A632.6.3.RB- The High Cost of Conflict

I tend to dislike conflict and have made a strange habit of trying to avoid it whenever possible. This is not the healthiest approach to dealing with something that is simply part of life and our existence with each other. If my restaurant order is messed up, I would rather eat it than say anything. I can let most stuff go. I try to be friendly, peaceable, and respectful to others, it is something I pride myself in. Because of my introverted nature, when I am home I like to hide out in my little hermit cave and do not interact with others much. In the past my previous neighbors have jokingly referred to us as ghost neighbors because it is rare to even see us, let alone hear a peep from us. We rarely even have anyone over to our house.

We bought our house almost five years ago in a brand new neighborhood, so all of the houses were finished around the same time and everyone moved into their homes around the same time. Our house is on a small lot, but is a great starter home. Other friends have mentioned how they could not stand to live in a “pick-a-plan” neighborhood on top of each other. We have lived in apartments and condos before so having a little yard and a three bedroom house did not seem on top of anyone to us. When we are inside I do not even notice outside noise so I just happily live in my little bubble. Two or three years in our house the unexpected happened… our neighbors started screaming at us while we were outside doing yard work. Suddenly I see my neighbor red faced, cursing loudly at Trey. We didn’t even respond immediately because we were so stunned, we just looked at each other bewildered. The cursing continued. It was not directed at me, but rather my boyfriend. I use the boyfriend as the best term available; we have been together almost ten years.

Trey is such a kind and polite person, raised with his southern manners. He gets flustered with words and also does not deal with conflict that well. I am better with words and am also very protective. Hearing the neighbor scream at him made me jump into warrior mode, I was not going to stand for this. If anyone is going to yell at him it will be me and no one else! All jokes aside, I made a beeline to my neighbor so that we were face to face, divided by a four foot HOA approved white plastic fence. I was not going to curse at him or scream, but I asked sternly, “Excuse me?” to my belligerent neighbor. When I was met with yelling it was difficult not to come back with a strong tone. When you communicate it is important to say what you mean, but do it in a positive tone. This is all that may be needed to prevent a conflict from beginning (Lynch, 1997). Though Lynch’s suggestion is primarily based upon a Human Resources conflict, there is a universal truth that is applicable outside of the workplace. We need to treat each other with respect and approach can be everything. I would like to mention that this is my second neighbor conflict in my life, the first I recently discussed in my blog post previous to this one. I do not make a habit to have conflict with my neighbors!

With this exchange gone were the days of care and cooperation. These were the neighbors who had a key to our house and fed our cat when we were out of town. The same neighbors whose home we would keep an eye one, water the plants, and collect their mail when they were away. Our dogs would play together and we would discuss how crazy our HOA was becoming by trying to get everyone to re-sod their yards for having weeds.

My neighbor was spouting away about our dog. It turns out she managed to get the screen door open and went to find their dog. Amusingly they have fence sides, but not a fence back. Lola went around the back to see if she could play. We had no idea she got out, which is very unlike her. She is half French bulldog, half Boston Terrier and full of love. She loves everyone. They hit our dog, Lola, and she came flying around the fence yelping with her tail tucked. I cannot believe dog owners would hit another dog. This is an issue in itself I will never be able to wrap my mind around and am not okay with, everything around it feels wrong. Although I was furious about what I just witnessed, I apologize for her getting out and coming into their yard. Bottom line, she is our responsibility. We watch her really closely and I am way over protective because I imagine everything will end up killing her, which would tear me apart. This is not typical behavior. I wished they would have just said to us that they found Lola and to take her back inside, even added that they really would prefer for this not to happen again or that it bothered them.

Instead we received a tirade that made no sense about her walking the streets all day by herself and how she tramples their yard to pieces every day. First, she is twenty pounds… I hardly believe she could trample anything. But second, she sleeps on the couch most of the day and does not have opposable thumbs or anyway to let herself out and put herself back in with the door locked. The next item was to talk about me. How I was doing certain things that bothered them. Little did they know, I had spent the last three months away from my house and could not possibly have done what they claimed. When I mentioned this the neighbor and his daughter said they didn’t know that I was away. Their argument crumbled. They knew this and so did I. Even though I had not risen my voice and we were in the backyard I could see other neighbors had gathered to gawk at us. Lynch asserts that it is important to focus on the problem instead of placing blame (1997).   

