Expand Your Mind: Perceptions
by Miki Saxon
Technically speaking the links I’ve been offering lately have been off subject and perhaps I should apologize to the purists among you (assuming there are any). But I honestly believe you can draw useful intelligence from off-subject information and experiences, both direct and vicarious, to apply to your professional life, while some just apply living in general. Today I’ll start with the most applicable and move outwards to the indirect.
It’s a well-known fact that the line you aren’t in moves fastest—or does it? New research shows that it’s not how long you actually wait, but how long you are idle that counts, which is why I always try to carry a book.
“Often the psychology of queuing is more important than the statistics of the wait itself,” notes the M.I.T. operations researcher Richard Larson, widely considered to be the world’s foremost expert on lines. Occupied time (walking to baggage claim) feels shorter than unoccupied time (standing at the carousel). Research on queuing has shown that, on average, people overestimate how long they’ve waited in a line by about 36 percent.
Understanding nonverbal communications means more than looking at the obvious clues, such as crossed arms; it means taking the 3 C’s into account.
One way of increasing your accuracy is applying the 3 C’s of Nonverbal Communication: context, clusters, and congruence. Context includes what environment the situation is taking place in, the history between the people, and other factors such as each person’s role (for example- an interaction between a boss and employee).
Parenting and managing (or leading, if you prefer) have a lot in common, so I tend to read parenting articles.
A recent essay from a college professor who understands both sides of the coin when it comes to disengaging from a child-about-to-be-an-adult offers up insights that are just as useful to a manager struggling to delegate as to a parent who needs to let go.
Parents and children follow one another’s progress on Facebook. They post photos of the campus lobster bake on Instagram. They tweet. They text. They Tumbl.
There are times when I want to tell my students that if they want to learn anything at college, their first step should be defriending their parents. (…) Now that I am one myself, I finally know what it is parents are going through — not just letting go of a child but of an entire chapter of their lives.
Finally, The NYT has a feature called Room for Debate that poses a subject with experts on both sides adding their thoughts. Frequently the best stuff is found in the hundreds of comments. The most recent asked if “modern parents were rude… Or just doing what’s best for their children.” Lyss Stern, founder of Divalysscious Moms, a “luxury lifestyle company for urban mothers”, provided the most comic relief from a modern, totally self-absorbed mindset—almost a caricature of the subject.
“Yes, sometimes I did let my younger son run around Barney’s because I know he’d pitch a fit if I kept him in his stroller. But that doesn’t make me a bad mom.”
Sorry Lyss, according to 99% of the comments I read it does.
Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho
