Creative disruption - or coping with corporate fear of failure

Can companies suffer from fear of failure? Absolutely. In fact it is a major theme of one of the world’s most respected corporate gurus: Tom Peters. Corporate fear of failure is something he rails against in all his works and certainly in his most famous book: In Search of Excellence (written with Robert H. Waterman Jr. in 1982). According to Peters, fear of failure is the principal cause of paralysis in companies, whether it is the receptionist or the CEO.

To overcome this he recommends that companies adopt a culture of failure. He wants to encourage failure because, without it, companies stop growing. They shun innovation, he says, and instead become smug and arrogant – and they are usually riding for a fall.

According to Peters some of the most innovative companies even build failure into their business model. For instance 3M (inventors of the Post-it Note and much else besides) guarantees product managers the ability to run with their inventions backed up by a commitment to total job security should it fail.

And Peters was writing before the Internet – or even the PC – had utterly changed the business landscape: two technological revolutions that were to catch smug or arrogant companies completely off-guard.

Simon Waldman is a Tom Peters for the dotcom era – surveying the carnage of the past 20-years on the traditional corporate landscape and offering his own recently-published version of In Search of Excellence called Creative Disruption (FT Prentice Hall).

Waldman’s case studies include newspaper groups adapting (or not) to the Internet such as Johnston Press and the New York Times Company, IT companies coping (or not) with the PC such as IBM and Apple, and retailers struggling with music downloading such as HMW. Yet my favourite case study is the one most likely, when thinking about the Internet, to induce a wince or even a refrain such as “ouch” or even the question “do they still exist?”: Encyclopædia Britannica.

Despite its name (it was founded in Scotland in 1768), by the 20th century Encyclopædia Britannica was largely a US operation. And, according to Waldman, its 1900-1980s model of commission-based door-to-door selling of the 30-volume encyclopedias priced at $1,000 (“a small price to pay for a child’s education”) was an absolute sitting duck for the innovations of the 1990s and 2000s.

Yet the business was ravaged long before the Internet took hold in the late 1990s. What did for EB was the arrival of the CD-rom at the beginning of that decade. Microsoft’s Encarta sold at a fraction of the price of EB’s leather-backed volumes and was, ultimately, given away free with every new PC. As Waldman states: “parents decided in droves that if they were going to spend $1,000 on their children’s education it would be better spent on a PC than an encyclopedia – especially if the PC came with a free copy of Encarta”.

What’s interesting here, from a fear of failure perspective, is that Encyclopædia Britannica had launched their own CD-rom version back in 1989, although had made too major errors when doing so, both based on the classic avoidance-thinking of those with high fear of failure. First, to protect the Encyclopædia Britannica brand they launched it via a secondary brand of the company: Comptons, which had nowhere near the cache of the EB name. Second, again to protect the brand – as well as to keep the door-to-door sales team happy – they priced the CD-rom at a near-fatal $895.

Both mistakes were a form of denial regarding the impact of the digital world. Encyclopædia Britannica was a beautiful physical product sold by pounding the sidewalks of suburban America. The senior management – many of whom had come up through the sales force – could not envision a world beyond this, and therefore embraced the new technology not so much with reluctance but from a position of avoidance: as if trying to prove right their original thinking (that the physical product remained preferable).

According to Robert McHenry, the company’s former editor-in-chief, the business suffered due to “the inability of the company’s senior management to embrace electronic publishing and pursue it forcefully”.

As Waldman states, “they were hardly alone among executives of the time overestimating our [i.e. the consumer’s] devotion to physical forms of content”, although this is an extreme case – those gorgeous leather-bound volumes being matchless, surely, against the soulless clicking and keyboard monotony of the PC?

The company finally embraced “the future” by first creating a two-disc CD-rom and, later, a subscription-based web version of the encyclopedia – in the process dismantling the door-to-door sales team and support structure (with 2,000 redundancies).

But, of course, the future was again changing. Indeed, it’s the advent of Wikipedia that drives the average person’s assumption that Encyclopædia Britannica is a long-dead proposition. Yet it was Encarta that destroyed sales volumes for EB – with revenues dropping by around 80% from their peak in the early 1990s.

In fact, Wikipedia did something far worse to Encyclopædia Britannica. According to Waldman it profoundly damaged the old player’s reputation. Wikipedia is the opposite to a hierarchical, self-regarding, absolutist and somewhat-fusty institution. It is a bottom-up, wisdom-of-crowds, open, democratic and liberating embodiment of the Internet. And if this meant a major compromise with respect to quality, a December 2005 “special report” by Nature magazine proved not by stating that, in terms of the level of errors within randomly chosen articles, the two were pretty comparable.

Given this, it is, indeed, a wonder Encyclopædia Britannica is still with us. Yet, astonishingly, Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. is now a profitable company with 85% of its revenues earned digitally, especially from the education and library markets that still dislike the free-for-all chaos of Wikipedia. That said, the business is a fraction of its former size (employing 240 people compared to well over 2,000 at its peak) and has been radically overhauled as a source for web-wary parents and teachers, rather than as the primary reference for the knowledge-thirsty children of the English-speaking world.

According to Waldman, as the digital revolutions got underway Encyclopædia Britannica decided to become a shrinking encyclopedia business rather than the expanding education business it belatedly became. And this, in my view, is a classic case of corporate fear of failure. Relying on existing strengths rather than scanning and embracing future potential; dismissing innovation as a “flash in the pan” rather than as an avenue for expansion worth exploring; and approaching new products and markets with the reluctance of the fearful rather than the excitement of the dynamic – perhaps even using snobbery as an avoidance tactic – all are traits of corporate seizure brought about by fear.

Finally in 2008 Encyclopædia Britannica announced that it would open itself up to Wikipedia-style contributions. It also placed much of its content online for free, although still largely as a hook for potential subscribers. A little late, perhaps, but after its decimation as a business, the digital age had arrived at Encyclopædia Britannica. So why had it taken so long?

“The truth was,” concludes Waldman, “that they had acknowledged this much [i.e. the need for change] earlier, but making it happen had been a formidably challenging process.”

Peters would surely nod in recognition here: that a successful (perhaps even self-satisfied) company fears a future that arrives too quickly – turning them into a “catch-up” organization as each innovation takes them a step further from their traditional model. Indeed, perhaps all companies are destined to this fateful cycle – of being cutting-edge innovators at their birth (admittedly this was in the 1760s in the case of EB), and staid innovation-deniers, as well as defenders of the status-quo, in their dotage. The only alternative is, like 3M and some of Waldman’s more innovative case studies (Apple and the Washington Post Company included), to create a culture where the potential for failure is not only tolerated, but embraced as part of the process.

Is “fear of success” a kinder way of saying “fear of failure”?

A reposting of articles I (still) like from the old blog

In researching What's Stopping You? – a book to be published in 2011 aimed at overcoming fear of failure – I regularly encountered another condition, fear of success. Yet when I wrote the book I excluded it: why?

Many life-coaches and even a few psychologists claim that fear of success is as real as fear of failure. Like “imposter phenomenon” fear of success was first applied to women and especially professional women, who would become so concerned by the consequences of success that they may perhaps unconsciously employ “self sabotaging” behaviour such as partying the night before a big interview or indulging in procrastinating activities rather than revise for an exam or prepare for a key meeting. The cause of such erratic behaviour at key moments was apparently caused by their concern that they would be unable to cope with the demands of success – whether professionally or personally. While they consciously sought success and planned for it, their behaviour revealed their unconscious fears regarding its achievement.

Two psychologists in particular have researched self-sabotage and its relationship with fear of success. Dr Jason Plaks a social psychologist at the University of Toronto and Kristin Stecher, a research scientist at the University of Washington found that many people considered their professional skills and abilities fixed, which resulted in anxiety at the thought of having to develop new skills that they may consider beyond them. In fact they found that, for these people, success could lead to disorientation, which in turn could lead to a spiraling down of their performance and their ultimate failure. Those that expect and embrace success, meanwhile, view skill acquisition as a life-long learning process making them easily adaptable to the inevitable changes brought by the demands of success.

