Marina Gorbis's Blog, page 1424

The Value of Living at 888 Oak Street

In North American neighborhoods where more than 18% of the population is ethnically Chinese, homes with address numbers ending in 8 sell at a 2.5% premium, and those ending in 4 sell at a 2.2% discount, says a team led by Nicole M. Fortin of the University of British Columbia. The team, which studied areas around Vancouver, British Columbia, notes that 8 is considered auspicious because the word for it in Mandarin and Cantonese sounds like the word for prosperity; the Chinese word for 4 sounds like the word for death. It’s unclear whether the lucky-number effect extends to second-generation Chinese.

The Human Element in Digital Prototyping

Given that few products and services these days exist without a digital component of some sort, companies are increasingly being required to do live prototyping of a digital solution. There’s a common perception that product development for digital solutions is easier than it is for physical ones. While this can be true, we’ve seen many digital solutions fail because the product development process is too far removed from the user and lacks a human touch.

It’s instructive to understand the inherent advantages in product development for digital solutions. Several factors drive the perception that it’s easier than it is for physical ones, among them:

User expectations. As landing page and vaporware testing has gone mainstream and the notion of “always in beta” has become part of some companies’ brand equity, users have become very accepting of online solutions that are “fake” or still very rough around the edges.


Ease of testing. As the cost of operating online (i.e., development, bandwidth, fulfillment, etc.) decreases exponentially, companies are able to launch solutions and conduct testing (A/B testing, cohort analysis, funnel analysis, etc.) on the cheap, and to do so with increasing speed.


Data on demand. A whole suite of online analysis and behavior measurement tools has emerged in recent years (Google Analytics, Mixpanel, etc.) to provide increasingly sophisticated intelligence capabilities to those designing digital solutions, allowing for better informed decision-making.

But digital prototyping also carries several risks. It lacks personal interaction and can cause those designing new solutions to underestimate the value of understanding the underlying human psychology and emotion that shapes online behavior. Meanwhile, the ability to measure and track every click and scroll can make the product development process seem deceptively linear and mechanistic. Decisions that should be made based on a combination of intuition, human empathy, and behavioral data, end up being made based solely on data, and often transactional data (sign-ups, referrals, payment, etc.) at that. A/B testing, and its counterparts, are fine for tweaks, especially when informed by good design sense. But, for bigger adaptations and new products, we can’t expect our ideas to resonate perfectly based on the first iteration, so we need deeper insight to understand the “why” around data.

If you’re designing and prototyping digital services and experiences, you’ll want to avoid these pitfalls. Here’s how:

Start with options. Evaluating a single solution in isolation is difficult. Imagine you’re a financial data company trying to develop an online community for traders. What might motivate these users to collaborate and contribute to a community? It might be social status. It might be a shared challenge. It might be altruism. If you launch solutions that support only one of these motivations, you can easily measure whether the solution’s been adopted, but the underlying “why” is much harder to identify. If on the other hand you launch solutions that support each of these motivations, you can better triangulate the true motivation for collaboration (probably some combination of the motivations you identified). Uptake based on the value proposition of Option A, drop off based on the interaction flow of Option B, and high conversion based on the revenue model of Option C, can point you to the optimal solution. An options-based approach will provide you with a basket of signals to drive a richer or deeper interpretation.


Be thoughtful about sequencing. Users are only willing to accept so many failures before they begin to question a solution’s trustworthiness (not to mention that some failures are more trust-eroding than others). Suppose the same trading platform company is building solutions for the ‘social status’ motivation. There are many solutions that might address this motivation–an influence score, voting buttons, or the ability to re-market ideas. The influence score would probably be the wrong solution to start with because a score is very difficult to take-away from users (especially your power users, who are presumably the ones earning the highest scores) if it turns out that social status is not what motivates collaboration. While A/B testing treats solutions as interchangeable and disposable, the reality is that there are some changes that users won’t forgive you for undertaking, even if you are one of those companies that is “always in beta.” The sequencing of potential solutions needs to be thoughtful and intentional to avoid completely disrupting the user experience.


