Changing Minds: A Powerful New Approach

There’s a hot new topic in town, and its name is neuroscience. It’s affecting everything from leadership, to sales, to studies on community and human connection. A collaboration between the Wharton Executive Education and Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management has poured hours into creating the Nano Tools for Leaders, which has resources and practical instructions that can be applied to any business, or any situation, in just minutes.

Jonah Berger, Wharton marketing professor and author of The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind, has recently laid out some action items that can help in changing peoples’ minds. This has an obvious benefit to those in sales, but can also help us overcome obstacles in our everyday lives. No one enjoys being told what to do, and when an interaction starts out with an order or perceived aggressiveness, a potential customer may be immediately lost. Likewise, disagreements with friends, neighbors, or family members can be difficult, but helping to guide people within choice boundaries can resolve them quickly and peacefully. The potential benefit to this type of communication is endless. Check out the full article here, and see if these tools can help in the next sale, negotiation, or disagreement that comes along.

Boosting Your Emotional Intelligence

Being the best leader in the room isn’t always about being the smartest or most successful. Sometimes the best leaders are the ones that connect with the those around them. Often times, this is the leader with the highest level Emotional Intelligence (EI). Not all leaders are born with an inherent sense of what others might be feeling. Some need constant reminders that not everyone is feeling exactly the same at any given moment. With the past year having been what it was, however, the ability to understand that everyone processes these situations differently is more important than ever.

A recent Kellogg Insight Podcast featuring Kellogg’s clinical leadership professor Brenda Ellington Booth dives deep into exactly what EI is, and how you can boost your own sensitivities. Whether you are in-person with your staff or on a Zoom meeting with strangers, a better grasp on EI will serve to bolster your leadership abilities. Give a listen and see what you can improve.

Bringing Your Conscience to Work

Wharton’s Business Responsibility professor G. Richard Shell’s graduate course is full of those he calls “ethics refugees”. By this he is referring to those who have entered the business world at a young age, only to be put into a position where valued principles are called into question. Situations of sexual harassment, discrimination, fraud, deception, etc. When faced with these moral dilemmas, some pushed back, and some became so disillusioned that a retreat into the safe harbor of an MBA was necessary.

Inspired by these stories, Shell wrote the book on the subject. The Conscience Code: Lead With Your Values, Advance Your Career is out in paperback this week. The book is organized into 10 chapters that outline the creation of a “conscience code” for resolving problems. Designed as a practical guide to navigating some of the more common sticky ethical situations, the book is able to inspire readers into action, or into recognizing the consequences of inaction.

In a new episode of the Wharton podcast, professor Shell discusses the steps laid out in the book and how to apply them to real-life work situations. “None of us can read other people perfectly, and organizations have branding consultants that burnish their ethical credentials,” Shell says. “I like to tell my students: If you want to stay healthy, don’t go swimming in a dirty pond.”

Gender Diversity in the Boardroom

It is well known that there is a severe shortage of women in positions of leadership in Corporate America. Recently, though, companies all around the United States are adding more women to their boards of directors; but what is prompting the change? David Matsa, a professor at the Kellog School of Management, suspected that this trend was not just coincidence, or even mass enlightenment. He suspected it was a result of pressures from outside influences. According to recent research, he was right.

These changes seem to be the result of pressures from venture capital and institutional investors. In particular, the “Big Three”: Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street. Started in 2017 by State Street’s “Fearless Girl” campaign, and continued by Vanguard and BlackRock in 2018, these companies (and the capital they influenced) were driving boardroom gender diversity. As Matsa says: “When your largest shareholders create a ruckus, you listen.”

Read the full article here, and discover how Matsa’s research highlights what works, and what is outdated about the modern day boardroom.

Improving Your E-Commerce Conversion Rate

An e-Commerce business might just be one of the simplest and most common ways to start a company in our modern world. Statistics show that there are between 12-24 million e-commerce websites internationally at any given time. If you own or work for one of these businesses, you might be wondering how to increase your conversion rates without necessarily increasing traffic to your website. Currently, fewer than 10% of the millions of e-commerce websites net a total of more than $1,000 USD per year. If you’d like to make your way into that upper eschelon, check out a recent article from LeeLine Sourcing, a sourcing partner to import goods from China.

Sharline Shaw, founder of LeeLine Sourcing lays out a few simple steps to increase your customer conversion rates (the amount of visitors to your website that will become buyers/subscribers). Read it and see if some of these tips can help improve your conversion rate and get your business into the coveted top 10%.

