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Attention Span & Productivity – Book Recommendation

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, ADHD, Book Recommendations, Creative Thinking, Leadership, Neuroscience, Performance, Academic Achievement, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management, Resources, tools, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development, Stress Management
Two goldfish in a bowl, one of them reading a thick book. The other one asks: "You’re reading a book called “Attention Span”? Is this some kind of joke?"

“You’re reading a book called Attention Span? Is this some kind of joke?”

In her book “Attention Span“, Gloria Mark explores the impacts of today’s fast-paced technology on our attention spans, productivity, and happiness. She presents a lot of research done both by her own and other teams. Based on that, she offers advice, not only on how to gain more control over our attention, but also on finding balance between productivity and happiness.

Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity by Gloria Mark (2023). [1]

Here are just a few of the findings and insights I found helpful.

Fun facts about attention and productivity

Have our attention spans really decreased?

Maybe you are feeling it yourself? Or maybe you’ve heard humans’ attention spans compared unfavorably to those of goldfish? Well that was a bit unfair. But is it true it that we are switching our attention more often these days than we used to? As it turns out, indeed we are.

Mark reports dramatic findings from her own as well as other people’s research [1], spanning from the early 2000’s to now. In the early years they shadowed people with stop watches. Later, they used computer logging methods to record precisely how long people’s attention remained on one screen, and when they switched their screens, apps, or websites. The measured average time people spent before switching went down steadily from about two and a half minutes in their earliest studies in 2004, to less than fifty seconds in 2021.

Another change that happened along with attention spans shortening is that people were spending more time at their desks and less time in formal and informal meetings. With that, people were becoming more sedentary during their work hours. (That decline already happened pre-pandemic, when most meetings were in person.)

The three high costs of rapid attention switching

Multitasking has rightfully earned a bad rap. Because our attention cannot be divided into more than one focus, we cannot truly to two things in parallel, unless one or both of the activities require little or no attentional resources. For example, listening to an audiobook while cooking is possible if I cook something that requires minimal thinking. If I’m trying to read and follow a new recipe, I’m quickly going to lose the plot in the audiobook. Similarly, I may be able to speak on the phone while painting, but not while responding to incoming texts or emails. Even if it feels like I’m doing both things at the same time, what I am really doing is switching my attention rapidly between them.

There are three problems with rapid attention switching. All three have been well documented over decades of research:

  1. We make more errors. Whether the switching is voluntary or not, our performance on each task is worse when we switch between them, compared to when we first complete one and then the other.
  2. It takes us longer to complete both tasks (again compared to first completing one, then the other).
  3. It increases stress. Diastolic and systolic blood pressure rises, and heart rate variability increases. Those physical markers are consistent with people’s subjective experience. The faster the switching, the more stressed people report feeling.

How can we improve our attention span and productivity?

What NOT to do:

1. Don’t try to focus as long as possible

Mark aims to dispel several myths in her book. The first myth is that we should try to focus as long as possible in order to be most productive.

It turns out that focusing for lengthy periods of time, especially without breaks, is not natural for most people. Just as we are not able to lift weights all day, we can’t stay focused for long stretches throughout the day without breaks. Sustained focus is associated with stress and can only be maintained for a limited time before our performance begins to decline.

There is a physiological basis in the brain that underlies this. When we focus our attention, the regions of the brain that are involved in that task use more oxygen, and accordingly the carbon dioxide content in the blood increases. This causes blood vessels to dilate to remove that waste from the activated part of the brain. Over time, blood velocity decreases as a consequence. When that happens, and the person remains in that sustained focused state, their performance declines. This change in performance that accompanies decreased blood velocity suggests that cognitive resources are not being replenished fast enough while the task continues. [1]

In other words, our brains hit a physical, metabolic limit, and we need breaks. This leads to another recommendation:

2. Don’t try to eliminate all rote, mindless activities

In line with this, Mark challenges the myth that rote, mindless activities have no value. There is no need to cut out all mindless activity like playing silly puzzle games, browsing the web, watching movies, or other easy and non-productive things.