After this they hired someone to put a two foot extension on only our portion of the fence so they could not see us. They had their handymen in our yard. They would stare at us from their window. When we were outside they would run, literally run, inside. I am pretty sure they had a camera installed outside their house. If we were outside putting up Christmas lights or doing yard work and had to leave, they would go the long way out of the neighborhood in order not to pass our house. But worse, this resulted in a little war of how many times they could break my garden gnome before I could not glue it back together any longer. They even tried reporting us to the HOA for the trampling of their yard, but nothing was trampled. The whole thing was a sad mess.

According to the great work of Stewart Levine (2009) conflict has a cost: direct cost, productivity cost, continuity cost, and emotional cost. Thankfully we were not really doing anything so there was nothing for lawyers to get involved in and this conflict did not result in direct cost. This might have made us less productive to want to go out and do yard work even though our HOA has high standards. The toll that this conflict took on us was in the form of continuity, a loss of community and our relationship with our neighbor and emotionally. It was so hard to live in a house where I thought I was being watched and distrusted. The conflict neighbors, the neighbors who watched, and the HOA were now watching what we did… which was mostly drive into the garage and close it behind us only to disappear to the confines of our home hermit style just as before. We debated trying to move, but the direct cost was too great and we were bound contractually to keep our home for a set number of years in order not to pay back the tax credit. This lasted until a few months ago when finally they sold their house without a word and moved during the middle of the day never to be seen again. What a strange situation.

Levine also provides ten principles of new thinking in his text Getting to resolution: Turning conflict into resolution. He contrasts old versus new thinking. So many of the ten could have helped us reduce the cost of our conflict. They eventually moved, but until that point it hurt me emotionally every day to come home in the midst of the tension. He suggests: instead of fostering conflict, which we are both guilty of, foster sustainable collaboration. Instead of Righteous bravado and posturing, become open. Do not shroud a situation in secrecy, but rather disclose information and feelings. It is not about winning, but learning through the resolution process. Finally, do not defer to professionals… in our case the HOA, become responseAble (Levine, 2009).

If we could have met together and heard each other’s stories and were able to get current and complete with each other would any of this ended up like this? These are important steps in the Cycle of Resolution that Levine developed. I think this could have prevented the misery, caused my gnome to be around a while longer, and maybe keep them here on the street as happy neighbors. At the very least, it could have eased the tension tremendously.  This week during my discussion question titled A632.6.2.DQ I discussed another situation that was riddled with conflict with a family member. Although the situations are different, the formula to the break down and why we could not or did not get close to reaching resolution has the same components and conditions, interestingly enough. In either case we did not have an attitude of resolution. We wanted to win not reach resolve (Levine, 2009). We closed ourselves off and that is a huge problem! Our stories are important, we need to be heard but neither time did we reach out to share them. I feel those steps in particular, in combination with getting current and complete are pertinent to building a new story, one that does not end in disagreement and divide while each party harbors hateful feelings.

References:

Levine, S. (2009). Getting to resolution: Turning conflict into resolution. (2nd edition). Williston, VT: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Lynch, D. (1997). Unresolved conflicts affect the bottom line. HRMagazine, 42(5), 49-50. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/205039081?accountid=27203

A632.5.5.RB- Protected Values in Decision Making

Oh, values. According to a quote I found on Pinterest by Roy Disney, “It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” That sounds just great and all, but this week I learned that outside of that being a tidy little sound bite, such assertions do not always stand up when we are faced with sources of inconsistency. Regardless, we all have values in some form or fashion. When I was in college in Mississippi I heard a lot of the same values, which to me sounded like something you were taught you had to believe rather than thinking for yourself and learning what you really hold dear enough to protect. Beyond my shiny exterior of glitter, unicorns and happiness is a deep-rooted, wickedly steadfast streak for challenging the world around me. The values I have are internally motivated and were not assigned to me because I was made to feel they were important.  While admittedly, some values just sound more important than others I created a concept map to organize my thoughts and which three values are most important to me. My protected values are creativity, justice, and self-respect.

