Monthly Archives: June 2011
“The Art of Choosing” by Sheena Iyengar
“The Art of Choosing” by Sheena Iyengar
A Book Review by Gary S. Smolker
INTRODUCTION
The Art of Choosing” is a book worth reading.
Everyone will find something thought provoking and interesting in this book related to the process of thinking, how people think, how people choose and why people think and choose the way they do. She also discusses the consequences of choices people have made on their financial well-being, health, life style and relationships.
Mrs. Iyengar’s thesis is that people make themselves known by choices they make and their well being is dependent upon their belief and ability to exercise control in different situations.
Ms. Iyengar points out that a large percentage of people have chosen to move from one place to another.
- By 1970, two thirds of the inhabitants of major U.S. cities had been born elsewhere, as had nearly half the inhabitants of Asian cities.
- The most recent U.S. census shows that 39 million Americans or 13 percent of the population, relocated within the past year.
- More than half of Americans have changed their faith at least once, according to a 2009 Pew poll.
- The fastest growing category consists of those with no religious affiliation at all.
THE MIDDLE EAST AND SAME SEX MARRIAGE
Mrs. Iyengar’s conclusion from the above demographic facts is those facts indicate the desire of people to be themselves and are the expression and enactment of that most treasured value: freedom.
Mrs. Iyengar tells us: There is an increasing choice of identity which has social and political dimensions.
However, Ms. Iyengar does not discuss what is happening in the Arab world, in Egypt, in Libya, in Syria, in Yemen with respect to poor people rebelling against the rule of tyrants or in the United States with respect to same-sex marriages. Albeit in both cases it appear the locus of power is shifting to the “choosing individual.”
Backers of legalization of same sex marriages see the issue as one of personal freedom and equality. They argue: “Their love is worth the same as your love.” “Their partnership is worth the same as your partnership.” “They are equal to you. That is the driving issue.”
PREDICTING HOW PEOPLE WILL BEHAVE, PREDICTING HOW PEOPLE WILL CHOOSE
Ms. Iyengar is an expert in understanding how and why people choose. In her most famous study ( “The Jam Study”) she studied whether people would purchase more jam after seeing jam displayed in a tasting booth having six selections or in a tasting booth having 24 selections of jam..
Every few hours the offering at the tasting booth was switched between offering a large assortment of jams and a small one.
Thirty percent of the people who visited the small display purchased jam.
Three percent of the people who visited the large display purchased jam.
More than six times as many people made a purchase when the smaller jam assortment was displayed.
From this study and other studies, Mrs. Iyengar concludes there is such a thing as too much choice.
When people are given a modest number of choices (4 to 6) rather than a large number (20 to 30), they are more likely to make a choice, are more comfortable with their choice, are more confident in their decision, and are happier with what they choose.
In support of this conclusion, Mrs. Iyengar reports that when Proctor & Gamble winnowed its 26 varieties of Head & Shoulders antidandruff shampoo down to fifteen, eliminating the least popular, sales jumped by ten percent.
Mrs. Iyengar also reports that an increase in the number of mutual fund options had a significant negative impact on participation in 401(k) plans. It was too much work figuring out how mutual funds differed from one another.
After a certain point, the amount of time and energy directed towards choosing counteracts the benefits of the choice.
Relatedly, choosing a Plan D of Medicare Health Insurance becomes “impossible” because it requires superhuman puzzle-solving abilities: eighty six percent of seniors and over ninety percent of doctors and pharmacists agree that Part D is much too complicated.
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME IS NOT A ROSE WHEN A WOMAN IS PURCHASING NAIL POLISH
Mrs. Iyengar reports the result of her nail polish name test.
In this test practically indistinguishable colored nail polish were put in different bottles with different names on the bottle. Women were asked which nail polish they preferred.
Half the women in the tests were shown bottles with either the name “Adore-A-Ball” or “Ballet Slippers” on the label affixed to the bottles.
The other half of the women in the test were shown bottles labeled either “A” or “B” containing the same nail polish as shown to the other group of women.
In the group that could see the names of the colors (“Adore-A-Ball” and “Ballet Slippers”) seventy percent chose “Ballet Slippers”, the rest preferred “Adore-A-Ball.”