Mark on the contrary suggests that since our attention is limited, it makes sense to pull away when we feel that we have exhausted our cognitive resources. Letting our minds wander while taking breaks with easy tasks, both online and in the physical world, helps us replenish our scarce cognitive resources. With more resources, we are better able to then focus again and be productive.

3. Don’t feel bad if you can’t get into a flow state at work

Another myth that Mark challenges is that we should all be able to get into “flow states” at work.

Flow, a term coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, is that optimal state of attention where we are so caught up in an experience that we lose touch with the outside world and are unaware that time has passed. We feel joy and excitement, and are at our utmost creative peak. [1]

While people often have flow experiences with creative pursuits such as art, music, craft, design, or also in problem-solving tasks such as coding, Mark and her collaborators found that it rarely occurs in the knowledge workplace. Much of the nature of knowledge work is just not conducive to this kind of creative experience. This doesn’t mean we’re doing something wrong.

What can we do instead to improve our attention span, productivity, and happiness? 

Instead of falling for these myths, Mark suggests we aim for balance and well-being by finding a good rhythm for our attention and productivity.

1. Designing your day:

Design your day based on your own rhythm of attention, knowing that you have peak times for focus. Take advantage of these. Most people have peak focus times around 11 a.m. and midafternoon, but your own peak focus may differ from that. Save your hardest tasks for your peak hours.

When designing your day, recognize the value of “negative space”. In art, negative space refers to the area around a figure and is recognized as an essential part of the art work. In Japanese, the term “yohaku no bi” refers to the beauty of empty space. Design your day to include negative space, which is just as important as the work itself because it helps you achieve a sustainable balance.

2. Coping with external interruptions

Having control over interruptions helps people be more productive.

A good time to intentionally redirect your attention is when you reach a break point in a task, such as finishing writing a chapter or completing a budget—natural places to pause.

It that’s not possible and you do need to interrupt a task: externalize your memory of that unfinished task. For example, write a note about your most important unfinished tasks and a plan for the next step. Mark cites a study by Michael Scullin and colleagues, who found that people who wrote down their unfinished tasks fell asleep significantly faster than the other group. In fact, the more detailed their notes, the faster people fell asleep. [1] This finding can be explained by the Zeigarnik effect: as people lay in bed, unfinished tasks agitated around and around in their minds, stirring up tension.

3. Coping with internal interruptions

It is important to acknowledge that interruptions to our attention can be external as well as internal. We tend to self-interrupt, even when there are no outside triggers that would prompt us to switch attention.

Practice meta-awareness (awareness of your awareness). This means being conscious of what you are experiencing while it is unfolding, for example of the moment you choose to switch screens from work to opening your news browser.

Once you have that awareness, you can ask yourself: what value will I gain by interrupting my work and checking the news? If you’re already on the news site by the time you reach that meta-awareness, you can ask: How much time have I spent here already? Am I gaining any value by staying here? When you have meta-awareness, you can switch your frame of mind from being a passive to an active user of your attention.

Developing the ability to use meta-awareness takes practice. The better able you are to gain a meta-awareness of your behavior, the more intentional you can be in your actions.

Practice forethought by imagining how your current actions might affect your future. For example, before you go on social media or play an online game, spend a moment to think ahead and imagine what your end of the morning might look like if you indulge. The more detailed your visualization is, the easier it is to take an action to course-correct if you need to.

Increase friction: make it harder for your attention to switch. For example, if you know that you like to play a certain game, hide the app in a folder so that it’s harder to get to. Having to search for it will make you pause and increase the chances you’ll become aware and get the chance to make a conscious choice.

Best practices for organizations: increasing employees’ attention spans and productivity

Finally, some changes can only be accomplished on an organizational level. Two recommendations stood out to me in particular:

  • Reducing email
  • Designating quiet time, where responses are not expected

It took Gloria Mark six years to find a company that was willing to cut off email for a full work week as an experiment. When email was cut off, heart rate monitors revealed significantly less stress by the end of the week, and more enjoyment of social interactions. What’s more, people’s attention spans were significantly longer while working on their computers. In other words, they switched their attention less frequently. With the caveat that this was a quasi-experiment in the field, rather than a randomized controlled study, this finding nonetheless offers plausible evidence that email may cause attention spans to decline.

Based on her findings, Mark suggests cutting off email as a no-brainer. However, individuals alone cannot solve the email problem by simply cutting off from it. Email is a problem that needs to be tackled at the organizational and even societal level.

Disappointingly (and surprisingly to me) Mark found that batching email does not help. People who read email in batches showed no difference in stress levels compared to people who checked their email continually. In fact, batching even led to more stress, rather than less, for highly neurotic people. However, simply decreasing quantity helped. People who spent less time daily on email were less stressed—even after controlling for their job demands and job autonomy.

Final note

What I presented here is not meant to be a book summary. I selected only a few insights I gained from the book, and gave my notes a different structure than the book did. I hope you find some of it memorable and applicable.

If you would like to discuss how you or your organization could put some of these suggestions into practice, please let me know.

"Get in Touch" Button to Schedule a phone call or coaching session with Ursina Teuscher

 

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

 

Picture Credits:

Image created with the assistance of OpenAI DALL-E and Microsoft Designer

 

Reference:

[1] Mark, G. (2023). Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity. Hanover Square Press.

Note: Gloria Mark cites many studies in her book, some of which I mentioned here. I have not read those original studies and am therefore not listing them as direct references for this post.

 


A Creative Conversation

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I recently met for coffee with my friend and colleague Leo MacLeod, who is a leadership and communication coach. Among the many topics we talked about, one conversational thread led to an unexpected result – a guest blog post by him.

Finding Meaning in Solving Problems

Guest Blog Post by Leo MacLeod

Leo MacLeod, Leadership and Communication Coach

I recently turned sixty-five and, for the first time in a long time, found myself without a plan for my future. I’ve always been a person who has done well with setting goals and following a schedule to accomplish them. But as I looked at retirement, I found myself staring into an abyss of having a lot of time without knowing how to fill it. I lacked purpose.

How do I decide what’s important to me, and how do I take the steps toward a meaningful future? This felt particularly tricky since retirement typically means unwinding. Luckily, I got inspiration from two places: a colleague who specializes in decision-making and a birthday gift.

Ursina Teuscher helps people make better decisions. With a PhD in psychology and a book to her credit, she’s got some pretty cool tools to help people like me narrow down choices. We had coffee, and I shared where I was stuck. In particular, I shared that I struggled with feeling alone, not only as a result of being less active with clients but also because of the cloud of the pandemic, which has everyone hunkered down and more isolated. The loneliness showed up in work and in my personal life.

After getting a good sense of what the problem was, Ursina suggested that thinking more explicitly about my underlying values might be a worthwhile next step. She pointed out that we often skip that step and jump right to finding solutions for our biggest pain points, but it’s worth resisting that urge to act for just a little bit. We often find better solutions if we’re clearer about what we’re looking for. It’s worth not just figuring out the main source of unease (in my case, loneliness) but thinking about what else we might want to optimize in our lives. Taking time to get at the root of why something is important helps us identify larger, more profound needs behind a problem. When we identify those needs that resonate at the deepest level, we see them in a fuller, more comprehensive context. We see all the reasons why they make sense over other decisions we might make. And they fuel our motivation and drive to follow through, especially when the work of reaching our goals becomes hardest.

This got me thinking in a more nuanced way: I’m a social person and get energy from my interactions with people. The times when I feel energized are when I’m collaborating with other people—bouncing ideas off of someone else, building on what someone said, getting excited about creating something larger and more interesting than if I sat alone with my thoughts. For instance, I just finished writing a book about my work as a leadership coach. It required tons of alone time, and I found it draining. By contrast, the last piece of the publishing process involved working with a marketing consultant and book designer. I really enjoyed interacting with them and getting energy from the collaboration. It gave me a boost to do more of the alone work I needed to continue with the project.

What if retirement didn’t look like an abyss with nothing to do and no one to connect with but was filled with projects where I connected with people? That certainly addressed my problem of feeling alone. But were there other reasons why I should fully commit to making collaboration center to my future? Here’s where a birthday gift came in to push the process into a truly meaningful level.

My wife had asked friends and family to write something about what they appreciate about me. It was a truly wonderful way to celebrate my birthday. The messages that really stood out for me were those that said I was remembered for doing something for someone else: I was there for someone in my life at a time when they really needed it. During an illness. A tough transition. A death. When I read those passages where I had made a difference in someone else’s life, I remembered that “making a difference for others” gives me a real sense of purpose. Collaboration is important not just in taking care of my personal needs but in feeding a sense of altruism that speaks to me on a deeper level.

What could this look like, specifically? For my work, it could mean more teaming and collaboration in training, coaching, and content creation. For future books, it could mean cowriting a book. For my love of music, it means writing more songs collaboratively and playing with different musicians to come up with different arrangements.

I spent time imaging what it would feel like to do more collaboration. If I focus on collaboration, others will also feel the similar excitement and energy from working together. They will feel the same of sense of connection and community and creative accomplishment that I will. It will be a shared experience. And maybe even an inspiration for other people to connect. When I look at where I’ve had the most joy in my life, it’s where I created some spark that brought people together to make them feel alive, to challenge each other, to support each other. I will have made a larger contribution than simply taking care of my personal needs. I will help spread a shared community of creativity and cooperation so others feel connected and we can find new ways of helping each other, probably even, in our own way, in our own corners, making the world a better place.

After reflecting on all of this, I ended up with not just one but three values that are embedded inside simply fixing a personal problem:

  • Community. It’s more fun and energizing to work together.
  • Service. I want to help others.
  • Creativity. The best ideas come from many perspectives.

Wow, I started with a problem, but I found much more than a way to solve that. I found a solution that not only would make me happier but would make my work more satisfying, and finally, could help strengthen my community.

The next small step came easily: I emailed Ursina to collaborate on this article!

Left: Ursina Teuscher; right: Leo MacLeod

In a nutshell, here’s the process you too can follow:
  1. What’s a recognizable problem in my life that I want to address? How does it show up as a need? E.g., loneliness, lack of purpose
  2. What do I want more of? E.g., connection with people
  3. What’s a potential solution? E.g., collaboration
  4. What does it specifically look like in my life? E.g., co-coaching, sharing songwriting
  5. How does that solution fulfill other important personal values? E.g., community, service, creativity
  6. What’s an easy small step to get going? E.g., call Ursina

Leo MacLeod is a leadership coach and author of “From the Ground Up! Stories and Lessons from Architects and Engineers Who Learned to be Leaders”. Find out more about him at www.leomacleod.com. 


Summer Reading List 2021: Five Books that Changed my Mind

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This past year gave me a fair amount of time to read and listen to audiobooks. Here are five books I found truly impactful, in that they managed to change some of my fundamental previous assumptions and opinions.

Steven Pinker (2018). Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

Steven Pinker presents a passionate and persuasive defense of reason, science and progress. He shows with an abundance of data how a commitment to humanitarian values has kept winning – in the long run – dramatically and consistently over the destruction and chaos that would be the easier and more natural course. It is an uplifting as well as urgent perspective that challenges lazy dogmas from both the left and the right of the political spectrum.

To get a first impression and hear his own voice, here’s Steven Pinker in an interview with Shankar Vedantam on the “Hidden Brain” podcast:

Beyond Doomscrolling

Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, & Ola Rosling (2018).  Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think. 

You may know Hans Rosling from his classic and widely shared 2006 TED talk:

This book offers explanations of why people – including highly educated people – are shockingly and systematically wrong about global trends and facts. Our instincts dramatically distort our perspective: from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them; e.g., poor vs rich etc) to the way we consume media (where fear rules), to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse).

The two books above share a similar perspective, but they are different enough (and counterintuitive enough!) that I found it very worthwhile to read both. In fact, I suspect I should read them both again in the near future, lest I forget.

Malcolm Gladwell (2019). Talking to Strangers. 

I’ve often found Malcolm Gladwells’s books worth reading, but hard to summarize. This one is no exception. If I had to summarize my take-home, it would be: “stop assuming”. I might be very wrong about other people, no matter how great I think my intuition is. (This past year I’ve listen to both “Talking to Strangers” and his older “David and Goliath” as audiobooks in short succession, and found them both similarly entertaining, informative, relevant for race politics, and thought-provoking, but only half satisfying.)

Sharna Fabiano (2021). Lead and Follow. 

Much has been written about leadership, but very little about followership in organizations (in fact, my spellchecker doesn’t even recognize “followership” as a word). As an internationally recognized dance artist and teacher, Sharna Fabiano has a deep understanding of the complementary nature of those roles in Argentine tango.

In her words: “To a dancer, improvisation does not mean “winging it” or making it up as you go along. Rather, it implies a highly refined system of communication built through specific methods of training. Improvisation for dancers is a synergy between leading and following actions that is greater than the sum of its parts. We already know a lot about leading at work, but not many of us understand how to follow with intelligence, power, and grace, as dancers do. It’s time we learned.”

Sharna Fabiano presents a coaching model that helps us think about those roles and the skills they require through three phases of increasing sophistication: 1. Connection, 2. Collaboration, and 3. Co-creation. It’s a very practical and well written book. As a reader, you don’t need to know anything about tango to understand the metaphors and their applicability to specific challenges in the workplace.

Steve Dalton (2020). The 2-Hour Job Search. 

What I liked least about this book was its title. I took me a while to figure out what exactly the two hours refer to, and I found the best explanation – and indeed the best book summary – here. The book’s focus is on how to get you interviews as efficiently and quickly as possible, without all the emotional investment that comes with a lot of other career advice. One reason I’ve already recommended it to several clients is that it has very useful templates and easy-to-follow guidelines for requesting and conducting informational interviews.

Steven Dalton’ approach circumvents the online job application process altogether. His approach takes into account the fact that many smaller companies never post their jobs online at all (and did you know that almost 99% of US employers have fewer than 100 employees?*), as well as that the odds for online applications are quite terrible, especially for people without very clearly defined and sought-after skills.

* According to 2016 data from the Census Bureau, firms with fewer than 500 workers accounted for 99.7 percent of businesses, and firms with fewer than 100 workers accounted for 98.2 percent.

Ursina reading an entirely different book from the ones on her Summer Reading List

What have you all read or listened to recently? As always, please let me know your favorites! Contrary to what this post might suggest, I also enjoy fiction, escapism, and otherwise simply pleasurable entertainment. Would love to hear your recommendations!

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Should You Become an Intrapreneur?

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Could you make your job better by becoming an intrapreneur? Intrapreneurship means to think and work like entrepreneur, even though you are still a part of a large organization.

For example, you might have an idea of how to improve a product, and suggest those changes to your boss. Or, you might look for ways to make a specific service more profitable for your company. Maybe you discover a new opportunity to market a product or a service. You might find ways to communicate better within your team, and with that, speed up the workflow. Or you might go the extra mile to increase customer satisfaction. In other words: whatever your role within the organization, you actively drive innovation and keep looking for opportunities to improve your company.

Good employers realize how valuable intrapreneurs are to their organization, and a lot of research is being done in the attempt to understand how different leadership styles and company cultures can encourage intrapreneurship among employees.
Improving your Job Satisfaction by becoming an Intrapreneur
Now, we all know that not every employer encourages innovation. Maybe the company you work for does not foster intrapreneurs at all. Nonetheless, the good news is that being an intrapreneur also benefits you, as an employee. Namely, it seems to start a positive cycle of growth for yourself that gives you more personal resources, which in turn gets you more engaged and even more motivated to make a difference at your workplace.

So how can you do it?

Five tips on how you can become an intrapreneur and thereby increase your work satisfaction:
  1. Think like a boss or owner. Which improvements would add to the value of the organization as a whole, rather than just make your own life better?
  2. Find ways to make improvements yourself. Even if you think big, it’s often best to start with small changes that you can take on yourself. Eventually, when you need help from others to accomplish bigger things, they can see that you’ve already put in your work, and they’ll trust you to match their effort with yours.
  3. Find allies. Search through the organization for people who are passionate about accomplishing something and team up with them. Look for ways to make their job easier and better.
  4. Take risks. Don’t be afraid to experiment, and recognize that it is often necessary to explore many different paths in order to produce innovative breakthroughs. Some of those paths will fail, but recognize this as part of the process.
  5. Stop making excuses. Your boss might not support of all your new ideas, or you might be limited in your efforts by your workload or your environment. Nonetheless, within your realistic limits, keep searching actively for opportunities to make a difference wherever you can.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

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Self-Assessment: How Awe-Struck are You?

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In a earlier post, I wrote about how feelings of awe can affect our decision making. Here you can take a quick self-assessment as to how often you experience awe in your own life.

Note that this self-assessment is not a scientifically normed scale. The items are loosely based on Michelle Shiota and her colleagues’ scales of dispositional positive emotions, where awe is one out of seven positive emotions (the other six being joy, pride, contentment, compassion, amusement, and love). So far, not much research has been done on whether experiencing awe is a stable trait within a person’s personality structure. But regardless of whether some people are more naturally prone to it than others, the feeling of awe is an experience that we can seek out, if we choose to look for it.

Would you like to experience more awe in your life? If so, try to surround yourself more with natural beauty and seek experiences that expand your horizon. Or as one group of researchers put it: look for things that have “perceptual vastness”, to the extent that they might dramatically expand your usual frame of reference. In experiments, the feeling of awe has often been induced with images or videos of stunning landscapes, night skies, or the real experience of nature, such as standing under towering trees. The Greater Good Science Center (SGCC) at UC Berkeley suggests this video as a practice. There are also certain types of music that have been used successfully to induce awe, such as the song Hoppípolla by Sigur Rós.

If you take another look at the self-assessment scale above: on which of the items could you get a higher score with the easiest changes in your daily habits or leisure activities?

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

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Inspired: How Awe Affects Our Decisions

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Feelings of awe and wonder make us feel smaller, but richer in time. This affects our decisions in several interesting ways.

Awe is a powerful emotion that we feel when we encounter something so strikingly vast (grand, beautiful, or powerful) that it overwhelms our mental capacity. Some researchers describe such vastness as “provoking a need to update one’s mental schemas”, while the rest of us might more succinctly call it mind-blowing. These feelings can be induced experimentally, for example by having research participants stand in a grove of towering trees or looking at stunning images of the sky, space or landscapes.

It turns out feelings of awe have interesting effects on decision making.

For one, feelings of awe can lead to more ethical decisions, more generosity, as well as more compassion. For instance, research participants who experienced awe were more willing to volunteer their time to help others.

Another effect is that people who experienced awe preferred investing money into experiences rather than into material products. As I discussed in an earlier post, this is a decision pattern that can lead to more satisfaction and well-being.

How Awe Affects Our Decisions

Why does awe have these effects on our decisions?

One reason is probably that awe expands our sense of time. Research participants who experienced awe, felt they had more time available and were less impatient. This kind of expanded time perception certainly influences decisions. For example, not having enough time is an often-cited reason for not engaging in leisure activities, and so a sense of abundant time could well help people choose experiences over material goods. Time perception also affects moral choices: people act more helpfully towards others if they have extra time on their hands, rather than feeling rushed.