Disaggregate the drivers. Behavior measurement tools often tend to roll-up a series of choices and behaviors into a single data point, which can be misleading. Suppose the financial data company is designing solutions for the “shared challenge” motivation. They can build a feature that organizes users into teams to provide them with a better sense of who their collaborators should be, in turn spurring increased collaboration. On the other hand, it might be the case that better role definition is all that’s needed to catalyze collaboration. If the company illuminates the contributions that users are making (generator vs. builder vs. critic), users will begin to organically collaborate, absent of a team structure. In this scenario, all that’s required to motivate collaboration is better role definition, rather than better role definition and team structure. If the company jumps right to launching a team feature, they may craft the wrong solution for the motivation they’re attempting to address.


Go deeper with a subset of users. No matter how well you structure digital prototyping, it still happens at arm’s length from your users and a lot can get lost in translation. For this reason, it’s often a good practice to have live conversations with a subset of your users. This might consist of a more typical usability test (sitting side by side with your users as they click through the experience) or can happen through more lightweight means, like a Google Hangout or Skype interview. We call this process hybrid research. Look at the behavioral data in totality, then drill down and go deeper with those demonstrating extreme, anomalous or unexpected behavior. These users often amplify behavior that is happening in more subtle ways among more “regular” users.

We’re big believers in prototyping, whether it’s in a digital or analog context. However, the process must be structured to generate an understanding of the human psychology and emotions that cause users to behave the way they do, which can be challenging in a digital context. Don’t become too distanced from your users and keep in mind that these individuals have (in most cases) signed up to use your products as users, not as test subjects. Make the most of the benefits afforded by the internet and its myriad tools, but don’t allow it to crowd out empathy.

Does the New York Times Know How to Fire Someone?

As media observers explore every angle of Jill Abramson’s unceremonious sacking from the New York Times, one key Management 101 question is whether she was given a fair chance to address the management issues that, according to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr, led him to dismiss her.

On the day after Abramson was fired, officials at the Times countered reports that she had angered Sulzberger with demands to increase her salary – which she alleged was lower than her male predecessor’s — reemphasizing that the real problems were her leadership style and newsroom management.  Said Sulzberger in a letter to staff: “The reason — the only reason—for the decision was concerns I had about some aspects of Jill’s management of our newsroom, which I had previously made clear to her, both face-to-face and in my annual assessment.”

But how much time was Abramson given to address those concerns? She was only three years into her tenure as executive editor.  By most accounts, she was an outstanding journalist and a talented editor with a strong sense of journalistic integrity and independence.   Yet her tenure was far shorter than most Times executive editors (and her summary dismissal far more abrupt).

Being a leader of any organization “ain’t beanbag.”  Hard decisions are made, sometimes quickly. The troops often complain about the general.  Not every decision works out.  Words giving orders or making decisions aren’t always warm and cuddly.   This is pretty standard stuff in a big organization staffed by grown-ups.

So what were the issues with Abramson’s management style, in Sulzberger’s view, that justified terminating her? Why were they considered a firing offense? And, most importantly, was Abramson ever given the time and resources to address them? This is not the only question in this story, but it is a key one.

Some media reports have noted that Abramson had hired a consultant to improve her management style; when was that coaching started? Were there improvement milestones she failed to meet? When was Sulzberger’s annual assessment written, and what did it say? Ken Auletta at The New Yorker has published an email from Times CEO Mark Thompson sent on April 28, just a couple of weeks before Abramson was fired, in which he recounted praising her performance to a new recruit and said he hoped Abramson would stay on for years. What happened in those two weeks to change his mind?

In many organizations, top leaders have issues that emerge from 360-degree reviews or other systematic (and fair-minded) assessments.  Often, boards or senior executives try to be clear about areas where a leader needs to improve.  Assuming that leader has other very positive qualities (clearly so in Abramson’s case), he or she is then given a real opportunity over a reasonable period of time to address those issues, customarily with some guidance or assistance. And given that Abramson had worked for the paper for 14 years before her promotion to Editor, it would seem unlikely that her flaws – everyone has some – would be totally unknown to her bosses.

If the Times and Sulzberger want to make “management” the issue, then they have an obligation not to hide behind a vague sentence or phrase — or a non-disparagement agreement — but to explain what the problems were and whether Abramson was given a fair chance to correct them.  At this point, with the expected media scrum — and with important issues very much in the public eye — Abramson shouldn’t be complicit in the silence.