In the other group (the group whose bottles were labeled either “A” or “B”) sixty percent chose the bottle labeled “A”( which was actually the “Adore-A-Ball” nail polish color), while the others were split between preferring the nail polish in the bottle labeled “B” (which was actually the “Ballet Slippers” nail polish color) and being indifferent.
The name on the label on the bottle somehow made the color look better, or at least created a feeling of difference even thought the colors were practically indistinguishable.
The “color name” had actually affected sensory perception itself.
Innovations in style and advertising change the act of purchasing from a purely practical one to a self-expressive one, making a statement about who you are and what is important to you.
We can’t avoid the fact that any choice we make may be considered a statement about who we are.
CULTURAL SCRIPTS
Ms. Iyengar ran test on attitude towards responsibility by asking 100 Japanese and American college students in Koyoto, Japan to write down all aspects of their life in which they would like having choice on the front sheet of a piece of paper. On the back of the sheet of paper, the students were asked to list all aspects of their life in which they would prefer not to have choice, or to have someone else choose for them.
Mrs. Iyengar reports that the front sides of the Americans’ pages were often completely filled. In contrast, the backs were, without exception, either completely blank or contained only a single item. The Americans expressed a nearly limitless desire for choice in every dimension of their lives.
The Japanese showed a very different pattern, with not a single one wishing to have choice all or nearly all the time. On average the Japanese students listed twice as many domains in which they did not want choice compared to domains in which they did. They often wanted someone to decide what they ate, when they woke up in the morning, and what they did in their jobs.
Americans desired personal choice in four times as many domains of life as did the Japanese.
Ms. Iyengar does not discuss the result of making people depend on you.
On that topic, Baltasar Gracian observes the following: The wise person would rather see the others needing him than thanking him To keep them on the threshold of hope is diplomatic, to trust their gratitude is boorish; hope has a good memory, gratitude a bad one. More is to be got from dependence than from courtesy. He who has satisfied his thirst turns his back on the well, and the orange once squeezed falls from the golden platter into the waste basket. When dependence disappears good behavior goes with it as well as respect.
Baltasar Gracian was born in 1601. As an adult he was constantly in hot water for the acts of writing and publication. He constantly disobeyed orders to conform and be silent. He aroused jealousy and ury among his superiors for his frivolous and heretical publications. Ultimately he was hounded from his post as professor of sacred scripture into supervised house arrest (he was ordered to a room where under supervision, he was forbidden to touch pen to paper, a sentence in force until his death.
WHO ARE HAPPIER – PEOPLE IN ARRANGED MARRIAGES OR PEOPLE IN FOR LOVE MARRIAGES?
In arranged marriages, marital bliss is primarily gauged by the fulfillment of duties, while for love marriages the major criterion is the intensity and duration of the emotional connection between two people.
Each narrative of marital bliss comes with its own set of expectations and its own measure of fulfillment.
Ms. Iyengar reports a survey in which it was discovered that over the long term people in arranged marriages are happier than people who marry for love.
Mrs. Iyengar quotes George Bernard Shaw’ comment about marriage inspired by love: Marriage inspired by love brings two people together ‘under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions.’
She also quotes Blaise Pascal statement: The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. — for the proposition that explaining romantic attraction is near impossible.
Blaise Pascal was born in 1623. He died in 1662. He is regarded by many as the greatest of French prose artists. During his short life he left his mark on mathematics, physics, religious controversy and literature.
Additionally, in her book, Ms. Iyengar did not quote or discuss issues raised in the following comments on cause and effect, illusion, vanity and elegance published by Blaise Pascal in “Pensees” in the 1600s — pertinent to the topics discussed by Ms. Iyengar.
- The parrot wipes its beak although it is clean.
- It is true to say that everyone is the victim of illusion, because the ordinary person’s opinions are sound without being intellectually so, for he believes the truth to be where it is not.
- It is not mere vanity to be elegant, because it shows that a lot of people are working for you. Your hair shows that you have a valet, a perfumer, etc., bands, thread, braaid, etc. … show… It means more than superficial show or mere accoutrement to have so many hands in one’s service. The more hands one employs, the more powerful one is.
Love and romance and compatibility are not simple ideas or states of being.
Ms. Iyengar points out that being in a loving relationship is not simple nor does it necessarily bring happiness.
In her book, Mrs. Iyengar reports: Married couples report being less satisfied and feeling less intimate when one spouse sees the other more favorably than that spouse sees himself or herself.
The desire to have others know us the way we know ourselves can be more powerful than the desire to be put on a pedestal.
When we see how others look at us, we want more than anything to recognize ourselves.
Ms. Iyengar does not go very far in discussing what makes us happy or what holds us back in our relationships. She does not refer to or discuss La Rochefoucauld’s observation, When we do not find peace within ourselves, it is useless to seek for it elsewhere.
Nor does she discuss studies which show that people are “held-back” from having good relationships with other people by a lack of self-confidentce, having low self-esteem, by having a sense of being a victim, by rigidly refusing to bend the rules, by following scripts which spare them from thinking, by not having the same values as the other person or people in the relationship, as well as by not knowing how to act in certain social situations.
Nor does Ms. Iyengar discuss what counts in dealing with the world. On that topic I commend you to Baltasar Gracin’s book “the Art of Worldly Wisdom”, published in the 1600s:
- Good things, when short, are twice as good.
- Be slow and sure. Things are done quickly enough if done well. If just done quickly they can quickly be undone. To last an eternity requires an eternity of preparation. Only excellence counts, only achievement endures. Profound intelligence is the only foundation for immortality. What is worth much costs much. The precious metals are the heaviest.
- Keeping friends is more important than making them. Select those that wear well – if they are new at first it is some consolation that they will become old. There is no desert like living without friends. Friendship multiplies the good of life and divides the evil. It is the sole remedy against misfortune, like fresh air to the soul.
THE IMPACT OF ATTRACTIVENESS
Ms. Iyengar discusses the impact of attractiveness:
- The most attractive candidates receive over twice as many votes as the least attractive. About 70% of elections are won by a candidate people rate as being more competent based solely on their appearance.
- Elected officials are several inches taller and less likely to be bald than the population as a whole.
- Height and salary positively correlate, especially for men, who earn 1.5% more per additional inch of heigh.
- Highly attractive people of both sexes earn at least 12% more than their less attractive co-workers.
- Physical appearance has a greater impact even than job qualifications on whether a person will be hired following an interview.
- Attractive criminal defendants in criminal cases receive lighter sentences and are twice as likely to avoid jail entirely.
THE BENEFICIAL RESULT OF INTRODUCING CHOICE (CONTROL) INTO THE LIVES OF ELDERLY PEOPLE LIVING IN ASSISTING LIVING FACILITIES
A human being is a complex reality with many facets.
In our culture, our conception of choice is tied up with virtues of dignity and independence.
As a result, family members cite the process of deciding when and how to take away a loved one’s choice as the most difficult part of an already agonizing experience.
The reluctance to deny someone – even if they are suffering from a degenerative brain disease – the right to choose can be so strong that it overrides even the concern for their physical well-being.
However, with longer life, people will continue to be alive after they have lost the capacity to take care of themselves without assistance and not have the mental capacity to make financial or medical decisions and choices for themselves.
Old age may render a formerly independent person into a person totally dependent on others for protection and care.
That being the case, people who live long enough will likely end up living at home with caregivers in attendance, at assisted living facilities and/or in nursing homes.
It is important to understand that you cannot fix a person who has lost mental capacity from a degenerative brain disease. You can’t give that person back their independence.
Becoming someone’s “conservator” (caregiver) means taking on the mental burdens of making choices for another person in addition to oneself. Choosing the “best” care facility is one of a number of a dizzying array of qualitative choices you will make.
In her book, Ms Iyengar refers to studies which prove that having choice is a basic necessity for human well being; the degree to which we are able to strike a balance of control in our life even when we are living in an assisted care facility or nursing home will have a significant bearing on our health.
In one such study, elderly patients in a nursing home who were given even trivial choices like whether and where to place a plant in their room, what night to watch a movie, were not only happier but healthier and less likely to die than patients for whom the staff made such decisions.
Within three weeks, the physical health of more than 70% of the residents from the “choiceless” group deteriorated. By contrast, over 90% of the people with choice saw their health improve. Six months later, residents who had been given greater choice were less likely to have died.