The way I have learned that I have these values is that when they are threatened I feel passion that burns so quickly and intensely that I cannot ignore how I am awakened internally, like when I witness injustice, it is like there is a little button inside of me that when pushed my focus  is relentless. I forget about being mild mannered or timid about conflict and am suddenly I am a warrior of peace. I would say that in general this is not something you would guess about me, but if my little world of hearts and happiness is violated then I spring into action to mediate what is causing the disruption in the world around me. When I was thirteen I lived with my grandmother. She is such a gentle, but rather frailly tempered person. I would hear a man yelling next door a lot. It turns out he had a wife who was disabled and he would just scream at her for any and everything. It made me furious that he did this to someone who was not as capable to stand up to him or even leave. She was dependent on his support.

One day after he finished yelling he went out into the yard and so did I. The fury inside me would not allow myself to sit idly by and hear this happen. Before I consciously decided to say something, I had already gotten his attention. I told him it was not okay what he was doing and it needed to stop. After his shock wore off, he challenged me. I remember him asking me, “Little girl what do you think you are going to do about it?” The bottom line was that I didn’t have to do much about it other than pick up the phone and let someone trained handle it and that he may not get in trouble or be taken to jail, but he will have to at the very least answer some questions about why his neighbors hear so much yelling from his house. I told him until he stops I won’t stop. I am not sure he was used to having someone stand up to him. The other, also elderly, neighbors heard what was going on and came out to watch, probably to make sure he did not come over the fence after me. After he went back inside they told me they could not believe I would be brave enough to confront him because they were too scared. I did not hear him anymore. Even as an adult I am still kind of small, rather physically weak, but my voice is strong.

I think my protector side that values justice comes from my other value, self-respect. When I was younger there were times when people, adults who should have been supportive but weren’t,  tried to find a way to make me feel like I was nothing, that I was unimportant and that I didn’t matter and that I never would. There are two ways that scenario could have gone: I could have believed it and been emotionally stifled and it would have become true and the prophecy would have been fulfilled; but something different happened, I refused to believe it, I fought against it, and I proved to myself what I knew was true… that I am worth something. I know I am important because everyone is important regardless of what someone else thinks. There is a voice inside that says why not me? I am not sure how I got so lucky to have that belief, but since I have it I am never letting go. I think this is one of the values I will go lengths to protect. Self-respect is part of our preservation.

On the other hand, my value of creativity breathes purpose and life inside of me even in the darkest, emptiest times; early in life there were several. I think I survived as well as I did because of creativity. At the end of the day, having self-respect allows you to carry yourself through challenges, show to others how you expect to be treated, and through self-respect you are able to by confident enough in yourself to give respect others. For me creativity is my pursuit to make things interesting and beautiful in the world around me and it gives me something to hold on to when things are difficult. It is the difference between saying to someone ‘I hope you are having a nice day’ or prefer ‘I hope you are having a sensational Sunday!’ because creativity is in the details. Dancing is where I realized how much creative potential I have, but I enjoy it in the details of architecture, listening to music, being caught in the middle of a flash mob, or admiring the beautiful purple hair that someone is brave enough to have.  There is beauty and innovation all around if we just look for it. I think creativity is where ideas are born and how we grow; how we are able to move from one point in history to another.

This week, my class engaged in a discussion on the topic negotiating through email. It can be tremendously difficult to get your meaning across through just text sometimes. Although the business world frowns upon smileys, I have had times when they have “helped over-come the inherent limits of e-mails isolated text-only world” (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001, p. 208). To me that is what creativity is, seeing a need, understanding there is a gap and filling it. Emoticons can help us give non- verbal cues to the message receiver that would otherwise be lost. I believe that emoticons will eventually win out over those who pooh-pooh their use and existence. I am sure when email was first invented there were groups of people who said it was too informal and inappropriate, but here we are in the age where email rules. I am not saying that we will see the Queen of England or POTUS putting wink faces in official correspondence, but I think they will become more widely accepted in the near future.