This is a big story about an important event at a national institution:  The firing of one of the most senior leaders in journalism.  The Times would never let another major institution off the hook with such a cursory account of its reasoning.

Who’s Afraid of Data-Driven Management?

From a management perspective, making decisions based on data is a clear win. Yet it’s often difficult to adopt a data-informed culture. In every organization, there are teams and employees who embrace this transition, and those who undermine it. To convert your biggest data skeptics, the first step is to understand the psychology of their resistance.

A data insight without a subsequent action is like a key without someone to turn it: worthless. A good data scientist can identify which coworkers will use insights from data to open new doors for the business, and which will continue to rely on intuition. This is because employees who act on data will do so for two main reasons: to improve their perceived or actual performance. From our perspective, there are four types of employees in any organization:

(1) Highly regarded, high performing

(2) Highly regarded, low performing

(3) Lowly regarded, high performing

(4) Lowly regarded, low performing

And their willingness to embrace data looks something like this:

Now intuitively, you would think that the first group (high-high, your overachieving all-stars) would be the easy converts to a data-informed culture; of course they’ll want the best tools and analysis at their disposal. But in our experience, the high-highs are the most likely to be data skeptics. Quantifying their domain and performance offers little upside. They are already perceived as doing quality work; adding hard numbers can, at best, affirm this narrative, and at worst submarine the good thing they have going. There is a reasonable fear that the outputs used to measure their performance will not fully capture the true value of their contributions. Skepticism is especially strong in any workplace where attribution is difficult (think marketing and media).

But, this group can be convinced: involve them early, give them a voice in creating the new metrics that will underpin the data-informed culture, and give them opportunities to push back. These efforts can make the data culture feel like their creation, not something that was forced upon them.

Your main challenge lies next down the list: the high-lows. These are your data antagonistics. Coworkers love them, but deep down they always fear they will be found out. Their ideas are occasionally fantastic, but too often they are just shooting in the dark. When things go right, they are never exactly certain why (their instincts are just that good), and when things go wrong, they instinctively turn to ass-covering mode. Quantifying their work (on someone else’s terms, no less) only has downside. Swinging for the fences every at bat is great, until the manager and fans learn to calculate (and value) on base percentage. Then, 30 home runs with a .150 OBP is no longer getting the job done.

There’s not a lot that can be done for this group. The malleable ones will eventually come around, but those stuck in their heuristical ways will undermine and cavil the creeping in of a data-informed culture.

After this group, you have the low-highs. This group will be your biggest champion. Too long have they toiled on the lower reaches of the totem pole. Giving these overachieving, underappreciated employees the information and framework to make their work comparable — to allow their true value to be understood — provides only upside. Give this group early wins by focusing on tying their outputs to organizational success. They will love you for it, and they will help promote your cause. And senior management will be impressed.

This brings us to the last group, the low-lows. They aren’t going to fight data culture. Or embrace it. They’ll simply turn their heads 10 degrees and think: data? In general, low-lows either swim with the current, which means they’ll come around when coming around is the safe thing to do, or against the current, meaning they won’t be around long enough to matter.

Data-informed decision making, and the culture change inherent therein, doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Asking what do the data say before acting is a disruptive action, displacing prior norms. There will be employees like the low-highs who welcome this kind of change, and those like the high-lows who subvert it. Understanding the psychology underlying these behaviors is the necessary first step toward pushing past intuition and silencing the data skeptics.

Persuading with Data

An HBR Insight Center




How Data Visualization Answered One of Retail’s Most Vexing Questions
The Case for the 5-Second Interactive
Generating Data on What Customers Really Want
10 Kinds of Stories to Tell with Data

Dialing Up the Volume on Strategic Innovation

As generations-old business models are upended by innovations in retail, financial services, bookselling, and a host of other industries, companies must continually adjust their strategic positioning to edge out rivals. But senior executives often find it difficult to conceptualize all the tweaking and retweaking that must be done — let alone explain it to their employees. As a result, people throughout the ranks are often confused about what their company is trying to accomplish in the marketplace.

To help my clients fix this problem, I’ve devised a tool that draws on a simple metaphor: the volume control on a computer. Designing and revising strategy requires regular repositioning on key components of competitiveness – that is, moving those sliders up or down to control the “volume” in each area.

