Even Leaders Get the Blues

We all fall for the “grass is greener” thing. Employees wish for their boss’s power and authority, managers are jealous of executive pay and perks, and workers dream of starting their own business.
The only “grass is greener” scenario you never hear about happens more frequently than most would imagine. That’s when leaders have days I can only describe as demoralizing and depressing.
Look, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that anyone should cry for those who make the rules, not to mention the big bucks. That said, leaders shoulder a great deal of responsibility, and the stress and disappointment can be almost crushing at times.
I recently happened upon a post that brought back some memories I’d just as soon forget. In “Leadership Caffeine: A Mostly Thoughtful Guide to Surviving Bad Leadership Days,” consultant and writer Art Petty shines a rare but compassionate light on those in power:

Consider These Less Than Joyous Leadership Occasions:

• One of your top players and someone that you’ve invested a great deal of time mentoring announces that she is resigning.
• You just spent most of your day justifying your team’s existence to upper management.
  
• In spite of knowing better, you lost it and snapped at someone that truly didn’t deserve that reaction. (No one deserves that reaction.)
• You spent the day deciding who gets laid off and who doesn’t.
• One of your team’s major projects blew up and you spent the day as a human shield while your group took shots from everywhere in the organization.
• Your 360-degree feedback suggested that you have more than a few opportunities to improve.
• Speaking of feedback, you managed to end up with two people crying in your office today. You thought about it yourself.
• At 8:00 a.m., you saw the competitor’s announcement of the game-changing new product. Your deodorant failed by 11:00 a.m. when you were explaining to the executives yet again why you didn’t have a good response to the competitor.

Having lived through every one of these scenarios, not to mention quite a few others, I can attest to how draining and depressing those days can be. Just because a company has invested in you and depends on you doesn’t mean your confidence, optimism, and drive don’t occasionally abandon you.
Art offers 7 suggestions for those days when you’d just as soon throw in the towel:

Every problem or crisis is an opportunity to build your leadership skills along with your confidence and credibility.

Problems create teachable opportunities. Don’t waste these opportunities.

It’s the challenges that you and your team conquered that you will remember.

Remember that you don’t have to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Ask for help.

People aren’t programmed to act and respond in ways that always fit your plans.

Be thankful for feedback that says that you can improve.

Leaders earn dividends over the long term.

My method for dealing with this stuff is usually to whine to my fellow mates  and drink heavily. Come to think of it, it might actually be cathartic to drudge up some of those horrible old memories, not to mention illuminating to share my worst days as an executive with you, faithful readers. Stay tuned.

if

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

To or Not to

Once I read in a blog "Do not post somethig personal in your blogs". thI thought the reasons given by that blogger were pretty good. But how to define what "personal" is. Where is the thin line between public and private life? It had always been a tough call . when I look at my blogs these days I feel like more personal stuff out there rather than my random ramblings. My mind is always divided on this issue. To handle the freedom of virtual world gets tough on my nerves. It takes me back to my first blog ,deleted. I discussed a lot about childhood ,how a lot of impact is being made on a child's mind through adult's conduct ,sometimes just unknowingly. And how those unknowing things affected me. This attracted some attention
I had no idea what kind of impact it would make on some who is going to read . I simply wrote everything on my mind. A reader from a far flung place told me that she found the similarities between my situation and her family's and how they failed to recognize it and how my blog tells her that it is true. I was totally surprised. I felt I was not ready to discuss something personal and withdrew the blog. Now I write anything. Topics don't bother me whether they are personal or not. I delete some posts when I am in a dubious mind . But Now this looks more like my personal diary to me. I always refused to show it to others since my childhood. Now I post certain stuff which I can't fathom someone I knew only through web will be reading and feeling a lot known about me. Will that be true? Virtual world can beat real world communication?. I never thought so. But where to draw the line...why I withdrew a blog a couple of years back and writing a similar stuff without much guilty feelings now? Sometimes I do feel confused and ask myself one question. Am I ready to take the same stuff to real world?. May be not.when I look at some of my friends who are as closed as GrandMa's trunk and very very personal about anything it reminds me of my earlier self. when I threw caution to the wind ,I don't know!. But this doesn't seem wrong too, nor right . somewhere there is a urge to break that chain what if? and go ahead or just go back to old ways?. To or not to a question is still lingering, but I don't feel like withdrawing this time. I always did what I felt like. Not all of them, but most of them......Only thing that bothers me is I refuse to talk to my best friend about down hill, but I post it online. A couple of years back I would have given him a call rather than blogging about it. which is the only thing that scares me .

ITS ALL ABOUT "LIFE" ......

Its all about “ LIFE “…. 

Cradle as soon you were born, Coffin when you leave the world.

Do something in between. Rule this world, play with this world.

Will laziness bring in bucks? Will it be yours if you just claim it?

Desires.. touches the sky, Life is very short

Turn it upside down, Plough it through... clear it

Live a life on your own term’s …

Oh no! Don’t grib about the opportunity not knocking your door

It would have knocked long back you might have miss hearing it.

If you curse yourself in dark, sitting in dark

There’s no chance of a dawn to you.

Yesterday will not return, nobody knows Whats in store tomorrow

All you have is just today only …

Paths without sorrows, Lives without sorrow’s, Lives without any risk

It is a big bore …

Though you may reach the top of the world and earn billions.

Don’t let fame take over you.

Victory is not somebody’s personal property .It didn’t start with you it’s a 50-50 chance

Just go on …..You can catch a bus if you wait in a bus station.

Whats there for you if you fall into frustration?

All your mistakes till date, you can cover it up with your success.

Rising after a fall is a child’s first lesson...Isn’t it strange we forget it is so quickly?

Knows what you want before embarking a journey .To makes it happy and eventful...

Whatever you fear the most do it one every day, you will never have fear.

Though life hits rock bottom, though life turns into a hell .Work only if you love to do it …… by Saikumar Vuppaladhadium 

More brains and bonkers connection: thinking out of a broken box

We have covered many studies linking creativity with Psychosis and this new study by Manzano et al provides further corroborating evidence.

Dopamine has been linked with psychosis and is now also being increasingly being linked with creativity, especially divergent creativity and thinking style.