Being able to control (exercise their innate need to control) some of their environment prevented the residents from suffering the stress and anxiety that caged animals often experience.
MS. IYENGAR’S BACKGROUND
Mrs Iyengar has passion for what she is doing and for whom she is doing it.
In her book she teaches the reader how to solve problems and achieve opportunities through understanding the process people go through when they make a choice, how people “choose” and how people react to having choice.
She is a professor at the Columbia Business School, with a joint appointment in the Department of Psychology.
She holds an undergraduate degree from the Wharton School of Business and a doctorate in social psychology from Stanford University.
CONCLUSION
What you do depends upon what you learn.
As adults we write our lives through choice.
Choice allows us to actively participate in our own making, to be the architects of our future.
Choice is ultimately the most powerful determinant of where we go and how we get there.
A person without knowledge is in a world without light.
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
Each of us is as much as we know.
Reading this book will help you avoid cultural isolation and economic backwardness. It will help you understand the process you and other people go through when you and they make choices.
Happy reading.
Gary S. Smolker
COPYRIGHT (c) 2011 BY GARY S. SMOLKER
All Rights Reserved
BURY MY HEART IN CONFERENCE ROOM B by Stan Slap
“BURY MY HEART IN CONFERENCE ROOM B” by Stan Slap
A Book Review by Gary S. Smolker
INTRODUCTION
Stan Slap is a great writer and a very witty guy.
I enjoyed his book very much both for what it is about and for the comments he makes in his book that have nothing to do with what his book is about.
For example, at the end of his book are research notes consisting of quotes. Here are a few.
“God is a comedian performing before an audience that is afraid to laugh.” — Voltaire
“It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.” — Muhammad Ali
“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We must be our own before we can be another’s.” — Emerson
“I pointed out the stars to you and all you saw was the tip of my finger.” — Anonymous
As an aside, Stan Slap mentions that he and his wife cannot stop buying books.
He says he figured out why: He and his wife had an unsettling childhood and learned early on to read as an escape.
He theorizes that he and his wife are not buying books; they are buying safety and salvation and imagination of what is possible when the story is new.
The arguments and advice in his book are based on the underlying theory that people’s values define their reality and form self-justification for their actions. His book is about values.
Values are deeply held personal beliefs that are your personal standards.
Stan Slap states the purpose of this book is to teach managers how to obtain emotional commitment from the people they manage.
HOW TO OBTAIN EMOTIONAL COMMITMENT FROM OTHER PEOPLE ACCORDING TO STAN SLAP
Stan promotes his book as being a “how to book” for managers. Stan believes his book teaches managers how to obtain emotional commitment from the people they manage.
I believe the same formula for obtaining emotional commitment from employee underlings applies to obtaining emotional commitment from all people, including wives, husbands, friends, customers, strangers, etc.
Stan gives instructions on how to obtain emotional commitment from people you are managing.
Stan sets forth a list of 50 values, and advises managers, and I advise people, to do the following
- read the lists
- determine your own top three values,
- discuss your top three values with the people who work for you (and people whose commitment you desire),
- live your values at work and in your personal life and
- relate everything you do to your values.
Stan makes the point that emotional commitment
- is the biggest thing a human being has to give;
- it is the key to true self fulfillment;
- it’s unconditional, often overruling logic and self-preservation.
People judge you by the sincerity of your actions. People have an internal emotional compass. That is where dependable emotional commitment comes from. It is self-generated.
Living your values (being yourself) allows you to maintain a personal center of gravity and makes you a lightning rod for people who care about the same things that you care about, for people with the right heart.
Stan proceeds from those assumptions to argue that in order to achieve peak performance a business organization must allow it to be the best possible place for managers to practice true fulfillment, to live their values and to realize deep connectivity and purpose.
To obtain emotional commitment each person in a relationship must allow the other person to be true to who they are in their relationship.
Stan states, “The irreducible essence of leadership is that leaders are people who live their deepest personal values without compromise, and they use those values to make life better for others — that is why people become leaders and why people follow leaders. … Leaders begin with an acute awareness of what’s most important to them and a deep desire to remake the world around them so they can more fully experience it. … Leaders are extraordinarily capable of selling their vision – transforming, subverting, and navigating past opposing points of view. The fundamental skill of leadership is the ability to unit others in a common purpose.”