It is this projection of the negative consequences of success that drives fear of success, says its protagonists. For instance, women are especially vulnerable to concerns that success will lead to loneliness – an alienation from their former peer group that will make them unhappy. There are also concerns regarding being attacked for their success, or being pestered by untrustworthy or jealous people, or having to change their personalities in order to secure their position, or being publicly humiliated after the “inevitable” crash.

These all seem like legitimate concerns, and not just for professional women – or simply in our careers. As with “imposter phenomenon” while professional women offered perhaps the clearest demographic group because many faced obvious lifestyle changes or choices because of their success, the same can be applied to men. One obvious example, often played out by Hollywood, is the common soldier preferring the ranks to the officer’s mess due to fearing the consequences of promotion. And it goes beyond our professional lives. For instance, many people fear losing weight because they are nervous the change will have negative consequences on their family or social life, just as many continue smoking because they fear they will put on weight or lose their friends in the smoking gang.

Given all this, why didn’t I write about it in the book? These are my reasons:

1) Fear of success seems ill-defined to me. Fear of failure research goes back to 1960s experiments on children by John W. Atkinson and others. Working at Stanford University he discovered that children’s motivation towards tasks divided into those with “achievement motivation” who were oriented towards completing tasks, and those with “fear of failure” who avoided tasks due to their concerns regarding the public humiliation of failure. Others such as Carol Dweck and Norman Feather deepened this research to the point where fear of failure is a well-defined psychological phenomenon beginning in early childhood. Fear of success has nowhere near this depth of research, and I think it shows.

2) Any Google search on “fear of success” throws up a wonderful array of potential solutions. Hypnotism, acupuncture, coaching courses etc etc. The words “cure” and “fast” and “easy” come up again and again. This led me to think that the phenomenon was being led by those that like to offer a “cure”, rather than those that are keen to study “fear of success” as a potentially debilitating personality trait. As I state in my book What’s Stopping You? there is no cure for fear of failure. The fears we have now, we keep. And anyone offering a cure is, at best, exaggerating. However, as I state, strong progress is possible with self knowledge, strong goal-setting and planning, and with painstaking execution over many months and years. Anyone offering an “instant” cure to a poorly-researched condition, meanwhile, should be treated with suspicion.

3) Many of the concerns outlined above and described as “fear of success” are obviously real. Yet do they differentiate themselves enough from fear of failure? One primary concern is that sufferers consider their abilities fixed, so they will be unable to learn the new skills concerned with success, which will result, ultimately, in failure. Yet this is a classic symptom of fear of failure. There are other traits that can be equally applied to fear of failure.

4) Indeed, I couldn’t help concluding that in many respects “fear of success” sounded like a nicer way of saying “fear of failure”. While few would openly admit to fear of failure – and accept the “loser” tag that such an admission seems to bring – many would enthusiastically nod in agreement at being offered the alternative ailment of suffering from “fear of success”, which can be interpreted as being capable of success but rejecting it due to concerns that success would bring too much disruption. This sounds like an excuse to me. It also sounds like the classic High-FF (as I call people with high fear of failure) trait of avoidance – of seeking a way of avoiding a task due to the expectation of failure and the fear of the public humiliation such a failure would bring.

Yet one aspect of fear of success that should be taken very seriously is self-sabotage, although this is probably the most classic High-FF trait of all. Australian psychologist Norman Feather’s experiments on children found a bias in the willingness of subjects to persist in a task based on their levels of achievement motivation. Those with a high fear of failure – the opposite to high achievement motivation – would seek to avoid the task completely, using any available ruse (potentially including self-sabotage). Meanwhile, Bernard Weiner of the University of California developed “attribution theory” in which those with a high fear of failure attributed their successes to the fact the task was easy and their failures to the fact they lacked ability or due to some external reason such as prejudice against them. Unlike those with high achievement motivation, they did not view success or failure as within their “locus of control” based on application or effort. Given this, self-sabotage – to me – reads like the High-FF lining up his or her excuses in the expectation of what they perceive to be their inevitable failure. Blaming failure on a hangover or poor preparation or lack of sleep is, to the High-FF, mentally preferable to the alternative conclusion – that they failed because they were just not good enough.

Fear of success, therefore, may well be no more than the sophisticated avoidance mechanism of a High-FF, and – in my opinion – it should be treated as such.

“You’re welcome” – not in London you’re not

Small things matter when it comes to well-being and self-worth. Tiny interactions can make an enormous difference to our outlook – with good days turned to bad or normal days ruined by a momentary negative exchange with a stranger. Of course this also works the other way. A kind word or joke can cheer us – even make us emotional if we are feeling vulnerable.

And as we receive, so we broadcast. Look angry or depressed and we trigger negative interactions (in shops, on the tube, in a queue). Smile, and the world (mostly) smiles back – reinforcing our self-esteem.

This is an important point because it says we are responsible for how the impersonal world treats us. We are not passive recipients of hostility. When it comes to positivity, we can go on the offensive. Sure, smiling in public is difficult and can be misinterpreted – especially in cities that tend to frown such as London (New York too, though for real frowning there’s nowhere like Moscow). But we can and should project ourselves positively and hope for better results.

Though a bit cheesy, Anthony Robbins is good at this stuff – as is Richard Carlson (he of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff). A strong tip from Robbins, which has broader application, is to tip the shoeshine boy “a quarter [25c] not a dime [10c]”. Of course this goes well beyond the “shoeshine boy” (or US-dollar denominated interactions). It means that we should be generous, not just with tipping but with how we communicate with the people who deliver us basic goods and services.

Meanwhile, one of Carlson’s tips is to “be nice to receptionists”. Again, this has wider application – basically stating that scowling at everybody until we meet somebody important or somebody we need something from is appalling behaviour. We should treat well and with courtesy everybody we meet along our personal-interaction supply-chain. Sure, this works because the receptionist may have the boss’s ear. And it’s good grace to treat others with respect. But mainly we should offer positivity because, if we do, it is likely to flow back towards us. Tipping well is self-reinforcing, as is a pleasant exchange with those at the foot of the skyscraper (as well as those on the 40th floor).

We are all guilty of transgressions in this respect – certainly I am. But we should at least recognise the principles extolled by Robbins and Carlson: that projecting ourselves well at all levels helps support our feelings of self-worth, as well as those we come across. And it may just mean we are treated well in return.

So what’s brought on this plea for communal niceties? In fact it was a debate in the office, triggered by me offering a “bless you” to a sneezing colleague. He had sneezed several times, with no response, before I remembered that – as an American new-enough to the UK for him not to be immune to our ways – he may think our silence rude.

I’m not claiming a level of civility here beyond my compatriots. As stated, it was my awareness of my American colleague’s expectations following his sneeze that forged my own “bless you” response. Like most Brits, offering quaint pseudo-religious absolutions is no longer my automatic response to a sneeze. More often my thoughts are along the lines of “urghh germs” and the hope that the sneezer will make efforts to restrict the airborne assassins he’s just released into the atmosphere.

Yet my “bless you” response brought about an office debate on “the coarsening of UK society” – and society's losses thereof – versus the “insincerity of American politeness”. Many Brits are firmly in the camp that American platitudes such as “have a nice day” are irritating because they are – especially when delivered by shop assistants or hotel receptionists – hollow and therefore meaningless.

In fact the “have a nice day” banality is a major aspect of British stereo-typing of Americans. Yet I’ve heard it no more than a handful of times during my long stay and many visits to the US, and never in New York. That said, I’m firmly of the opinion that American insincerity with respect to human exchanges is infinitely preferable to the self-esteem-sapping rudeness often on offer in London.

And if I’m really honest my view goes a little deeper. Sorry, but I’m actually quite annoyed with the attitude of some Brits on this one: mostly because, having witnessed the communally-supportive and self-reinforcing way of American human exchange, I have noticed how exchanges on this side of The Pond tend to be geared the other way. So many times in London, people come away from those small exchanges a little damaged, or with their day made worse, when it would have been so easy to have created the opposite response.

