Introduction
The concept of “imposter syndrome” was first covered by two American psychologists in 1978, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. Writing in the journal Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, they described imposter syndrome as the feeling of “phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable or creative despite evidence of high achievement.” They say these people “are highly motivated to achieve,” but also “live in fear of being ‘found out’ or exposed as frauds” [1].
Clance and Imes first chose to look into the concept upon noticing that the female students in their class were full of doubt regarding their abilities. After conducting interviews with 150 women, a combination of students and professionals, many of whom were objectively successful, they found that “despite their earned degrees, scholastic honours, high achievement on standardised tests, praise and professional recognition from colleagues and respected authorities, these women do not experience an internal sense of success. They consider themselves to be ‘impostors’” [2].
While initial thinking was that this was a uniquely female problem, subsequent studies have shown that “if surveys are anonymous, there are similar levels of these symptoms between men and women. The difference is that men can find it more difficult to talk about these feelings”, according to Dr Jon van Niekerk, group clinical director at Cygnet Health Care [3].
Causes and effects
There is no obvious cause for imposter’s syndrome, nothing so simple as ‘Thing A’ happened, causing ‘Thing B’. But that’s not to say people haven’t tried to track its origins.
Australian academic and expert on self-management Hugh Kearns, who has been researching the phenomenon for more than 20 years, says the feelings associated with imposter syndrome often have their origins in childhood experiences [4]. Whether it’s being told you’re perfect, being made to fear failure, or even made to fear success, these experiences can set children off on a negative path – one from which it is hard to break free.
“For imposters, making mistakes is bad, very bad. It is the time when you risk being exposed,” Kearns says. “So somewhere along the line, you picked up the belief that mistakes are not OK and, since mistakes are a part of life, you have a problem and feel like an imposter.”
Dr Elena Touroni, consultant psychologist and co-founder of The Chelsea Psychology Clinic, says that at its core imposter syndrome relies on “feelings of self-doubt sparking fears of being ‘exposed’ as a fraud, or diminishing genuine achievements and attributing them to luck rather than skill” [5].
In theory, these can sound like positive traits – acknowledging the role of fortune and circumstance in success is taken as a sign of humility, and generally considered preferable to someone claiming they did it all on their own.
Writing in the New York Times, Carl Richards says that the problems really emerge once humility – a healthy and valued trait – crosses the line into paralysing fear. He makes an incisive point, too, about why so many talented, successful people may suffer from imposter syndrome [6].
“We often hesitate to believe that what’s natural, maybe even easy for us, can offer any value to the world,” he writes. “In fact, the very act of being really good at something can lead us to discount its value.” We often champion the value of hard work, but it can go unmentioned that there are people for whom certain valued skills just come naturally. If your talent, be it for writing, singing, painting, or sales, comes easily to you, it can be hard to understand why you are being so rewarded with praise and compensation for it. You don’t have to work that hard, and thus don’t feel like you deserve the positive outpourings coming your way.
That’s not to say that one has to be a uniquely talented specialist in their field to suffer from imposter syndrome. Many people who are not generational talents – but are competent, reliable and successful – suffer in a different way. As Dr Elena Touroni notes, for these cases, people’s imposter syndrome often manifests “as overworking to prove one’s worth, delaying tasks due to fear of imperfection, or [undertaking] an unending quest for validation” [7].
Like Room 101, imposter syndrome adjusts itself to each person’s individual worst fears.
Minority impact
Although it has subsequently been shown that imposter syndrome is not a gendered phenomenon, there is something to be said for the way it impacts certain groups differently.
Some researchers, for example, argue that imposter syndrome hits minority groups harder. Lack of representation can make minorities feel like outsiders. And any feeling of “I don’t belong here” is understandably compounded if you are the only person in a group setting who looks the way you do.
Kevin Cokley, a professor of educational psychology and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted a study published in The Journal of Counseling Psychology. His research showed that impostorism can augment discrimination some minority groups may already feel, which adds to their stress. He also found that African-American college students had higher levels of anxiety and discrimination-related depression when they had significant levels of impostorism [8].
Representation is improving, but it would be naive to discount the impact a lack of it has had on feelings of imposter syndrome among minority groups for many years.
Fighting imposter syndrome
We’ve already noted some of the negative effects imposter syndrome can bring about, from overworking and perfectionism to fear of failure or even putting oneself out there, but negative self-talk can be the most restrictive of all.
Negative self-talk doesn’t just debilitate people who are successful but often prevents people from even trying to become successful in the first place. As the “Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology” puts it: “If the person lacks confidence…there will be no action” [9]. If you stop putting yourself forward for roles or tasks you’d like or think you’re well suited for due to fear you’re not good enough, then you’ll never find out.
Breaking out of negative self-talk requires self-confidence.
“Internally, true self-confidence will lead to more positivity, happiness and resilience,” says Charlie Houpert, the author of “Charisma on Command” and the founder of a 2.7-million-subscriber YouTube channel of the same name. “Externally, high self-confidence will lead to taking more risks, which directly correlates with reaping more rewards” [10].
To develop self-confidence and assuage imposter syndrome, one can try a number of techniques.
Writing down
Dr Cokley advises keeping a daily diary and recording every instance of positive feedback you receive.
“Do that over the course of a week or a month and go back and look at all those instances in which you’ve gotten good feedback, where you’ve been told you’ve done a good job and done something well,” he said.
Kearn’s advice is similar. He suggests judging yourself by objective standards by writing down what you would consider a “win” in any scenario prior to commencing your task. If you achieve that goal, be satisfied, and don’t try to move the goalposts after the fact.
Hyper honesty
Houpert suggests being “hyper honest.” That means that if someone asks what you do for hobbies or for a living, you answer honestly, rather than trying to think of the answer they would want to hear.
“When you stop hiding parts of yourself from other people, you’ll find you feel more confident in who you are,” he says.
Exercise
Exercise is a brilliant way to develop self-confidence, which in turn is a brilliant way to combat imposter syndrome. The American Psychological Association says that exercise can improve your mood and – alongside regular treatment and therapy – help combat depression and anxiety [11].
New clothes
It may sound trivial, but dressing differently works not just in adjusting how other people perceive you but how you perceive yourself. Dr. Adam D. Galinsky, a professor at Columbia Business School, found that participants in a study who wore a white lab coat exhibited more focused attention than those dressed casually [12]. Dress as the version of yourself you want to be, the one that’s earned their success and is where they belong, see if it doesn’t help.
Understand you’re not alone
Imposter syndrome affects 70% of people in the world [13]. It is entirely normal to feel like you don’t deserve your success or that you’re out of your depth. It doesn’t mean that you are.
Accept these feelings as normal and try to move past them. Letting them hold you back helps no one, yourself least of all. Research suggests that as much as 40% of our happiness is linked to our intentional daily activities and the choices we make. Only 10% is affected by external circumstances and the other 50% is thought to come from our genes [14]. Focus on the 40% you can control, grow your confidence, and make imposter syndrome feel like an imposter for a change.
Sources
[1, 2] Clance, P. R., & Imes, S. A. (1978). The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research & Practice, 15(3), 241–247. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0086006
[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/your-money/learning-to-deal-with-the-impostor-syndrome.html
[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/smarter-living/how-to-improve-self-confidence.html
[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/smarter-living/how-to-improve-self-confidence.html
[11] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/smarter-living/how-to-improve-self-confidence.html
[12] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/smarter-living/how-to-improve-self-confidence.html
[13] https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/healthandwellbeing/arid-41200660.html
Introduction
In the US, the number of unfilled jobs in the country reached a record high in March of 2021 [1]. Also that month, the reservation wage – the term economists use to describe the minimum compensation workers require – was up by 19% from November 2019, with a jump of nearly $10,000 a year according to a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York [2].
Meanwhile, research by the CIPD, published in October 2023, found that around four million people in the UK had at some point changed their careers due to a lack of flexibility at work. The strange thing? Almost two million of them had done so in the previous year [3].
Unfilled jobs, higher salaries, career shifts based on work flexibility, all of these were the result of what was termed the Great Resignation.
Where are we now?
Throughout the pandemic, employers found themselves incapable of retaining staff. And though the process has slowed – in the US, figures from July of last year show that the rate at which workers were quitting their jobs was only modestly above pre-pandemic levels [4] – workers are still quitting at a rate three times that of reductions [5]. That’s according to the man who coined the term “the Great Resignation”, Anthony Klotz, an associate professor of organisational behaviour at the University College London’s School of Management.
The pandemic is over and can no longer be used as an excuse for such profound levels of employee turnover. If businesses want to keep their staff, they need to make steps to do so. That means valuing employee well-being, engaging with processes of flexible working, and giving managers the assistance they need to be able to keep staff on side.
To do that, businesses need to drop the delusion.
Delusional employers
Nearly two-thirds of bosses believe that workers will return to the office five days a week within the next three years. On top of that, a majority of company leaders think that pay and promotions could soon come to be based on workplace attendance [6].
Those are the findings of the KPMG CEO Outlook survey of 2023. More than 1,300 chief executives of the world’s largest businesses were surveyed to reach those numbers. Of them, 64% felt a full return to in-office working would take place by 2026 and 87% felt that financial rewards and promotional opportunities could be linked to office attendance in the future.
This betrays a level of delusion that’s hard to comprehend.
Almost every survey conducted since the pandemic began has found that workers have no desire to return to their desks full-time. Some even said they would quit their job if the possibility of home working was taken away. Our sister company, Lincoln Recruitment’s 2024 Salary & Employment Insights Survey echoes this sentiment with 53% of employees stating if their current employer changed their hybrid work policy they would be more inclined to seek a new role. The vast majority of workers expect at least some level of hybrid working. The idea that they will regress to the old ways – much less do so with a financial gun to their head by way of pay-based office attendance – is for the birds.
Jon Holt, chief executive of KPMG in the UK, acknowledged as much in response to the survey’s findings, saying that any such initiatives could “create tensions between leaders and employers” [7].
“Issuing an ‘all hands on deck’ edict is a simple response to a complex issue – it won’t work for all businesses”, Holt continued. “Some sort of hybrid working is likely to remain a useful way to attract and retain the good people the CEOs know their business needs.”
It’s not even clear why business leaders are so keen to return to what came before. From a purely financial standpoint, research from Timewise suggests that the upfront costs that come from moving to flexible working are quickly recouped from reductions in sick leave and staff turnover [8].
Hybrid working will not be simply willed away. Although, the findings of a recent paper by Arindrajit Dube, a University of Massachusetts professor who has studied the pandemic economy, might provide a cynical perspective as to why chief executives such as those surveyed wish that it could be.
Dube and his two co-authors found that during the pandemic the earnings gap between workers at the top of the income scale and those at the bottom, after widening for four decades, began to narrow. In fact, in just two years, the economy undid about a quarter of the increase in inequality since 1980 [9]. The researchers put much of that progress down to workers’ increased ability – and willingness – to change jobs. One could see why those at the top want things to go back to how they were.
For his part, Dube is not expecting a regression, saying, “There are good reasons to think that at least a chunk of the changes that we’ve seen in the low-wage labour market will prove lasting.”
Retaining workers: Well-being
In a study of Glassdoor employee reviews from April to September 2021, Donald Sull, a senior lecturer at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, found that corporate environment ranked as the top factor in employee retention [10]. A toxic work culture was found to be “ten times more predictive of having a higher-than-industry-average attrition rate than compensation.”
Of course, defining toxic culture is difficult. It is more a feeling than anything tangible. Though, of course, endless negative feedback, screaming bosses and unachievable expectations all contribute.
Conversely, the simplest way of developing a strong working culture is to value employees, and ensure that they feel it. Positive feedback, flexibility, compassion, communication, mental health awareness – all things that should be the bare minimum employers offer their staff and yet are so often neglected.
Research published in 2023 based on a survey of over 1,500 businesses across Ireland found that 80% of employers are not investing in workplace mental health at all [11]. The report, Healthy Workplace Ireland: A Survey of Mental Health and Well-being Promotion in Irish Firms, also found that mental health-related absenteeism was on the rise – hardly a shock given the lack of investment firms are placing in the area.