Divergent thinking is influenced by dopaminergic function. Reuter [6] found a correlation between divergent thinking (the Inventiveness battery of the Berliner Intelligenz Struktur Test) and polymorphisms of the dopamine D2 receptor gene–DRD2 TAQ IA. Higher creativity scores were observed in carriers of the A1 allele. This polymorphism is unrelated to general intelligence [7], [8], which suggests that it is more specifically related to Glr (“long-term storage and retrieval”). This finding is in line with functional imaging research showing the D2 system to be involved in attentional set shifting and response flexibility, which are important components of divergent thinking [9]. Furthermore, the finding indicates that divergent thinking is related to regional differences in D2 densities, since the DRD2 TAQ IA polymorphism has been shown to modulate D2 binding potential (D2BP) in both striatal [10] and extrastriatal regions [11].

Divergent thinking is traditionally measured using alternate uses test, for eg., in which a familiar object like brick is provided and subjects asked to name novel use for that object. The responses are marked for creativity as per the follwoing criterion:

• Fluency–the number of valid responses;
• Originality–how frequent the participant’s responses were among the responses of the rest of the sample;
• Flexibility–the number of semantic categories produced;
• Switching–the number of shifts between semantic categories;
• and Elaboration–how extensive each response is (if the task involves producing more than single words)

The main findings of the study was that dopamine D2 binding potential (D2BP) receptor density in thalamus correlated negatively with divergent thinking and creativity scores. Here is how the authors interpret the results:

Based on the current findings, we suggest that a lower D2BP in the thalamus may be one factor that facilitates performance on divergent thinking tasks. The thalamus contains the highest levels of dopamine D2 receptors out of all extrastriatal brain regions [33], [45]. Decreased D2BP in the thalamus has been suggested, firstly, to lower thalamic gating thresholds, resulting in decreased filtering and autoregulation of information flow [31] and, secondly, to increase excitation of cortical regions through decreased inhibition of prefrontal pyramidal neurons [46], [47], [48]. The decreased prefrontal signal-to-noise ratio may place networks of cortical neurons in a more labile state, allowing them to more easily switch between representations and process multiple stimuli across a wider association range [49]. This state, which we hereforth will refer to as the “creative bias”, could benefit performance on tasks that involve continuous generation and (re-)combination of mental representations and switching between mind-sets. The creative bias could also explain why the different measures of divergent task performance correlate: A decreased signal-to-noise ratio in thalamus would decrease information gating and possibly increase fluency; decreased signal-to-noise ratio in cortical regions should better enable flexibility and switching between representations; similarly, the associative range should be widened and selectivity should be decreased which might spur originality and elaboration.
Besides carrying benefits related to fluency and switching, the decreased signal-to-noise ratio associated with the creative bias should be disadvantageous in relation to tasks that require high levels of selective attention. Some support for this prediction can be taken from Dorfman [50] who showed that the greater a person’s divergent thinking scores, the slower his or her reaction times were on a negative priming task requiring the inhibition of interfering information. Furthermore, the creative bias may also bring a risk of excessive excitatory signals from the thalamus overwhelming cortical neurotransmission, with ensuing cognitive disorganization and positive symptoms [30]. It is thus tempting to suggest that dopaminergic modulation of neurotransmission mediated through dopamine D2-receptors could be one of the mechanisms which associate creativity with positive psychotic symptoms. Interestingly, positive symptoms are not necessarily related to problems in executive function, at least not to the same extent as negative symptoms [51], which indicates that in the creative individual “blind variation” might be affected without a concomitant decline in “selective retention”. It can be speculated that aberrant thalamic function may promote unusual associations, as well as improved performance on divergent thinking tests in healthy individuals, in the absence of the detrimental effects typically associated with psychiatric disorders. In other words, thinking outside the box might be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box.

In plain English speak, the same decreased signal-to-noise ratio in perfrontal regions that gives rise to creativity also gives rise to proneness to psychosis. The more the noise that is introduced the greater the chances that the ideas generated by ‘blind variation’ are more creative; if the ‘selective retention’ procedure is also defective or loosened to an extent, it may result in psychopathology and psychosis, while if intact it leads to creativity. Thus while one factor , that of loosening of associations, flexibility and set switching is common to both psychosis and creativity, the defects in selective retention may be the crucial factor that distinguishes brains from bonkers.