Of course, I accept my own insecurities here: maybe I’m just too sensitive. But the difference between the US and the UK on this one (or at least the gap between the US, including New York, and London) is so stark that I cannot help thinking there is something damaging about the way many Brits interact at street level. While Americans seem to be expressing – however insincerely (though it is less insincere than most Brits assume) – their commonality, those street-hardened exchanges in London seem to be either reinforcing or resisting the imposition of hierarchy. There is a "chippiness" to many London interactions (from both corners) that is anything but communal.

This is not as daft as it sounds. Take the “thank you” exchange in any shop. Most receivers say “thank you” when handed something, even in London. But most American givers respond with an automatic “you’re welcome”. Indeed, our silence at this point is something else American visitors have to mentally navigate. Yet look deeper at the exchange and it might just be that Britain’s more divided society interprets the words “thank you” as an assertion of ascendency over someone lower down. It can be given, and is sometimes received, as a patronising put-down.

This may seem crazy but hang around Knightsbridge or Kensington long enough – or even the “C” suites in most major offices – and that’s exactly how it’s sometimes used. Old-fashioned master and servant relationships are, indeed, being reinforced by the simple use of the acknowledgement “thank you” – often over-used or exaggerated to underline the reinforcement (and I speak from experience here of both US and UK management styles).

So while “you’re welcome” in the States is the simple acknowledgement that we are equals in an exchange (usually money for goods or services, or courtesies for favours or considerations) – therefore reinforcing each other’s self-worth – “thank you” in the UK feels to many like a classist leftover based on the over-stated reinforcement of imposed hierarchical realities. Given this, little wonder the “you’re welcome” response is less than welcome in London.

Are you an entrepreneur? Don’t answer that question

Playing around with Facebook this morning and an advert flashes up with Richard Branson’s face as the icon. Do you have the personality of a “great” entrepreneur, it asks? Find out, take the test.

I declined to do so for several reasons. First and foremost, I was sending a message to a friend about a weekend rendezvous and by the time I’d completed the task the icon had disappeared. Yet I’d inwardly sighed anyway because I get fed up with the “mind of an entrepreneur” myth, not least because it’s pedalled everywhere and, for people with fear of failure, it can be extremely off-putting. From the stereo-type painted it is obvious those with high fear of failure do not possess an “entrepreneurial mind”, and this deters many of them from doing what would probably be the most liberating action of their entire life: setting up and running their own business.

Yet the stereo-type is also annoying because it isn’t true. High-FFs (as I call those with fear of failure in my forthcoming book What’s Stopping You?) are perfectly suited to entrepreneurship, even if they fail to fit the image.

How come? Well, first, let’s look at the image. Here’s a description from British entrepreneurial guru Mike Southon in his well-known business start-up guide The Beermat Entrepreneur (written with Chris West in 2002):

“Entrepreneurs are confident. They are born optimists: they simply know they can do it….Entrepreneurs are also charismatic. They inspire people….they have optimism to spare which they radiate and instil into others around them…. Entrepreneurs are ambitious….Entrepreneurs are in a hurry….Entrepreneurs are also arrogant. They know they are good. At everything….Entrepreneurs are also manipulative….Entrepreneurs use people.”

This is a million miles from the attributes of the average High-FF. Yet virtually all start-up business books conjure this image of an entrepreneur as a swashbuckling risk taker: confident, cocky, manipulative, optimistic.

I disagree. I think this image describes the wrong person. Southon is a successful entrepreneur that has made millions. And he is describing himself. However, he is far from alone. Nearly all of the cashed-out big-name entrepreneurs write a book (or pay someone to do it for them) and they all state the same thing – to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be optimistic, ruthless and manipulative, just like me. Indeed, the fact Richard Branson was the image for the “entrepreneur’s icon” on Facebook is another giveaway. Entrepreneurship, it states, is for the giants and the wannabe giants.

Yet the vast majority of entrepreneurs are simply not like that.

Michael Gerber’s important book on why most small businesses fail called The E-Myth Revisited (2004) offers a better perspective. Referring to the “entrepreneurial myth”, Gerber states that people start businesses for many reasons but that most businesses are not started by visionary entrepreneurs trying to become the next Google or Microsoft. They are started by bookkeepers, barbers, plumbers, salespeople and secretaries who grew tired of working for somebody else.

“Great businesses are not built by extraordinary people but by ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” says Gerber.

This definitely chimes with those suffering from high fear of failure. Frustration is a key driver for many High-FFs and that frustration is often directed at a boss or employer that appears to thwart our progress. Many High-FFs feel that their talents are ignored or there is prejudice against them, making running their own business a practical solution despite their genuine fears.

And any reading of Rachel Bridge’s column in the Sunday Times Business section confirms this view. Many of her interviews with British entrepreneurs from all walks of life have made it into several books, including How I Made It (2005). In the introduction she describes the typical entrepreneur, or rather she doesn’t as she states that entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes – “they can be old and young, well educated or not, male or female, naturally confident or painfully shy”. She also states that they can be the type of person that “dreams up a dozen new business ideas a day or the sort who has only ever had one – which may not even be original”.

“What makes the whole idea of becoming a successful entrepreneur so very exciting,” she concludes, “is that there are no rules.”

Another strong book on this subject is Never Bet the Farm (2006) by US entrepreneurs Anthony Iaquinto and Stephen Spinelli Jr. They also de-myth the heroic entrepreneur stating that start-up business people are just ordinary people with fears and faults like everyone else. A key proposition for them is that successful entrepreneurs are “risk managers, not risk takers” exploding the myth of the swashbuckling entrepreneur.

Yet even this is too neutral for me. Just stating that High-FFs can become entrepreneurs isn’t good enough. In my view those with high fear of failure should become entrepreneurs – not least because they are perfectly suited for it. Here are six reasons why I think High-FFs have strong attributes for entrepreneurship.

1) High-FFs are cautious. Ignore the myth about risk taking – for every Richard Branson there are a 1,000 that gambled and lost. The best entrepreneurs are more interested in building a sustainable business that means they can pursue their love or their skills for their own bottom line, rather than someone else’s. And that takes careful planning and small steps. Staking everything on a throw of the dice is not what High-FFs do, which means they are far more likely to nurture a sustainable enterprise.

2) High-FFs are “good” with money. The quickest route for enterprise failure is through too much debt and/or over-expansion (perhaps by signing an office lease that was too ambitious or spending too much on a fit-out or other "luxuries"). Yet many High-FFs have financial phobia, which means they hate spending money. So far this has been seen as a negative. Start your own business, however, and bootstrapping is an imperative for sustainability.

3) High-FFs are not “wing it” merchant. Most High-FFs will have a thorough understanding that nothing comes for free. Blood, sweat and tears are required. High-FFs are likely to realise this from the off, meaning they will put in the required effort. High-FFs are mentally prepared for the challenges ahead.

4) High-FFs are facing the right way. As stated the vast majority of businesses are started by people wanting to work for themselves, perhaps because they feel frustrated working for someone else. This, rather than an overwhelming desire to make millions, is what drives the vast majority of sustainable businesses.

5) High-FFs are capable of strong people skills. This may take time as many High-FFs feel they lack people skills. Yet what they lack is confidence and self-esteem, which erodes their ability to deal well with others. Remove those frustrations through the development and pursuit of strong goals and the High-FF can become an excellent people-person because they have empathy for the other person – as long as they can remember what life was like on the other side of the fence. Those hustling, arrogant, high-achievers, meanwhile, go through life trampling on people - in many cases without even realising it. And this will eventually catch up with them: probably the first time their business hits a snag.

6) High-FFs understand fear. As Gerber states, starting a business is a terrifying experience. Yet terror is the natural state of the High-FF, so we are well prepared. More confident people may experience terror for the first time once the safety net of employment is removed, making them less able to cope.

Of course there are also downsides for entrepreneurs with a high fear of failure, of which the most acute must be the tendency to set inappropriate – avoidance-based – goals (as written on many previous blogs and a major theme throughout What’s Stopping You?). Motivation-focused experiments on children in the 1960s found that those revealing a higher-than-normal fear of (especially public) failure had no problem attempting tasks viewed as almost impossible while avoiding achievable but challenging tasks. This was because the cost of public failure remained low. And there was even the potential upside of being judged a “trier” at such a difficult level.