This goes back to Mr Sull’s study. He found that companies often failed to live up to the values they preached in public statements. Those companies whose actions matched their words “are the exception, not the rule,” he said [12]. A number of companies preach the value of mental health and taking care of their employees, but troublingly few follow through on that pledge.
Retaining workers: Growth opportunities
Other factors that help employee retention according to Sull’s research are offering remote working options, consistent scheduling, and, crucially, personal growth and development opportunities.
The analysis showed that providing lateral job moves was twelve times as important as promotions when it came to encouraging retention [13].
Helen Tupper, co-founder and CEO of Amazing If and co-author of The Sunday Times number-one bestseller The Squiggly Career, found the same. “Limited awareness of roles and a perceived lack of support from managers means that for many, it has become easier to leave and grow than squiggle — that is, change roles and develop in different directions — and stay” [14].
It falls to managers, then, to offer employees growth opportunities so that they are more inclined to stay. But as Tupper points out, partially due to the scale of resignations, “Increasingly squeezed managers are spending time they don’t have searching for new recruits in an expensive and competitive market.” Finding the time to offer existing employees new opportunities is not easy, but it is worthwhile.
What managers can do
Tupper argues that managers need help with three things. First, in helping shift the focus of career conversation from promotion to progression, including allowing employees to develop in different directions. Two, in creating a culture and structure that supports career experiments. Three, in shifting the focus from retaining employees in their specific team, to retaining employees in their entire organisation.
To achieve the first, she suggests having honest career conversations with employees. These should not be rushed or mere tick-box exercises. Tupper states that the goal should be two-fold: “to give employees the permission to be curious about where their career could take them and the practical support to make progress.”
To achieve the second, she suggests that managers work together to create career experiments across an organisation. This allows employees to try out new experiences and opportunities and discover more about where their skills can be put to use.
Too often retention is focused on keeping employees in whatever box they wound up in when they first got the job because the employee has shown him or herself to be skillful in that area. In seeking to retain employees who are successful in their individual role, managers often ask them for more of the same so that they maintain that success. As Tupper writes, “The unfortunate outcome is that the people managers most want to retain feel constrained and become more likely to leave, risking the performance metrics [the manager was] so keen to protect in the first place.”
To achieve the third, Tupper suggests reframing the question “how do I keep this person on my team?” to “how do I keep this person in my organisation?”
“A manager’s role in supporting someone’s career must expand to support people to explore opportunities beyond the boundaries of their existing team,” she writes. “Metrics matter in driving behaviour changes, and managers need to be recognized and rewarded for enabling internal mobility.”
Retaining an employee does not mean making them stagnant. Employers should want their employees to grow and develop new strings to their bow. It is beneficial to the whole team and, if done right, more likely to make them want to stay. Loyalty is earned through letting someone spread their wings, not through stockholm syndrome.
Employee retention
The Great Resignation brought a fresh focus to employee retention, as workers showed a newfound autonomy and willingness to walk away from roles that didn’t meet their needs. Many employers want to put Pandora back in the box, but it’s clear that the pandemic changed work practices for good – there is no going back.
To keep staff now, employers must demonstrate that they value them and their well-being. A lot of businesses have worked out that it is beneficial to say they care about their staff’s mental health. Hopefully soon, a few more will realise that actually caring about it will be more beneficial still.
So too must employers offer growth opportunities to employees. Workers often consider such opportunities more valuable than promotions or higher salaries. People want to develop their skills, managers should foster an environment that allows them to do so, understanding that retention should be viewed through a company-wide lens, not just an individual team one.
The pandemic is over, the Great Resignation too. The fallout, however, for employers and workers alike, is still playing out.
Sources
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/upshot/jobs-rising-wages.html
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/upshot/jobs-rising-wages.html
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/business/economy/jobs-great-resignation.html
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/business/employee-retention-quitting-companies.html
[9] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/business/economy/jobs-great-resignation.html
[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/business/employee-retention-quitting-companies.html
[12] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/business/employee-retention-quitting-companies.html
[13] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/13/business/employee-retention-quitting-companies.html
[14] https://hbr.org/2022/07/its-time-to-reimagine-employee-retention
Introduction
In the weeks leading up to a school exam, one of my classmates asked our teacher for some potent advice on how we should go about structuring our essays in the exam. We were going to be writing about Mao Zedong’s China – the 1949 revolution, The Great Leap Forward, the 100 flowers campaign; the ideology, the hunger, the fear. How should we possibly go about collating and framing such a sizable period of history into one coherent argument?
Our teacher gave an answer none of us were expecting.
“Use the 8 Mile technique.”
Seeing our blank faces staring back at him, he stood up excitedly, his fingers harassing a keyboard that couldn’t type fast enough. He pulled up YouTube and this video.
For anyone unfamiliar with Marshall Mathers’ (AKA Eminem’s) Academy Award-winning work in 8 Mile, the film follows an Eminem stand-in, “Rabbit” as he struggles against his impoverished background in Detroit, at the time the murder capital of America, taking part in freestyle rap battle competitions in the hope they might offer a chance of escape.
At the climax of the film, in his final confrontation in one of these competitions, Rabbit pulls a risk-it-all move: he reverses the usual rap battle formula. Rather than dissing his opponent, he turns the gaze upon himself.
“I know everything he’s about to say against me,” he says over a beat, before detailing the many shortcomings in his life for which his opponent might rip into him. He lives in a trailer with his mum, is being cheated on by his girlfriend, was recently beaten up by his opponent’s gang, and on and on he goes.
At the end he faces his opponent, who understands that he’s been stripped of all he was going to say.
“Here,” Rabbit says, chucking the mic his opponent’s way, “tell these people something they don’t know about me.”
This, according to our teacher, was precisely how we should structure our A-level essays. First, lay out all possible critiques of our argument, then pull each apart one by one, before moving on to our own points. The idea is that in doing so, you show that you’ve considered this topic from every angle, weighed up oppositional ideas, revealed why they don’t stand up to scrutiny and why your ultimate conclusion is therefore fully considered and correct.
It’s a fun technique, and the exam went well enough that I haven’t sworn it off yet. But it is just one approach to forming an argument.
Whether in the written form or through oration – or these days, increasingly online – how we formulate arguments matters, how we approach arguments matters. A well-formulated and delivered argument can re-shape the direction of the world.
Though with the advent of social media and an increased sense of polarisation and venom to debates, it’s possible we’re losing our ability to argue, to consider all other viewpoints, to assess the shortcomings of our own beliefs. Arguing well takes empathy, patience and practice. We could all do with a better understanding of how to do it properly.
The origins of argument
Our modern understanding of arguments, like many things, can be traced back to the ancients. Of the Greeks, Aristotle was the formative figure. Of the Romans, Cicero.
Aristotle said that, “What is convincing is what one can be convinced by” [1]. In other words, slavishly adhering to a set formula is not the way to approach argument; a technique works if it works. One should adjust according to their audience and according to the facts and feelings of the day.
Though, delving into more technical territory, Aristotle also contended that every good argument must consist of three elements or modes of persuasion: ethos, pathos and logos.
Ethos involves one’s character – are the points being made here ethical? Can one trust the person making the augment? Pathos is emotion. Every effective communicator plays on emotion. There’s a reason charity advertisements tell you one person’s individual story rather than falling back on cold, uninterpretable facts; it allows us to connect emotionally. Logos is the argument itself, its rationality and incisiveness, the merits of the points being made.
Any one of these can make for an impactful argument, but it takes all three to truly cut through.
Cicero, in his six-part process of persuasion, made clear that he understood how crucial the relationship between the speaker, the speech and the audience were to any successful act of persuasion. The three must be aligned. One alone is not enough.
Bad arguments
Arguments today are not like those of the ancient world. For starters, they are far less likely to take place face to face. Often they are either resigned to the digital realm or are relayed through he-said, she-said jibes. Unsurprisingly our inability to argue well has led to strife.
“In a country riven by discord, the extent of disagreement among people, their political representatives and their media outlets feels simultaneously intransigent, untenable and entirely inevitable,” writes former editor of the The New York Times book review, Pamela Paul. “Not only are we bad at agreeing with one another; we’re also terrible at arguing with one another” [2].
In Letters to a Young Contrarian, Christopher Hitchens wrote that, “Time spent arguing is, oddly enough, almost never wasted” [3]. Which perhaps indicates that the only good to come of his untimely passing was that he never had to witness just how wasteful a pastime arguing has become.
Hitchens was used to debating in person, reacting in real time, batting away well thought through points made against him with well thought through points of his own. Arguments benefit from taking place in-person. One is forced to confront the other’s humanity and cannot so easily duck and dive counterpoints. As the American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “By having a real other respond to me, I am spared one thing only, the worst cumulative effect of my own echo chamber of words.”
It’s frequently suggested that we should try to channel our online discourse to be more like that of debate. Bo Seo, a two-time world debating champion and author of Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us to Listen and Be Heard, is certainly of this view. Polarisation is less a result of disagreement, he suggests, than it’s a result of bad disagreement. We don’t listen to the other side and are more interested in being right than making a coherent point.
In debate, Seo always saw countering someone’s argument as “a vote of confidence not only in ourselves but in our opponents, one that contained the judgement that the other person was deserving of our candour and that they would receive it with grace.” [4]
Good arguments
Despite the many problems afforded by the modern form of arguing, it is still a useful exercise. It is important that we challenge ideas that we disagree with and that we have our own ideas challenged in turn. The best ideas will hold up to scrutiny.
Pamela Paul posits that on top of our poor handling of arguments, “part of the problem may be that we’re not arguing enough.”
In his 2022 BBC Radio 4 series The Long History of Argument, former UK cabinet minister and The Rest is Politics co-host Rory Stewart says that he, “grew up believing that the way to reach truth was through argument” [5].
Arguing, he says, teaches one to think clearly, to empathise with another’s point of view, and to formulate and sharpen your own. It also equips you with powers of persuasion so that you are better placed to convince others that your point of view is right.
How to argue well
In Shakespeare’s day, rhetoric comprised one-third of basic schooling. In the modern world, we are bereft of such an education. We learn how to argue from what we see online and on TV – and it’s not good. But there still exist common techniques that can help one fine-tune their own argumentative instincts, some of which are detailed below.
Find common foundations
Ensure you and whoever you’re arguing against are working off the same definitions when it comes to the core parts of your discussion. Arguing over the merits of Covid lockdowns will take on a very different shape if you’re debating someone who thinks that Covid didn’t exist.
Stay relevant
Oftentimes people are so desperate to put their argument across that they’re not even bothered as to its relevance. You often see this online, with two warring posters engaged in endless fits of whataboutery, furiously debating two entirely separate subjects. Context matters in arguments. You may have a great point to make. But you have to use it at the right time, in the right place.
Be clear
“You can’t be persuasive if the other person doesn’t understand you,” says former World Universities Debating champion Fanele Mashwama [6]. Minimise the amount of miscommunication taking place, but make space for it as well. There is likely to be a difference between the point you’re making and the one the other person hears. Acknowledge that, and try to clear up any obvious misunderstandings as soon as possible.
Put your point across, rather than just putting down someone else’s
“Showing how someone else is wrong isn’t the same thing as being correct yourself,” Pamela Paul writes. “In debate, tearing down the other team doesn’t necessarily prove your team is in the right, nor is it likely to persuade anyone who didn’t agree with you in the first place.”
One of Bo Seo’s old debating coaches put it even more succinctly: “No amount of no is going to get you to yes.”
Listen
It sounds obvious, but most of our arguments either begin or continue too long because one side refuses to listen to the other. Avoid strawmanning the other person (framing their argument in a way they wouldn’t agree with) – if someone says they like cats, that’s not them saying they don’t like dogs.
Steer clear of dogma
There is no point engaging in an argument in the first place if no amount of contrary, provable facts would sway your thinking on the subject.
A five minute argument or the full half hour?
Arguing is pivotal. It lets us challenge and sharpen our ideas, and exposes us to opposing views we might not have considered. Though too often in the modern world, most particularly in online spaces, much like in the famous Monty Python sketch, people who come for an argument end up in the office of abuse.