Another explanation is that feelings of awe lead to feelings of a “small self”. For example, taking in the vastness of a natural landscape can make us feel small and insignificant, which could explain why people feel less of a sense of entitlement after experiencing feelings of awe. Being reminded of our own smallness may help us take ourselves and our concerns a bit less seriously and focus on others instead.

How Awe Affects Our Decisions

Warning: Side-Effects

The experience of awe has one more effect that we should be aware of: it increases our supernatural beliefs. The reason for this might be that awe lowers our sense of control over the world, and when feelings of personal control are low, people turn to supernatural explanations, as a means of lowering the uncertainty and restoring a sense of control. Feelings of awe do indeed lower people’s tolerance for uncertainty, and people who have a low tolerance of uncertainty are more prone to magical thinking and superstitious behavior.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Selected References:
Case, T. I., Fitness, J., Cairns, D. R., & Stevenson, R. J. (2004). Coping With Uncertainty: Superstitious Strategies and Secondary Control1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 34(4), 848–871.
Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). “From Jerusalem to Jericho”: A study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27(1), 100–108.
Kay, A. C., Gaucher, D., McGregor, I., & Nash, K. (2010). Religious Belief as Compensatory Control. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(1), 37–48.
Keinan G. (1994). Effects of stress and tolerance of ambiguity on magical thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 48–55.
Keinan G. (2002). The effects of stress and desire for control on superstitious behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 102–108.
Piff, P. K., Dietze, P., Feinberg, M., Stancato, D. M., & Keltner, D. (2015). Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(6), 883–899.
Rudd, M., Vohs, K. D., & Aaker, J. (2012). Awe Expands People’s Perception of Time, Alters Decision Making, and Enhances Well-Being. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1130–1136.
Shiota, M., Keltner, D., & Mossman, A. (2007). The nature of awe. Cognition and Emotion, 21(5).
Valdesolo, P., & Graham, J. (2013). Awe, Uncertainty, and Agency Detection. Psychological Science, 956797613501884.
Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2003). To Do or to Have? That Is the Question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(6), 1193–1202.

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Are You Scared of Your Next Decision?

Posted on by by Posted in Creative Thinking, Risk and Uncertainty, Stress Management

Scared of Your Next Decision?

Edvard Munch (1893): The Scream. Oil, tempera & pastel on cardboard. [Image rights in the public domain.]

Tonight will be a scary night for the bravest of us, with countless children roaming the streets, high on sugar, threatening to knock on our very doors.

However, even today, our most crippling fears probably come from within. Are you scared of your next decision? Afraid of making the wrong choice? Funnily enough, while dogs and – some say – children can smell our fear; on our own we’re not always very good at recognizing when and why we’re scared.

Here’s how you can recognize whether your decision scares you:

  • You avoid making the decision altogether, for example by procrastinating or by shifting the responsibility to others.
  • You get overly emotional about your decision. Maybe you get angry or burst into tears when others are bringing up uncomfortable truths about your situation? Such emotional outbursts are effective ways of shutting down a conversation, and they can be warning signs that your fears are holding you back from thinking and acting in the best way.
  • You keep investing into previous mistakes. This is also known as “escalating commitment”. When coping with poor outcomes of our previous choices, it is tempting to dig in our heels and devote even more resources to our current path, in the hope of somehow making it work. But sometimes, making the best decision for the future requires that we admit having made a mistake in the past. This is not easy: even admitting mistakes just to ourselves takes a lot of courage, but it can open the door to a new and better direction.

If any of these points ring true, take it as a warning sign that you might need more courage to approach your decision.

How to become a braver decision maker

The simplest way to get more courage is to take responsibility for your decision process, even if the outcomes are not all in your control. Follow a decision process that is in line with your values. Without being able to predict the future, we will never have a guarantee that good decisions will lead to good consequences, but there is plenty of evidence showing that a good decision process is indeed more likely to result in better outcomes. Since you will make many decisions over your lifetime, you can therefore be assured that if you follow a good decision process throughout your life, your decision outcomes will be better overall.