In terms of career choice this often means High-FFs pursue dream-fulfilment careers such as pop stardom or TV fame because the consequences of failure remain limited. They are extremely unlikely to succeed and – they calculate – will be judged kindly for trying. Meanwhile they reject "sensible" (but challenging) career choices due to their fear of public humiliation.

And those following the Richard Branson path towards fortune and fame – with fame being the primary objective – should perhaps re-examine their entrepreneurial goals in order to ensure their ambitions are not part of an elaborate avoidance-based strategy.

Those wanting to join Bill Gates and Steve Jobs may be best-off taking the Facebook test to see if they do have “what it takes”. Those, meanwhile, that want to start their own business because they are fed up with their current employment and feel that liberating their time, skills and endeavours from an unappreciative boss, should ignore all the noise about the personality of an entrepreneur and, instead, plan a strong future of sustainable self-employment.

Developing compassion: bankers

A reposting (and re-editing) of old-blog posts I like.

On several occasions recently, I have found myself defending bankers. This goes way beyond my day job of running a PR agency that’s focused, to a large extent, on banks. In reality the agency positively profiles the products and services of banks (and others) to sophisticated audiences such as corporate treasurers, financial institutions and other banks. In this defence I was defending bankers themselves. Like Gordon Gecko in Wall Street, I was even defending greed.

To many this really will seem like the ultimate exercise in trying to develop compassion, as recommended by Don't Sweat The Small Stuff author Richard Carlson (and as explained in my previous posts). Yet for me – as an ex banker – it is probably more the other way around. It is me asking others to examine their – perhaps stereo-typical, perhaps (even) a touch prejudicial – views on a section of society currently the target of a great deal of loathing from all “right-thinking” people.

First let’s defend bankers themselves. Much of my defence focuses on my view that the typical banker is a long way their unsavoury media stereo-type of shouting yobs in red braces or arrogant and braying fools at a race track or in a nightclub. Of course, those types exist but they are a tiny minority compared to the thousands upon thousands employed in the financial services industry, even on the trading floors. In fact the vast majority of bankers are very normal people – perhaps even too normal to many of their detractors.

If I was to paint a stereo-type of a City banker, therefore, it would be of a conservatively-dressed, state-educated, family man or woman travelling in from their newish home in one of the nicer suburbs in the Essex or Kent commuter belt (or New Jersey or Connecticut if in New York). They undertake highly-technical, highly-specialised work – often working long hours. They don’t smoke, drink only moderately and don’t know the first thing about recreational drugs. Their main passions are golf, squash and maybe Tottenham Hotspur or West Ham United at the weekend (though probably not since the kids were born).

Of course they are ambitious. These are the children of working-class Londoners (or Scots or Northerners or Asians for that matter), seeing the financial services industry as their route to advancement. Indeed, my father would often state that his generation of post-war working class men advanced into the respectable middle classes via the sciences. Well, for our generation, the same can be said of the City (or Wall Street). While most creative careers (at least the lucrative ones) remain the preserve of the privately-educated elite, those seeking advancement from the sometimes painfully-low horizons of a poor education and an inept social training now focus on the financial services.

But what of the greed that was supposed to have nearly destroyed the banking system in 2008? Indeed, saying someone has the stereo-type wrong does not undermine the concept of greed, or its role in the banking crisis. And while I could put a technical spin on the crisis – in part blaming the “law of unintended consequences” from previous rounds of regulation (Basel II and IAS-39 being two regulations worth examining in this respect) – it would be stupid to say that greed played no part.

So can I defend greed in order to try and evoke a compassion for bankers? I can try – perhaps by turning the debate around and examining those that detest bankers and their greedy ilk. For this I need to make reference to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Abraham Maslow was interested in exemplary people and their motivations (Eleanor Roosevelt was a particular focus), which turned into a “ theory of human needs and self-actualisation”. Usually expressed as a pyramid, Maslow – in his 1954 book Motivation and Personality – states that humans move up from the basic physiological needs for food, water and sleep, to require safety in the form of shelter, employment and health. Above that humans need friendship and love and above that self-esteem, confidence, achievement and respect. And at the very top of the pyramid are attributes such as morality and creativity.

The important point here is that, at all levels, money is simply a means to an ends. Material advancement is no more than a ladder up to the next level. Certainly, Maslow contends that we cannot graduate up to the next level without satisfying the needs of the lower level. Only once we have food and water can we think about shelter and security. Only once we have safety can we think about love and belonging. Only once we are loved can we think about self-esteem and respect. And only once we have self respect do we crave morality and seek to express ourselves creatively. Interpret this into career ladders, ambitions and a focus on material advancement and it is easy to come to a view regarding why some people still seek wealth (if only to get their children to the top of the pyramid via a private education) while others seek more spiritual rewards.

And it might also be the case that, once at the higher level – perhaps thanks to the efforts of a previous generation – it is difficult to develop compassion for those in the immediate level below, while compassion for those well below us in Maslow’s hierarchy comes naturally. Certainly, it is easier to be compassionate about those seeking food or shelter than those seeking material advancement so their kids can also reach the podium of creativity and morality. But that doesn’t preclude us from at least trying – even if, to adopt a very Carlsonian concept, it is just for fun. And if even if that won’t work? Even if we still hate those “greedy” bankers? Never mind – we can at least comfort ourselves with the thought that that their children may be more to our taste.

One last note on this. In no way is this a judgement or a condemnation of those that attack bankers or greed – or those that have made it to that happy place at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy (however they got there). It is simply a plea, in the best Carlsonian tradition, to “develop our compassion”. The point being that the harder this seems, the more worthwhile the exercise.

“Outrageous” behaviour on The Apprentice: sorry, Karen, isn’t that what you wanted?

Last night’s Apprentice on BBC1 shocked me, but not for the reasons I suspect it shocked most others. To recall, the all-female team failed the task – not least because they spent the entire time bickering. In the “boardroom” – the dramatic staged finale to each episode where one contestant is “fired” – this bickering exploded into shouted accusations, hurled insults and general aggression towards each other. Of course, the programme allowed this “outrageous” scene to play out before Karen Brady, Lord Sugar’s new female sidekick, delivered a stern lecture on “women in business” and the fact they were offering a poor demonstration of female capabilities in the boardroom. They had “let down their gender” as someone (admittedly a comic) pointed out on the aftershow (not that I’m addicted).

And it was this assumption that shocked me. I was shocked by the gall of it. Leaving aside the fact I doubt a bickering all-male team would have been judged to have “let their gender down”, it amazes me that one of the show’s main protagonists decided to offer a lecture on the fact the show’s premise had delivered on its promise. This modern-day gladiatorial contest had resulted in, well, a gladiatorial contest: cue shock and admonishments.

This is Big Brother for, er, grownups, with the contestants picked, not because they are likely to be good at business and therefore a suitable employee for Sugar’s Brentwood-based ventures, but because they are likely to make good television. Given this, it is no surprise that the most obviously competent candidate – the captain of the other team Stella – is also blond and so pleasing to the eye that she ended up modelling her team’s product in a swimsuit. I have no doubt that the 1000s of other obviously-competent applicants were rejected on the grounds that they’d look less than compelling in a swimsuit. For those with less-than-stellar looks, meanwhile, incompetence – or some other comically-televisual trait we have yet to discover – is a must.

Certainly, Karen Brady had no right to lecture anyone for behaving in a way the programme has encouraged from the start. In that respects it is no different to a ref on WWE penalising a wrestler for poking someone in the eye, in the full knowledge that it’s that sort of behaviour the crowd have come to see. And just as wrestling is no more than theatrical combat – a parody or lampooning of reality – The Apprentice is equally a distorting mirror for the world of work: executed by clever TV creatives that have the pleasure of standing aloft in their mockery.

In fact the programme showed its true Darwinian savagery last night. It was clear from the start that the all-female team saw the dipsy project manager, 22-year old Laura, as an easy target and immediately set about undermining her. Indeed, she was hopeless but the whiff of blood clearly affected the behaviour of her team mates – generating a near-feeding frenzy by the end, especially as she (successfully, as it happens) tried to fight back against her seemingly-inevitable firing.