Whether we are treating our arguments like debate or structuring them like a rap battle, the important thing is that we consider all points, have an open mind, and are willing to be challenged as well as just challenge. Utilising Aristotle’s principles of ethos, pathos and logos can help us put our point across in such a way that audience and speaker alike may benefit.
The old adage is that arguments are easy to start and difficult to finish. Hopefully we can return to a place where what takes place between those starts and endings is something worthwhile.
More on Conflict
Diversity and Conflict for a Plural Workforce
Emotional Intelligence and Engaging Others
A Master Class in Negotiation with Simon Horton – Podcast
Sources
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/16/talking-me-aristotle-obama-review
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/11/opinion/polarization-debate.html
[3] Hitchens, C. (2001). Letters to a young contrarian. Basic Books.
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/11/opinion/polarization-debate.html
[5] https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m00199xy
[6] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/magazine/how-to-win-an-argument.html
Introduction
You’ve cut your hair. Maybe dyed it too. You’re wearing that new shirt that makes you feel confident. You’ve started meditating, or going to the gym. You’ve just turned 30, 40, 50. Or maybe it’s just Monday.
Restarts come in all shapes and sizes, each of which have a major impact on our behaviour. Studies show that people are more likely to commit to their goals at the beginning of a new week (by 62.9%), month (by 23.6%), or year (by 145.3%), and following official holiday periods (by 55.1%), as well as following their birthdays (by 2.6%) [1].
It’s not surprising. We tend to use temporal landmarks to assess our progress – new year’s and its tumult of follow-up resolutions being the most obvious example. But we ascribe ourselves new epochs individually too, demarcating time through personal milestones. Think of your approach to tracing a memory. “I’d just finished my second year at University” or “I’d just started working at the cafe” or “my son had just turned five” is a far more common approach to take than “it was March of 2006” or “it was the autumn of 2011”.
We compartmentalise time according to personal experiences, and each new personal experience in turn opens up a new mental accounting period. Studies show that it is at the start of these newly formed mental accounting periods that we are most likely to pursue our aspirations – and most likely to have success doing so.
The fresh start effect
Writing in Management Science [2] on what they term the “fresh start effect”, Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman and Jason Riis have two core suggestions for why these personal and collective landmarks open us up to change.
First, they suggest that naturally-arising time markers such as a new year, new month, or new week, “create discontinuities in time perceptions that make people feel disconnected from their past imperfections.”
Second, they “disrupt people’s focus on day-to-day minutiae, thereby promoting a big-picture view of life…these processes triggered by fresh start moments encourage people to pursue their aspirations.”
Let’s look at those sequentially.
Breaking from the past
Dai, Milkman and Riis write that, “Individuals think of their past, current, and future selves as interconnected but separable components of their identity and often compare these selves to one another.”
Feeling disassociated from our past selves can be the result of big changes – for example, studies show that people who receive a cancer diagnosis or recover from addiction tend to create clear boundaries between the self that came before and after – or smaller ones – a change of job, haircut, breakup, new clothes.
Dai, Milkman and Riis posit that these disassociations have a use when it comes to achieving our goals. The reason being that people tend to attribute their past failures to their former selves, the ones from whom they’ve distanced themselves, rather than their current iteration. This allows them to move forward without the burden of those failures on their back.
How people see themselves is important. Self-image and self perception are not just crucial for self-esteem, but actually shape our actions too. People who perceive themselves as moral are more likely to pursue moral actions than people who consider themselves immoral or somewhere in between. We act in accordance with the labels we ascribe ourselves – chicken and egg.
If someone considers him or herself to be a failure, they will then be more likely to fail as a result. But if they are able to break with the past, start a new mental accounting period, and leave that old negative deadweight behind, all of a sudden their future is a blank slate. The fresh start is underway.
The big picture
Dai, Milkman and Riis’ argument around “the big picture” is that these fresh start moments allow us to break out of the minutiae of day to day thinking – simply ticking off today’s tasks in order to make it to tomorrow’s. By stepping back for a moment, we can take a broader view.
Big picture thinking has a positive impact on goal motivation. “When induced to take a high-level view of a situation,” the researchers write, “people are more likely to evaluate their actions based on the desirability of the end state (or goal) they hope to achieve rather than the time and effort required to achieve it.”
Does everyone benefit from a fresh start?
Following on from her research with Milkman and Riis, Dai expanded the field of her research to ask not just when do we benefit from fresh starts, but who benefits the most.
Writing in Harvard Business Review, Dai says that she “found that a fresh start on people’s performance records — what I call a “performance reset” — affected their motivation and future performance differently, depending on their past performance. Those with lower performance became more motivated and improved after their performance was reset, while stronger performers found resets demotivating” [3].
Resets are commonplace in every business. There are annual resets, quarterly resets, project-by-project resets, whatever it may be, as well as the aforementioned more personal milestones that people in the team may impose upon themselves. That’s not to mention the reset that comes with every change of job, change of role or change of personnel around you. Each one represents a shift.
To measure the effect of resets on performance, Dai conducted a research experiment using a word-search game. Participants were told they would be paid based on the total number of correct words they submitted across 10 trials of the game. Their performance was tracked and after each round they were able to see how well they had performed on a graph. After five rounds, the graph was wiped clean for half of the participants, meaning they could no longer see how they had performed on the first five games, while the other half of participants could still see everything.
Dai found that, “Participants with weak performance in the first five trials did better if they experienced a reset than if they did not, whereas those with strong early performance did worse if they experienced a reset than if they did not.”
In a separate experiment, Dai tracked the impact of resets on motivation. Participants were made to complete 24 trials of a task that involved unscrambling letters to form English words. Like in the previous experiment, they could see a graph, this time one that indicated whether or not they met “researchers’ expectations”. During the first 12 trials, half of the participants were told they met expectations in ten trials, the other half in four.
After 12 trials, Dai introduced a reset. Some participants were told they would continue with the graph while others would have it wiped. Importantly, participants were also given the opportunity to switch to a different task.
Dai found that, “When participants were led to view their early performance as weak, the reset treatment increased their self-efficacy and boosted their motivation to continue the word task; but when participants were led to view their past performance as strong, the reset treatment decreased their self-efficacy and decreased their motivation to continue.”
It’s worth bearing in mind, then, that fresh starts are not beneficial to everyone. For those whose current work is flailing, resets can be useful tools for boosting motivation and performance. For those thriving, however, the reverse is true. They can be demotivating and costly – and all it takes is a small reset such as a change in desk or project to bring such a negative impact about.
Managing fresh starts
Given the clear effect fresh starts have on our performance, it only makes sense that we use them to our advantage. For managers, a simple way to do so is to coincide any in-office/project changes with naturally arising temporal landmarks such as the start of the week or the hiring of a new employee. People are more inclined to go along with a reset at these junctures so it’s advisable to take advantage of their natural disposition.
Equally, if looking to make a broader change, something like making a shift to office seating plans or regular meeting schedules are methods of strategically engineering turning points, rather than waiting for the new week to do it for you.
If hoping to promote aspirational behaviours amongst a specific employee, a manager would be well advised to deliver that message at the start of a week or month, when they will be more receptive and more likely to make a change. Managers should also recognise that fresh starts won’t affect all employees equally. Try to limit resets only to those who will benefit. If a worker is flying, the last thing you want is to tamper with their momentum.
If trying to take advantage of fresh starts in your personal life, tracking progress is a good way to start. Especially useful can be making that progress visual, for example with a calendar that you can tick off every day once you’ve taken a step to achieving your goal. Exposing yourself to your own achievements has been shown to positively affect motivation.
If working on a long-term goal, try the 30/30 rule, in which you set aside 30 minutes every day to work on something that’s benefits won’t be felt for 30 days or more [4]. It can be all too easy to slip into the habit of just getting through the day’s tasks, the 30/30 rule can help you step back and start thinking more long-term.
Dai, Milkman and Riis note that even if one is unable to maintain the momentum from their fresh start, the good thing about temporal landmarks is that they are so regular that they offer repeated chances for people to invoke change – if you fail this Monday, you can try again the next one. They’re also particularly useful for one-off goals. Perhaps you have to sign up for something, or make a payment or a call, but have been putting it off. Taking advantage of a fresh start reset can help push you over the line.
Fresh starts
Studies show that our performance and motivation are impacted by resets, or the “fresh start effect”. It only makes sense, then, that we use those resets to our advantage. Whether it’s through a new job, new clothes, new week or new year, we can leave the past behind, put our aspirations front and centre, and ride a wave of newfound energy to achieve our goals.
More on Motivation
Organisational Psychology and Motivation
Rekindling Lost Passion: A Remedy for Low Motivation at Work
The Workplace Motivation Theory That Works
The Progress Principle: or How to Stop Worrying and Celebrate the Small Wins
References
[1] Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, Jason Riis (2014) The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior. Management Science
[2] Hengchen Dai, Katherine L. Milkman, Jason Riis (2014) The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior. Management Science
Introduction
The impact of climate change is already being felt. Between 2000 and 2019, there were more than 7,300 natural disasters globally, twice as many as between 1980 and 1999 [1]. These natural disasters cause loss of life, destruction of homes and displacement of peoples. In combating the problem, governments are generally strong in words but weak in action.
Data published in 2022 by Climate Action Tracker, an independent research group, revealed that none of the world’s biggest emitters – China, the United States, the European Union and India – have reduced their emissions enough to meet the goals set in the landmark Paris Agreement of 2015 [2].
If the agreed upon targets are to be met, change is needed, and fast.
And while it is the role of governments to set policy, other sectors are vital in enabling change, the financial sector chief amongst them.
Speaking in 2020, Vasileios Madouros, then Director of Financial Stability (now Deputy Governor) at the Central Bank of Ireland, stated that, “A climate-resilient financial system is a necessary condition to enable the transition to a low-carbon economy…we cannot have a situation where concerns around the resilience of the financial system act as an obstacle to that transition” [3].
The financial threat
In a joint report by Mazars and the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), based on research and surveys with 33 central banks and regulatory authorities, 70% of survey respondents considered climate change a major threat to financial stability [4]. Just over half of central banks (55%) said they were monitoring climate risks, with 27% saying they were actively responding to them [5].
Meanwhile, a London School of Economics study posits that climate change could cut the value of the world’s financial assets by US$2.5 trillion [6].
Financial exposure to catastrophic climate events, potential overvaluation of companies in fossil fuel and resource-scarce industries, increased regulation to enforce Sustainable Development Goals, rising shareholder activism, and the rapid increase in consumer scrutiny on corporate behaviour are just some of the issues around which financial institutions need to be wary [7].
Sustainable finance in Ireland
As host to a large, internationally-focused financial sector, Ireland will be impactful inand impacted by any changes moving forwards. The value of Ireland’s financial system’s total assets comes to more than €5tn, while it also boasts the second largest investment fund sector in the euro area [8].
Definitions and disclosure
For the financial system to be effective in ushering in a greener tomorrow, it’s necessary to introduce an element of standardisation around definitions – what do we mean when we say “green”, “sustainable” etc? A consistent framework is required, otherwise institutions are liable to set their own definitions, potentially ones that serve their own interests. Inconsistent definitions may even lead to “green washing”, with companies misinforming investors as to the sustainable credentials of their investments.
Equally vital is disclosure. Investors need to be able to assess any climate-related aspects of their investments. In his 2020 speech, Madouros pointed out that in instances in which a “financial product is sold as promoting environmental characteristics, the financial provider will be required to disclose information on the degree of compliance with the taxonomy” [9].
Risk
Those taking part in the aforementioned OMFIF report considered climate change a threat to financial stability because it is. It is an unprecedented and unpredictable source of risk, with physical risks and transition risks widely regarded as the key areas in need of focus.
Physical risks refer to the financial impact of floods, droughts, wildfires, earthquakes, rising temperatures – any problem, essentially, that is climate-induced. Such events impact various financial sectors but most especially insurance.
Weather-related insured losses – adjusted for inflation – have increased by several multiples since the 1980s [10]. As these events become more commonplace, insurance premiums shift. Some such events may become so commonplace that insurers grow reluctant to insure them at all, with obvious implications for those who would be cut adrift by such a move.