Although a great example of a company that proves Stan’s point exists (Google) Stan does not give any example of a company that proves his point. Also Stan does not make the point that it is important to have a great product or service, that having a great product or service that people relate to will enable them to live out their values.
GOOGLE PROVES STAN’S POINTS
Google employees constantly say they are on a quest to bring information to the masses.
The goal of the founders of Google was to create a company everyone wants to work at.
Google has succeeded in its quest to create a company that everyone wants to work in.
According to “Googled” by Ken Auletta: Google in early 2008 was receiving one million job applications per year, adding 150 employees a week and employing nearly 20,000. More applicants are accepted by Harvard (about 7%) than are hired by Goofle (about 1%). Google resists hiring ordinary people.
One commentator had this to say about Google’s success: Google’s success not only results from the recruitment and retention of higher quality employees, it also has to do with their alignment with community values, with trying to make the world a better place. People unlock a higher fraction of their creative potential when they feel that what they are doing is about more than making a buck, or more than enhancing the business scorecard and building the value of the company. People put out at a higher level when they think what they are doing is something that makes the world a better place.
According to “Googled” by Ken Auletta: Google employees enjoy free meals and luxurious snacks. They eat free food at large cafeteria tables, take breaks in lounges with pool tables and espresso machines. Car washes and oil changes are available on Thursday. Also available are barbers, dry cleaners, day care, dog care, dentists and five physicians to dispense free physicals and medical care. Employees chose their own laptop computers which are given to them for free. Maternity leave consists of five months off at full salary, and new dads can take seven weeks off at full pay. Most employees are allotted a day a week, or 20% of their time, to work on projects they feel passionate about.
One of the founders explained why the founders signed off on an abundance of employee amenities that made their venture capitalists nervous as follows: Generous benefits help recruit and retain employees. Compelling employees to drive for meals and find a parking spot would be a productivity sink and they probably would not eat healthy food, waiting in line to pay would waste more time.
People want to do something they believe in. Google has a higher mission, which is to make the world’s information freely available.
The founders of Google believed if they built Google, people would come. They had no business plan. They had a vision. It was a customer focused point of view: “We deliver the world’s information with one click.”
Stan Slap states: People want and need the humanity, inspiration, purpose, direction, confidence and unity that leadership gives. Google is an example of a company that does that. I recommend that you read about Google in “Googled” by Ken Auletta.
“Bury My Heart in Conference Room B” is about what it takes to be a leader. Stan Slaps quotes Boris Pasternak: “Revolutions are made by fanatical men of action with one-track minds, geniuses in their ability to confine themselves to a limited field.”
Google is a company run by people with clarity of purpose. Their core mantra was echoed again and again in their IPO (Initial Public Offering) letter: we believe that our user focus is the foundation of our success to date. We also believe that this focus is critical for the creation of long-term value. We do not intend to compromise our user focus for short-term economic gain.”
According to Ken Auletta, “The IPO declared, as they had from day one, that Google will ‘not accept money for search results ranking or inclusion’; that no attempt is made to keep users in a walled Google garden but instead to steer them quickly to their destination; that if the ad does not attract user clicks, it will be dropped ‘to a less prominent position on the page, even if the advertiser offers to pay a higher amount.’ And those ads deemed more relevant because they attract more clicks, move to the top, ‘with no need for advertisers to increase their bids.’ Since Google only gets paid when ads are clicked, this ranking system ‘aligns our interests equally with those of our advertisers and users. The more relevant and useful the ad, the better for our users, for our advertisers, and for us.'”
HOW TO HIRE PEOPLE
Stan Slap does not discuss how to hire people in “Bury My Heart in Conference Room B.”
Ken Auletta lightly touches upon the issue of how the founders of Google hire people.
According to Auletter, at an interview of a lawyer applying for a job, one of the founders asked the lawyer to draft a contract in which the founder sold his soul to the devil, and asked the lawyer to present the contract to the founder in thirty minutes or less.
The unmentioned point in Stan Slap’s book and in Ken Auletta’s book is: If you don’t have really energized people who are motivated to deliver you will not achieve success though matter how skilled experienced and educated your people might be.
Stan’s book is an advanced course in emotional intelligence.
Happy reading.
Gary S. Smolker 