Of course, for those “fired” at the end, their dreams of reality-TV stardom are also finished, barring an appearance on the aftershow. This is a fate to be avoided at all costs. They are fighting for their celebrity life, after all, so they fight-like-hell – as they are encouraged to do. This was also evidenced last night by the fact it was Joy that was fired, the one person that kept her dignity and showed reluctance to dive into the scrap.

In fact it was Joy’s behaviour that first made me think The Apprentice an appropriate subject for a blog. For me, she showed clear signs of fear of failure, both during the task and in those crucial moments in the boardroom. Nervous of failing, she backed off from the task itself and was then incapable of defending herself in the boardroom when up against the scrapers.

Yet Joy was not alone in fearing failure on this show. As I write in What’s Stopping You? (TBP in 2011) fear of failure manifests itself in many ways, not just in withdrawal, and certainly not always through meekness. There is the brooding back-stabber, the angry shouter, or the scheming Machiavellian – all of which were on display last night and have been in every episode of The Apprentice ever broadcast. But, of course, the programme is set up to encourage fear of failure and the changes in behaviour such fears engender. Given this, it isn’t the women that “let down their gender” last night, it’s the programme makers that revealed their usual stereo-typical and self-fulfilling prejudices towards the world of work – at least for us mere mortals not working in television.

Do they really “f*** you up”?

The nature versus nurture debate was one that I faced when writing What’s Stopping You? Do our genes dictate our personality traits, or is it conditioning? Having said this I was a reluctant participant, at first adopting the classic fence-sitting position of stating that it is usually a bit of both. Such reluctance is understandable. I learnt from my first book that book publishing is more about winning friends than creating enemies, especially as this debate gets political – for instance the existence of a gay gene, or otherwise, can cause some pretty heated exchanges.

Yet one book forced me off the fence – not on the existence or otherwise of a gay gene I hasten to add but on the fact it is early life experiences that shape our personality and, importantly for the subject of the book, our fears and phobias. And that includes fear of failure, the core concern in What’s Stopping You?

That book was They F*** You Up (2002) by Oliver James, subtitled: how to survive family life. It is James’s contention that our early-life interactions with parents and siblings that has the overwhelming say when it comes to deciding who we are and how we evaluate and respond to the external influences that come our way.

“Yes genes do establish a basic repertoire of traits in nearly all humans,” says James, “but the subtle differences between us in their expression are largely determined by our upbringing.”

One piece of evidence he sets out for this is the Human Genome Project, which aimed at mapping our genes in the expectation humans would have at least 100,000 different genes. Instead they found just 30-40,000 – only twice the number of the common fruit fly. This led a leader of the project, Craig Venter to conclude that genes cannot play more than a minor role in determining the differences between us.

Indeed, James is quite emphatic about this, stating that studies have shown that hardly any psychological differences are predetermined. In his book James focuses on identical twins – pairings that have exactly the same genes so any psychological differences between them must have environmental origins.

James interviews two identical twins from popular culture – Gayle and Gillian Blakeney, stars of the day-time soap Neighbours. To underline their physical similarities, James relays that the two had just been to the opticians to discover that their eye-sight had deteriorated by the same degree over the same period and, he stated, that during the interview he continually mixed them up despite the fact they were dressed very differently.

Psychologically, however, James claims they were chalk and cheese. Gillian was assertive and aggressive – Tomboyish as a child with a shorter fuse and the occasional petulant outburst. She was treated as the baby of the family (in fact was nine minutes the younger), and described herself as a “daddy’s girl” although borrowed many mannerisms from her mother. Yet she was the mentally stronger of the two – confident and manipulative – describing her sibling relationship as a “marriage” in which she played the masculine role.

Meanwhile, Gayle was the opposite. She was less assertive and more helpful as a child – keen to win her parent’s approval. She was the older sister and acted as such: listening, trusting, giving, more reflective. She was shy with men and preferred “brainy types” while her sister plumped for more stereo-typical masculinity.

James cites that a key aspect in their differences was the way in which both were treated by their parents. The mother “was always on Gillian’s side”, excusing her bad behaviour while Gayle struggled to win parental approval. Of course, as James states, this could still be genetic. If we are lovable, we attract more love, although if we are born with the same genes as our twin, surely we would be equally lovable – or not?

Yet shared genes do not mean we are born the same person. For instance, twins may have very different experiences in the womb, winning or losing the struggle for nutrients, space and comfort or perhaps being inadvertently kicked by the other one. Certainly, traumas can begin in the womb – even generating feelings of post-traumatic stress disorder. For instance, Yale University’s Dennis Charney states that significant traumas can occur in the womb (perhaps passed through the mother) – making us unaware of the events that could shape our personalities and fears.

My own anecdotes support this (although I’m aware that it’s always possible to find anecdotal evidence to support a prejudice). I remember spending a lovely summer holiday in the home of an artist who had deep and sometimes disturbing melancholic tendencies that his sister attributed, at least in part, to the death of a sibling while their mother was pregnant with her brother. The mother’s sense of loss and sadness was transferred to the foetus – at least that was his sister’s conclusion.

And even in my own family I can see a psychological difference between my two boys that I sometimes wonder about. The eldest was over two weeks late and was an incredibly relaxed baby – rarely crying, even when receiving injections. Due to obstetric cholestasis my youngest was born nearly a month before term by emergency Caesarean – a process he certainly didn’t enjoy. He remains more anxious and sensitive than his brother and less able to take the world as it comes.

Of course, my sample size is insignificant, but it is interesting nonetheless. And it does bring us to one significant conclusion. That despite the title of his book, nor the content of mine, neither Oliver James or What’s Stopping You? are pointing fingers for mental conditions such as fear of failure. While convinced that environmental factors played by far the most significant part, the environment starts in the womb and could have any number of factors. It is a major stretch from here to an “I blame the parents” position.

And genes are clearly apparent in some conditions. Autism, dyslexia, depression are most certainly genes-related, although may perhaps be exacerbated by self-perpetuating environments that roll down the generations. Having said this, James claims that “science now accepts” that, in most psychological fashioning, genes play only a minor role – a conclusion I’m also prepared to (mostly) accept as the basis for analysis within What’s Stopping You? - although the qualification in parenthesis suggests that I’m still more comfortable with at least one hand on the fence.

Luke just gave Billy a neural hijacking, or you can call me Shirley

The Today programme on BBC Radio 4 hosted an interesting debate on banker’s bonuses the other morning, although its fascination for me turned out to be different from my expectations.

The debate was between singer, songwriter, campaigner and all round “good bloke” Billy Bragg, and private equity investor, FT columnist and nasty “unrepentant capitalist” Luke Johnson, which means I immediately have to declare my interests. Luke is a friend and business associate, as well as the foreword writer for What’s Stopping You? Meanwhile, the Sage of Barking (or more recently Burton Bradstock) is a songsmith that made a deep impression on me as an angry young man in the 1980s – with many of his lyrics still captured in the dustier recesses of my mind. And I can’t even claim neutrality in the subject of the debate, having spent my entire post-university career sniffing around the City in one guise or another (journo/banker/PR) although my encounters with those legendary bonuses have been all-too brief.

All this gave me an acute interest in the debate. Yet it became of even deeper interest towards the end. Billy Bragg lost the debate, not because he was wrong – he pretty much has the entire population on his side when it comes to lambasting City-excesses including those “obscene” bonuses paid to bailed-out bankers. He lost because he lost his cool. Angered by one of Luke’s comments he unthinkingly and instinctively jumped in with a riposte that was patently nonsense, opening him up for the demolition that was duly delivered.

Billy had become emotional, and it rendered him – and therefore his argument – weak. In fact, he later accepted this as he opened a live debate on the same subject that evening at the British Library (the promotion of which explains the earlier radio interviews). He blamed the early hour of the radio programme and too much caffeine. Certainly, the Today programme suits City workers more than rockstars, and this may have been what did for Billy. Yet my interest was tweaked because it is not everyday you get to listen to someone having a “neural hijacking” on live national radio.