Six world hypotheses or how we explain eyerything and anything

I recently came across this blog post by Christopher Peterson and was immediately drawn into the work of Stephen Pepper and using Google books access tried to read as much as I could of his print-on-demand book ‘World Hypotheses‘.
It is a philosophical work of how people reason about their world and ‘carve nature at the joints’ but despite being a philosophical work and thus being dense and obtuse to a degree, it is surprisingly lucidly written and in my opinion is an important work that needs to be highlighted.
As per Pepper, we have four valid and mature world hypothesis that are adequate in scope (explain everything) and precision (explain uniquely and not vaguely) and two immature world hypothesis that fail the test of scope/precision in their adequacy. I do not make that distinction and will be treating all six world hypothesis on equal footing. For the record, the inadequate world hypothesis are animism and spiritualism.
A world hypothesis is a way to explain everything in the world and relies on root metaphors to explain thus. Each hypothesis has a pet root metaphor which is sued to illustrate and explain phenomenon or categories, and their relationships.
To met the six world hypothesis follow a stage pattern and it would be my contention that as one matures one may discard one world hypothesis lower down the ladder in favor of the other more developed and mature.
With that let us introduce the world hypothesis. Also taking the lead from Peterson, I’ll be taking an example of my neighbor playing loud music at 2:00 in the night to illustrate different ways of explaining the same event according to the different hypothesis and different root metaphors (and will be lifting from the Peterson article the examples he gave there).
The first hypothesis is that of Formism (realism/ platonic Idealism) i.e. everything is explainable because they belong to a particular category/ form and have characteristic qualities. The root metaphor is that of analogy or similarity. Formism explains in terms of placing whatever we are trying to explain into a category (form). Why did my neighbor play his music loudly at 2:00 AM? Because he is an a**hole!
This theory belongs to the first stage where one is more concerned with Describing things and concerned with traits.
The second hypothesis is that of Animism i.e. everything (even inanimate things like weather) has an underlying spirit that explains the way it behaves. The root metaphor is that of spirit and agency. Animism explains by associating everything we are trying to explain with an underlying spirit that has agency . Why did my neighbor play his music loudly at 2:00 AM? Because he was suddenly possessed by the Michael Jackson spirit!
This theory belongs to the second stage trying to Explain the phenomenon and concerned with impulses and agency.
The third hypothesis is that of Mechanism (most common amongst reductionist scientists) i.e. everything is a machine following laws of cause and effect. If something happens, it happens because of a well defined and unavoidable cause. The root metaphor is that of machine. Mechanism explains in terms of causes: events that regularly precede whatever we are trying to explain. Why did my neighbor play his music loudly at 2:00 AM? Because he passed all of his final exams and that is what people do when they pass exams!
This theory belongs to the third stage that tries to predict and is centered around observable behavior and causal chains.
The fourth hypothesis is that of Contextualism (pragmatism) i.e. everything can be explained in terms of the context or surround in which the figure/event takes place. this is most popular with historians who are used to see events as uniquely determined by the historical and cultural milieu. The root metaphor is that of a historic event. Contextualism explains in terms of the interplay between whatever we are trying to explain and its larger context. Why did my neighbor play his music loudly at 2:00 AM? Because it was Saturday night, and this is a college town!
This theory is properly of the fourth stage focused on how society / larger context can influence and control the phenomenon and is most concerned with social influences.
The fifth hypothesis is that of Organicism (absolute Idealism)i.e. everything is an organic complex whole. The theory is still determinate but as compared to Mechanism is ‘life’ oriented. The root metaphor is that of coherence. Facts are sparse at present and as they emerge and become more complex one reaches in the limits the absolute truth. Organicism explains in terms of the unfolding of the inherent nature of whatever we are trying to explain. Why did my neighbor play his music loudly at 2:00 AM? Because he is a young man who just moved into his own apartment!
the fifth theory is at the fifth stage concerned with integration/ individuation etc and is concerned with emergent properties.
The sixth hypothesis is that if Spiritualism i.e everything is not what it seems and can only be really grasped through the spiritual experience. The root metaphor is that of the spritual experience. All said and done, there is no substitute for experience. the metaphor is also that of Love and can be only felt inter-personally. Only Love is Real. Why did my neighbor play his music loudly at 2:00 AM? Because he loves music and felt at oneness with the world and forgot about time as he got absorbed in the music.
This is clearly a jump from previous stages and belongs to stage 6 dealing with transecdence and interpersonal concerns.
Of course there are bound to be higher (7 & stage theories equally and perhaps better explain the world, and I woudl be glad if readers can point me to those world hypothesis, no matter how inadequate/mystic they may appear at first appearance.
I’m hooked to Pepper, what about you?

The Mouse Trap : Personality and Motivation

I have blogged extensively about personality and how it may be related to emotions. A common theme underlying my discussion of personality and emotion has been these traits/states arising as a result of adaptation to basic evolutionary tasks or problems that each living organism/species has to solve. Where there are problems to be solved or tasks to be accomplished or goals to be achieved,  there is also going to be motivations and drive to achieve them and underlying needs that drive that pursuit. Thus motivation and Personality/ emotion are also intricately linked and associated when one uses the underlying basic adaptive problems paradigm.
In my last post I had mentioned that Personality can be discussed in just descriptive terms as in trait theories, the most famous of which is the five factor model of personality or one could look at the underlying processes and mechanism and come up with theories that are grounded in motivational or cognitive terms as to what actually drives the behavior in consistence with the observable traits and behaviors.
I have recently come across an important paper in my view which tried to bridge this gap by explaining the motivational systems (or reaction norms as they call it) underlying the five factor model of personality.
To recall, the five factor model or OCEAN model posits the following five factors:

1. Neuroticism or sensitivity to negative affect
2. Conscientiousness or ability to delay gratification and persist with task at hand
3. Extraversion: propensity to socialize and be more outgoing
4. Agreeableness: empathetic and cooperativeness
5. Openness to Experience: Intellect and curiosity etc.

Now, I have elaborated or tried to explain the OCEAN  traits as per my understanding, but Dennissen and Penke looked at how prominent personality researchers have interpreted the traits to arrive at a common motivational framework that is grounded in theory and then they developed a scale in accordance with theory to measure  these motivational  reaction norms – the important difference from tradition FFM message scales being that all statements referred to underlying motivations/ propensities etc and did not refer to specific behaviors in specific situations.  They then subjected their scale to factor analysis that came with a five factor structure that was consistent with FFM and also had predictive validity of similar sorts. They thus conclude that their theoretical framework is on the right track.
There are of course problems with such can interpretation, but I found some of their motivational reaction norms pretty consistent with my basic adaptive problems and basic developmental life tasks paradigm, while some I could find were slightly different or more nuanced interpretations.

Looking at the original data set of 9 personalty researchers from where they derived this framework, some of these I could resolve to my satisfaction.
Neuroticism is interpreted as sensitivity to social rejection/exclusion. I have problems with this interpretation in that focuses too much on social dimension, while to me it is general sensitivity to threat/stress.  In their paper they do discuss this:

As can be seen in Table 1, almost all theorists link neuroticism to individual differences in affect regulation, conceptualizing this factor as differences in the ability to handle stress (Buss, 1991), facilitation of performance under pressure (Hogan, 1996), affect regulation (McAdams, 1992; van Lieshout, 2000), and affect intensity. These conceptualizations all regard neuroticism as the sensitivity of a domain-general system to respond to environmental threats. Various studies have also linked neuroticism to individual differences in general differential reactivity to negative events or stressors.
I like the above interpretation of Neuroticism as it is consistent with the adaptive problem of avoiding Foes. However, the authors  chose this interpretation over the above:

By comparison, other conceptualizations treat neuroticismas a trait that is especially activated in situations in which people’s social relationships are threatened. For example, Matthews (2004) pointed out that ‘‘individual differences in human anxiety revolve primarily around social fears such as being criticized or rejected, rather than physical threats” (p. 260, italics added). Support for this conceptualization comes from research by Bolger and colleagues (1989), who found that interpersonal stressors were more important in causing negative mood than non-social ones, such as transportation problems or work overload. Similarly, Denissen and Penke (in press) found that neuroticism was particularly correlated with the intensity of people’s negative reactions to social threats.