According to AON’s 2020 Weather, Climate & Catastrophe Insight report, the last decade was the costliest in terms of natural disasters, with the total economic damage and losses amounting to 2.98 trillion US dollars. Insurance pay-outs peaked, as 845 billion US dollars were paid out by private and public insurers [11].
We are not talking about chump change. And Ireland is not immune from the fallout.
“The Irish financial system is exposed to these physical risks,” said Madouros. “Our insurance sector is very international, with exposure to catastrophic weather events across the globe, from South East Asia to the South East of the United States. Irish banks are heavily exposed to property, with around two thirds of their loan exposures secured on property. So it is important that these risks are assessed, managed and priced appropriately, in a forward-looking way and taking into account the latest insights from climate science” [12].
Transition risks refer to any economic fallout brought about by the process of shifting to a low-carbon economy. For example, the asset price of energy firms with investments in oil and gas fields, who are at the mercy of any government-mandated acceleration or deceleration of sustainable initiatives. Outside the energy sector, the transition from petrol and diesel cars to electric will continue to have a notable effect. Look no further than Germany’s current economic predicament to understand the perils of being caught flat-footed when it comes to acting on sustainable trends in the automotive sector [13].
A further risk is that the rate and scale of any green transitions are at the mercy of geopolitical shifts that cannot be controlled and are likely to lack consistency. It’s possible that as the economic realities of transforming the global economy take hold, inequality will rise. This could see populist movements take power on the back of an anti-green ticket. The implications of this could be seismic, especially if it were to take place in a nation that holds sway over the global economy.
Climate litigation
In his keynote speech at the ECB Legal Conference of 2023, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB Frank Elderson warned banks that they needed to prepare themselves to face climate and environment-related litigation. To mitigate this risk, he suggested they put in place “realistic, transparent and credible transition plans that banks can and actually do implement in a timely manner.” Should they fail too, he said, they could find themselves the target of unwanted litigation [14].
While such litigation has generally so far only been targeted at States and corporations within the energy field, Elderson proffered that financial companies are next. He suggests that the litigants hope that by targeting banks and other financial companies, they can “turn off the taps” of funding to high emitters. Globally, some 560 cases of this type have been filed since 2021, often brought or supported by NGOs who possess resources and clout, and cannot be dismissed as armchair activists or trivial ideologues.
Economic benefits
That said, the motivation to embrace sustainable initiatives shouldn’t simply be to avoid getting in trouble. Outside of the obvious ecological benefits, embracing green initiatives offers opportunities for long-term value creation.
“The move towards more sustainable business models translates to concrete opportunities for companies to become more innovative and reduce the now high costs of production and waste management,” writes Joukje Janssen of PwC, citing the the money companies have saved by shifting from linear to circular models in plastic use as proof that green initiatives offer credible fiscal rewards, as well as ecological ones [15].
The role of financial services in combating the climate crisis
While it is down to governments to put in place any green policy shifts, the financial sector is pivotal in making any transition possible. The financial implications of climate change are enormous; to avoid disaster, clear definitions and disclosures as to sustainable compliance are required to ensure all parties are singing from the same hymn sheet.
Physical and transition risks pose a number of threats to the financial sector and the global economy more broadly, as does the social upheaval that could follow a potential rise in inequality brought about by such a seismic economic pivot. Banks should ensure their houses are in order so as to be prepared for any incoming climate litigation, though should ideally be motivated more by the prospect of a greener tomorrow than by covering their own backs.
To truly address the climate crisis and fulfil the pledges of Paris, action is needed quickly. Financial services cannot dictate the direction of travel themselves, but they can provide the clearest path.
More on Climate Change
Natural Sciences: The World Through Objective Lenses
References
[4] https://www.mazars.ie/Home/Insights/Global-insights/Tackling-climate-change-Mazars-OMFIF-Report
[5] https://www.mazars.ie/Home/Insights/Global-insights/Tackling-climate-change-Mazars-OMFIF-Report
[6] https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2972
[7] https://eyfinancialservicesthoughtgallery.ie/un-sustainable-development-goals/
[13] https://fortune.com/2023/09/06/germany-auto-industry-missed-ev-shift-blame-tesla-byd/
[14] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2023/html/ecb.sp230904_1~9d14ab8648.en.html
Introduction
Wanting validation is normal. It’s part of our genetic and societal make-up. Children seek praise from parents and teachers. Teens seek approval from peers. Even such basic day-to-day utterances like “thank you” are tiny validations – you’ve done something for me, now here I am acknowledging it.
Adults seek validation in the workplace.
There are scales of validation. From the polite “thank you”, to a senior figure or colleague offering praise for work you’ve done, to a higher salary or promotion, everything is a way of saying “we recognise what you’re doing and approve of it”.
But overreliance on validation is detrimental. Especially if that validation is external.
The many faces of validation
The need for validation comes in all shapes and sizes. It affects successful people and unsuccessful people alike. One problem is that people tie their self-worth to validation – if they are being praised, they are worthy, if they are not, they are worthless. The negative effects of such an outlook are obvious. A criticism of your report becomes a criticism of you. Work becomes personal. That makes it difficult for you and those around you, who are soon forced to tread on eggshells rather than being able to offer honest, constructive feedback.
An overreliance on validation also impairs decision making. When push comes to shove, are you going to make the call that feels right to you or the one that you think will earn you the most external respect? One can get tied up in knots trying to act in accordance with their perceptions of what will earn them praise.
For a leader, too, reliance on validation is a slippery slope. Employees want decisive leadership. Leaders should of course listen to and empathise with their workers, but if they are allowing their judgement to be clouded by a desire for approval from their staff then the business will suffer, and the staff they were so keen to please in the first place along with it.
Failures
The most painful thing that can happen to someone who relies on validation is failure. Failure is painful to anyone, of course, but many people are at least partially able to view failures with an air of objectivity that helps dilute the blow.
If you don’t get a job, it hurts, especially at first, but after a few hours, days or weeks, most people are able to step back and see that it’s not the end of the world. There will be other jobs. Things (sometimes) happen for a reason. You could have been up against better suited candidates or just a wrong fit for the role, in which case you likely dodged a bullet.
For some people though, such outlooks don’t appear. They didn’t not get a job. They were rejected, everything about them – and it was all about them. This personalisation of the professional realm helps nobody.
“Separating your career from who you are as a person and your mental and emotional well-being is essential,” writes personal branding expert and digital strategist Goldie Chan in Forbes [1].
“Seeking external validation sets you up for failure because having a permanent career is not guaranteed. You can go to bed and wake up unemployed in the morning. Then what? Are you going to crumble because you no longer have a job? Losing your ability to sustain yourself financially is difficult, but losing your identity is even harder.”
Successes
The reason many people fall into the trap of taking failures personally is they take successes personally too. They achieve something they wanted and are rewarded with accolades or praise that reinforce their understanding of themselves. The accolades align with their internal narratives: I’m smart, I work hard, I gave this piece of work my all, as such it’s only natural I receive praise for it.
Except sometimes you don’t get praise. Sometimes the work is not what the client or your boss wanted, no matter how much effort you put in. Do such instances change whether or not you’re smart? Whether or not you work hard? Whether or not you gave that piece of work your all? Of course not. But those who base their sense of self-worth only on the validation of others will think it does, then duly spiral.
It doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t allow oneself to celebrate successes – they are not guaranteed in life and should be duly welcomed and enjoyed on the occasions they arrive. But celebrating a success and defining yourself by it are two different things. A man can be happy he got a good haircut, but if he makes his hair his defining characteristic then all it takes is nature’s vengeance in the form of male pattern baldness for him to come undone. Enjoy the haircut while you have it. But accept one day that it will go, and that that’s fine too.
Validation as a disruptive force
Many of us recognise that we have some kind of relationship with validation but probably don’t think of the effect that relationship has on others. It can be easy to read about the perils involved in validating oneself based on praise and achievement and think, “So what? We all have shortcomings and this is mine. If this is how I get my work done or handle my life and it works for me in its own flawed way then what’s the problem?”
The problem is that one person’s need for validation can have a significant effect on those around them, at both ends of the scale.
For a worker, the need for validation can impact their colleagues and managers. Put yourself in the manager’s shoes. Do you not think it would be difficult to deal with an employee who needs constant reassurance, who requires that every piece of work they do or every idea they propose is praised and validated or else they’ll take it as an affront or as a personal critique?
Managers should be empathetic to their employees and adjust how they treat each one according to that employee’s specific traits. They should not dismiss an employee who feels criticised. But if this behaviour is regular or extreme, to the point where a manager feels they can’t be honest with their employee for fear it will trigger a negative reaction, then that affects the work.
In such scenarios, the manager should take the time to talk to the employee privately to ensure all is okay and come to a solution that works for all. But if you are the type of worker who takes any feedback poorly or personally, it is worth assessing how this affects those around you and whether your reaction is fair – you received criticism that was indeed overly harsh or skewed to the personal – or whether you are receiving it in ways it wasn’t intended.
For managers afflicted with the need for validation, it is their underlings who suffer. Oftentimes such managers are unable to provide clear direction or feedback for fear of upsetting an employee or coming across as harsh. Maybe they just want to be popular – the David Brent/Michael Scott approach to management, which I think we can all agree is not the ideal.
Being a boss means taking decisions whether they’re popular or not. As much as a boss may have kind intentions in not telling their staff what they really think of their work, actually this approach hurts not just the company but the employee too. Employees want to progress, they want to improve – feedback is critical to that. And most employees will appreciate firm but fair feedback that offers clear direction for future drafts far more than being told they’re doing well when in truth their work is inadequate. Communication and honesty are vital for any team to thrive.
Solutions
Some techniques that can help unlatch one from an overdependence on validation, according to Melody Wilding, author of Trust Yourself: Stop Overthinking and Channel Your Emotions for Success at Work, are to focus on effort rather than outcome, to take regular gut checks, to try the “so what” test and to give your thoughts 24 hours to stew [2].
The shift from focusing on effort rather than outcome means that you can still measure progress but do so along fairer metrics that aren’t at the mercy of someone else’s bad day. Goldie Chan notes that, “when you focus on effort, you move from external validation to internal growth” [3] You cease to see setbacks as failures, rather as stepping stones. Focus on what you can control. At the end of the day, it’s all you have.
Taking regular gut checks doesn’t mean dropping in at your local clinic. It’s about assessing that deep-seated barometer that exists in all of us. As Wilding writes, “A gut check serves as a pause – a pattern interrupter to analyse whether your automatic responses are truly reflective of what’s best for the team and organisation, rather than on a desire to be liked. This introspection also helps differentiate between internal drivers (like personal values, ethics, or genuine interest) and external drivers (like the desire for praise, fear of negative judgment, or the need to fit in)” [4].
The “so what” test is especially useful for leaders. If you find yourself hesitating on a decision based on your preoccupations as to the thoughts of others, ask yourself: So what if this decision isn’t universally popular? So what if it doesn’t meet every expectation? So what if I have to change course later?
This exercise lets you step back and form a more objective view of the situation in front of you.
Taking 24 hours (in the circumstances where you have that luxury) gives your mind time to settle and move away from the in-the-moment trappings of “What will people think of this?” and “Is this criticism personal?” Time offers perspective. Take it when you can.
Outgrowing validation
Craving validation is normal. Most of us nurse insecurities of some degree or other and external praise and accolades can be a way to silence negative internal chatter. But to become overly reliant on the thoughts of others is a dangerous game that can adversely impact self-worth and performance, for bosses and employees, successful and unsuccessful, alike.
Placing value in your efforts rather than achievements, asking “so what”, and taking time to check your gut feeling or re-assess impulsive first thoughts can mitigate dependence on validation. You are not your job. You are not your salary. You are not your successes or your failures. The sooner you see that, the freer you will be to bring the best of yourself to everything you do.