The Coming Crypto Revolution

Professor Scott Galloway and his “No Mercy, No Malice” blog have been featured here in previous posts. Recently he explored what for many is the new world of crypto assets and the revolution they portend.  Many Boomer executives have found themselves at a disadvantage over the last few decades during the technology boom vis a vis younger “digital natives.”  According to Galloway, a new and more profound level of frustration awaits the over 50 set in what may be called the “crypto revolution.”   

It started as just being about bitcoin (i.e. crypto currency), but now other crypto assets are emerging.  The digital artist Beepie recently sold an NFT (non fungible token) associated with his work for $69 million which designates it as the original (that’s right; $69 million for a virtual asset).

Galloway explores how two fundamental drivers of value; Trust and Scarcity, are being found in the world of crypto assets.  As these drivers are fundamental to value in our businesses as well, we must learn more about this development.  As Galloway says; “Crypto is a $2 trillion disruptive force.”  It’s not going away.

If you’re behind on things crypto, and want to start understanding this, check out this TED Talk on Blockchain, the underlying technology of the crypto world.

Investing in Equity

Kesha Cash is a trailblazer. Last fall, she and her VC firm Impact America Fund (IAF) successfully raised $55 million aimed at early-stage startups that benefit communities of color. The amount was reportedly the largest ever raised by a solo Black female general partner. In a field where people - especially women - of color are woefully underrepresented, this is a major milestone. Ms. Cash and her team, however, are less interested in milestone recognition and more interested in the moral imperative of closing the wealth gap and challenging the structural inequities that are pervasive in the business community.

Recently Stefanie Thomas, a founding member of the IAF team, spoke with Wharton’s Katherine Klein for her Dollars and Change podcast. Part of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, the podcast highlights those at the forefront of corporate social responsibility, and is a great resource for those in leadership who would like to expand their impact on progressing corporate culture.

Thomas and Klein discuss IAF’s mission, their stories, and how social responsibility is not mutually exclusive from competitiveness and profitability. Check out the podcast and associated article, and learn a thing or two about how this “small but mighty” firm is creating opportunities for new start-ups that are making a meaningful difference.

3 Tools to Help Your Team During a Transition

We all have to navigate times of uncertainty and change at some point in our lives. Whether these changes are professional, personal, or societal, they can be eased by using what developmental psychologist D. W. Winnicott termed “transitional objects”. This could be something physical (such as a literal security blanket), or something more abstract (an idea, a routine, or agreement). These things can help someone feel grounded when the world around them is spinning. Research shows that not only can these transitional objects help employees during times of upheaval, but there are things that leaders can do to ease the process. Specifically, those in leadership need to consider three important attributes that help people process transitions:

• choice,

• a connection to a purpose,

• and using something new as a bridge toward the new goal or situation.

Now that more and more of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID and companies are able to return to work in various capacities, we are once again in a transitional period. As we make our way back into physical office space, resume travel, and are otherwise becoming used to the “new normal”, take a look at HBR’s article on how leaders are best able to help their teams through this next period of change.

Leadership and Neuroscience

Have you ever wondered what makes a leader’s brain different? What makes it tic? What makes team-building, decision-making, and inspiration easier for some than others? How does one maximize this potential? Well, thanks to today’s advances in neuroscience, we are beginning to see answers to those questions. Recently, Professor Michael Platt, Director of the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative, sat down for the new Meet-the-Author interview series, highlighting exciting research coming out of the Wharton School.

Platt’s new book, The Leader’s Brain, begins to explain how certain genetic traits in our neuro-physiology may predispose some to be more talented leaders. It can also explain why two different leaders will make drastically different decisions when presented with the same problem, and why even the most charismatic and talented leaders can sometimes make disastrous mistakes.

Check out Wharton marketing Professor Peter Fader’s interview with Platt (originally live streamed on Wharton’s LinkedIn page) to get a great introduction to the new book, and even pick up a few tips on how to maximize the parts of your own brain that make a great leader.

Lessons in Vulnerability

Brene Brown rocketed to business stardom with her TED Talk on vulnerability; specifically, that leadership without the ability and willingness to be authentic and candid about one’s self is rarely seen as leadership.  But, like everything else, there’s a right and wrong way for a leader to display vulnerability.

If you want to be effectively and authentically vulnerable as a leader, check out this conversation between Dr. Brown and Wharton Business School’s Adam Grant in which she offers an important nuance on leadership and vulnerability that may help you avoid crossing the line between “authenticity and self-absorption”.

With the simplicity and clarity that has made her TED Talk and books so popular, she shows us “How to be vulnerable at work without spilling everything, from Brine Brown.  Her six word formula for doing so is profound. If you’re like most people and need more Brene-inspired leadership knowledge, check out her podcast that debuted last fall, Dare to Lead.