Conscientiousness did not have many interpretations:

All theorists listed in Table 1 agree that conscientiousness is involved in task-related behaviors. Speci?cally, McAdams (1992) conceptualizes this factor as involved in work-related behaviors, MacDonald (1995) as the monitoring of non-attainment of goals, van Lieshout (2000) as executive regulation in the performance domain, Ashton and Lee (2001) as the intensity of engagement in task-related behaviors, Buss (1991) as the capacity for reliable work and enduring commitment, and Hogan (1996) as trustworthiness and dependability. Holmes (2002) and Nettle (2006) are arguably most successful in capturing the positive aspects of both poles of the conscientiousness continuum by describing it as the promotion of immediate vs. distant goal striving. This conceptualization nicely maps onto lifespan-theoretical insights regarding individual differences in the tenacity of goal pursuit  (Brandtstädter,Wentura, & Rothermund, 1999). In the current paper, we adopt the view of these various authors that conscientiousness can be plausibly conceptualized as differences in the tenacity of goal pursuit.

To me the goal pursuit tenacity bodes well for adaptive problem of finding Food or exploring.
Extraversion seems to have multiple interpretations, all to my eyes equally valid.:

In Table 1, three clusters of conceptualizations of extraversion emerge. First, van Lieshout (2000) conceptualizes this factor as re?ecting a person’s activation vs. inhibition of impulses, which is somewhat similar to MacDonald’s (1995, 1998) notion of extraversion as re?ecting individual differences in behavioral approach. Both views are consistent with Lucas, Diener, Grob, Suh, and Shao (2000), who hypothesized that extraversion is positively associated with the sensitivity of individuals’ reward system. Because these authors view positive affect as a proxy of the activity of the general reward system, this hypothesis can also account for the high correlations between extraversion and individual differences in positive affect (Watson & Clark, 1997), even when controlling for social activity (Watson, Clark, McIntyre, & Hamaker, 1992).
A second cluster of explanations of the extraversion factor is the notion that this trait is involved in people’s hierarchical proclivity (Buss, 1991), leadership potential (Hogan, 1996), or disposition to wield power (McAdams, 1992). In addition, the disposition for dominance vs. submission in accessing resources is one of the two social dimensions that can be mapped onto extraversion in Holmes’ (2002) model. However, a problem with this account is that differences in dominance seem to be confounded by differences in competitive resources such as physical prowess, mental ability, material wealth, and social alliances, which depend not only on extraversion but also on other personality factors, such as general problem-solving ability and persistence in reaching goals.
Third, extraversion has been linked to the motivational predisposition to experience social interactions as rewarding (Ashton & Lee, 2001; McCrae & Costa, 1987). Insofar as this predisposition motivates people to seek out the company of others, this view is consistent with Holmes’ (2002) second possible conceptualization of extraversion as tapping into people’s level of assertiveness vs. passivity in initiating social contacts. In an empirical study, Ashton, Lee, and Paunonen (2002) presented evidence for this position, showing that a ‘‘tendency to engage and enjoy social attention” (p. 246) correlates very highly (.74) with traditional extraversion measures. Ashton et al. (2002) reasoned that extraversion can be adaptive because it is correlated with people’s ‘‘social attention-holding power” (Gilbert, 1989), allowing for the exertion of group in?uence and the attraction of possible mates (Campbell, Simpson, Stewart, & Manning, 2003; Nettle, 2005, 2006). In the current paper, we take this latter explanation as a plausible conceptualization of extraversion, though other explanations (e.g., as differences in general reward sensitivity) might also be consistent with the empirical evidence.

I am most sympathetic to second and third interpretations as they directly relate to the problem of Making Friends and Alliances.
Agreeableness is interpreted in two ways:

In Table 1, two clusters of conceptual interpretations for agreeableness can be discerned (the conceptualization by Ashton & Lee, 2001, is directed at a rotational variant of this factor and will not be considered here). First of all, several theorists regard agreeableness as fostering intimate relationships, conceptualizing it as enjoyment of other people’s company (Hogan, 1996), facilitation of intimate family relationships and parental investment (MacDonald, 1995), or dispositional love (McAdams, 1992). This conceptualization is consistent with the hypothesized social nature of personality traits. However, Hogan’s (1996) notion of enjoyment of other people’s company is dif?cult to differentiate from sociability, a key feature of extraversion. In addition, MacDonald’s (1995) emphasis on the facilitation of intimate family relationships and parental investment is not consistent with ?ndings by Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, and Hair (1996) that the effects of agreeableness on reactions to interpersonal con?ict with non-kin individuals do not consistently differ from reactions to con?icts with kin.
A second cluster of conceptualizations of agreeableness focuses on this factor’s role in human cooperative behavior, with Buss (1991) relating it to people’s willingness to cooperate, Holmes (2002) to acting cooperative vs. competitive, Nettle (2006) to empathy and trust vs. self-interest, and van Lieshout (2000) to the coordination vs. opposition of joint interests. This conceptualization is consistent with game-theoretical research on reputations of cooperation vs. competition in resource dilemma’s (Rasmusen, 2006) and with research by van Lange and colleagues (van Lange, 1999; van Lange, De Bruin, Otten, & Joireman, 1997) regarding the existence of individual differences in social value orientation. Finally, Koole, Jager, van den Berg, Vlek, and Hofstee (2001) showed that agreeableness is related to altruistic behavior when playing a variant of the public goods game. Consistent with this evidence, we propose that agreeableness can be plausibly conceptualized as individual differences in this tendency to display altruistic behavior.

To me the first interpretation of empathy and prenatal investment and intimate family relations is consistent with the adaptive problems of having and caring for Kids. The second interpretation of altruistic behavior and cooperativenes is equally acceptable as presumably this builds on primitive kin-non-kin concerns and parental investment propensities.
The last factor Openness to Experience I have elsewhere reinterpreted as conformity/rebelliousness. The authors find following interpretations:

As can be seen in Table 1, several clusters of conceptualizations exist for the openness to experience factor. All conceptualizations converge in their conceptualization of this trait as involving a high level of cognitive activity, as indicated by having a broad, deep, and permeable consciousness (McCrae & Costa, 1997), a high propensity for innovation and solving problems (Buss, 1991; Hogan, 1996), engagement in the intellectual and creative domain (McAdams & Pals, 2006; Nettle, 2006; van Lieshout, 2000), processing incomplete information (Holmes, 2002), and intrinsically motivated curiosity facilitating the development of cognitive competence (MacDonald, 1995). In trying to make sense of this factor, however, openness should be distinguished from psychometric intelligence, which is correlated with openness but not identical to it (McCrae & Costa, 1987; also see Penke et al., 2007a).
A parallel distinction was made by Ackerman (1996), who noted the difference between maximum and typical levels of intelligence: whereas the former is identical to operationalizations of psychometric intelligence, the latter has been shown to correlate very highly with openness to experience (Goff & Ackerman, 1992). This conceptualization is almost identical to Cacioppo and colleagues’ (1996) construct of need for cognition, which they de?ned as ‘‘a stable individual difference in people’s tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity” (p. 198). Empirically, this view is supported by Berzonsky and Sullivan (1992), who found a correlation of .78 between need for cognition and the NEO-PI-R openness to ideas scale (though the correlation with other openness facets was lower). Accordingly, we propose that openness can be plausibly conceptualized as differences in the reward value of engaging in cognitive activity.

