My first offer is for me to keep $60 and you get $40. If you’re like most people–according to research by UCLA neuroscientist Dr. Matthew Lieberman–you might hesitate slightly but you take the $40. It seems mostly fair.

Now, instead of the deal I presented above, I propose to keep $80 and you will get $20. According to Lieberman’s study, the vast majority of people will opt out of the deal and no one will get any money.
Why? Our brains are wired for fairness and we would rather no one benefit if both people can’t benefit somewhat fairly. As a matter of fact, the instinct for fairness is so strong that many people will pay money and go out of their way to seek vengeance if they feel the scales are tipped out of their favor. In light of this information, negotiations can be based on real science and everyone goes home wealthier and wiser.
Assess deals you’re trying to close, whether it’s a bank loan or the acquisition of a competitor, a lot of fairness questions are being asked right now. If you don’t answer them with some degree of equitability, you’ll most likely stall progress and might even see the deal go completely sour.

The business lessons we learn from brain science about fairness and the applications to your livelihood are many, but let me point out the ones that are most important and ironically the touchiest:

1. Hierarchy. Most people come to the negotiation table presuming a specific role they’ll play. They might believe they’re in the driver’s seat, for instance. If you unfairly assume that you are the driver because you didn’t do your homework about the other person, there is going to be a lot of arguing over who gets the steering wheel instead of focusing on the deal. Be proactive and investigate the role of the other person and play into it.

2. Give in and give up. Go into a meeting knowing your idea will rarely be adopted in its entirety. It’s interesting to see debates break out over seemingly trivial aspects of a proposal. But, people will go to the mat over little matters just to make sure you’ve given up something and give in to one of theirs. Prior to the meeting, examine the aspects of the proposal you can live without.

3. If it’s unfair, it’s unsafe. The brain is scanning all day long to maximize reward and minimize danger. When something doesn’t feel fair, it feels dangerous. The other party is now scanning for other areas in the proposal to minimize danger and you get puny, negative and narrow thinking in the room. One of your early tasks in a negotiation is to assure safety and create it if it’s not there.

4. If you expect fairness, you will likely get it. Examine one of the world’s best statesmen, Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, and you’ll see why he accomplished what some dubbed a miracle. He negotiated peacefully with Israel during one of the most turbulent times in the Middle East. He did it by announcing in press conferences, when asked about how he thought negotiations would go, that he fully expected for them to be fair for both sides because he had come to expect nothing less. In essence, he got the other side to play nicely because “we have always played well together during our talks.” Brilliant use of fairness.

There are exceptions to the fairness rule. Some people are numb to its effects no matter how fairly you play. They are the exceptions and you may need to play hardball with them, but it’s doubtful that you’ll feel good about it afterwards. Practice playing by the fairness rules and most of the time you will win–and so will they. Fair enough?

Scott Halford is an internationally known speaker and author of Be a Shortcut: The Secret Fast Track to Business Success (Wiley and Sons 2009). He can be reached at www.completeintelligence.com.

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You actually bring into your life whatever you think about. Your brain is very good at attending to whatever you direct it to.

It’s kind of like thinking you’re the only person in the world who would actually buy that shiny purple VW bug; then you drive it off the lot, and you suddenly see them everywhere. They were always out there; it just took a focusing event to get them onto your radar screen.

Thoughts, goals and ideas work the same way. You can increase your brain’s considerable input on them if you learn how to ask your brain nicely and deliberately to get involved.

You should understand that this process works just as well with negative thoughts. The bad stuff will find you all day long. Negative thoughts overwhelm your positive thoughts more easily than the other way around. We generally have to be more deliberate about the positive. 

The goal is to bring more balance so that depressive pessimism doesn’t set in from all of that negative thinking. It simply isn’t useful and leads to exactly what you think it will – failure.

So how do you make the most of your brain’s ability for right-thinking? Try these tips:

 1. Sleep. Every night before you go to bed, write in a notebook a few pressing questions you have. Go to sleep. Research shows that much of the insight you experience happens while you’re focused on not focusing. For the brain to do its magic, it needs to be untethered from biases and judgment and negative self-talk. That happens while you sleep. If you continue to do this on a regular basis, you’ll train your brain to make the connections to find the answer you’re looking for. It worked for Edison, it can work for you.