More on Failure
Bouncing Back from Professional Failure
More on Feedback and Criticism
Performing Under Pressure with Hendrie Weisenger– Podcast
Leadership in Focus: Foundations and the Path Forward
References
[2] https://hbr.org/2023/12/overcoming-your-need-for-constant-validation-at-work
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/goldiechan/2023/12/12/how-to-take-career-failures-professionally-and-not-personally/?sh=671cde0c4f9b [4] https://hbr.org/2023/12/overcoming-your-need-for-constant-validation-at-work
Introduction
By 2030, 80% of project management tasks will be run by AI [1].
“AI is going to revolutionise how program and portfolio management (PPM) leaders leverage technology to support their business goals,” said Daniel Stang, research vice president at Gartner, the multi-billion dollar information technology research and advisory company on whose research that number is based. “Right now, the tools available to them do not meet the requirements of digital business” [2].
Ever since ChatGPT’s emergence in 2022 hastened talk of the so-called AI revolution, a number of scaremongering predictions have been thrown around regarding which jobs will stay and which made obsolete.
A more productive topic of conversation would be how AI is going to bring about change within roles. AI’s sophistication will need to develop before it starts affecting our day-to-day, but once it reaches that stage, which most predictions suggest it soon will, project management is sure to be one of the first roles affected. Key skills of project management such as scheduling, budgeting and monitoring of progress are more easily adopted by technology than positions that rely on creative thinking or interpersonal skills. As such, project managers will have to adapt.
The benefits of integrating AI into project management
Every year, roughly $48 trillion are invested in projects. And yet the Standish Group reports that only 35% of projects are considered successful [3]. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez and Ricardo Viana Vargas, Ph.D, put this down to “the low level of maturity of technologies available for managing [projects]” [4].
“Most organizations and project leaders are still using spreadsheets, slides, and other applications that haven’t evolved much over the past few decades,” they write. “These are adequate when you are measuring project success by deliverables and deadlines met, but they fall short in an environment where projects and initiatives are always adapting — and continuously changing the business” [5].
AI can help cut money waste and contribute to a greater project success rate. The key solutions it offers are: enabling a better, more transparent process for selecting and prioritising projects, an ability to tailor approaches specifically to each client, an enhanced ability to monitor ongoing projects in real-time, improved risk-management and testing systems, and freeing up project managers to focus on higher-level output.
The project selection process
As a company, choosing which projects you want to take on and which you want to prioritise is important. You’re going to be investing company time and resources, potentially for a number of months or years. You want to choose a successful venture/client/collaboration that will bring value and prestige to your organisation. AI can help.
AI capabilities like machine learning provide a level of accuracy in predicting which projects will be worthwhile in a way humans cannot, using data rather than gut-feel. Through an assessment of existing company data, AI can offer faster identification of which projects align with the company mission and which are likely to succeed. This approach also removes human bias from the decision-making process.
Once the project is selected, AI can then help tailor that process to each specific client by assessing how similar projects have worked in the past and either following a similar template (for successful projects) or trying something new (for unsuccessful ones). On top of that, accurate cost estimation can avoid an over-allocation of funds or, worse, an insufficient estimation that either leaves you crawling to your client looking to change your invoice or being forced to work additional unpaid hours.
Monitoring ongoing projects
In an experiment, Peter Kestenholz, founder and Head of SPM Innovation and AI at Projectum, had AI tools create work schedules based on a context initiative described by project managers.
Kestenholz used the prompt: “Global roll-out of a new ERP system to five regions following the PMBOK methodology, starting the second week of May 2023 and to be finished a year after.” The result? “In roughly 30 seconds, a full schedule was returned, containing all the requirements, the proposed task duration and a score that reflected the likelihood of the AI’s estimation of the task duration” [6].
He noted that the better project managers described the project at hand, the better and more specific a schedule AI produced, adjusting as further details were added.
As this technology becomes more sophisticated, project managers will be able to monitor projects in real-time, tracking precisely how far ahead or behind the curve they are. The AI schedule will adjust according to this information, letting them know whether they need to up their efforts to get back on schedule or are able to continue as is.
Nieto-Rodriguez and Vargas say these intelligent tools can optimise the project management office (PMO) through the ability to anticipate potential problems as they arrive and address simple ones automatically. They can also automate the report process, help select the best methodology for each project, and update the approach according to any internal or external changes as and when they appear [7].
Risk management and advanced testing systems
A key feature of AI is that it can anticipate – and mitigate – risks that might otherwise go unnoticed. Of course, project managers, experienced ones most especially, will often be aware of potential risks too, having seen and overcome many before over a storied career. For this reason, it can be useful to rely on both the experience of a project manager and the AI tools to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
If the AI is fed data on potential risks, it can save the project manager the trouble of scouring the project constantly, as well as being able to flag the risk the second it emerges, rather than being dependent on whether or not the manager is busy elsewhere. For less experienced project managers, having a full risk log readily available can significantly improve productivity and help get them up to speed quickly and without error.
For software-related projects, advanced and automated system testing solutions allow early detection of defects and self-correcting processes. These advanced systems can ensure all bugs have been spotted and dealt with prior to release, saving recalls, and ensuring no faulty systems or products make it to the market. Such testing is already in use on large-scale projects, such as in constructing the Elizabeth Line in London [8], but will soon become commonplace for smaller-scale work too.
The role of the project manager
The existential fear is that AI will replace us. Project managers may read the capabilities above and wonder what their role is in the coming world. But the point is not to eliminate project managers, rather to streamline their processes. They will be in charge of these technologies, not the other way round. It’s vital that AI is overseen by someone who understands the information the AI is giving them – who is AI literate, essentially – and who is inputting useful information back into the system so as to allow for better insights.
Equally, by removing some of the more tedious, time-consuming aspects of the role, such as scheduling or writing up meeting notes, project managers will then be free to pursue more high-value work like meeting with stakeholders and coaching their teams.
“AI offers an opportunity to free up project manager time and allow them to do what they do best—lead teams and get the very best out of people,” says Peter Taylor, vice president of global project management at Ceridian and author of AI and the Project Manager: How the Rise of Artificial Intelligence Will Change Your World. “This will no doubt deliver far better results, fewer errors, more motivation, and greater success” [9].
The role of data
AI is trained on data. As such, the data that companies feed into their AI system’s are pivotal to how the system works. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and Christine Boyce note how, “Large organizations with the time and resources to gather, clean, and structure their own data will be best positioned to maintain a differentiated position in the market” [10].
That said, it’s not just about company size. It’s about how data is used. AI will be trained to replicate the processes of successful projects in order to produce the same results. That means that prior to inputting that data into AI systems, businesses need to accurately assess which of their projects were successful and which fell short – something that sounds simple in theory, but in practice may require parking some pride.
Chamorro-Premuzic and Boyce also acknowledge that, “while training data is a critical first step, care must also be taken to gather ongoing input — i.e., monitoring progress and results — in a way that collects what is needed without being so intrusive as to disrupt or impair people or the process” [11]. A balance is required. Getting that balance right is another responsibility of the project manager.
Another factor, especially during the early stages of the AI revolution such as we currently find ourselves in, is how much data companies feel safe inputting into AI systems. The security of that data is not yet clear and proceeding with precaution is advised. As such, we may only see tentative steps at first, but no doubt, as AI processes become increasingly normalised and security better trusted, project management will soon be centred around it.
The changing face of project management
AI’s integration in the business sphere is an inevitability. Due to its organisational structure and the benefits AI offers it, project management will be one of the first areas of integration. AI can help businesses select the right project, monitor that project in real-time, adjusting scheduling and approach as necessary. Managing and mitigating risks ahead of time will save businesses money and time, while advanced testing will help ensure nothing makes it to market without being optimised first.
Tasks that once belonged to the project manager will still fall under their remit, but their role will be based more on supervision, freeing up time for other vital tasks, not least training staff on AI tools and ensuring the best (honest) data is being put into the software. Until such a time as security can be verified, trusting all data to AI systems will not be the norm. But AI’s day is coming, and project management will be first to feel the shift.
More on AI
New York City’s Bold Step on AI in Hiring – Will Other Countries Follow?
References
[1] https://hbr.org/2023/11/4-factors-that-will-help-project-managers-fulfill-ais-potential
[10] https://hbr.org/2023/11/4-factors-that-will-help-project-managers-fulfill-ais-potential
[11] https://hbr.org/2023/11/4-factors-that-will-help-project-managers-fulfill-ais-potential
Introduction
According to PwC’s financial wellness survey of 2023, 60% of full-time employees are stressed about their finances. That figure is even worse than it was during the pandemic. The situation is so bad that 47% of employees earning $100,000 or more a year answered that they, too, were stressed about their finances [1].
44% of full-time employees say inflation has had a major or severe impact on their financial situation over the past year, 49% find it difficult to meet household expenses on time each month, and among employees carrying credit card balances, 44% say they struggle to make minimum payments on time each month [2].
The numbers are startling, and not just in the US. In Ireland, 81% of employees say they find money matters stressful [3].
It’s the paradox of money. It makes the world go round, is utterly pivotal to our ability to live with dignity, and yet it’s forever been a taboo. We should not talk about money. It’s poor etiquette socially – perhaps understandable – but even in our work environments the general consensus is that our employer gives us a salary, which every year or so we may renegotiate, but outside of that the topic should be avoided.
But to resuscitate financial health from its current flatline, that needs to change. Research commissioned by Bank of Ireland revealed that 88% of young people learn financial literacy and money management skills predominantly from their parents. Only 57% said they learned from teachers and 25% from online resources [4].
The disadvantages of that are obvious. If one’s parents – who likely were not given a financial education themselves – are not financially literate, their flaws will be passed down.
Ireland’s financial literacy score sits at 54%, well below neighbours and allies like the UK, Germany and Denmark. Troublingly, the 18-34 bracket scored lowest on financial literacy (48%), with over 65s scoring highest (58%) [5]. Sure, part of that boils down to life experience, but it also signals that this is an issue that is not going to resolve itself any time soon.
Cause for concern, too, is that women’s financial literacy scores were almost 10% lower than men, figures which are reflected internationally. A Swedish survey raised the issue of “stereotype threat”, meaning that as a result of women believing that their gender was worse at handling money, they in turn made worse financial decisions. The survey showed that amongst girls aged 13 to 15, financial literacy deteriorated as stereotype strength increased [6]. It takes active steps to reverse the trend.
Financial wellness programmes
Liz Davidson, Financial Finesse founder and CEO, says that, “Employee financial stress is at the greatest level it’s been since the Great Recession” [7].
She suggests the only way to combat this is for companies to adopt employer-sponsored financial wellness programmes. They’re no longer simply nice to have, she says. They’ve become an “imperative.”
The BrightPlan Wellness Survey of 2022 found that financial wellness programmes were now the number one most-wanted benefit among employees, more so than mental health initiatives or time-off programming [8].
And yet, a Transamerica Institute report found that while 77% of workers view financial wellness programmes as an important benefit, only 28% of employers offer them [9].
One positive is that the stigma around such programmes seems to be dampening. PwC notes that when it started its annual financial wellness survey in 2012, only 51% of workers whose employer offered financial wellness services had used them. By the 2023 survey that number had risen to 68% [10]. Just 33% of employees now find it embarrassing to ask for guidance or advice regarding their finances, compared with 42% in 2019 [11].
Among workers who have even attempted to estimate how much money they will need to save in order to retire, a recent report found that 45% simply “guessed” the amount and only 29% have a written plan for how to achieve it [12]. The situation can’t be fixed fast enough.
How to approach financial wellness programmes
Elements of financial education that companies should be focusing on include budget and savings planning, how to create attainable financial goals, property advice and mortgage options, retirement projections and planning, investment education and debt management [13].
Billy Hensley, CEO of The National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE), argues that it is pivotal employers offer a “personal finance ecosystem” [14].
“Single, tactical solutions cannot work by themselves,” he says. “If it was just about more money or more education, we would’ve solved the problem already.”
The ecosystem approach means that rather than adopting a blanket approach for all employees, employers take the time to consider each of their employees’ unique circumstances – their financial knowledge, cultural influences, socioeconomic status, mindset, overall physical health, where they live etc. – and then tailor the advice accordingly.
Speaking to the Irish Times, Stephen McCormack, senior director and head of financial planning at WTW, agrees. “It can be far more beneficial for employers to provide one-to-one advice sessions with an external adviser to allow employees to discuss their personal situation, confidentially, to get to the core of their financial distress,” he says [15].
“This will enable them to identify the issues, put a plan in place, specific to their needs and objectives, and monitor the progress on an ongoing basis.”
TIAA’s financial wellness survey from 2022 found that employees who have participated in an employer financial wellness programme are twice as likely to have a high financial-wellness rating than those who are not offered the resources or do not participate [16].
54% or participants of such programmes were confident they would retire when they want, compared to 32% of nonparticipants. While 50% of participants were confident they will not run out of money, compared to 29% of nonparticipants [17].
The benefits for employees, then, are stark. But employers, too, gain massively from ensuring their staff are financially literate.
Employer benefits
According to a 2018 Financial Health Network Survey, almost three-quarters of workers with high financial stress said it distracts them at work [18].
56% of employees who suffer distraction at work due to financial stress say they spend three or more work hours a week dealing with or thinking about issues related to their personal finances [19].
A TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) report from 2023 found similar results, saying that employees spend an average of eight hours a week dealing with financial issues, with four of those hours occurring at work [20].
This level of stress and distraction costs employers money.
A 2023 study in the Journal of Financial Literacy and Wellbeing found that a well-designed financial education programme can remove at least one hour per week of worry and financial distress for each employee who participates in that programme [21]. Assuming a minimum wage of $15 per hour, at a company with 30 minimum-wage employees, a good programme can recover at least $22,500 of value per year [22].
“Organisations have every reason to want their employees to be financially aware. A well designed employee financial wellness programme can help employers reduce a key barrier to productivity and motivation in the workplace,” says McCormack [23].
Not only does keeping employees financially literate eliminate a key distraction and increase staff productivity, but it aids massively with retention.
Only 54% of employees who are financially stressed feel there is a promising future for them at their employer, compared to 69% of employees who are not stressed about their finances. Financially stressed employees are also twice as likely to be looking for a new job as their unstressed colleagues (36% versus 18%). And 73% of financially stressed employees say they would be attracted to another employer that cares more about their financial well-being [24].
The aforementioned Financial Health Network Survey from 2018 found that 60% of people said they’d be more likely to stay at a job if their employer offered financial-wellness benefits [25]. Such initiatives shouldn’t be viewed as “charity” from an employer standpoint, says Annamaria Lusardi, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and founder and academic director of GFLEC. Instead, they should view it as a way to “retain and attract workers and make them more financially healthy and productive” [26].
Employers are often reluctant to engage in such initiatives because they’re viewing these programmes purely through the lens of taking cash out the tin. But the return on investment is clear. On average, employee benefits cost employers between 30–40% of the average worker’s base salary [27]. It’s worth investing the time and money to make sure that cost is contributing to your business.
Moving forward
Money is an awkward subject. The adopted wisdom is that it’s best not to talk about it. We inherit certain financial skills from our parents and just have to hope that we’re lucky enough that that will prove sufficient. But it’s not. Employers have an obligation to ensure their staff are financially literate. That means teaching them about key areas in which they can make improvements, such as budget and savings planning, financial goals, property advice, retirement projections, investment education and debt management – and tailoring that advice according to each individual’s circumstances. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it offers benefits to the employer in terms of staff productivity and garnering company loyalty.
The stigma around money is shifting. It’s time for employers to play their part in helping the pendulum swing.
More on Employer Benefits
Addressing High Housing Costs in Ireland: Strategies for Employers
How Much Should You be Working?
References
[7] https://hbr.org/2024/01/its-time-to-prioritize-employees-financial-health?ab=HP-hero-featured-text-1
[12] https://hbr.org/2024/01/its-time-to-prioritize-employees-financial-health?ab=HP-hero-featured-text-1
[14] https://hbr.org/2024/01/its-time-to-prioritize-employees-financial-health?ab=HP-hero-featured-text-1
[20] https://hbr.org/2024/01/its-time-to-prioritize-employees-financial-health?ab=HP-hero-featured-text-1
[21] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278425423000212
[22] https://hbr.org/2024/01/its-time-to-prioritize-employees-financial-health?ab=HP-hero-featured-text-1
[26] https://hbr.org/2024/01/its-time-to-prioritize-employees-financial-health?ab=HP-hero-featured-text-1
[27] https://hbr.org/2024/01/its-time-to-prioritize-employees-financial-health?ab=HP-hero-featured-text-1
Introduction
January is not only a reset of the calendar. For many of us, it is a reset of our goals and ambitions. We look back on what we achieved in the past year, what we want to achieve this year, and enter a period of reflection.
We evaluate our progress – professionally, personally – and in a flurry of excitement and/or existential panic, commit ourselves to the task of betterment. We scribble down goals for the year ahead. We’re going to learn French, and maybe Spanish too. We’re going to lose not just that Christmas weight but a further stone on top of it. We’re going to get the promotion, travel to that beach paradise, eat healthier, take more photos, and just generally, finally become the rich/pretty/happy/smart/loved/well-read version of ourselves we were always meant to be.
Until after about three days of pursuing this idealised final form, we collapse in a heap and decide Netflix and a takeaway sounds like a better idea.
Like Icarus, we flew too close to the sun, got burned, and crashed back to Earth before the New Year’s hangover had even fully evacuated our system. Because the problem with “New year, new me” is it can only ever be half-true.
Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t pursue new goals – we can always strive for more. Rather that we should do so intelligently. Setting objectives is not just doable but recommended. It helps keep us on track, steadies our progress, and offers clarity and motivation.
There’s a story educators often cite that backs this up.
Many years ago, a survey was taken of students in their senior year at Yale University. Researchers asked the students if they had any goals for their future, and if any of them had written these goals down. 3% had. The rest, in much more relatable fashion, had not. Twenty years later, the researchers tracked down this same group of students and found that the 3% who had written down their goals had out-achieved their peers who hadn’t done so financially and professionally, while also being happier and more self-confident [1].
Now, does this story demonstrate the undeniable power of writing down one’s goals and prove that if you wish to be successful that there is a sure-fire way to do so? No, because the story is almost certainly untrue. A low-rent parable that gets wheeled out by educators all the same because, like all tales that pass into folklore, the heart of its lie speaks to an accepted truth: setting goals leads to progress.
While that specific story may be false, studies have shown that appropriate goal setting, along with timely and specific feedback, can lead to higher achievement, better performance, a high level of self-efficacy, and self-regulation [2]. And yet, when asked “Were you taught how to set goals in school?” 85% of individuals responded “no” [3].
In other words, we believe in the power of setting goals, we just have no idea how to do it.
The courage to want
Writing in Forbes, Life Performance Coach Julien Fortuit notes that, “Fear is probably the most common impediment to goal setting, even though many people may not admit it. Fear of failure – that you’ll set a goal, but not be able to achieve it, and suffer embarrassment, shame and disappointment in the process – underlies so much foot-dragging about setting and achieving goals” [4].
Fortuit acknowledges, too, that oftentimes we don’t just fear failure, but success. Applying for that new job, promotion etc. is often accompanied by a sudden spike of dread: What if I actually get this? Will I be able to do it? What will it mean for my life? What if I don’t like it? Is this the right move? It suddenly seems so much easier to put our dreams back in our pocket and settle for what we have.
Some people even fear speaking their goals out loud, or fear admitting to having any in the first place – they deny themselves the evaluation required to know what it is that they want. Fortuit writes that, “Many people are afraid of setting goals “just” for themselves. They fall into a common mental trap of believing that the desire for attainment or advancement is inherently narcissistic, and that settling and being content where you are is somehow ideal” [5].
All these impediments are self-created: fear of failure, of success, of daring to dream in the first place. And while feeling these things may be totally normal, allowing them to stop you from pursuing a goal is foolhardy.
So, before setting out toward your goal, first examine yourself and decide what it is you really want – to work in a new sphere? A new country? To earn more money? To start your own business? Once you’ve taken the requisite time to self-analyse and understand where it is you want to be, only then can you take the first steps to getting there.
Enacting objectives
Regardless of the goal, the consensus is that if you wish to achieve it, you must make it SMART. Smart goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.
Specificity is crucial. “I want to be a better employee” means nothing. “I want my sales record this year to improve by 15% compared with last year” is SMART. It is one clear objective, with a measurable area of improvement, a challenging but achievable target and a clear timeframe.
The primary issues that hold back goals are that the end desire is either too vague or too ambitious. Give yourself something tangible to focus on achieving – it doesn’t have to be an outcome, like the 15% example, rather a process. Say you want to spend 10 minutes a day studying a language rather than saying “I want to be fluent in Korean”, or “I want to run twice a week” rather than “I want to do a marathon.”
For goals that take place over a long period of time, it can be a good idea to set smaller objectives in between so that you can keep yourself on track. For example, if you want to read 30 books this year, it can be all too easy to fall behind early while convincing yourself that things will improve later in the year – that future you will pick up the slack. Except inevitably, as the first firework of December 31st fizzes into the sky, future you is left remonstrating past you for putting them under so much pressure and forcing them to end the year feeling like a failure.
A better approach would be to measure your progress by ensuring you’ve read ten by the end of April, twenty by the end of August etc. Not only does this make the goal more measurable and less daunting, but you get bursts of satisfaction through the year every time you see you’re on track.
Worth trying, too, is making your resolutions public. You will feel – rightly or wrongly – a level of scrutiny as to your progress. It is only human nature. Of course none of us want to feel like failures. But far more terrifying is the prospect of everyone else seeing us as one.
Additionally, ensure that you’ve connected a “why” to each of your ambitions. If our brain is able to link the efforts required to achieve this goal with a tangible, meaningful reward in the future, it is more likely to find the necessary motivation when things get tough. Wanting to hit sales targets so you can earn commission is fine. Wanting to hit sales targets so you can earn commission that you’re putting towards a deposit for a house for your family is better. Of course, it need not be so primal. Wanting to buy those new shoes, to feel more confident, to renew your season ticket or shop at the posh supermarket – whatever motivates you.
The benefits aren’t just in achieving goals but also in what having goals does to our psyche. A study amongst pulpwood producers in the southern United States showed that not only did productivity improve drastically amongst workers once goals were introduced, but that “within the week, employee attendance soared relative to attendance in those crews who were [not set goals]. Why? Because the psychological outcomes of setting and attaining high goals include enhanced task interest, pride in performance, a heightened sense of personal effectiveness, and, in most cases, many practical life benefits such as better jobs and higher pay” [7].
Habits
If you want to make long-term improvements, make habits your best friend.
James Clear’s Atomic Habits is the obvious guide for bringing habits into your life. He shows how micro-changes – getting 1% better every day – make all the difference. Habits take time to form, and there’s no shortcut to making them stick. It takes consistency, showing up every day. In order to do that, Clear suggests starting with a habit that is small and attainable. If you set yourself the target of running 10k three times a week, you may have a great first day, a great first week even, but sooner or later you’re going to struggle to keep it up (unless you’re built like The Hardest Geezer, in which case good for you). Clear’s advice for exercise isn’t about setting targets for runs or lifts, it’s about laying out your gym clothes before you go to bed or leaving your gym bag by the door. Truly the little things.
Writing in Harvard Business Review, Sabina Nawaz, a global CEO coach for a number of Fortune 500 corporations, says the same. “It usually takes my workshop participants between three and eight tries before they come up with something sufficiently small enough to be considered a micro habit.”
“When I tell them reading for an hour each night is too large, they then change to reading for 45 minutes, then 30 minutes, and so on. Finally, I tell them, “You will know you’ve truly reached the level of a micro habit, when you say, ‘That’s so ridiculously small, it’s not worth doing’”” [8].
It may sound ridiculous, condescending even, to say “start reading one page a night” or “start doing one pushup a day”, but building consistency is far more important than having an impressive week or month then falling off the wagon. That may mean sticking with your teeny-tiny habit longer than you’d like to, even if you think you’re capable of more. “You’ve stuck with your original micro habit long enough when you feel bored with it for at least two weeks in a row,” Nawaz says. “Then increase it only by about 10%.”