McDonald’s provides an excellent illustration. Some years ago, after decades of nonstop growth, the fast-food chain made a loss. But then it recovered by innovating — fast. The company repositioned itself on four strategic factors: product range, image, store presentation, and price. To identify those four, it reviewed societal changes and trends in health, looked at what competitors were up to, and got back in touch with target customers’ tastes and preferences.

The chain turned up the “volume” on its product range, expanding its menu beyond traditional offerings to include more-nutritious foods, such as Salads Plus and grilled chicken, along with some higher-end treats, such as McCafe lattes, smoothies, and cakes. On image, McDonald’s moved from its unhealthy pigeonhole to a more wholesome position through advertising, in-store nutritional information and product labeling. On store presentation, it went from dated to modern by changing the layout and colors and by adding wireless Internet connections and plasma TVs. Price was the one strategic factor that didn’t require much of an adjustment — McDonald’s decided to keep that low.

As a result of the repositioning, customers had additional — and more nutritious — products to choose from, they liked the stores and the changes in image, and they spent more. Getting the levels right on all four factors produced a competitive advantage.

To stay ahead, however, the company had to keep refining its strategy and adapting its business model. It next turned to suppliers. To build a supply chain based on partnership and collaboration that made it possible to serve consistently safe and high-quality food, McDonald’s had to move the sliders on factors such as long-term contracts, clear specifications, and on-time payment. The result: improved quality of suppliers’ products and services, keener pricing, and timely fulfilment. Those adjustments and improvements were congruent with those already established for customers. The company then made changes that improved working conditions, organizational culture, and professional development for its staff — all of which created the right conditions for employees to get what they needed from suppliers and deliver what customers wanted.

As you’re adjusting your own company’s sliders, consider these principles:

Look outside and inside: A.G. Lafley, the CEO of Proctor & Gamble, re-energized innovation within his company some years ago by taking an outside-in perspective on what the company did. He recognized that key decision makers were spending far too much time at their desks and an insufficient amount of it out in the field. (Executives at most companies are guilty of this.) So P&G created its “connect and develop” model, linking to a vast network of outside innovators around the globe that complemented the company’s own capabilities. This meant that executives remained in touch with emerging consumer trends. The company’s sliders then moved accordingly, on a just-in-time basis.

Continually rethink your business model: A business model is not simply a flowchart of your organization’s activities. It involves tending to stakeholders in a way that benefits the company. Finding the right balance right isn’t easy, partly because it’s a moving target, but again the volume-control metaphor will help: As McDonald’s did, think of the relationships your organization has with each key stakeholder group — not just customers but suppliers, employees, and so on. Consider which sliders you should move for each one, and how you can get them all working in concert to obtain competitive advantage.

When Innovation Is Strategy

An HBR Insight Center




Is It Better to Be Strategic or Opportunistic?
Your Business Doesn’t Always Need to Change
Should Big Companies Give Up on Innovation?
How GE Applies Lean Startup Practices

How Sleep Became the Enemy of Productivity

Wake Up, It’s NighttimeThomas Edison and the Cult of Sleep Deprivation The Atlantic

Sleep no more! Thomas Edison doth murder sleep. The inventor claimed he slept just four hours a night and apparently forced the same standard on his employees, who responded by falling asleep a lot. “At first the boys had some difficulty in keeping awake, and would go to sleep under stairways and in corners,” Edison said. “We employed watchers to bring them out, and in time they got used to it.” The no-sleep thing became part of the Edison mystique, Olga Khazan writes in The Atlantic, with biographies describing his 4 a.m. interviews of job candidates and his catnaps on lab benches between marathon work sessions. Sleep deprivation was seen as manly. Psychologists began promoting the idea that people didn’t really need much sleep after all. But I guess it’s logical that the inventor of the incandescent light bulb would consider sleep to be his ultimate competition. –Andy O'Connell

What You SeeDetroit: The Bankrupt City Turned Corporate Luxury BrandThe Guardian

Detroit, with its stereotypical gritty streets and history of manufacturing, has become a popular leitmotif and visual backdrop for luxury advertisers like Chrysler, Our/Vodka, and watch and bicycle company Shinola. While these firms are located, at least in part, in Detroit, The Guardian's Rose Hackman argues that they problematically use the city to advertise products only people in other cities can afford: "They present a romantic, nostalgic take on grit – a highly effective spin, which presents poverty and urban decay as cool." Shinola, for one, sees itself as investing in the future of Detroit, particularly because it focuses on the craftsmanship that made the city an economic powerhouse in days past. But as economics professor Bruce Pietrykowski notes, "The economic impact of the Detroit brand on the conditions of the residents of the city is limited at best."