 2. Incubate. When you have a big issue, the worst thing you can do is to try to solve it immediately. Give it time. Have deep discussions with your trusted pals and then leave it. Research shows that the “Aha” moment comes after you’ve worked a problem from every angle without coming up with the answer. 

 3. Play. Google is famous for its play areas. The company’s ping-pong tables are a brilliant way to unlock the brain and allow it to wander. The brain gets to do the awake version of what it does when it sleeps. The ping-pong, or any other play, is just a way for the brain to attend to the problems you’ve been focused on without your cognitive brain butting in with its biases and opinions.

  So, tell your brain what you’re looking for – or at least pose questions to it. Prime the pump with as much information and discussion as you can tolerate. And then, get out of its way.

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Scott Halford   |   Entrepreneur.com  |  August 05, 2009

The negative attitude pandemic that is likely taking hold in your office could be quietly cutting into your bottom-line. The virulent workplace virus needs only a couple of nasty-ass attitudes to spread and thrive–if left unchecked you may soon hear the sound of money being siphoned from your pockets.

Research is conclusive–emotions are contagious, especially in group settings. Negative attitudes lead to destruction, while positive attitudes lead to construction. In a 2001 Yale University School of Management study, Dr. Sigal Barsade reported that not only are emotions contagious, but negative emotions will cost you big if left alone. Here are some useful findings about emotions.

Negative Emotions:

• are more contagious than positive ones. There is nothing more combustible than a good rumor, especially if there is scandal involved. This leads to hours of work stoppage, whispered secrets and mild organizational sabotage.
• are more readily believed than positive ones. We quickly brush off a compliment, but conversely are offended if someone tells us we don’t look so good. We spend about triple the amount of time on negative emotions.
• narrow a person’s focus. This can be an asset unless you’re in permanent survival mode, which leads to less innovation and more protectionism.
• are unpleasant. People tend to avoid negative feeling and any place that harbors them. This affects loyalty.
• lead to validation. We often dig up blame about the past and/or things that can’t be changed or controlled.

Positive Emotions:

• require more deliberate attention. We have to go out of our way to create positive feelings. Nastiness will parachute into your office all day long uninvited, but you have to find good things to get your team excited.
• lead to collaboration and creativity. This is your goldmine. Positive emotions will bring about innovation to beat your competition.
• are attractive. Humans yearn to be around a positive state of mind. A fun and positive workplace leads to increased loyalty.

Prominent psychopathologist, Dr. Bluma Zeigarnic discovered that we achieve our fullest state of consciousness and alertness through negative events. What that means is our brains are more “greased” when we are muddling in the negative and our ability to be critical is sharpened. Negative events turn on the adrenal glands to make us ready and alert for flight or fight. That is often what happens in a contentious company–employees either want to fight or get as far away from the negativity as they can.

There’s a Cure
We can all change the way we run our businesses.  For instance, the next time you call a meeting that has the potential for nay saying, remember that negative emotions are very contagious.

• 1. Listen to your negative employees. They are going to have a tendency to want to pick at everything. They see it as their duty to protect the organization from the disaster that might unfold if they do not speak up. They can either become your worst enemy or your best ally.
• 2. Discuss the downsides. When you open the meeting, announce the issue you’re trying to solve and explain to the group that you want to shoot as many holes in the idea as possible. Give your team 15 to 25 minutes to discuss the downsides of the idea and the obstacles in the way. Keep input on a flipchart.
• 3. Focus on solutions. After this negative session, challenge your employees to find ways to make the idea successful. Keep these “can-do” ideas on a flipchart. Make sure the negative people give input. People have a way of believing their own data–you’ll have an easier buy-in.

You’ve caused alertness to rise, allowing the group to do what it will naturally do–look for the negative. You’ve gotten those objections and obstacles out on the table so they aren’t festering and becoming lethal inside the company. You’ve contained the negative so that it doesn’t become contagious. Finally, you’ve turned the meeting around to focus on solutions.

