Kleptomnesia: (Or Why We Steal Ideas and Don’t Know it)…. Customer Service: As Experienced; or As Remembered?…. Fairness…. Econ Recon: Chicken Little Economics; Conspicuous Consumption, Properly Understood

“Knowing something does nothing…Doing something does.”

 Dr. Jason Selk

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it.”

Thomas A. Edison

Kleptomnesia (Or Why We Steal Ideas and Don’t Know it)

Taking credit for someone else’s idea is rightly condemned by almost everyone….but have you done this and not known it? Adam Grant of the Wharton Business School (and the author of a wonderful book Give and Take: How Helping Others Drive Our Success) suggests that in fact most of us have. He cites the example of a lawsuit against Beatle George Harrison by the Chiffons for allegedly using (without permission) the melody of their earlier hit  “He’s So Fine” in his later hit “My Sweet Lord.” The Eagles were similarly accused of basing their mega hit “Hotel California” on Jethro Tull’s less well known song  “We Used to Know.” Take five minutes for a quick tutorial on kleptomnesia (a combination of “kleptomania” and “amnesia”), the clinical term for what may be charitably described as accidental plagiarism.  Awareness of this phenomenon may save you and your team from being  unintentionally failing to give a team member credit he or she is due.

Customer Service (and happiness): As Experienced….. or As Remembered?

In 2002 Dr. Daniel Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics. Clearly a notable achievement but even more so because Kahneman is not an economist, but a behavioral psychologist who did ground breaking work on how we make decisions (see his NY Times bestselling summary of his research “Thinking Fast and Slow.”) (A lonnnnggggg book and an easy and wonderful read). In a 20 minute TED talk, Kahneman looks at a topic of equal importance to business: what makes us happy;…our experience of something…. or our memory of it?. This has clear implications for our own happiness…. and that of your customers. Customer service managers, take note!

Employee Compensation: Fairness is not just a human concern

We have all heard the truism: “Life is not fair, and then we die.” That logical reality does little to ameliorate the emotional reality associated with any perception of unfairness. Every parent (and employer!) knows that “it’s not fair” is a protest common in every human condition, and that every human being has a very finely calibrated sense of what is fair and unfair. It turns out that the concept of fairness exists throughout the higher functioning animals (mammals and birds). Here is an excerpt on an animal’s sense of fairness from a great TED talk by psychologist Frans de Waal: Two Monkeys Were Paid Unequally: Excerpt from Frans de Waal’s TED Talk – YouTube

The entire TED Talk, which includes other animal moral behaviors and feelings common with humans, including compassion and forgiveness, is here. (Well worth the time to watch). Do your employees feel that they are being treated fairly, and how do you know? If there is a feeling of unfairness, logically valid or no, you may be the one dodging the cucumber!

Econ Recon: 

Chicken Little Economics: Economist Brian Wesbury provides a quick look at the arm chair economists’ pronouncements of the past six years and offers some clarifying comments in summary form of  what really happened and why. Check out his one page commentary on Chicken Little Economics.  

Conspicuous Consumption, Properly Understood : 19^th Century Economist Thorstein Veblen took the noveau riche to task for displaying their wealth in ostentatious displays of opulence. Writer Tom Meyer (son of Vistage Speaker Herb Meyer, former number two at the CIA ) looks at the really important side of the consumption story; from a time when consumption was not conspicuous at all, to an abundance for many that our ancestors could not have imagined. Check out his worthwhile one page essay Means of Consumption  to appreciate how far we’ve really come….and why. Life was once very different.