Don’t Kid Yourself: Beware of the Chameleon Effect
You know what’s amazing? It’s the ability we all have to change our environment based upon our view of it. I’m not talking about any mysticism or hocus pocus, but a proven psychological ability that we as human beings have. It’s called the “Chameleon Effect”, also known as the “Pygmalion Effect” or the Rosenthal effect (after the researcher Robert Rosenthal who first studied it), it deals with our natural sense of value attribution and how it affects our lives. People tend to superimpose or imbue things with certain qualities or characteristics based on how they initially perceive them. Our initial impression of something or someone will lead us to view it in a way consistent with that impression.
On a crowded subway platform in Washington D.C., Joshua Bell (a Grammy Award-winning violinist who plays to sold-out crowds in symphonies around the world) pulled out his $3.5 million Stradivarius violin during morning rush hour, and
Trust: A Must Have Commodity in Today’s Business World
Trust. The commodity that in today’s world is so valuable that without it, a person or organization will be greatly limited in what they can accomplish.
Gone are the days where simply an office title or a person’s apparent status in a group is enough to help them influence others in order to successfully accomplish a project or some other goal. Whether it is in a private company or as a volunteer leader for a community, without the commodity of trust in their leadership repertoire, a person who “believes they can accomplish great things” may be heading for a huge fall when Read more
Ethical Dilemmas: Doing the Right Thing
We as people will often face situations where we have to decide between competing values. Values that are often both positive yet the decision we make is going to be painful to either someone or a group that we care about. In such situations, the best course of action to take is not always clear, yet the choice that’s made can have major consequences. As a leader, the choices we make will always influence how others see us and in turn affect what we can get accomplished moving forward. So how do we select the best option when faced with Read more
