How not to lose your ‘mojo’ as your business grows

From the Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

It was the morning after the night before and the Head of Finance (HoF) was in a pensive mood, finally calling us one by one into the Boardroom. 

What was this all about?

Why all the secrecy from the HoF?

Had we possibly made a terrible error and put decaffeinated beans in the Coffee machine?

These questions and many other horrific thoughts rushed through our minds.

Coming out a little relieved but sworn to silence, we were then all called back into the room altogether. In front to the HoF was a…Cheese Sandwich! Stopping only for a moment to take a sip of coffee and of course to allow for the necessary dramatic pause(!), the HoF began…

“Following on from another excellent podcast ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ with Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd, I asked all of you two questions, but changed one of the questions for half of you.” The first question was: Do you use butter on a Cheese Sandwich - yes or no? (to which you all answered a resounding ‘Yes!’.) The second question was: “What percentage of people would make a cheese sandwich with butter?” To those in Team 1, I asked that exact question. But for those in Team 2 I started by saying (although I have no idea one way of the other - it’s not something that Melanie and I would ever discuss) that Melanie told me she would not put Butter on a Cheese sandwich…

The results are as follows:

Team 1: an average of 86% thought people would put Butter on a Cheese Sandwich.

Team 2: an average of 56% thought people would put Butter on a Cheese Sandwich.

The difference is because of ‘anchoring’, creating a suggestion bias that is affected by my framing of the question related to Melanie’s thoughts…”.

Recognizing that our Lioness Weekender Magazine Blog was being written for us as we listened, we settled in for a relaxing afternoon…

The HoF continued:

In our minds we all know or think we know that most would use Butter, but the fact I threw in a comment by someone we all respect, means that in our minds this raised questions within ourselves, suggesting that perhaps the answer is closer to 50% and so dropped our percentages to align more with what we now thought as the possible answer.

According to my trusty Science Daily magazine - “Anchoring… is a term used in psychology to describe the common human tendency to rely too heavily, or "anchor," on one trait or piece of information when making decisions.

Usually once the anchor is set, there is a bias toward that value.”

If you can get your anchor in first, then all subsequent discussions, arguments and probabilities can be (and often are) biased by this. It can be very dangerous - think “fake news” which some have suggested was a ‘long game’ play in ‘anchoring’, or most recently, “stolen elections” and “electoral fraud”…

So my big question to you is: (we woke with a start!)

What has this got to do with Fire-men and -women?

(Seriously? A nervous look amongst ourselves confirmed our worst fears - we had indeed put decaffeinated beans in the machine!)

Totally oblivious to our concerns about the HoF’s Caffeine levels, the HoF continued:

If you put a group together long enough, and this happens in fire stations where a great deal of time is spent sitting around waiting and talking, over time you will find that such a group starts thinking all in the same way. According to Yale Professor and Psychologist Irving Janis, this ‘groupthink’ is “a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment that results from in-group pressures.” (which seemed a bit rough to us, but we get the picture!)

“…and Athletes?”, the HoF continued…

“When athletes are anxious, they overthink, and focus attention on the technical execution of the skill – those aspects of the movement that have generally become automated. It has been called “paralysis by analysis”…” according to a great article in the UK Guardian.

So….how does this relate to all our inspirational Lionesses and their businesses?

All of these if not handled well, kill creativity, inspiration and the essential safety that entrepreneurs and their teams need for thinking ‘outside the box’. All of these are a ‘must-have’ to keeping not only your mojo as a Lioness entrepreneur and businesses owner, but just as important for your Team who will lift you back up, to re-power the creative spark as your business grows, your life becomes less about the dream and more about the paperwork. 

Being an entrepreneur is difficult enough without your Team becoming a collective group of ‘Yes-women’. Your employees need the ability to think for themselves without you suggesting or even hinting how they should think before the discussion (The Cheese Sandwich) or having to second guess what you are thinking before they open their mouths (the double Cheese Sandwich). You must allow them to come to you with their ideas, thoughts and solutions, not tainted by others.