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Exciting news for iPhone users…Be a Shortcut: The Secret Fast Track to Business Success is now available as an iPhone APP!

Go to iTunes and search for Be a Shortcut.

Here’s what it is:  Shortcut Shorts…60 pithy thoughts about the power and influence of a Shortcut.  You’ll get tips on becoming a more effective Shortcut,  including new information not found in the book!

At one a week, these Shortcut Shorts will last you more than a year!

 Download Be a Shortcut to your iPhone today!

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His website is http://www.mike-robbins.com and links to his book for various bookstores are:

• AMAZON
• BARNES AND NOBLE
• BOOKS A MILLION
• BORDERS
• TATTERED COVER

05/26/09 – 05:38 PM EDT

By Scott Halford of Entrepreneur.com

I once heard a presenter ask a room full of people what they thought about cooking a cheeseburger in their exhaust pipe. The audible disgust was instant. The collective brain in the room immediately shut down any possibility of the idea going any further. Your brain already knows how to help you succeed — so get out of the way.

This particularly cool, but deceptively sabotaging feature of the brain is known as “danger surfing.” Way back when life was a matter of survival, each morning our ancestors came out of the cave and were instantly on high alert. They would “surf” the horizon for danger; danger surfing is what saved their lives.

We still roam around with that ancient wiring and understanding it will help you to overcome the sabotage danger surfing can create when your organization is coming up with the next big idea.

You’ll see danger surfing in your workplace over less obvious dangerous ideas. It happens when someone proposes a new idea and the listener’s instinctual reaction is to find all the ways the idea might fail or hurt the individual or organization.

So, what do they do? They “save people from themselves” and rip their idea to shreds, or slyly convince them it’s not such a good one. Instead of building upon the idea the way inventors, innovators and creative types do, they find everything and anything wrong with the proposed idea and put up a big stop sign. Sound familiar? Danger surfing sabotages your success — it gets old to hear your cynical views. Danger surfing stops the idea from progressing as rapidly as it might and often shuts it down completely. Inventions don’t typically come to light because of all the things you said no to.

While ideas need to be analyzed and critiqued, danger surfing becomes a knee-jerk default and should be consciously overridden to create more successful, creative and positive results.

Your brain knows the business of people, and all of the post-graduate courses on the latest process probably won’t teach you what your brain is aching to do for you if you’ll just pay attention to it. When you become aware of the cool little devices harbored in the folds of your white and grey matter, you can out-smart your competition.

Tips to Avoid Danger Surfing

“Yes and…” Do what improv actors do; play the “yes and…” game. Instead of looking for the flaws, be additive to the idea. The next time someone comes to you with an idea, no matter how half-baked, put your “but” out to pasture and expand on the idea. Not only will this be collaborative and lead to more creativity, it will also show you what an attractor behavior is like.

Create and evaluate separately. The formation of ideas and the evaluation of them are two entirely different brain processes. Let’s say you want to start a new venture, so you pull together your best business whiz pals in a meeting to help you with the idea. You’ll want to spring for two pizza-and-beer parties.

One is to collect every whacked-out idea they can come up with in relation to your idea — no evaluation of the ideas, the brain will shut down creativity if you do. The second meeting is to evaluate and prioritize.

Allow at least a week in between formation and evaluation so the brain can incubate. At the end of the first meeting, ask everyone to be thinking about the best possible combinations of ideas around your venture.

Count to 10. It takes approximately six seconds from the time a negative emotion is felt (i.e., disgust or disdain) and the dissipation of the hormones that make you want to blurt out a nasty remark. Your mom was right — count to 10 before you speak. Let the visceral feelings die down, then speak. And remember to be additive.

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 Viewpoint April 10, 2009, 12:21PM EST

A “shortcut” is an employee or organization that’s indispensable. Here are strategies for using your best people to the utmost advantage.