Don’t Underestimate the NannyNordic Cuddly Capitalism: Utopia, No. But a Global Model for Equity Christian Science Monitor

Flinty U.S. capitalists may roll their eyes at Scandinavian countries, where the nanny state looms over everything, but guess what? Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland must be doing something right, argues Sara Miller Llana, because they produce a lot of companies that are not only successful but also possessed of a powerful creative capacity that transcends languages and cultures. Think of Spotify, H&M, Ikea, Lego, Nokia, and Skype. Despite warnings that students’ test scores are falling and economic inequality is growing, these countries are blessed with a culture of dispassionate pragmatism that allows companies to adapt quickly to business trends. Maybe a historian quoted in the article is right: Having a state that takes a lot of responsibility for citizens isn’t at all bad for the economy. –Andy O'Connell

Just Don't Do It How the Father of Claymation Lost His CompanyPriceonomics

This is not a surprising story, nor an uncommon one. But for anyone who has pioneered an art form or product, then tried to make a business out of it, the rise and fall of Will Vinton will be heartbreaking. The inventor of Claymation, Vinton built his company, Vinton Studios, into a $28-million-a-year business that had the California Raisins, the Red and Yellow M&Ms, and several movies and TV series under its belt. But with new TV deals, a slow production process, and competition from Pixar, the company needed to raise money, fast. Long story short, that money came from Nike's Phil Knight, who soon had control of the company. Knight's son, once a fledgling rapper unfortunately nicknamed "Chilly Tee," became CEO. And Vinton was out of a job, handing over the Claymation trademark to Knight in the process.

The Banker RulesRe-Thinking the Game of MonopolyBig Think

Just in time for your weekend, an idea for a rousing new version of everyone's favorite capitalism game. First, the whole notion of the "banker" should be reevaluated, writes K. Mike Merrill. No longer should managing the till be considered a thankless chore; "in real life the banker is no passive entity. The banker is the center of the universe." So instead of giving every player $500 to start, "the banker will offer each player a convertible note of $1,000 at a 20% discount and 5% interest." This amount, of course, would be subject to bargaining. Then Merrill suggests Series A financing once a player has purchased all of the properties of a given color, so that hotel construction can begin as quickly as possible. "Once the game ends," Merrill writes, "you'll find the banker (who likely owns a significant percentage of every player’s earnings) very excited to play another game."

BONUS BITSBack in the Day

The Recommendation Letter Ralph Waldo Emerson Wrote For A Job-Hunting Walt Whitman (Slate)
Infographics Through the Ages Highlight the Visual Beauty of Science (Smithsonian Magazine)
That Mad Men Computer, Explained by HBR in 1969 (HBR)

Apple’s Patently Absurd Smartphone Crusade

Look out across today’s ultra-competitive smartphone market and you’ll see something resembling the religious wars of the Middle Ages. This is no quaint summer-weekend reenactment. The weapons being brandished are devilishly constructed patents; the rules of engagement the arcane procedures of federal courts. And the havoc being wreaked — in higher prices, banned devices, and stifled innovation — is laying waste to the industry landscape.

The central battle pits Apple against everyone and everything involved with Android, Google’s open source operating system.

Android’s release, for Apple’s late founder and CEO Steve Jobs, was the ultimate heresy. “I will spend my last dying breath if I need to,” Jobs is quoted as saying in a series of jeremiads, “and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40bn in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

And so Apple has. Between 2006 and 2012, the company was involved, sometimes as plaintiff and sometimes as defendant, in nearly 150 patent lawsuits around the world over various features of its iPhone — including hardware, software, and product design.

Like the religious wars of old, a complex web of alliances, side agreements, and mutual defense pacts have conspired to draw the entire industry into open warfare. Sony is suing LG. Nokia is suing HTC. Motorola (owned by Google since 2011) is suing and being sued by everyone.

While many cases have ended with settlements and elaborate cross-licensing deals, juries in other cases have awarded billions of dollars in damages. Some devices have been banned from importation. And the costs — if only the hundreds of millions being spent on the litigation itself — are surely being passed along to consumers.