The need for cognition may be driven by the evolutionary task of identifying kin from non-kin.
To me this looks promising and in the expected direction. I’ll be watching research from this group more keenly henceforth and keep you guys posted.

An Article That Describes the Currency trading and The Euro Crisis and its Impact on the Diff Economic and Financial Effects

There are four known currency pairs that dominate the percentage of trades. This are identified when buying and selling in the forex currency trading system market. These four currency pairs are the Euro vs. U.S. Dollar, the U.S. Dollar vs. the Japanese Yen, the U.S. Dollar vs. Swiss Franc, and the U.S. Dollar vs. the British Pound.

The euro remains very attractive against the pound and the dollar despite the ongoing problems presented by European Debt and the probable bailouts or defaults. It has been stated in which two thirds of European economists surveyed expect Greece to default on their debt. Last year such an announcement would have had the markets in absolute turmoil, indeed much of last year’s weakness on the euro was due to the debt crisis.

This year despite the well publicized problems in Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain the Euro remains a very unattractive prospect for those looking at buying overseas property. This is due to a number of factors which I mentioned and explained in detail below:

– EFSF – The European Financial Stability Facility is designed to act a safety net for indebted European nations. The fund has recently been made permanent and has given the markets the confidence that the ECB and stronger Euro zone members are serious about coming to the financial aid of the weaker members – a criticism levied at many members. As discussed European Debt concerns had been a major weight on the euro last year but now the issue is well known and appears to be being dealt with confidence has been restored. It is worth noting that longer term this is likely to be the issue that could present Euro weakness as concerns arises over the inability of the indebted nations to repay their debts.

– Interest Rate Decisions – The UK looked almost certain to have a rate hike in the first quarter of this year and the pound made strong gains on the euro as investors positioned themselves for the event. We then had a barrage of data releases showing that in all probability the UK wasn't ready for a hike and as such these positions were unwound and led to sterling weakness. Conversely the Euro zone has been floating the prospects of an interest rate hike as soon as next month. With unemployment falling it appears the Euro zone may have turned a corner and will be the first to stomach a rise in the base rate. This has compounded the problems for the GBPEUR rate as investors have taken up stronger positions on the Euro. The US economy whilst growing is still incredibly weak and due to the amount of cheap loans issued to stimulate recovery cannot afford to go raising rates. They are still administering the latest round of Quantitative Easing and will need to fully assess the effects before committing to a rate hike.

- Economic Outlooks - The economic outlook for the Euro has improved this year with encouraging signs in manufacturing and factory orders. Unemployment is falling and the overall picture remains buoyant despite the problems of the PIGS. The UK is suffering from very low growth and the immediate future does not look rosy either. It could be months or a year before the economy is deemed strong enough to be able to handle a rate hike and even then if the Euro has already had one, it is unlikely to be a major mover.

And now a Question Arises to us When will the Euro weaken?

 

 For this: The Euro has been under huge pressure recently as a result of the debt crisis. Despite this the Euro remains very strong as a currency which often has clients asking me when the Euro will weaken.

This is normally in relation to the GBP (Great Britain Pound) EUR rate. With the well publicized nature of the debt crisis this is a good question to be asking. After all this time last year the rate was in the 1.20's... We are now a year later and the debt crisis has only got worse.

Interest Rates – the currency is attractive to buy which keeps it strong. The higher a countries interest rate, the more investment it receives, and hence the stronger it grows. The raising of interest rates is a sign to the wider world that the Euro zone economy is expanding and can allow an interest rate hike. Looking specifically at the GBP EUR rate the sterling side is weak due to low interest rates. You only need to look at the weakness of the pound against most other currencies to understand why it is also weak against the Euro. The prospect of an interest rate hike is again being pushed into 2012 for the UK, and the Federal Reserve has said rates could be on hold until 2013! Can your currency transfer wait a year or even two in the hope things ‘might' improve?

Germany – When investors look to the Euro they look at the whole economy and not just individual nations. So the poor state of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain), whilst a major concern is not the whole story. Despite some worse than expected GDP figures coming out today for Germany, Germany has a very healthy economy with very strong exports. The long term expectations are that this will continue. Contrast this to the UK with a Manufacturing and Industrial sector in decline, and a financial sector tarred by the global financial crisis.

Economic and Political Will – There is a massive political and economic will behind the Euro. The backdrop to the current arrangement is a long bloody history and the original idea behind the economic union was to prevent the countries going to war again. To get to where we are today has taken decades of negotiation and consensus which I cannot see being undone quickly. Whilst coming under immense pressure for not acting decisively enough, the Euro zone leaders also have provided the financial back up to deal with the crisis. There are current questions over whether the bailout funds will manage Italy, hence the recent volatility, but the ECB (European Central Bank) have tools to dampen the volatility.

Eurobonds – Presently each Euro zone member issues bonds themselves. Bonds are used by governments to finance the day to day running of the country. By auctioning off debt on a promise to pay back in the future, investors provide credit and liquidity to keep the governments functioning. The idea of a Eurobond would be to consolidate the members borrowing, thereby reducing the amount of interest on bonds weaker nations have to pay because they are weak. Germany has said they will not back a Eurobond but only because they feel the indebted nations (PIIGS) don't have their house in order. It is foreseeable that Germany would back the Eurobonds if the PIIGS can show themselves to be able to benefit from the Eurobond scheme. I personally cannot see how the weaker nations can manage long term in the current state. I feel the Eurobond is one answer to Europe's problems and if announced down the line will further help the Euro.