At the Agriculture Museum in Jackson, Mississippi, one of my favorite little places, there is an old town set up that you can walk through and even buy old fashioned items at the little country store. One day my boyfriend and I were there and I wondered aloud, what job do you think I would have back then? I decided that being in the fire tower and watching for fire would be fun and that I would want to do that. He just looked at me like I was missing some important fact then reminded me I am a woman and I probably would not even be allowed to have a job. He is in full support of my girl power but teases me that it is lucky I was born when I was because I would have been burned at the stake. This is probably true. Creativity is something that I feel is part of most things and I do not feel like there are too many trade-offs that would be required. Even when something is formulaic there is still a clever way to sneak in something that pleases my creative values. For my other two values, self-respect and justice, I think those are the two I am most adamant about not abandoning. I would say self-respect is the top value on my list. The Wharton text points out that people often feel tremendous regret of their actions if they find they have violated their values rather than revising the value (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). The text continues, “Even when holding these protected values people have some threshold for when it is appropriate to hold this values and when it is appropriate to trade it off” (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, p. 254).

“Throughout history, using one's values in personal decision making has implied integrity, ethical behavior, and leadership” (Levitt-Rosenthal, 2013, para. 1). Levitt-Rosenthal (2013) recounts how the town of Southbury, CT had to trade-off some of their values in order to say no and prevent the German American Bund movement from establishing a military camp in their town. If I were ever to trade off one of my values, it would only be for the greater good, like the town of Southbury so bravely did. I believe my values enhance my decision-making ability, not hinder it.

We are the only species on this planet that has ever held its own fate in its hands. We have no significant predators, we're the masters of our physical environment; the things that normally cause species to become extinct are no longer any threat to us. The only thing -- the only thing -- that can destroy us and doom us are our own decisions. (Gilbert, 2005, n.p.).

I believe I value self-respect, justice, and creativity because those are some of the ingredients needed to make a better society, a more unified world. I want to be someone who is part of helping not hurting. We will all end up facing our own unique trials and tribulations but it is important to keep our values in mind so that we can stay true to ourselves. It is so much easier to give them up when things get tough than it is to hold on to them.

References:

Gilbert, D. (2005, July). Why we make bad decisions. Retrieved February 14, 2015, from http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_researches_happiness

Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Levitt-Rosenthal, N. (2013). Ethics, values, and decision making. Frontiers of Health Services Management, 30(1), 27-32. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/1443260901?accountid=27203

A632.4.5.RB- Deception in Negotiation

 To get in the mood to discuss a darker subject matter, deception in negotiation, I have to summon the cool styling of the 1971 psychedelic soul song Smiling Faces Sometimes by the band The Undisputed Truth to get prepared. They melodically croon: “Smiling faces sometimes pretend to be your friend. Smiling faces show no traces of the evil that lurks within. Smiling faces sometimes, they don’t tell the truth. Smiling faces tell lies and I’ve got proof.” The song continues, “beware of the handshake, there hides a snake. I’m telling you; beware of a pat on the back. It just might hold you back. Jealousy, misery, envy, I tell you that you cannot see behind smiling faces. Sometimes they don’t tell the truth.”

During the course of negotiations people often misrepresent information to gain a least a temporary advantage. It is easy to relate to a time when you were misled. Perhaps it is less easy to conjure up a time when you overstated a claim during your own negotiation. Not too long ago I decided to travel to visit my family that lives in a different state. I was excited because a childhood friend also coincidentally lives in the same town. I had booked travel plans many months in advance and had communicated the dates of my visit so that my friend could plan to be available for my visit. I repeatedly checked in with my friend who kept forgetting the dates I was coming, even saying things like oh, I might have a concert that day. Naturally I countered with: Are you kidding me? This is the reason I have been planning with you! I casually said that he should write it down or put it on his calendar in his phone. As the time approached I had more in depth conversations about availability and what plans we would want to make.