The patents involved cover everything from the most basic design elements (a rectangle with rounded corners) to standard elements of the smartphone interface (swipe to unlock). In ongoing litigation between Apple and Samsung, one of many proxy wars over Android, Apple is asserting both of those, as well as patents that include automatic word correction and the “quick link” feature that allows a user clicking on a phone number to be taken directly to the dialing app.

In the most recent episode of this particular campaign, Apple not only claimed that Samsung had infringed on these inventions in Galaxy and other products, but argued incredibly that these features accounted for $30-$40 of the value of each device. The company demanded over $2 billion in damages. (A jury last month awarded a little over $100 million; a verdict that will be appealed by both sides.)

Boiled down to their essence, these and dozens of other pending patent lawsuits raise a fundamental question of particular relevance in rapidly evolving industries: when should new products be left to succeed or fail on their own merits—to trial by battle in the marketplace, if you will–and when should they be given a powerful legal advantage to offset the cost and risk borne by their inventors? What kind of inventions, in other words, deserve the singular protection of patent law, which grants the claimant monopoly control over an invention for as many as 20 years?

In the U.S., the answer begins with the text of the Patent Act, which only extends legal protections to inventions that are, among other limits, “new and useful,” previously unknown to the public, and which are not “obvious” in light of existing inventions.

That may sound like a simple test. But of course every word in the Act is subject to interpretation and construction—first by the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), and later, if infringement is claimed, by the courts.

Here’s where the problem has become especially acute for information technology inventions such as smartphones and tablets. With minimal expertise in computers, software, and business methods, patent examiners who are under increasing pressure to process an enormous backlog of applications have developed a novel and unfortunate form of outsourcing. They approve nearly every application and leave it to the courts to determine which inventions actually meet the requirements.

While this has helped eased the burden at the PTO, it has put an unconscionable strain on the courts. And unlike economically efficient outsourcing, the PTO’s workload is now lodged in institutions that are far less competent to manage them. Overall, the cost of the patent system hasn’t simply shifted; it’s been multiplied. Some scholarly studies suggest the costs of the patent system now outweigh its benefits to the tune of as much as a trillion dollars over the last 25 years — and the gap is growing.

Worse, the current system’s grotesque inefficiency has opened the door for the full suite of abusive and counterproductive practices on gory display in the smartphone crusades. Had the patents at issue been given a thorough examination in the first place, many would no doubt have been rejected. That would have spared us the hyperbole and hypocrisy that characterizes every demand letter, court filing, and appellate brief by plaintiff and defendant alike.

One glimmer of hope, at least for a truce, was recently snuffed out by the D.C.-based Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals. Last month, the court reversed an eminently sensible 2012 ruling by federal appeals judge Richard A. Posner, who sat as a trial judge in one branch of the internecine battle, this one pitting Apple against Motorola. (Full disclosure: Twenty years ago, I spent a year as Posner’s law clerk, a job I frankly wish I still had.)

Reviewing the claims and counter-claims between the squabbling tech giants, Posner declared in Solomonic fashion that neither side had earned its day in court. Dismissing some assertions by both companies as “silly” and “ridiculous,” Posner concluded in a blog posted soon after that the U.S. patent system had become “dysfunctional.”

But the Federal Circuit tossed out Posner’s decision a few weeks ago, holding that his common-sense interpretation of both the law and the patent applications (many still substantively untested) had failed to follow the higher court’s largely incomprehensible precedents. So now the parties will be forced to oil up the machinery of legal warfare once more, spending more millions on a case that should never have been brought.

If not through the firm hand of intelligent judges, how else will the patent crusade be resolved before one of the fast-growing and most innovative markets in modern history succumbs to mutually-assured destruction?

There’s a slim chance that either Congress or the U.S. Supreme Court will provide some relief. A modest patent reform bill, aimed mostly at reining in litigation from patent holders who don’t actually make anything (so-called “patent trolls”), has seen some movement on Capitol Hill this year, and may get past the partisan gridlock.

The Supreme Court has also taken steps to curb the Federal Circuit’s expansive view of patentability, reversing the court repeatedly although rarely providing explicit guidance on an interpretive framework that jibes more closely with both the law and common sense. This term, the Court will hear a record six patent cases, which could restrict the explosive growth of newly-recognized patent rights for software, the preferred weapon of choice in today’s patent wars.