By Scott Halford

I recently spoke to a client who is a senior vice-president for sales at one of the world’s largest computer companies. She is in the midst of major layoffs, and she told me quite frankly that the employees who are being let go are “the ones who are not shortcuts.” She continued: “There is too much to keep track of and too much to be done with fewer people. As tough as it might sound, if people can’t figure out how to contribute and make themselves indispensable, then there is no place for them.” This SVP embraces what I call “the shortcut culture.”

Let’s define culture as both the behavior you’re willing to tolerate from your employees as well as a set of guidelines for the kind of people you’d like to keep and attract. When the two intersect, they create “the way we do things around here.” A shortcut is a person, product, or organization that provides something we need, when we need it, with less aggravation and more precision than we could do ourselves. They do it with high quality, grace, and intelligence, and they are typically paid very well for it. It’s a combination of high mastery and high emotional intelligence.

This Darwinian-like business climate is mandating the kind of corporate culture that focuses on leanness, expertise, and sticky client relationships. As leadership scrambles to clarify corporate directives in these unclear times, the one concrete concept that is redefining the corporation for the post-Darwinian business climate is the creation of this new culture. It is a way of operating that is measured and maintained. It’s about your company and its employees working toward indispensability-an “I can’t live without” entity by your customer’s standards It’s a top-down proposition and not for the faint of heart-but then again, the faint of heart won’t survive the economic downturn. In this market, if you or your company is not a shortcut to something, it’s going to be a rough ride.

You are being watched.

Rules to Adopt

The building of such a culture has to trickle down to all levels-and this is where tactics are critical. Workers are so badly in need of shortcuts themselves that organizations need strategies and rules that can be easily adopted. Every company is going to be different-but following are a few of the procedures that you can adopt, adapt, or add to. The main thing to keep in mind is that the organization’s highly visible senior-level leaders have to be “caught” doing these things on a regular basis.

The credo at the heart of this way of working and being is:

• Nothing is more important than filling the needs of our customer.
• Every customer of the company is the customer of each of us.
• We are each other’s customers, too.
• It is each person’s responsibility to spend a minimum of 30 hours per year to increase technical skills and knowledge, along with communication, negotiation, and critical thinking abilities. The company will enable this by providing the time and resources to meet this responsibility.
• We treat each other, regardless of title or station, with the same respect and dignity that we treat our valued customers.
• We value family and private lives in the same way we wish them to value our corporate family.

These are but a few of the tactics and guiding ideas that senior executives can exemplify through their consistent behavior around these principles.

You Reap What You Tolerate

In companies where negative attitudes and mediocre skills are tolerated, the message is sent that this behavior is acceptable. Over time, the organization as a whole behaves as most other mediocre organizations-with confusion, chaos, and ultimately bad balance sheets. When the behaviors listed above are expected, regularly measured, acknowledged, and their results lauded, the message is sent loud and clear about what is desired and valued.

For it to work, senior executives must agree to support the culture and practice and advocate it throughout the organization. They must talk about it in meetings and reinforce it with incentives and recognition programs; they must communicate the message by any means available. In essence, it’s talked about, it’s acted upon, it’s rewarded-and it’s talked about some more. It’s not an exercise. It’s a way of being.

You already have shortcuts in your organization but perhaps have not recognized them as such. Or worse, they have not been encouraged and rewarded for their expertise and excellence. If you trust and empower your best performers-your shortcuts-to do what they were hired to do, you will be pleasantly rewarded. You spend enormous resources recruiting the best talent available. Celebrate their abilities and expertise and expect the very best. To do anything less limits their ability to contribute and sabotages your results. Think about it this way: It would be like spending $3 million on a Kentucky Derby contender and then treating it like a nag. If you want your superstars and your up-and-coming superstars to behave and perform like a shortcut-a thoroughbred-treat them like one.

In this economy, you need a team that behaves and performs consistently at the top of their game without you supervising their every move. A team of shortcuts will deliver the results you need. After all, how many hands do you have time to hold?

Scott Halford, CSP, is the president of Complete Intelligence and author of Be a Shortcut: The Secret Fast Track to Business Success (Wiley 2009). Contact him at www.BeAShortcut.com.

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