All too convincingly I was met with cooperation that the visit was a top priority for the entire weekend. As a bonus, another friend- who is much closer to our mutual friend decided to tag-along. We were so excited for the reunion weekend! The first night we were able to visit. The remainder of the weekend it was missed phone calls, late returned messages, sudden plans that could not be altered, and even other plans that probably could wait- like Sunday football- but didn’t. At the end of the trip I got a little irritated about the situation. No one else felt it was a big deal, but they also were not the person scheduling and coordinating in hopes to avoid being let down. After the fact I see that I was being misled, thus due to the prior reassurance that was laid on a little thick, due to me pressuring the situation. My friend was probably doing this so I did not get angry before the visit and during the negotiation to save him a lot of trouble and an ear-full from me. He was probably just “lying” to make me feel at ease and to back off from my hard ball tactics (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). The verbal and vocal cues (2001), such as elevated pitch, overgeneralized statements, and few words in response to my questions, were there I just wanted to believe I was getting what I wanted.

There have been times when I have overstated something during negotiation to leverage the desired outcome I wanted. The funny thing is it wasn’t something I wanted for me but what I wanted for the other person, my students. There are times when we create ideas or visions in our minds about the state of something, such as the severity of graduate level classes. From my experience of years working with students I know what works and what usually does not. When something does not work there are consequences for the student. Through their anger I am sometimes lashed out at questioningly regarding why I did not do something to advise them better or why I cannot pick up the pieces and fix it after the fact. There is one particular course that students really struggle with and it has the most innocent name, it is really misleading in itself: Management Science. However, it is an intense statistically based course, condensed into nine weeks with an extremely heavy course load. I never recommend this as a first course and I am not comfortable agreeing with this course being paired with another course. The main reason is because the amount of time that I know is needed to be dedicated in order to be successful. Time spent is the number one reason for failure, typically. To make those scenarios unappealing I will strongly express and overemphasize the severity and dramatize my point. Sadly I do not feel so bad about it because I feel that my job is to protect my students with the information that I possess. I am certainly not lying about the situation- it is truly a tough course; I am just making it so much more vivid through overstating during the negation. I definitely bring the doom and gloom to the party.

I am not a person that will go very far to get what I want. I am more of a sly fox who is strategically placing guide posts four steps ahead to align my argument with the truth in such a beautiful way that the option comes delivered, wrapped in a box and tied in a bow. If I was to be called out for this, and I have been, I am brutally direct with agreeing that I carefully designed the plan. I strategize, I do not deceive. Dishonesty is something I am terribly uncomfortable with and try to avoid. If you tell the truth it becomes part of your past. If you tell a lie it becomes part of your future. I am not in the business to create circumstances where I have to sleep with one eye open and look over my shoulder to see what is coming because I set a lie in motion. “A final cost negotiators bear for telling lies is the potential for feeling guilt or remorse. The degree of guilt is subject to a great deal of individual variation” (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001, p. 192). I may never be a very talented at winning at all costs but I would rather be able to sleep well at night. Unfortunately I tend to operate under the assumption that everyone is being upfront and honest with me.

“We tend to be overconfident in our ability to consider the possibility that we were being deceived as we negotiate and make important decisions” (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001, p. 189). The text continues that there is a very good chance statistically of encountering either a lie of either omission or a lie of commission during negotiations.

If deception is a goal, the most basic scenario requires inhibition of prepotent truth responses to make others believe what we want them to believe. Furthermore, representation of truth under the pretense that it is a lie is an equally common form of deception in games, in political negotiations and in everyday life. Regardless of the nature of a deceptive act, the process involves a series of deliberate decisions based on several suboperations such as estimation of outcome, risk of punishment and reward expectation. Information exchange must be monitored and feedback assessed to build up reputation and trust. (Sip, Roepstorff, McGregor & Frith, 2008, n.p.)

Since we are not human polygraph machines, what do we do to guard against this? There are several methods for guarding against deception such as cues to detect lies: vocabulary, verbal, vocal, and visual cues. An interesting visual cue is the false smile, a technique which makes the song Smiling Faces Sometimes feel so instructive and so right. When a person falsely smiles there is no movement around the eyes and forehead. “The best defense against deception is taking steps to reduce the likelihood that people will use deception in the first place” (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001, p. 194). My top four tips for evaluating information during negations are as follows:

·         Establish trust- Work to assure the other person you will not use deception, which will reduce the chance of others using the tactic of deception defensively.