We need more. The religious wars of the Middle Ages lasted over a hundred years and engulfed Europe. On the sped-up clock of technological innovation, even a decade of smartphone patent crusades could prove devastating. To put a definitive end to the conflagration, we might need something like a divine intervention.

Make Your Emotions Work for You in Negotiations

Your emotions matter in negotiations. They fuel your behaviors, energize you, and allow you to strengthen—or distance and damage—relationships with the people you’re negotiating with. But too often, people refuse to acknowledge their full range of feelings because they’re afraid of losing the ability to think rationally and act strategically. So researchers and experts in the fields of psychology and business have offered solutions to help people manage, defeat, or even ignore their emotions.

However, in my two decades of research and work with thousands of executives, I’ve found that emotions shouldn’t be managed or overcome. Rather, positive and negative emotions are valuable resources that you can use to your advantage.The key is to recognize during the negotiation what emotion you’re feeling, then quickly evaluate whether it will help or hinder you, and without taking a break, intensify or decrease the feeling, or in some cases change the emotion altogether.

That may sound easier said than done, so here’s a five-step approach that I’ve developed to make the best use of your emotions during a negotiation:

Step 1: Be mindful. Mindfulness is the first step. This means noticing and accepting what’s happening around you from the expressions on other peoples’ faces to any emotions you’re feeling in that moment, such as anxiety or pride.

Imagine that you’re at a monthly executive meeting proposing a strategy to market a new product.As you present your idea, you simultaneously notice that you feel a sense of pride because you’ve prepared a solid presentation, but you’re also frustrated because it seems that some people aren’t buying into your proposal. Compassionately noticing these feeling is the first step. Then you need to evaluate them.

In this case, you would ask yourself whether feeling — and expressing — your frustration will help or hinder your goals. If it will help — and in some cases it could — then that’s a useful emotion. Go ahead and feel it. However, if you think it will get in the way of what you’re trying to achieve, try to redirect that emotion.

That’s where the next steps come in. Your goal in steps 2-4 is to genuinely feel the emotion you want to experience, whether it’s frustration, anger, empathy, or happiness, because you believe it will be productive.

Step 2: Identify your emotional trigger and focus on something else. Once you’ve identified the emotion you want to change, find the source of it. For example, you might survey the room – observing the people in it, their reactions, and the environment. While watching, you might realize that the man sitting across from you is raising his eyebrows and frowning during your presentation and this is what’s causing your frustration.

If you can precisely identify what triggered your emotion, then you can choose to focus on other things or people. There’s a reason why psychologists suggest that if we want to feel relaxed, we should close our eyes and imagine being on a beach. Changing what you focus on has the power to change your emotion. In this case, you might ignore the frowning man and focus instead on the CEO who’s nodding and smiling at you. You effectively seek out a trigger that causes a more helpful emotion.

Step 3: Reinterpret the trigger. Often our initial interpretation of a trigger is based on what we most fear. You might see the man who raised his eyebrows and frowned as a critic because you’re worried that your presentation isn’t good enough. But you can reinterpret the trigger to help spark another emotion. Imagine instead that he forgot to wear his contact lenses and was squinting to read the small font on your slide. This alternative interpretation of the same exact data — his facial expression — could replace your frustration with relief or empathy.

Step 4: Alter the emotion by changing its physiological expression. If steps 2 or 3 don’t work for you — perhaps the emotion is already full-blown or others have sensed you’re feeling frustrated ­— there’s another option. You can alter physiological things like your facial expression, body posture, or breathing to decrease, intensify, or replace the emotion. If you’ve already started showing frustration, then you could try turning toward the projector and directing your frustration at the small font size. Or, if you want to feel calm instead of frustrated, then you can try slowing down your speaking pace.

Step 5: Take action that others will see.  For the most part, the previous steps happen internally and are ideally invisible to your counterparts. But feeling the right emotion isn’t enough – your actions need to reflect those emotions. You can do this verbally — for example, by apologizing to the raised-eyebrow man for the small font size— or non-verbally— displaying a curious look rather than frowning back. Or you could do it both ways and smile at the man and ask him if something is wrong. Mastering your emotions in step 2-4 will make it easy to take this constructive next step to move the conversation forward.