Therefore if you really want to encourage free debate and blue sky thinking within your business and employees, start by not ‘anchoring by suggestion’ and if possible weigh in at meetings at the end of the discussion, not at the beginning.

According to HBR, “To be creative, an idea must also be appropriate—useful and actionable…[and] thinking imaginatively is one part of creativity…”.

There is no way that your Team can ‘think imaginatively’ if there is not safe space allowing for such freedom.

The Nobel laureate, economist, and psychologist Herb Simon talks of a ‘network of possible wanderings’. This is an intellectual space that is used to explore and solve problems. The larger this space, the better. If you think of ‘wanderings’ as your thoughts, then the more experiences you have had the greater and wider your universe for ‘wandering’. In turn, this ‘wandering’ or thinking, through the widening of the intellectual space which comes through diversification not only of education but of people, your team can think and work freely. This point is absolutely essential - this is exactly why all companies need diversification - to widen (and importantly - keep wide) the intellectual and discussion space. This is why the fireman’s ‘groupthink’ is so dangerous for businesses and entrepreneurs wanting and needing innovation and dynamic thought. The ‘network of possible wanderings’ shrinks as discussion left to its own devices and without a leader opening up the discussion and encouraging wider thinking sadly leads to the strongest point - usually controlled by the strongest personality.

A leader must allow everyone’s thoughts and possible solutions to be discussed in a safe space and with dignity. The more that such thought is shut down the quicker this ‘network of possible wanderings’ collapses and with it creativity essential for ‘mojo’ building.

This is where motivation comes in. Without motivation, people’s creative thinking withers and dies. According to the HBR, not all forms of motivation have the same impact on creativity. There are two forms of motivation - extrinsic and intrinsic. Extrinsic comes from a carrot or stick. So will you get a bonus or be sacked (at the two extremes). This is not as strong as Intrinsic, which is the will from within to do something. This is the drive that comes from working for a great leader. You want to do something. As the article states: “…people will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself—and not by external pressures.” 

The danger most often for businesses lies in the extrinsic motivation, too much ‘carrot’ is bad and too much ‘stick’ is just as bad. We have all had dealings with people where their lives are just too comfy - job for life and final salary pension for example. So why should they bother to stick their neck out? Often they simply don’t and are ‘jobsworths’ counting the days until retirement. 

…Or where they are too frightened to make any decisions for fear of the anger from the boss, false accusations etc, which brings “paralysis by analysis” as the analysis stops being about the subject matter and more about analyzing the Boss’ possible reactions. In these situations it is no longer about being 100% right and analyzing until you get to that level. It becomes about analyzing all the possible Chess moves and the chain reactions in the Boss that would be started by pressing the ‘green button’. In both instances the life and will to do anything gets sucked out as if some Dementor had just entered the room.

In order to keep your own ‘mojo’ as your business grows and starts to become bogged down under its sheer size with increased operations, regulations, logistics and paperwork, you need your Team to pick up the slack and through this re-spark your interest. The energy from your team is all about encouraging their sense of excitement, wonder and interest, the same that you had in the early days of your entrepreneurial journey.  

HBR finished by giving this example of intrinsic motivation:

Michael Jordan, who never lost his ‘mojo’, insisted upon a ‘love of the game’ clause to be inserted into his $multi-million contracts; this would allow him to be free to play pick-up basketball games any time he wished.  Imagine - “Hi Guys, mind if I join in?” and looking up to see Michael Jordan! No one can ever claim that he was not creative, curious, thought imaginatively, questioned constantly, and found solutions that mere mortals could only laugh in awe at.

To do this we all need a safe space. Create a safe space for your employees to feel free, allow your employees to grow within this and allow their creativity, curiosity, imagination, questions and cool out of the box solutions to feed you, feed their and your ‘mojo’, and ultimately feed your business.

Stay safe!