Effective goals
Every year, all over the world, people set themselves goals they have no chance of achieving. It’s a double negative – not only are they not fulfilling the goal, but they’re left feeling like failures because they fell short. To make effective goals, one must first self-evaluate and decide what you really want. You have to know where you’re going before figuring out how to get there. Once you’re set on the destination, in order to make your goals achievable, make sure they’re SMART, making use of habits, linked to a clear “why”, and focused on processes rather than just outcomes.
Resolutions don’t have to be distant dreams we’ll never achieve; they can be powerful motivators that set us on the path to success. So put last year’s missed targets behind you and set yourself goals you can actually reach and truly want to.
More on Goal Setting
How to Achieve Peak Performance
New Year’s Resolutions: How to Make Them Useful
More on Habits
Why Achievement Doesn’t Guarantee Happiness
Boosting personal and organisational performance in the digital age (Podcast)
References
[2] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41684067?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[3] https://www.jstor.org/stable/41684067?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[6] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4166132?read-now=1#page_scan_tab_contents
[7] https://hbr.org/2020/01/to-achieve-big-goals-start-with-small-habits
[8] https://hbr.org/2020/01/to-achieve-big-goals-start-with-small-habits
Introduction
Survivorship bias is a subtle yet pervasive cognitive oversight that significantly impacts our understanding of success and failure. Often going unnoticed, it affects various areas, from entrepreneurial ventures and the entertainment industry to our everyday decisions and scientific research methodologies.
This bias emerges from an emphasis on the winners—those who have surmounted the odds—while inadvertently neglecting those who did not achieve the same success. Success stories are highlighted and celebrated, leading to a skewed perception that such outcomes are more common than they are. Conversely, the experiences of those who fail are frequently overlooked, leaving a gap in the narrative of what truly contributes to achievement or failure.
In business, for instance, we hear about the few start-ups that evolve into tech giants but seldom about the many that don’t survive their early years. The spotlight shines on celebrities and star performers in entertainment while numerous struggling artists remain unseen. This selective visibility can mislead aspiring individuals about the realities and challenges of success.
Recognising survivorship bias is crucial for a more accurate and balanced understanding of the factors leading to success. It encourages a comprehensive analysis of both successful and unsuccessful cases, promoting a more realistic approach to the probabilities and potential outcomes in any field.
Survivorship Bias: The Hidden Half of Success Stories
Survivorship bias casts a long shadow over our collective narrative, favouring stories of victory. The media celebrates tales of success, featuring business leaders, cultural icons, and renowned authors. This prominence of success stories overshadows the numerous trials and errors that either lead to victory or result in obscurity. Such selective storytelling creates a skewed reality where only victors command attention, while the majority who don’t reach such heights are forgotten.
In technological innovation, for example, the few smartphone models that dominate the market and public consciousness overshadow the numerous attempts that failed to find a market or fell short on functionality. We frequently celebrate the end products of innovation, from ground-breaking apps to transformative gadgets, while neglecting the graveyard of ideas and prototypes that did not survive the market’s rigours.
In sports, every champion on a podium represents the peak of a vast pyramid of athletes who trained with fervour and dedication but did not reach the summit of elite recognition. The winners’ spotlight often ignores the dedication and sacrifice of those who compete valiantly yet do not secure the medals and accolades.
In “Fooled By Randomness,” Nassim Nicholas Taleb illustrates how our understanding is limited by what we see, causing us to neglect the fuller picture that includes the ‘invisible’ majority contributing to the narrative of progress and competition without acknowledgement. In science, for every celebrated discovery published in journals, there are numerous unreported experiments and hypotheses that were essential stepping stones despite not achieving the desired result. These instances are critical to advancing knowledge, yet they remain unrecognised.
These examples give us a clearer picture of survivorship bias and its pervasive impact across various sectors. They remind us that what is celebrated and visible is just the tip of the iceberg, with much remaining unseen beneath the surface of success.
The allure of visible success, such as the glamorised lives of movie stars, success stories of YouTube personalities, and triumphs of Twitch streamers, fosters a false optimism. This disparity between visible successes and the invisible majority creates a misleading perception that fame and fortune are more attainable than they are. As media consumers, we often receive a distorted image of reality, where the pinnacle of success seems within reach for all.
However, the reality is much more sobering. Many businesses do not survive their initial years, most actors and artists grapple with financial instability, and many digital content creators never attain a liveable income from their efforts. By recognising the prevalence of survivorship bias, we can make more informed decisions, avoiding the trap of chasing an illusory model of success. An awareness of the numerous untold stories of struggle and perseverance grants us a more balanced understanding and fosters empathy for those enduring the brunt of their unpublicised defeats.
Survivorship bias significantly affects how we perceive and strive for success. By acknowledging this bias, we can temper our expectations and decisions with a healthy dose of reality, leading to a more nuanced approach to our ambitions. Appreciating the full landscape of success and failure is crucial, recognising that for every story of triumph, countless others go unheard yet equally deserve our attention and respect.
Survivorship Bias: Unveiling the Unseen in History and Decision-Making
The concept of survivorship bias finds profound lessons in history and contemporary settings alike, demonstrating its impact on our interpretations and decision-making processes.
One of the most instructive case studies comes from WWII, where mathematician Abraham Wald was tasked with better armouring American bombers. The common approach was reinforcing the areas with the most damage on returning planes. However, Wald’s counterintuitive insight was to bolster the undamaged areas instead, understanding that planes hit in those areas were not returning and thus were not represented in the data. This critical perspective shift exemplifies the essence of survivorship bias: the danger of only considering the immediately visible evidence while ignoring what we cannot see.
In the realm of consumer feedback, online reviews often present a distorted view of reality. Products and books, for example, typically garner reviews from the most passionate consumers—either extremely satisfied or dissatisfied customers—while the moderate and perhaps more common experiences go unreported. This distortion can significantly skew our perception of a product’s quality or a book’s merit, leading to an imbalanced view that does not reflect the true diversity of customer experiences. It underscores the importance of seeking comprehensive information that includes the silent majority of experiences to arrive at a more accurate evaluation.
The influence of survivorship bias extends into the professional world as well, particularly in how careers and businesses are portrayed in the media. For every actor who gains stardom or every CEO who catapults a start-up to international success, there are countless individuals whose efforts do not result in such widely recognised achievements. Though often overlooked, their stories are integral to the fabric of industries and economies. This bias leads to a disproportionate emphasis on extraordinary success stories, while the more common but less sensational experiences of striving and often not succeeding are neglected. This can create unrealistic expectations for those entering the workforce or launching new ventures, as they may not be fully aware of the high frequency of unpublicised setbacks inherent in these journeys.
By understanding the nuances of survivorship bias through these case studies, we can better appreciate the full scope of experiences behind our world’s successes and failures. Acknowledging the entirety of this spectrum is crucial for making more informed decisions, whether in historical analysis, consumer behaviour, or pursuing careers and building businesses. The unheralded stories—the majority that do not find their way into the limelight—offer perhaps the most authentic and instructive insights for those willing to look beyond the surface.
Combatting Survivorship Bias
In navigating the waters of success and failure, a more grounded approach requires the deliberate search for a wider range of narratives, including those that detail unsuccessful ventures. Such stories are often untold but offer critical insights into the realistic probabilities of achieving success. To foster a more balanced viewpoint, one should actively engage in pursuits with the understanding that failure is not a definitive end but a potential source of invaluable lessons. This mindset allows for a sustainable approach to risk-taking, where even the losses are accounted for as part of the learning curve, thereby informing future decisions.
Reflecting on the wisdom taken from Abraham Wald’s approach during WWII, our assessments must expand to include the factors that are not immediately apparent—the unseen efforts and unreported trials. A comprehensive understanding of a situation often lies beyond the visible successes in the quiet persistence and unnoticed trials that do not reach the forefront of public consciousness.
Equally important is the analysis of base rates, which are the statistical probabilities of success within any given domain. Such data offers a sobering counterbalance to the often anecdotal success stories, grounding our expectations and goals in reality rather than the exception.
Lastly, the allure of outliers—those remarkable tales of success against formidable odds—while inspiring can also lead to a skewed perception of reality. Recognising that these are the exceptions rather than the norm is crucial in maintaining a realistic approach to our aspirations. Through a conscientious recognition of the full gamut of experiences and outcomes, one can avoid the pitfalls of survivorship bias and make more informed decisions in the face of uncertainty.
In sum, we can approach our endeavours with well-informed and grounded wisdom by seeking out the full spectrum of stories, embracing the instructive nature of setbacks, considering the unseen and the unreported, analysing real-world probabilities, and resisting the misleading charm of exceptional success.
Conclusion
Survivorship bias significantly influences our view of the world. By recognising and accounting for this bias, we can approach our goals, dreams, and decisions with a more grounded and realistic perspective. This awareness enhances our capacity for informed decision-making in our personal and professional lives and challenges us to re-evaluate our assumptions and look beyond the surface of success stories.
More on Bias
Refining Performance Assessments: Reducing Recency Bias for Superior Evaluations
Mastering Decisions: The Strategic Edge of Red Teaming in a Biased World
Charlie Munger’s Mind Games: How Psychology Drives Business Success
Introduction
It’s that time of year where history’s most famous CEO steps up to deliver on his annual project. Santa Claus is a cultural behemoth. Hardly a soul on Earth is unaware of his specific approach to leadership, replete with elves, reindeer, sleighs and coal.
But is Santa a good leader? Where does he impress and where could he improve? In what areas can we learn from Santa and in what areas could he perhaps do with updating his approach?
Santa delivers
The primary positive of Santa’s leadership, one that many a budding CEO could learn from, is that he sets clear goals and always hits his deadline.
Every year, Santa has the job of delivering presents to every child in the world. And every year, he does it. Now, there may be questions regarding his timing. It would appear that Santa suffers from the same tendency to leave his major tasks to the last minute as many of us. He has a whole year to deliver on his project and yet, without fail, does not get around to distribution until Christmas Eve.
That said, Santa never misses a deadline. Every Christmas morning, children the world over awaken to their new presents under the tree. The truth is that some of us thrive under the pressure of an impending deadline. One might have thought that after centuries of the same deliverable, Santa would learn his lesson and get his act together, delivering methodically throughout the year rather than needing to unload everything in one final dump. However, it would appear that no matter how many times he’s done it, Santa needs to feel that extra spike of pressure as the deadline looms ever closer in order to get the job done. It’s a trait that for many of us is a little too relatable.
Santa gets stuck in
Too often CEOs are happy to let their team do all the work, only to step in and take the credit when all is done (or point the finger of blame if things go wrong). While Santa is guilty of letting his elves undertake the brunt of the work through the year (arguably just the result of good delegation), when it comes time to deliver, Santa is there front and centre, riding the sleigh and taking responsibility. He could no doubt entrust one of the elves with this responsibility or even outsource the task to a third-party operation – I’m sure Tony McKCoy, Lewis Hamilton or any other famed steerer of steed or cart would love the opportunity – but no. Santa is there, getting his hands dirty when it matters most.
That said, Santa’s decision to lead the line on delivery night does speak to one of his baser traits: taking all the credit.
As noted, the elves are slaving away all year to ensure everything is in order for the big man to push things over the line on the day. But who is it that gets all the focus? Santa, of course. The media pour their attention on him in large part due to his clever branding (red suit, large beard, an air of eccentricity). But would it kill him once in a while to acknowledge the role his elves and reindeer play in providing a platform for his success? Seemingly, a touch of humility is too much to ask; he’d rather bask in all the glory without giving credit to his team.
Good leaders know that they are only as good as their team and that acknowledging their staff’s hard work goes a long way.
Clear communication
As well as consistently hitting his deadline, Santa is always crystal clear on his brief, both to staff and the wider public. His staff know that their role is to deliver presents to every child in the world by Christmas Day. Children know that he’s making a list and checking it twice, and that good behaviour will land them on the nice list, while naughty behaviour…well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Of course, critics could well point to Santa’s naughty and nice list as an example of poor leadership, attempting to incentivise through fear. Placing a lump of coal in the stocking of children he deems unworthy certainly feels draconian by modern standards. That said, his strongman leadership tends to yield results, with far more nice kids than naughty and very little coal doled out in earnest.