·         Ask direct questions- Subjects are less likely to lie when asked direct questions and it is more likely to be able to uncover the issue.

·         Listen carefully- Be sure the person is in a position to know this information and after asking questions listen to what is being said. It is also important to listen for what is not being said.

·         Pay attention to nonverbal cues- It is not what is said that can give somehow away but how they act such as excessive blinking, less head movement, or nervous habits such as twitching or hair twirling.

(Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001)

A last word on establishing trust comes from a previous discussion from this week in my course MSLD 632 Decision Making for Leaders during the class DQ on interactive learning theories. One of the theories I think ties in with detecting deception comes from experience-weighted attraction (EWA). In terms of learning styles we all learn in different ways. Once we encounter a situation, like deception, in the form of being lied to or perhaps misled we are picking up different strategies whether we realize it or not. One of the factors, the consideration index, allows for us to weigh payoffs from past decisions, including missed opportunities or missed information (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). When we choose to believe what the deceiver is telling us, we are missing cues and information. After the fact, once all is revealed and comes to light this shock is fresh in our minds and branded in our hearts. This allows the value of the situation to weigh heavily on us, which in turn allows for the selection of strategies for the future that will minimize missed opportunity and regret (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). “Smart learners have a high consideration index, which means they are actively considering what they should have done after each move” (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001, p. 163). Negotiation is a chess game with moves and counter moves. Different phases of the game requires different skills and is mostly all about tactics.

References:

Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Sip, K. E., Roepstorff, A., McGregor, W., & Frith, C. D. (2008). Detecting deception: The scope and limits. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(2), 48-53. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2007.11.008

A632.3.4.RB- Reflections on Decision-Making

When learning to drive I remember being told that using your mirrors are very important to see what is behind or next to you; but even more importantly is to check your blind spots because a car, a motorcycle, or someone on a bicycle could have come up alongside of you without being noticed. I have driven many cars and the shape of the frame of the car can play into how tricky blind spots are, one car is not necessarily like another. Sometimes the frame of the car can make it so that you don’t notice what is there, but the mirror will show you. Other times what the mirror does not reflect that hidden area, you have to manually check by ensuring you look over your shoulder. A lapse in judgment can have a range of consequences. If you are lucky nothing is there. If you are unlucky hopefully it is a minor error. Other mistakes can lead to a serious crash. In decision-making what we do not realize is that there are “frame traps” that are causing us to miss important information because we are moving so quickly and simplifying what we know along the way. So how do we learn to check the blind spots for something intangible like decision-making? Understanding that these traps exist, or “knowing is half the battle”, is the first part; learning to manage these traps and what tools you can call on to  do better can help avoid them.

When I think of traps the first imagery that comes to mind is from Looney Toons when Elmer Fudd is always trying to trap Bugs Bunny in any way possible. I think of the absurdity of Elmer using a giant bear trap just for one pesky rabbit. Most of the time Elmer’s overconfidence in using something more complex than necessary is his downfall. A larger trap does not necessarily mean a larger chance for gaining success. Every once in a while Elmer gets it almost right and tricks Bugs Bunny, much to Sir Bunny’s dismay, because there was something that he didn’t see and was blind to the trap. Usually Bugs Bunny knows when something looks too good to be true and does not fall for the illusion of completeness.  This week the Wharton text outlines three traps that I have fallen into and I am now on the lookout for overconfidence, illusion of completeness, and frame blindness.

Each of these can be difficult to manage and in my experience more than one of these could be combined, ultimately leading to a decision disaster. Overconfidence is a tough one to crack. There are many times that I truly believe I know something or have remembered it correctly. I mean, I do not check how to spell my name before I write it. Eventually things just fall into the category of something you know like making a sandwich or driving to work.  “Most of us suffer from a well-documented tendency to overestimate what we know, which contributes to our tendency to overvalue the relevance of our own frames and undervalue the relevance of others” (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001, p. 140). I used to live about two hours from New Orleans and had gone to concerts there. When I bought tickets to Ashlee Simpson I drove to New Orleans, checked into the hotel that I chose near the venue and set off to walk to the concert. Lots of people were going to the New Orleans Arena… in New Orleans Voo Doo gear. My boyfriend asked me repeatedly if I was sure we did not need directions. I knew exactly how to get to that arena that we walked to; I just did not know that there was another arena, the New Orleans Waterfront Arena. “Overconfidence in existing frames and illusions of the complete picture can cause bright people to filter out opposing voices” (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001, p. 141). Korean Proverb says “Even if you know the way. Ask one more Time.”