Four steps to tackle your decisions fearlessly:

1) Commit to a value-driven rational decision process. This does not guarantee good outcomes, but it does make them more likely.

2) Ask yourself: Which of my values matter for this decision? In other words, what are my personal criteria as to whether the outcome will be “good” or “bad”?

3) Think: What can I do that best fulfills all those values? (Think beyond your initial ideas. If necessary, use tools/visuals/charts etc to evaluate your options – I’m not getting started on all this here, but you know who to ask if you want to know more about creative thinking and evaluating options.)

4) Act. Knowing that you’ve made the best decision you possibly could have with your current knowledge – a decision that is based on your values, rather than on fear – will empower you to act with confidence.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Selected References:
Anderson, B., Hahn, D., & Teuscher, U. (2013). Heart and Mind: Mastering the Art of Decision Making. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Aschenbrenner, K. M., Jaus, D., & Villani, C. (1980). Hierarchical goal structuring and pupils’ job choices: testing a decision aid in the field. Acta Psychologica, 45, 35–49.
Bruine de Bruin, W., Parker, A. M., & Fischhoff, B. (2007). Individual differences in adult decision-making competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 938–956.
Dean, J. W., & Sharfman, M. P. (1996). Does Decision Process Matter? A Study of Strategic Decision-Making Effectiveness. The Academy of Management Journal, 39(2), 368–396.
Herek, G. M., Janis, I. L., & Huth, P. (1989). Quality of U.S. Decision Making during the Cuban Missile Crisis: Major Errors in Welch’s Reassessment. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 33(3), 446–459.
Keeney, R. L. (1996). Value-Focused Thinking: A Path to Creative Decision Making. Harvard University Press.

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Summer Reading List 2016

Posted on by by Posted in Book Recommendations, Creative Thinking, Leadership, Risk and Uncertainty

Some book recommendations on decision making, innovation and productivity:

Kayt Sukel (2016) The Art of Risk: The New Science of Courage, Caution, and Chance
A very readable overview of current research on the neuroscience of risk, illustrated with personal stories and some inspiring interviews with risk takers and scientists.

Charles Duhigg (2016). Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business.
Important insights into how organizations can foster better productivity and innovation. For my taste, the book relied very heavily on anecdotes though, to the extent that I found it difficult to identify key takeaways.

Philip Tetlock & Dan Gardner (2015). Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction.
A convincing case that – while even experts usually make poor predictions about the future – forecasting is a skill that can be improved. Good forecasting doesn’t require powerful computers either. However, it does involve gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course.

Drew Boyd & Jacob Goldenberg (2013). Inside the Box: A Proven System of Creativity for Breakthrough Results.
This book does a great job demystifying the creative process. It shows how innovation can come from a structured process, using a set of templates that channel creative thinking. The techniques are derived from research that discovered a surprising set of common patterns shared by inventive solutions.

Those are some of the books I’ve read recently and found worthwhile. Which other ones would you recommend I add to my own summer reading list?

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Why is it such hard work to find your own niche?

Posted on by by Posted in Creative Thinking, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development

Because until you fill it, it’s just a gap.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

Find your own niche

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Featured Video: Raise Your Children As Entrepreneurs

Posted on by by Posted in Career Development, Creative Thinking, Financial Decisions, Procrastination, Productivity, Time Management

Entrepreneurial skills are not a part of traditional education, even though they are important if we want to empower more people to make an independent living in a world where not everyone can find a good job.

In this TED talk, Cameron Herald argues that we should encourage and foster those skills in children. He makes a case that entrepreneurial traits occur quite naturally in children and can be encouraged and reinforced in playful ways. He gives many practical suggestions how parents can help their children develop those skills. For example, rather than giving children allowances and thereby getting them used to expecting a regular paycheck, children could be paid for specific projects.

Many important traits could be developed in that way, including such big ones as creativity, social skills, a proactive attitude towards working, and an understanding of what it means to create value for others.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


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