As I state in What’s Stopping You? such neural hijackings are a central cause-and-effect of poor results for those with high fear of failure (High-FFs as I call them). Arriving in the form of a neural surge through the body and triggering a flood of hormones they are the very moments that instantly throw High-FFs and others that may have confidence issues off course. Our primeval instincts of fight-or-flight have been triggered and our base reactions have taken over, with usually negative consequences. We may react with anger or fear but we do not react rationally. We react emotionally. Our uber-rational opponent, meanwhile, spots his or her chance and goes in for the kill. It is the neural equivalent of a boxer hitting the canvas – a game-changing moment where ascendency or otherwise is established. And the bloody-annoying thing for the hijacked is that these moments are entirely self-induced. We deliver our knock-out blow to ourselves, simply because we could not keep our emotions in check.

An important book explaining the causes, and impact, of neural hijackings is Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Here’s him describing the hijacking process:

“It is in moments such as these – when impulsive feeling overrides the rational – that the newly discovered role for the amygdale [a part of the brain dealing with emotions] is pivotal. Incoming signals from the senses let the amygdale scan every experience for trouble. This puts the amygdale in a powerful post in mental life, something like the psychological sentinel, challenging every situation, every perception, with but one kind of question in mind, the most punitive: ‘Is this something I hate? That hurts me? Something I fear’. If so – if the moment at hand somehow draws a ‘yes’ – the amygdale reacts instantaneously, like neural tripwire, telegraphing a message of crisis to all parts of the brain.”

Goleman also describes the instant impact these hijackings have on the body. For instance, if our hijacking induces an anger response blood rushes to the hands ready for action. Meanwhile, the heart rate increases and there is a surge of adrenalin and other hormones (such as cortisol). With fear, blood rushes to the skeletal muscles such as the legs, the face blanches and the body momentarily freezes as it decides whether hiding may be a better option than running or fighting. The body is put on general alert, making the hijacked person edgy and unfocused on anything other than the threat or object of anger. Basically, the hijacked person’s rationality and reasoning is, at that moment, shot.

An important aspect here – that Billy will need to be aware of as much as most High-FFs – is that these hijackings are inevitable. Those that react emotionally when triggered are likely to do so for the rest of their lives. There is no instant cure or quick fix that can remove the neural hijacking as a feature for people more emotionally sensitised than others, meaning that we will always have to be on guard for Goleman’s tripwire – catching us when we least expect it and sending us careering down an intensely frustrating alleyway with respect to our dealings with others. What we have to develop – and what What’s Stopping You? devotes considerable effort in attempting to achieve – is a better second response that can, in time and with effort, suppress the external expression of the neural hijacking. And this can, hopefully, reduce in number the occasions we are defeated by our own overly-emotional responses to a hijack-inducing situation.

A final point here concerns the fact I have used someone else – in this case Billy Bragg – to demonstrate a neural hijacking. Given my earlier blog apologising for preaching (Forgive me sinner for I have preached) this may seem like another example where I have strayed into assumption regarding someone else’s thoughts and potential insecurities. I have, but my inspiration here is the fact Billy Bragg admitted to “becoming a little emotional” on the radio when I heard him speak at the British Library later that day. He was clearly embarrassed and seemingly determined not to repeat the error during the live debate with Luke sitting next to him. He didn’t, but I thought I could detect intense concentration in order to avoid being triggered (just my guess – I have no proof of this and I apologise now to Billy Bragg if any of this is wide of the mark).

Certainly, I am not suggesting Billy has high fear of failure, although – as I have written on many occasions – it is rather typical of a High-FF to desire a life of pop-stardom. What I am saying is that, by his own admission, he became emotional during an important debate on something he feels passionately about. And I am almost certain he regrets doing so not least because it destroyed his reasoning. But he had no choice, he was triggered. And if what followed was not the consequence of a neural hijacking, you can call me Shirley.

Prejudice exists – so don’t let it derail your progress

A reload of articles (I still like) from the old blog.

Of all the barriers that kill our progress as High-FFs (those with a high fear of failure) the assumption of prejudice against us is probably the most powerful. No other assumption so effectively changes our behaviour – destroying our confidence, making us overly-sensitive and defensive and leading us to behave in ways that can confirm the perceived prejudice against us.

Nearly all High-FFs have a version of this that plays out in stressful situations. These are often the very situations that can make the biggest difference to our lives – moments when we need to impress, such as networking events, interviews, presentations, even social gatherings outside of our usual demographic. Yet the anxieties that such a situation generates heighten our sensitivities to signals – positive or negative – about how we are being judged, or pre-judged. And that makes us overly-aware of being judged on who we are rather than what we say or contribute.

Race, gender, class, size, abilities, age, nationality, sexuality – even hair-colour and beauty – can influence the way we are immediately perceived by others, meaning we become assessed by those traits rather than by the “content of our character” to use Martin Luther King’s memorable phrase in his “I have a dream” speech. This can sometimes appear to work in our favour – perhaps when with people that would judge our particular traits kindly. But in nearly all cases any such judgement is in fact detrimental to our long-term progress, at least if we want our contribution to be taken seriously.

Of course in his speech King was describing some of the most acute prejudice of the twentieth century – the appalling and openly-sanctioned discrimination endured by African-Americans, particularly in the southern US states. And it is discrimination by race that perhaps sets the benchmark with respect to prejudice. To be an Africa-American – especially in that time and place – is to experience a depth of discrimination that must weigh heavily on the external responses of those on the receiving end. How could a young African-American boy, for instance, approach a situation involving his white peers with anything other than fear, distrust and defensiveness given the history of abuse and violence resulting from similar exchanges down the generations? The perception of prejudice, in this case, has a strong grounding in reality, making any changes in behaviour brought about by it as a natural and protective response.

Yet that is the point about our perceptions of prejudice – they are often based on a solid grounding, hence the fact the High-FF so profoundly changes his or her behaviour when confronted with it or even when they perceive they are being confronted with it. Prejudice is real. The instinct triggered is, therefore, one of self-protection, whether in the physical or intellectual sense. We feel we are being attacked for who we are, so we need to defend ourselves. And this can make us act in distinctly defensive, unfriendly or even aggressive ways that can alienate everyone around us, not just our oppressors.

My own version of this is based on perceived class prejudice, which is as deeply-ingrained in the UK as race is in the US (if somewhat more subtle). As a lower-middle class boy “educated” at an under-performing secondary-modern turned comprehensive in Essex, I found my accent and manners very different to most of my contemporaries at university. And while at university in the 1980s era of identity politics this was no bad thing – even something to accentuate – in the London media industry after university it led me to feel insecure despite being as well-qualified for the posts I applied for (and sometimes won) as anyone else.

Wide-eyed from what I saw as my strength – getting a good degree from a good university despite my poor secondary education – I stumbled into situations where I was patronised, at best, and openly dismissed and humiliated at worst: and this at institutions that held themselves up as bastions of liberal progression. Of course, this radically changed my behaviour. I lost confidence, quietened down and became defensive. And I guess I developed what privileged people like to call a “chip on my shoulder” (an appalling statement when examined closely because – having judged and abused you on the basis of your background – you are even stripped of any legitimate feelings of resentment).

Yet such “chippiness” is a disaster for our progress – especially as we can develop better responses when dealing with prejudice: ones that can mitigate the potential damage to our progress from real or perceived (and therefore self-fulfilling) prejudice.

A key need is to develop a self-awareness of the changes in our behaviour caused by our perceptions of prejudice against us. And this is where we may need professional help. For instance a crucial psychological basis for our change in behaviour brought about by perceived prejudice is the phenomenon known as “impostor syndrome” in which we feel we have no legitimate right to be in a certain group or place. And while much is written on the subject, two psychologists stand out – Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes.

Their 1978 paper The Impostor Phenomenon Among High Achieving Women was the first to describe professionals – in their case women – who have reached significant intellectual milestones in their careers but who fail to feel internally confident when among their peers, often due to feelings of being poorly judged by associates on the basis of their gender.

“They consider themselves to be ‘impostors’,” they write. “Despite numerous outstanding academic and professional accomplishments, women who experience impostor phenomenon [they shy away from calling it a syndrome] persist in believing that they are really not bright and have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise. Numerous achievements, which one might expect to provide ample objective evidence of superior intellectual functioning, do not appear to affect the impostor belief.”

Imposter phenomenon, or IP as the professionals call it, is therefore a self-fulfilling condition because our perceptions of prejudice cause us to develop poor self-judgements with respect to our suitability to be treated as an equal, which – in turn – leads to behaviour that may confirm such prejudice. And while IP was discovered in professional women – perhaps obviously given the dominance of men in so many professions (especially in the 1970s) – most psychologists now recognise it can impact anyone who communicates with apparent intellectual peers and yet feels insecure due to who they are, despite having earned their place through strong achievements.

So can High-FFs counteract the impact of IP and other behavioural changes brought about by perceptions of prejudice – especially if, as stated, prejudice is ingrained in our society? In my opinion, yes. Here are 10 steps that can prevent us from being derailed by prejudice in social or inter-active settings.

1) While the wider fight against prejudice is both legitimate and to be applauded it belongs in what Stephen Covey in the Seven Habit of Highly Effective People calls our “circle of concern” rather than our “circle of influence”. This means that, while it obviously impacts our progress, it is beyond our control. High-FFs must operate within their “circle of influence” – changing what can be changed and ignoring what can’t. Remember this.

2) We must also remember Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous quote: “no one can make you feel inferior without your consent”. Of course, this is easy to say but less easy to feel. But we should nonetheless say it.

3) Prior to any inter-action that may generate prejudice against us we should first calculate what we want from the situation. What is our objective here? Then focus purely on achieving that objective. Every conversation should have this at the forefront of our mind rather than any desperate calculation regarding how we are being received. This puts us on the front foot, regardless of who we are talking to.

4) Indeed, we should judge any situation against our long term objectives. Are these being advanced, in whatever sense? And if we have no long-term objectives: develop some.

5) Dress conservatively. If you are trying to be provocative – fine. But it’s then a tad unfair to blame people for pre-judging you on your appearances. My advice is to signal your desire to fit in by dressing within the norms of the situation.

6) Prepare an opening line or two about who you are. This should be a positive but not boastful description that states firmly your legitimacy, although is not defensive. In the UK at least, err on the side of modesty, although beware over-doing self-deprecation: given the prejudice it may be taken literally.

7) Smile. Look happy, even if you feel far from happy. Even if you are nervous as hell and are hating every minute. Fake it. Sporting a scowl will confirm their worst prejudices about you, while seeing a smiling face will make everyone assume you are “happy in your skin” and that you are worth knowing. Being funny is even better – but, again, don’t go overboard, especially in a formal setting such as an interview. Your aim is to be taken seriously, don’t forget, so providing wit and amusement is preferred to playing the clown.

8) Put people at their ease. There is just a chance that the person you feel is being prejudiced against you is simply nervous of talking to someone “different” to them. They may feel they have nothing to say that could be of interest to you, so take the initiative and be interested in them – relaxing them by getting the conversation on their ground. Could it be that their own insecurities are making them appear offish? There’s no harm in assuming so.

9) Prejudice can feel isolating (that is part of its intention) but anyone perceiving prejudice is unlikely to be alone. Seek out others that may be feeling the same way, but don’t seek to recruit them. Expressing relief at finding someone “normal” is as far as you should go – and even then only after a strong bond is established from neutral conversation.

10) We must develop a kinder outlook for those that may have a prejudice against us. All prejudice is ignorance after all, and they will have their own pressures and hierarchies to be concerned about. In fact, it may be their lowly self-perceptions that underpin their prejudices – i.e. they feel threatened.

Motivation needs purpose, but don’t forget fear

Dan Pink is the author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. If you want to know the answer to this, however, a quicker route than reading the book is to watch this highly-engaging YouTube animation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc) from the UK’s Royal Society or Arts (and tagged by Leigh Carrick Moore – thank you!).

In the animation Dan Pink explains that higher incentives do not always lead to better performance. In experiments conducted by the MIT and funded by the Federal Reserve Bank it was discovered that, while non-cognitive (i.e. manual) tasks can be incentivised in a traditional way – meaning that more money equals better performance – cognitive tasks that require thought and creativity can’t, at least at the top. For cognitive tasks, it seems, once people are being paid “enough” paying them more does not lead to more in terms of output or performance.

What explains this? In the animation (and I assume in the book) Pink projects that we are dealing with a concept similar to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, in which material gain is not the key driver to human motivation, it is simply a means to an ends. Once people are comfortable, concepts such as creativity and morality become more important than mere zeroes added to the bottom line. Pink explained this by stating that our motivations are driven by autonomy (we want to direct our own lives), mastery (we have an urge to get better at stuff) and purpose (we want to make a contribution).

And, in case people concluded that this was fine for rich countries like America that can be seen as having more than enough and so would graduate into the sunlit uplands of morality and “purpose”, they also conducted the same experiments in India, with even more startling results. While low and middling incentives did, indeed, improve performance large incentives had the opposite impact, causing a major reversal in performance.

This is, of course, fantastically revelatory. But is it true? I have not read the book but throughout the animation I was expecting a different conclusion, or at least another factor to be taken into account: fear. I was expecting Pink to at least mention fear of failure, which must surely be an alternative reason why incentives failed to improve performance once the stakes are raised above a certain point and, as with the case in India (where higher incentives will have an even higher impact) actually had a detrimental effect on performance.

In fact the experiments were not dissimilar to those carried out by John W. Atkinson of Stanford University, David McClelland and others in the 1960s. Also focused on motivation, they set children reward-incentivised tasks and noticed that they approached them in one of two ways – either motivated to achieve the task (i.e. to succeed) or motivated to avoid failing the task (mostly through avoidance of undertaking the task). Atkinson concluded that those motivated to avoid the tasks had a high fear of failure. They were concerned by the prospect of public failure and, where they could, avoided even intermediately difficult tasks because of it.

Is there resonance with MIT’s experiments on incentives, as explained by Pink and animated by the RSA? Yes, I believe there is. The rewards on offer at the low end are enough to focus the mind on the task and its achievement. Yet at the high end the rewards change behaviour. In India particularly, these may be life changing rewards, making the outcome of the task a much larger focus than the task itself. Just ask any sportsman suffering from “choke” or Poker player suffering from “tilt” – both behavioural changes based on fear – and it is easy to see how high-end rewards can detrimentally-impact performance. The stakes have been raised to the point where we can no longer ignore them in order to focus on the task ahead, making our efforts edgy and fearful.

I am not stating that the MIT experiments came to the wrong conclusion and Dan Pink’s book may well take fear of failure into account (as may the MIT). My only opinion on this is that, once you are in tune with the concept of fear of failure (which my Reticular Activating System clearly is thanks to my forthcoming book What’s Stopping You?), you can’t help looking at the experiments in a different light and potentially coming to a different conclusion.

Are you a pessimist? Perhaps your football team is to blame

West Ham United finds itself bottom of the Premier League again, which is perhaps no more than to be expected given the Kelsey Effect I mentioned in the earlier blog on luck. Of course, in that blog I dismissed the Kelsey Effect, or any other series of misfortunes that are banded together to create a sense of luck or (more likely) otherwise as no more than our reticular activating system (RAS) – the part of the brain responsible for arousal. Assume bad luck and our RAS will find examples of it everywhere – reaching as far as the performance of our favourite football team if necessary. Assume good luck and the plight of West Ham will be ignored unless, of course, they find themselves at the top of the league table and can thus be recruited as confirmation (admittedly, this is unlikely).

So do we make choices regarding such things as which football team to follow based on our view of the world? Certainly it can appear so. Most followers of West Ham I know all seem to have a pessimistic outlook. And West Ham fans are hardly alone in this respect. What about Manchester City fans – one even calling his Fever Pitch style fan-biography Manchester United Ruined my Life suggesting that, had he chosen the other “Manchester” team, his life would have been far from ruined? And then there are the Evertonians. Like City fans they have seen many false dawns regarding their club’s attempts to match the status of their near and more famous neighbours.