Despite the huge uncertainty in the market the Euro remains strong. Europe is the UK's biggest trading partner and we have invested heavily in their debt. For better or for worse we are part of Europe. If you believe the Euro zone will collapse, or even hope that it will because you feel suddenly the GBPEUR rate will improve, I would advise caution. The collapse of the Euro zone or further major shocks will hurt the UK economy which is already under huge strain.

In my opinion getting the best rate is about setting realistic expectations over your time frame and being ready to pounce when things are favorable. Part of our service is to not only offer award winning exchange rates, but also keep clients informed and updated so that they have all the information to make informed decisions.

Here are the five main reasons why this is the case.

1.     Internally, the euro zone is a terrible mess, with extreme imbalances of debt, trade and competitiveness, but in aggregate, it looks like a remarkably strong economy. The current account is broadly in balance, public debt and the ongoing deficit as a proportion of GDP remains well below that of the US, levels of household and private indebtedness are relatively low, and there's even a little growth, albeit fast disappearing.

2.     China is attempting to diversify its foreign exchange reserves away from undue reliance on the dollar. The euro is the biggest and most obvious alternative.

3.     Interest rates are higher than in the US and the UK, and there has been no quantitative easing of any significance to debauch the currency.

4.     The dollar and sterling are justifiably weak. All problems are relative, and both the US and the UK still have big ones in terms of dealing with the aftermath of the financial crisis.

5.     If the euro zone breaks up, forcing weaker members such as Greece to leave, you are left with a potentially much stronger core. The more "Germanic" the centre of gravity in the euro zone, the stronger the currency will be.

The question is whether this underlying narrative can survive the current crisis. Back in the early noughties, the euro slipped below parity with the dollar. This might happen again. Here's why. By common agreement, the euro will either breakup or it must move to some form of joint liability, fiscal union. At the moment, we appear set on the latter course. But the politics make it extraordinarily difficult to engineer. At best, it's going to happen incrementally and probably in a quite unsatisfactory manner. With Europe lurching from one crisis to the next, it's hard to believe there's going to be much in the way of economic growth.

In countering such sluggishness, the European Central Bank will eventually be forced to abandon present disciplines and engage in much easier monetary policies, including quantitative easing. In the meantime, the credit worthiness of the Franco-German core will be undermined by progressive acceptance of liability for the periphery's legacy and future debts.

If on the other hand, the single currency does come apart at the seams, then chaos will reign, and it will be hard to determine who owes what to whom. In such circumstances all parts of the currency would lose value, not just the detaching periphery.

Even if market conditions do change and we start to see a lot more volatility, it will be only last for a few weeks anyway because we have the Christmas and New Year holidays just around the corner, and the markets are always very quiet and impossible to trade at that time of the year.

How to Defeat your Fear?

 

 How to Defeat your Fear? -- Saikumar

A very first question, I want to ask you before began to work on Idea. “What is fear”? It seems very stupid question but have never ending answers. I believe “Fear occurs due to lack of knowledge”. Suppose you are into the exam room and after see the question paper you saw some unexpected questions at that time, why the fear occurs? Due to lack of knowledge, when you are into the office and deadline on your head. Due to uncompleted work, again your fear occurs because you don’t know how to handle these circumstances and what will happen? If you would loose your job?
Sometimes fear occurs due to some bad experiences .After the study of thoughts, many researchers have cleared that we can determine our own outcome. Even if things go apparently wrong there is always a positive experience and lesson to be learned, which will make the next experience more enriching.
Faiths never show us the path of fear of god but it always reminds us that future holds whatever we desire.

So, if we live with fearful mind, so be it. Same as well happened on opposite manners too.By the metaphysics concept energy of thought influences the energies of life. Be it simply stated that fear based on how one sees the past and the future, can be terminated. It is just the matter of changing point of view for instance a person stand upon a mountain top and the vast city below looks like an insect colony but it doesn’t mean city has shrunken but person perspective towards city has changed.

You can move fear by different viewpoint and your fear will become interesting lesson. Like I mentioned on started, fear paralyzes due to lack ness of knowledge. To remove fear sees it by different point of view and make it more interesting thing to learn.

Waking up your "Subconscious Mind"

A question that has been in my mind for a long time - "Whether Science can explain all things in this universe?" or "Whether religions, their sayings can explain this universe?". Though many theories have come up, neither science nor religion explained all things in the universe. Science not able to prove all birth of the universe and other kinds whereas religious followers not able to prove the existence of God.

Meanwhile we have to see something which most of us are unaware of - something supernatural - something which only few people know that they have. Few people have claimed to move or lift objects without touching the object. Many such cases has been shown in the TV. Scientists says that some use science and tricks to make an illusion to others. However science is not able to explain completely the reason for certain cases where it found no such tricks. In such cases, scientists say that these people use the power of mind to move the objects without touching them.

Brain consists of two parts, conscious mind and subconscious mind. Conscious mind is something which we are aware of. Subconscious mind is something which is millions times more powerful and speeder than conscious mind. By practice and repeated actions, we (may be others also) program our subconscious mind. That is why when speaking or driving we dont think and we do work automatically. But when we do new things like learning to drive, we tend to think and use our conscious mind to do our work, which is why we are slow. Around 95% of our activities are performed by our sub-conscious mind.

Sometimes we feel that there is something/force that is responsible for an incident. Say for eg, A person believes that he gets placed in a specific company or gets selected in a specific college and when it actually happens he feels wondered that what he thought has happened. We can call that as our instinct.

Science is now trying to relate the power that the subconscious mind has, with the events of the world and lot of research has been going on in this aspects. They also found some positive results in their research. Some reports say that, power of subconscious mind was used by some people to cure diseases. They started to believe that they will be relieved from the disease. The main thing is to make the subconscious mind believe something, in other words, program it. When we know what we can do with our subconscious mind, we can do things that we think that we are not capable of. So its upto you to have a control over your subconscious mind and achieve ur goals.

Positive and Negative Thoughts

Many, even I, have insisted to have positive approach in your life. Having a positive thought will help you to have success in your life. When you believe in you, you will be successful. As always, too much of anything is fit for nothing. Even the positive approach you have should be limited to certain cases. Negative thoughts are also important in certain parts of your life.

If you are so much positive and say that I wont die when I fall from 5th floor of your building, you are certainly a fool. You have to have negative thoughts as well. Positive thoughts helps you to move ahead, and negative thoughts helps you not to move ahead towards danger. Your positive thought allows you to invent something new. Your negative thought helps you to figure out what danger is present in it, how to overcome certain dangers if it occurs.