A loyal workforce
Despite not dispersing credit as generously as he could, Santa has cultivated a loyal workforce. His elves and reindeer seem to stick with him, with very little turnover of staff. That suggests that Santa has made Lapland an enjoyable place to work, probably with an enviable work-life balance, decent salary progression and maybe even a ping pong table.
However, it must be noted that there’s very little room for growth within Santa’s organisation. He’s the top dog and everyone under him seems to be working in a fixed position, with no higher rung of the ladder they can climb to by playing their cards right. Perhaps should he one day choose to retire, we may witness a Succession-esque bid for power from a series of his most ruthless elves, but for now the ceiling for career progression in Lapland seems low and unbending.
Lack of diversity
The one obvious example of a promotion in Santa’s operation is Rudolph (the red nosed reindeer, for those in doubt). However, his upgrading to the front of the sleigh seems if anything to be the exception that proves the rule, and ultimately to highlight another of Santa’s managerial deficiencies: a lack of diversity.
Prior to his do-or-die promotion, reports indicate that Rudolph was brutally mocked for the colour and glowiness of his nose. It would appear that Santa has cultivated a toxic work environment with a lack of diversity in personnel and thought. After all, the bulk of the legwork is conducted solely by elves. Perhaps by opening up to other creatures – goblins, ghouls, influencers etc. – we might see a greater plurality of thought amongst Santa’s workforce, rather than the hegemonic current state of play.
Innovation
Santa has shown a willingness to embrace modernity in his gift-giving, always up to speed with modern trends. That spirit of innovation, though, is seriously lacking when it comes to his process.
As any good business knows, innovation is about more than just product and output, it’s about the process by which outcomes are achieved. How can we streamline our operation so as to ensure maximum productivity and staff satisfaction?
Santa’s methods of delivery have served him well, and there is an argument to be made that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. That said, perhaps, in a changing world, there is a more operationally efficient way to achieve his goals than flying a sleigh through the sky at night with nothing but a glowing nose for guidance and likely no seatbelts. Not to mention the physical strain he places on his reindeer, who are probably only one trip to PETA away from putting an end to this operation for good. Even tried and tested methods need updating every once in a while.
Accountability
As previously noted, Santa is more than happy to accept plaudits for the operation without sufficiently doling out credit to his staff. But when things go wrong, where is he?
By which I mean, when I was ten years-old, all I wanted for Christmas was the new David Bowie album. And yet, when Christmas Day came around, it was starkly lacking. In its place was a jumper and a book. While these days a jumper and book would be my ideal gifts, back then such presents bordered on a declaration of war.
And yet, when I wanted to raise my concerns with Santa regarding his dismissive attitude to the carefully curated wish list I sent him prior to the big day, he was unreachable. Good leaders are accountable for the good and bad of their operation. In this regard, Santa falls short, and ten year-old me is yet to forgive him.
In summary
If you’re running a global delivery service built on the backs of what arguably constitutes slave labour (here’s looking at you, Jeff Bezos), then Santa is and forever will be the model to follow. However, for a normal CEO, more humility, accountability, championing of diversity, and coal-free incentivisation methods may be required.
Introduction
The year is drawing to a close. Christmas lights line the façades of urban architecture while the dulcet tones of Mariah Carey and slurred poetry of the late, great Shane MacGowan offer a familiar festive soundtrack. It’s a time for reflection, personal and professional.
As we reflect, we can’t help but be caught up in questions as to how our year has gone – have we achieved everything we set out to? Where did we shine? Where did we fall short? How can we know if we’re progressing?
Self-evaluation
As with all self-reflection, such questions are difficult to answer objectively. Still, it’s worth taking the time to assess your year as measuredly as you are able to. Coach Harriet Minter says that conducting your own end of year review is only useful if you can walk the line between self-castigation and self-congratulation [1].
Of course, if you set goals at the turn of the previous year, your results will be easier to measure. You can roll through your objectives and see which you achieved. For those you didn’t, ask why, though not in a punitive sense. Rather, look at the aim and assess whether there is something you can do next year to ensure you reach this target or whether fulfilling it was actually out of your control.
It’s perfectly possible that your goals changed throughout the year and so by December you were no longer pursuing certain aims. As John Maynard Keynes said, “When the facts change, I change my mind” [2]. It’s useful to remember when setting goals that we need not be slaves to them throughout the year. Life and work are at the mercy of constant fluctuations and external shifts. There is nothing to be gained by remaining fixed on a target that has lost its relevance.
If you struggle with self-assessment – either finding yourself too generous or too harsh in your appraisal – Minter suggests you picture a great boss and try to think what they would say [3]. Good leaders tend to know how to motivate their employees and celebrate their strengths while also providing constructive feedback as to how they can improve going forwards. Mimic that and you’re halfway there.
Measuring progress, not achievements
In The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals with Soul, author Danielle LaPorte says that we set ourselves goals in order to achieve a feeling we want [4]. For example, if we seek a promotion, as well as the fiscal benefits it affords, we are also hoping to achieve a feeling of pride that our work is being recognised. When assessing our end-of-year achievements, it’s important to focus on the latter as much as the former. Perhaps you did not get the promotion, the pay rise, the new office, but did you get the feeling that you are making progress? Did you make steps in the right direction? This, in itself, can be worth celebrating.
That’s not to say one should simply accept being overlooked, especially if you’re quite certain that your efforts and achievements throughout the year are deserving of more respect than they’ve been shown. If that’s the case, vocalise it (in a courteous, professional manner, of course, open to hearing why your employer potentially disagrees).
But for the years in which you outwardly achieve little, have none of the obvious markers of progress to show for your efforts, it’s still worth giving yourself credit for effort and achievement. That can sound condescending, of course, like draping a participation medal around your own neck, but it is valuable. We all have years that don’t quite go our way. It could be a matter of timing, we could be part of a team that doesn’t suit us, we could be dealing with something in our personal life that bleeds into our work performance – these things happen. So long as you can look back at your performance and say, “Well, I gave it all I could, but this time things didn’t go my way”, that’s enough.
If you conclude that, in fact, you didn’t give your all, it might be worth asking why not and what steps you can take next year to improve.
External analysis
Sometimes the end of the year brings about not just self-analysis but external evaluation too. Some companies choose to do this at the end of the fiscal year, others the end of the calendar year, others around employee contracts. Regardless, performance reviews can be nerve wracking for even the best of employees. Often they are seen as something to survive, with employees and employers alike thinking “how can I get through this?” for another year, rather than viewing them as the opportunities for growth they can be if handled properly.
A 2018 McKinsey survey found that the majority of CEOs don’t find the appraisal process in their companies helpful when it comes to identifying top performers, while more than half of employees don’t believe that their managers get performance degrees right [5]. Similarly, a Gallup study found that only one in five employees agree that their company’s performance practices motivate them [6].
The lack of benefits performance reviews generally afford paired with the anxiety they tend to foster could suggest that the practice is overdue a place on the scrap pile. But amongst firms who tried to rid themselves of such measures, a separate McKinsey study found that when “organisations scrapped the performance ratings, they found a need for a form of annual documented administrative evaluation to make employment decisions, such as promotions and raises. To address this need, these organisations often implemented ‘ghost’ ratings—a system of evaluation that is, ultimately, just another annual performance rating” [7].
Essentially, then, the question isn’t “should we get rid of performance reviews?” Rather, it’s “how can we make them more effective, for employer and employee alike?”
Making the most of performance reviews
Writing in Forbes, Chris Lee, President of Ventureblick, says that in his experience employees spend too much time in performance reviews bragging about their achievements and strengths. Instead of embarking on a self-promotion sales initiative, he recommends employees list what they consider to be their weaknesses as well as offering proactive proposals for areas of development.
“The trick here,” he writes, “is that you are setting yourself up to demonstrate your self-awareness and readiness for further career advancement” [8]. In practice, that means that rather than saying, “I deserve to be given a leadership position for X, Y and Z,” you say, “I have developed strong project management skills in the past years, but I’m still lacking people management experience. I’d like to develop this facet and lead a small team.”
Taking this approach shows a level of self-awareness, proves you acknowledge your weaknesses (rather than grifting and pretending everything you touch turns to gold), and demonstrates your capacity for taking the initiative to improve an area of weakness.
Equally, Lee writes, you must listen to your manager’s feedback and not get defensive. As well as showing maturity and level-headedness (both valuable), you’re also making your boss’s life easier. “A boss I respected highly once told me that performance reviews are psychologically stressful for him,” Lee says. Many of his staff would come in ready for “bruising battle,” determined to show their worth and fight their corner.
While one should always be willing to stick up for oneself, an inability to take constructive criticism is a major red flag for any employer. The point of a performance review is to learn what you’re doing well, what you could do better, and how to do so next time. If all you’re after from your appraisal is a stream of praise, the implication is you think there’s nowhere you can improve, which is not the case for any of us. Take the feedback, listen to it and respond accordingly. If you really think it’s unfair, perhaps think about it further before arranging a follow-up meeting with your boss where you can explain why you disagree, and then learn whether they had indeed overlooked some of your achievements or you really are at odds over your performance.
For employers, it’s important to remember that for a lot of your staff this is the one opportunity they get to truly hear what you think of their performance. Give the moment the respect it deserves.
When giving feedback, be specific. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Frank V. Cespedes, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and the author of Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing, observes that, “Too much performance feedback is of the “do good and avoid evil” variety. That may sound harmless, but overly general feedback increases feelings of defensiveness, rather than openness to behaviour change, because it involves broad judgments and invites counterpunching rather than discussion” [9].
Giving specific feedback – i.e. you didn’t mention X, Y and Z in this presentation, or you kept interrupting a client during a meeting – “makes it easier to receive negative comments and take corrective action because both manager and employee can now concentrate on elements that can be improved” [10].
The most conclusive area in which performance reviews often fall short is in setting employees up with a clear plan moving forward. Inbuilt to the “let’s just get through this” mentality is the idea that once the review is over, that’s it for another year. Instead, Cespedes argues, “A review is incomplete without a discussion of next steps in which both parties take appropriate responsibility for change options” [11]. He goes on to say that the bulk of this responsibility rests with the manager. In what areas do they want to see progress from their employees in the coming months and year? How do they want to bring those changes about? Are there courses they can offer? Or mentorship sessions? More regular feedback so they can check the employee is making steps in the right direction?
Even something as simple as a regular reminder of the goal set in the performance review can be enough. Various studies, in areas ranging from health care to voting to energy usage to drinking habits, find that these reminders significantly affect behaviour and improve outcomes [12].
Providing opportunities for growth and development is a pivotal part of a leader’s role. Fail to provide sufficient routes to improvement and you shouldn’t be surprised to see employees looking for the exit. As the old saying goes, “people don’t quit jobs, they quit managers.”
Assessing progress
As the year draws to a close, it can be useful to assess whether we made everything we wanted of it. That can be done through self-assessment, handled as objectively as we can manage, or through a more formal performance review. It’s the job of both the worker and boss in question to make these reviews more than just a tick-box exercise and instead use them as a launchpad for further development for the year ahead. That means honest assessment, constructive, specific feedback, and most importantly setting out a framework through which improvement can be made. Proper self-assessment leads to proper self-development, which benefits the individual and the company alike.
More on Assessment
Refining Performance Assessments: Reducing Recency Bias for Superior Evaluations
References
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sophiamatveeva/2019/12/24/how-to-review-your-year/?sh=698d70b1140a
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sophiamatveeva/2019/12/24/how-to-review-your-year/?sh=698d70b1140a
[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/sophiamatveeva/2019/12/24/how-to-review-your-year/?sh=698d70b1140a
[6] https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238064/re-engineering-performance-management.aspx
[7] https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights
[9] https://hbr.org/2022/07/how-to-conduct-a-great-performance-review
[10] https://hbr.org/2022/07/how-to-conduct-a-great-performance-review
[11] https://hbr.org/2022/07/how-to-conduct-a-great-performance-review
[12] https://hbr.org/2022/07/how-to-conduct-a-great-performance-review
