures, but even more with strategies focused on emotions.

What could this mean for you as leaders?

1. To put more attentiveness and more time into personal break outs with employees
2. To create more positive We-experiences in the job and in corporate activities (environment, social, sports, culture) and 3. To be more than ever role model – by being transparent and promoting not dull, but differentiated communication.

Realistic deadlines and clear priorities are minimizing risks

When we think we are too slow, we cut things short – also at work. 1. Because we want to fulfill expectations of superiors and clients an 2. Due to frustration, since when not getting along quickly enough we tend to have inferior feelings. Additionally: Short Cuts occur more often when immediate short-term rewards like bonusses or prestige are to be gained by keeping the deadline. That is even though the neglecting of standard procedures may be more lead to more damage than keeping the deadline – according to a newly published Canadian study.

Hence the researchers advise leaders to reflect the issue „Speed at the working place“ with their staff much more often and to proactively convey that Short Cuts have to be for good reasons the exception to the rule.

Phan/Nishioka/Beck/Scholer, “Goal progress velocity as a determinant of shortcut behaviors”, in: Journal of Applied Psychology, 108 (4), 553-570, 2023.

From the practice:

Short Cuts are a big topic. Why do they emerge? For many different reasons: a) structurwise: standard procedures may be not suitable for keep the specific deadline, b) personalwise: you might have started to late o rare simply not knowledgeable enough to finish the work within the time frame, c) leadershipwise: the requirements have been too high from the very beginning and incentives might have been connected only to meeting the deadline.

For solving or even avoiding the issue of short cuts at work I recommend something astonishingly simple: talk with each other! Talk to improve standard procedures if necessary, to get better organized, to set a later deadline from the start or to define together when and under which circumstances short cuts are welcome and what is to be noted then particularly.

When is it unconditional to keep the deadline? When is it good, when bad? Please talk about that in your offices – it pays off.