Emotions will inevitably arise during negotiations but instead of letting them happen to you or trying to overcome them, use them genuinely and strategically to get what you want and create value for everyone.

How GE Trains More Experienced Employees

Trainee programs for new recipients of bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees  have been around for years. Each year, organizations race toward campuses and grab hold of the recruits they consider best for their talent pool. Once in the program, the newly minted graduates are rotated through various functions and departments, interspersed with periodic training and mentoring. By the time people complete the one- or two-year program, they are expected to be fully ready and cultivated for the long haul within the company.

Entry-level programs are an integral part of talent-development strategies and often are the only effective bridge between academia and the business environment. They work quite well. But let’s say you are growing geographically and are struggling to hire enough people who align with your culture and expectations; or you have recently acquired another company and need to bring their leaders into your fold; or you are hiring a lot of people at mid-career who have not had the advantage of going through a formal entry-level program.

At GE, we have created mid-career leadership programs as one answer to these challenges. They support the growth of our talent pool, broaden the skill set, and shorten the promotion cycle.

Consider Jim Smith (not his real name) who joined GE after 10 years as a top-gun pilot in the U.S. Air Force. While he had his BA and MBA, he did not have business-world experience. Too senior for an early-career program, Jim was nominated to the Corporate Leadership Staff, one of our mid-career accelerator programs. For the first year and a half, he drove sales under the guidance of a veteran sales leader. He then spent a year in product development and after that, served on the shop floor as an operations leader. Each step of the way, he was given feedback and his next assignment was based on his biggest skill gap. At the end of three years, Jim had the knowledge, connections, and skills to be successful, and several business leaders were clamoring to hire him. He finally became a key account manager for one of our biggest clients.

We’ve learned several lessons as the Corporate Leadership Staff has evolved:

The employee’s development plan must be customized. An entry-level program can afford to treat everyone equally since most of the participants need the same set of skills. While mid-career programs possess common elements, they must also reflect a personalized approach so assignments can be crafted carefully to address each participant’s individual needs. For instance, one participant may need an international assignment because he or she has never experienced another culture, while another participant may need a shop-floor experience so that he or she learns to manage a large group of people.

Identifying the right “raw material” is essential. Prospective participants should already show signs of promise. Additional assessments and reference checks are needed beyond the regular talent review process.

Sponsorship of the program must come from the highest level. At GE, each of our eight big businesses has assigned a very senior leader who either heads a function or a business to be the sponsor of the mid-career programs. The sponsors ensure that the right candidates from the business are hired into each program, and they play a key role in ensuring that the participants get the most challenging assignments. They also see to it that the off-program assignment for the individual does justice to the investment in the individual. Such sponsorship ensures visibility and credibility of those in the program and positions them well with assignment leaders.

Development results from assignments, continuous 360-degree feedback, and close assignment coaching. Selecting the job the individual will benefit from, ensuring that there is constant feedback (often a 360), and coaching to shape the proper behavioral development makes the program an integrated, experiential opportunity for development in a short amount of time.

There are no guarantees. We have had some participants discover that the program is simply not for them and opt out. This is perfectly OK in our system; our company still continues to view such people as very valuable. When we feel that a person is not likely to graduate from the program into an executive role, the sponsor will still try to make sure that the individual is promoted into a key role in the business. That way, the person can still look at other options to grow and advance in his or her career.

Leadership is a never-ending growth opportunity, which is why we must always look to extend development in an intentional and deliberate way. As the world becomes more complex, accelerating the development of mid-career employees in a more intentional, structured fashion ensures that a company always has a bench of ready, trained, motivated, and high-performing talent at all times.

Should You Approach Your Audience When Giving a Talk? Maybe Not

People feel better about objects and people–whether positive, negative, or neutral–that are seen to be receding rather than approaching, says a team led by Christopher K. Hsee and Yanping Tu of the University of Chicago. For example, research participants viewed a neutral-looking person in a video more positively when he was walking backward away from the camera than when he was walking toward it (3.67 versus 2.70 on a seven-point scale). Approach aversion, which also applies to events in time, may have an evolutionary basis: Humans have developed a tendency to be on guard against stimuli that are approaching, the researchers say.