So be positive in your life, invent , succeed and at the same time don't be over positive. So be negative, figure out the dangerous pits, succeed and at the same don't be over negative

Self Confidence vs Inferiority Complex

Self confidence and Inferiority complex are inversely proportional. More you have self confidence in one thing, the lesser is your inferiority complex. Self confidence is one of the key points to success in a person's life. So I would like to share some points here on this.

Most people (including me) have inferiority complex. Our natural habits along with the environment around us is one of the reasons for a person having inferiority complex or lower in self confidence. Some have stage fright, some may not know how to express to others what they wanted to, and like that we can keep on adding. There are some instances due to which few get more inferiority complex. For eg., when parents compare their child with a student who is doing better than that child in academics or sports or whatever. How the child takes that comparison, depends on the character of that child. A better way to make the child come up is to boost her confidence by asking the child to do well in the future or offering prizes/gifts. There are more chance for remembering what we learn in childhood, so it is better to direct the child in the right way than to wait till the child has grown up.

There are some useful tips that you could learn to gain in self confidence.
1) Speak to others right from childhood. It helps you to be fluent and bold enough.

2) Learn more stuffs. May it be academics, technology, current affairs or history. It helps you to speak with more confidence because you have more chance of knowing information about topics that you are speaking.

3) If you have stage fright:
i) Before getting to the stage, take some water and take deep breath to reduce your nervousness
ii) Look at the audience as though they don't know anything. Whatever you tell is correct and they don't know anything more than you do.
iii) Think of some person who used to encourage you always say your father or mother, and assume that there are 1000 or more clones of that person standing back of the audience and there to support you and to take care of people who are insulting/bullying you.
iv) Always think of "claps of the audience". Imagine what you would feel if the victory is yours and you are being held up by 100s of people. Imagine the roar that you hear at the situation.
v) Don't by-heart what you want to speak in the stage. Just learn the working. You will then be out of fear.

4) Keep in mind that, everyone are born as child and everyone are prone to mistakes. So don't fear of failures but remember that every failure and success is an experience.

5) Develop positive attitude. I would like you to have a look at the following two links.,
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5062347274311905529

http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5062347274311905529&postID=3636434882230596596

6) If you have a feel that you haven't got anything in your life, and you developed inferiority complex within yourself, just go to the outside world and see how many are worse than you. Try to be happy with what you got rather than worrying about what you haven't got.

7) Final and the most important point to gain more self-confidence is "Do what you fear to do." That is the quickest and the shortest way to reduce your inferiority complex. It is evident that, if he have some deadline or compulsion on to do something, we do that job. So put yourself under compulsion.

There's No Such Thing As "normal"...

The word "normal" is so over-rated.  I don't really believe in the word.

Everyone is different and special in their own way :)

So we're not actually "weird"....  We're unique!  :)

Saturated

Its strange when people say that when you're too busy, you don't notice the time passing by you, but its the times when you have all the time to kill when you notice the time. Being in a very demanding course demands your full time. It crazy when I don't know what day of the week it is, or whose birthday has just passed by, or how long I haven't seen other family members. The crazier thing is that I don't seem to care because I think there are other things that demand more of my time, of my attention for this. Success has a price, but it is subjective. You can't have everything, because when you think you do, you may have sacrificed something else.

Cathartic Procrastinating Wordsmiths

Cathartic Procrastinating Wordsmiths

This is what we are.

We have not the spines to act, not the strength to leap, not the wisdom to see our folly.
All we see is the sorrow, our sorrow, and we keep asking why.
Waiting for someone or something to fix it when all we need to do is follow our hearts to be free.
Circles within circles within circles.

Someone else here said it better than I - "I am so desperately sorry for you, and all the other beautiful birds, trapped in a gilded cage... "
It does not matter how beautiful your cage is, it is still a cage.
I will not die in this cage I built around me, and yes, it was I that built it, I know that now.
The cage door is open.
Almost time to fly...


And the non poetic, non procrastinating, non wordsmith but VERY cathartic version...

**** this! I'm Off!

Vote up! 1

Except For Chocolate, Of Course

I never get to finish my chocolate. I usually have one or two sets of puppy dog eyes looking at it. Usually they are saying "wow look at how big it is" as well. :-)

Life Is Relative :

Life is 100% relative to your situation.  Your life is built on your expectation.  What you expect from a situation will determine whether or not you will be let down or amazed.  For instance, if you’re going see a movie and someone tells you it’s a great movie, and all you hear about it is how good it is.  You go to see it and it doesn’t live up to your expectations.  Well, your then a little let down even if the movie was pretty good.  Every aspect of life is like that.

 If you’re going through a tough or bad situation it feels so much better when things get better.  The tougher or harder the situation the better it feels later.  I myself have gone through it time and time again, and I don’t expect it to stop.  I just live for the good times and survive through the bad times.  For me things are a little more extreme mainly because I am bipolar.   So, the good times are really good and the bad times are tough.

Early in my life I went through a tough situation.  In middle school, I went through a public school hell.  I wrote a piece on it, but it made my private high school experience so much sweeter.  The middle school I went to was about ninety percent black and high school I went to was about ninety percent white.  I went from being picked on every day to being voted class favorite.  But all those wonderful high school years set me up for a big letdown later on.

After high school, I went on to college to chase my dream.  Things were great for about a year or so.  Then my long time high school sweetheart broke up with me.  Well I stayed in college from then on I struggled.  I failed a Calculus class and a few others along the way.  But, what kept me motivated was the fact that no one expected me to graduate college.  Again expectations comes into play, I pushed on an graduated college.  It felt unbelievable to graduate, but in my mind I thought graduating college would fix all my problem.  By that time, I had started dating a girl that was great, smart, pretty, going to be a doctor.  The problem was that I didn’t love her.  In my mind I thought me being an Engineer and her being a Doctor, we would make a boat load of money and be perfectly happy. I found out the hard way that money does mean anything.

Once again expectations come into play, I started working as an Engineer in a really nice office thinking this is going to be great.  I so realized that I hated working in the office. I found myself hating my job and dating a girl that I didn’t want to marry.  So what happened, I had a mental break down went into a mental hospital for a week.  I came out a different person.  A few weeks later I broke up with my girlfriend and quit my job.