West Ham, City and Everton all have the distinction of being the smaller teams in cities containing some of the world’s most famous footballing brands (fans of Espanyol, Atlético, Torino and 1860 can no doubt sympathise). So why choose to support them? In modern cities geography or logistics can hardly be a major factor. And as Simon Kuper contends in his excellent book Why England Lose (an Undercover Economist for football fans called Soccernomics outside of the UK) football operates in a free market, meaning that we are free to choose our colours. Surely then, we choose teams that – in some way or other – reflect our personalities, hence my pessimistic choice of the only London team with 30,000-plus attendances that finds itself regularly fighting, and sometimes losing, relegation battles?

Of course, the above is no more than a writer’s Aunt Sally, to be knocked down by the obvious contention that it is the other way around. Most genuine football fans (those that take their passion beyond the playground or office) are not free to choose at all. Usually, family ties weigh heavily – as they did with me when my earlier attempts to support the Tottenham Hotspur of Martin Chivers and Pat Jennings were, to put it mildly, discouraged. So, if our team does reflect our personality, it must therefore not be based on our “choice” of football-team but on the impact that football team’s performance has on our young minds.

This is not a frivolous point. For instance, my five-year old’s reaction to England’s humiliating exit from the World Cup was little short of traumatic. He’d become excited by the sense of festival surrounding the tournament and, despite my warnings, saw Wayne Rooney and the like as unconquerable heroes along Ben 10 or Transformer lines. To see them soundly beaten rocked his world and, I have no doubt, made a negative impression on him that will take time to forget.

And the science backs this up. In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman states that such high-drama moments can cause the amygdale – which Goleman describes as the key component of the limbic system in the brain dealing with anxiety, distress and fear – to signal other brain regions to strengthen their memory of the incident. This creates a bigger imprint within the memory, which generates a new neural “setpoint” in the brain – potentially causing a lifelong resetting of our emotional responses to even tangentially-similar situations. And while I’m not dismissing the notion that, as incidents of stress go, this is a mild one, it can nonetheless have an impact – especially if the setpoint is triggered on a near-weekly basis between August and May.

Football teams are important to most young boys in the UK as well as many young girls. And one constantly beaten by its rivals – especially near rivals supported by peers, therefore engendering playground taunting – is unlikely to encourage a sense of optimism at a crucial stage in that child’s mental development. No ardent fan (and there is no other way to describe the depth of enthusiasm experienced at that age) can remain immune to the impact of so many defeats on their overall psyche.

So is the answer to encourage them towards the more successful rival team? While many dads would rather burn in hell – and I realise the risk I’m taking here in stating this – that’s exactly what I’m encouraging with my sons. They go to school in Islington where the obvious choice is Arsenal – a team with a much happier outlook (Chelsea and Tottenham being beyond the pale for a Hammers fan). Yet my wife disagrees with this course: not because she is a West Ham fan (she isn’t) or because she wants them to follow more aspirational sports (such as rugby) or even no sport (though she fancies one of them as a chorister). She disagrees with this because she thinks pessimism is an innate condition in football fandom, as is optimism. As far as my wife is concerned, it is realism that football fans lack.

This is well observed in my opinion. Fans have little or no concept of relativity. They tend to bank any advance and then look further upwards, complaining bitterly of a “lack of ambition” when clubs “stagnate” in mid-table or even slip back a few places. No sooner has a small club – for example Fulham – found its way into the higher divisions than its fans want more: silverware, European competition, Champions League etc etc. Fans adjust their pessimist/optimist thermostat accordingly, converting anything other than continual glory into a crisis – usually heaped upon players, managers and even the owners who may justifiably feel they have got a particular club to out-perform its potential.

As in football, so in life. Humans bank their advances and continue to look upwards. The concept of relativity means nothing – making glory no more than an ephemeral gain. And this is especially true for those with a high fear of failure. High-FFs (as I call those with high fear of failure in my forthcoming book: What’s Stopping You?) are prone to dismiss their progress – meaning their current status, potentially gained through years of hard work and study, means nothing because the ladder stretches above them and, as we are only looking up, results in the same frustrating feelings of under achievement we felt when lower down.

And while such frustrations seem inevitable, they can weigh-down and even destroy the well-being of the High-FF. “Someday” is the goal of the permanently unhappy, says Anthony Robbins, who suggests, no matter where we are on the ladder, we appreciate our advantages and accomplishments. Certainly I would agree with this. Any step forward must be appreciated as a step in the right direction. As something to build upon. Dismiss our accomplishments – no matter how small – as nothing and that’s what they’ll become.

This even works in football. West Ham has survived the rigours of the premiership that have done for “larger clubs” such as Forest, Wednesday and Leeds. The club has expanded its ground and has even come through their own bubble/crunch in the form of a brief but crazy flirtation with the excesses of Icelandic ownership. Even if they go down, they remain a top flight club – with the most pessimistic of supporters confident of a quick if not instant return.

Given this, perhaps my boys can follow the Hammers after all – it’ll teach them how to keep going despite the setbacks.

Whether trying to get in, stay in, or get on, adopting group norms is key

Everyone has their uniforms. It says who we are – allowing people to make instant judgements about us, as well as absorb the messages we are trying to express. I thought this while observing someone with Gordon Gekko-style slicked-back hair and a pin-striped suit in a coffee shop in the banking district of Frankfurt. I was early for a meeting and had time to kill. Meanwhile he was making contact with a colleague, a counterpart or a rival (or potentially all three), although was also finding his Blackberry an irresistible distraction.

My instant reaction was questioning. Why would anyone want to look so comically like a trading-floor hard nut (imagine Ray Winstone with too much Brylcreem)? After all, this was the image the BBC and other City-detractors love to portray, so why play up to it? I could just tell he was wearing red braces under his pin-stripes and he no doubt stood up while shouting down the phone – gesticulating wildly around the room to boot.

Yet in reality his haircut and dress-sense were simply short-cuts to the man. This was the image he consciously wanted to project, and he clearly saw it in his advantage to do so. It told the world that he was good at his job, that he understood his field, was integral to it in fact, that he was committed, that he was the real deal, and that – given the nature of his work – he was not to be messed with. Who knows, he may have assumed it attractive to the opposite sex (perhaps reasoning that the messages of success it gave were at least as attractive as the look itself).

Of course there are two other ways of looking at his dress sense. That he wasn’t part of this world and wanted to be. Or that he felt insecure within it and needed visual aids to mask this insecurity.

Both of these possibilities are likely to be harshly judged by outsiders, yet both have their merits. John Timperley , in Network Your Way to Success offers strong tips for developing great “rapport” with the industry insiders we want to impress (for jobs, promotions, deals, introductions). While some of them are obvious – like, smiling, agreeing, listening etc – some are less so, of which one is “dress to impress”. Here he implores us to adopt “group norms” with respect to how we look, which in the modern career world – for men at least – usually involves a dark suit, a sober shirt and tie and a hair-cut that says I’m ready for business rather than ready for the rock-concert at the weekend. So, who knows, our man may have been Head of Stationery but was keen to move on, his extreme look a heightened call for action in this respect. Indeed, many self-help gurus advise us to "fake it til we make it" - most notably Steve Chandler in 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself.

And such extreme adoption of group norms can go beyond the world of work. A vivid memory of my youth is the sight of two of my home town’s toughest kids turning up at a disco for mods (this was at the peak of the early-1980s mod revival) dressed in suits and long-green parkas. They’d cut their hair and even bought the scooters, such was the strength of their signal: “we want to join your gang”. And just to make sure the other mods knew they meant it, they terrorised the local “head-bangers” (mostly sixth-formers with a liking for Pink Floyd) for the next six months. Certainly, they knew that adopting group norms was the key to entry, and they executed their adoption with relish.

But what of the insecurity that may have also driven our banker to adopt his potentially-paradoxical uniform? Certainly, “imposter phenomenon” is a very real issue in the workplace. Originally discovered in women by two psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes it is now recognised that anyone that feels themselves to be an outsider (for whatever reason: class, age, education, region of origin, race or sexuality being the most obvious examples) can suffer from IP (they shy away from calling it a “syndrome”), despite having no less right to be there than anyone else. And while one reaction may be to hide – to become the wallpaper in the room – such a tactic is a quick route to failure on a trading floor. In such a tough environment, maybe a better solution is to adopt a mask – one that will not only hide our insecurities, but may well project the opposite. In this respect, what could be better than the most parodied version of “group norm” available?