Overconfidence amounts to an 'error' of judgment or decision-making, because it leads to overestimating one's capabilities and/or underestimating an opponent, the difficulty of a task, or possible risks. It is therefore no surprise that overconfidence has been blamed throughout history for high-profile disasters. (Johnson & Fowler, 2011, n.p.)

 I could have framed my decision differently. In hindsight I should have identified and changed my inadequate frames. I could have questioned my reference points and asked myself why it is such a burden or annoyance to just do a quick confirmation (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). If I was right, I would still be right even if I did a double check and if I am wrong then it is better to sort it out sooner than later. I came very close to missing the concert entirely and wrecking my plans. In other words, to avoid overconfidence, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

I would like to say this was the first and only time I had a misstep, but it is not. Sometimes you can be operating with incorrect frames and not realize you are even doing so (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). I am loath to even mention this really dumb thing I did long ago even though I had really good intentions. Frames simplify our focus and attention on what we deem most relevant so we can quickly decide and move on (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). In 2000 I was sixteen and had a 1998 Mazda 626. I wanted to keep my car really nice so I decided to do an intensive cleaning. My friend lived in what I called the woods and pine sap dotted the hood of my car. I zipped upstairs, grabbed the green and yellow Scotch-Brite sponge and went down to try to polish the stubborn sap spots off my car. As my car dried I noticed that my car was a different color, much lighter, than the rest of my dark green car in little circular places. I figured once my car finished drying it would be back to normal. Instead of sap marking up my hood, I had my handiwork to thank since I removed the sap and the paint. The wrapping on the sponge said non-scratch and you can scrub the mess out of dishes so why not a car? I was blind to the major difference to a plate and a car hood. We look out at the world through one window while failing to use views from other windows (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). There was a lot of risk of making the decision to clean my car on my own; it seemed clear cut like I was not missing anything. My car was ruined and had to be repainted. My poor results and bitter surprise was a case of frame misfit. Plates are not cars. Who knew? Apparently everyone but me!

In another assignment this week A632.3.2.DQ- Framing Better Decisions I discussed a Toolkit for Better Framing and several tools that come into play when I am on the job with my students wearing my advising cap. My jobs as an academic advisor is to help students eliminate an illusion of incompleteness. It seems simple that after the successful completion of 12 classes you can be degree complete with your Master’s degree. I will pick on myself again for a second; my undergraduate degree is a B.S. in Paralegal Studies. I did not have to take actually any of the six classes at the undergraduate level that can be required at ERAU for certain programs. Although I do have a Bachelor’s if I wanted to do the Master of Science in Systems Engineering I would have to stop and pay that toll, which is advanced mathematics, since my previous course of study did not prescribe those requirements. One of the pitfalls of operating under the illusion of completeness is thinking you see the entire picture and it is important to be on guard of this with any frame. It is important to try to see the gaps and limitations of any frame as well as why it would fit (Hoch, Kunreuther & Gunther, 2001). Based on the toolkit, it is important to identify all constraints, or any limitations you must accept. Focusing on the objective or remembering the desired result you want (for example an advanced degree) can be a helpful way to practice reframing. The portfolio perspective can also be a tremendous help which suggests lying out all of the options. Once you have those, you can choose which way to go.

What I learned about myself is that in the past I was especially prone to being a hasty decision-maker and oversimplified situations through my use of frames instead of spending time to think through what I was doing. There is a lot of risk to continuing that behavior and I have evolved in trying to be aware of these bear clamp sized traps that are lurking around mental corners and walls. There is more than one way to see anything and just because I am used to what I normally do does not make it the best frame in which to view the world around me.

References:

Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Johnson, D. D. P., & Fowler, J. H. (2011). The evolution of overconfidence. Nature, 477(7364), 317-20. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/894273262?accountid=27203