It’s been over four years since I broke up with her and about the same since I’ve worked as an Engineer.  Now, I’m almost thirty and I’m single.  I can honestly say that I’m just about as happy now as I’ve ever been.  Yea it’s hard watching all my friends getting married and having kids.  And yea I feel a little jaded because I’m not sure if I want to bring another girl into my life.  I’m a little worried about the future.

To everyone out there that are in bad situations, just make it through and know that better days are coming.  No matter what tomorrow is a new day and things somehow someway work themselves out in the end.       

World Economy is Recovering

Despite all the portents of doom the world economy has been quietly mending itself.
This is not to say that the recovery is firmly entrenched or that few risks remain, but despite the rough patches in 2010, it is important to keep in mind that the economic picture looks far better now than it did a year ago.
Why do I conclude this? Well, to get an accurate picture of where the world economy now stands, we need to look at a broad set of economic data. We have gathered data from the G20 economies for three types of indicators: real economic activity, captured by GDP, industrial production, employment, imports and exports; financial indicators such as national stock market indexes, stock market capitalization and, in the case of emerging markets, their bond spreads relative to U.S. treasuries; and finally, indicators of business and consumer confidence.
By combining information from these variables using statistical techniques, we can take the pulse of individual economies as well as the world economy. And thus was born the Brookings Institution-Financial Times index for the world economy, which we have christened TIGER—Tracking Indices for the Global Economic Recovery.
The composite indexes reveal five dominant themes. First, the global economy turned the corner by mid-2009 and has strengthened gradually since then. Growth rates of many indicators have rebounded strongly after plunging into negative territory during 2008.
These high growth rates are off a lower base of course and there is still a lot of ground to be made up before the levels of these indicators are back at their pre-crisis levels. For instance, growth rates of industrial production in many G20 economies are now higher than before the crisis but, because growth rates fell sharply during 2008, the levels of industrial production are still below pre-crisis levels. Still, the recovery has clearly gathered momentum.
Second, the recovery has been rather uneven. Growth rates of industrial production and trade volumes have recovered strongly, while the recovery in GDP and employment has been modest at best. Employment growth, which tends to be a lagging indicator of the business cycle, was very weak in advanced economies until the beginning of 2010 but is now showing some signs of life. So the recovery is ever so slowly becoming more broad-based.
Third, the performance of world financial markets has outpaced that of key macro variables. In the last two months, however, financial markets have dipped as they have been rattled by the problems in Europe. This could signal prescience of financial markets about more difficult times ahead or just a temporary pullback from an earlier surge of unfounded optimism. Either way, this is not good for the recovery. Then again, a more tempered financial market performance may not be such a bad thing for the longer term. 
Fourth, confidence measures have regained some of the ground they lost during the worst of the crisis. In both advanced and emerging market economies, business confidence is still rising gradually but consumer confidence in advanced economies has been stuck in a rut in recent months. Resurgent business confidence is a positive sign as it could boost investment. But weak consumer confidence and minimal employment growth could dampen the recovery if they translate into tepid growth in private consumption.
And finally, emerging markets felt the effects of the global crisis later than the advanced economies and have also recovered more sharply. Among the major emerging markets, the recoveries in China and India have been particularly strong.
So far in 2010, emerging markets are still barreling their way to a strong performance despite the problems that have beset advanced economies. Perhaps, in a long-term structural sense, they are becoming less dependent on advanced economies. But emerging markets cannot pull the world economy along by themselves. If advanced economies continue to turn in a weak performance, we are in for a long and hard slog towards a durable global economic recovery.
We are certainly not out of the woods yet and all manner of risks could still forestall the recovery. While it is easy to paint dire scenarios, it is still worth recognizing that there is a lot of positive news relative to the desperate circumstances that the world economy was in a year ago. It’s not yet time to open up the bubbly, but at least there is less need now for a stiff drink.

Managers: How to Lead Under Fire

If you’re not periodically under fire by your management and peers then your career’s probably not going anywhere. It’s sort of like “no pain no gain.” If you push the envelope and take risks, then you’re going to get mercilessly grilled from time to time. That’s just the way it works. And if you seriously want to get promoted and make something of yourself, you have to learn to handle it.
No, I’m not talking about growing thick skin and becoming a human punching bag. I’m talking about learning to handle getting fired upon like a true leader. Everyone will walk out of the room thinking you’re the next Lou Gerstner or Jack Welch. Okay, maybe not, but they’ll definitely think more of you and will more readily accept your ideas, proposals, and most importantly, promotions.
How’d I learn this stuff? By spending much of my career selling innovative strategies to risk averse CEOs, CFOs, and management teams. Sure, I probably came across as whiny and defensive in the early days, but in time I learned the ropes. Here they are:
How to Lead Under Fire

1. Don’t get emotionally attached to your ideas. It’s good to be passionate about your ideas, but if you’re emotionally attached to them, it’ll come through when you’re getting grilled. And managers are incredibly distrustful of ideologues trying to shove things down their throats. It’s all about positioning. In your mind, you have to be willing to walk away. That little separation will give you the appearance of perspective and poise under fire.
2. Learn to embrace alternative views. The best way to respond to most objections is by first embracing them, then explaining why your plan is better or at least equivalent. Again, it’s a positioning game. But there’s a subtle but significant difference between, “My approach is better and here’s why,” and “That’s an interesting idea; here’s why I think this might be a better approach.”
3. Master the art of zinger retorts. When you’re getting grilled there will inevitably be some real zingers. Well, there’s only one way to beat a zinger and that’s with a zinger retort. How do you get good at zinger retorts? By getting good at thinking on your feet, which is really equal parts knowledge, experience, preparation, and of course, self confidence. Also, it’s essential to maintain a sense of humor under fire.
4. Know your stakeholders. Of course you need to know your material cold and expect the worst. Unfortunately, that’s not even close to good enough. You also have to know the stakeholders, aka your audience, and have a pretty good idea of their likely objections. A few one-on-one premeetings are a good idea. Then you’ll be ready to counter effortlessly.
5. Never, ever lose control of the meeting. It’s your meeting, or at least your time to present, so you’re in charge and you need to act like it. I don’t care if the CEO and CFO start going down a rat hole on some mindlessly trivial point. You have to be adept at all the usual techniques for keeping meetings on track, on topic, and on time. Come to think of it, that’s probably a topic of its own.