How - Dov Seidman [58]
Unless you’re a dedicated football fan, I’m going to guess you cannot. But I’ll bet you remember what happened at halftime.
The number-one term search term on Google in 2005 was “Janet Jackson,” the entertainer whose lapse the year before in January 2004 was still on everyone’s mind all through 2005.3 Few remember who won the game, but still, years later, the phrase “wardrobe malfunction” resonates around the world. Hundreds of athletes had toiled a full year to become the best at what they do, producing a dramatic showdown between the two very best teams, the New England Patriots and the Carolina Panthers. Around the world, millions tuned in to watch the confrontation, a spectacle that has become a national ritual in America and routinely the most watched U.S. sporting event of the year. But all most people can remember about that day is a two-second flash of star-shaped jewelry. Jackson’s lapse obscured the accomplishments of those on the field (the Pats beat the Panthers 32 to 29 on a 41-yard field goal made with four seconds left to play).4 Why do we remember a two-second compliance failure during halftime but not the enormous effort and achievement represented by the championship game itself?
Did you cheat?
About our experiment: It has nothing to do with Janet Jackson. Rather, having just read the inspiring story of David Toms at the British Open, how did you feel when I asked you not to cheat and look ahead to the answer? Did it enter your mind as you were reading? Were you insulted by the intimation that you might cheat? Did you read the passage more lightly? Lose focus and have to read part of it again? Or perhaps just read a little slower in order to make sure you wouldn’t cheat by reading ahead? People are sensitive about cheating, and rightly so. To casually tell someone not to cheat immediately raises questions of trust. “What does that person think of me, that I’m a cheat ?” In the few moments immediately after a small comment like that, those voices in your head get activated, and without necessarily realizing it, you get distracted.
Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction prompted 500,000 or so complaints to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the largest fine ever levied by the FCC on a television broadcaster at the time, and whether you judge the action innocent, misguided but harmless, inappropriate, or offensive, the total amount of productivity lost while people discussed it over the watercooler (or e-mail, or instant message, or the blogosphere) was probably in the hundreds of millions of dollars.5 The actions of any single individual can drain significant resources from a company and affect the fortunes of many. Major failures of conduct can bring about the downfall of a company or cost it millions in fines, legal fees, and lost business. But far more significant (and ultimately more detrimental) are the million small events—like that comment about cheating—that crowd our attention each day, activate our inner voices, and pull our minds out of the game.
SMALL LAPSES, LARGE COSTS
The game doesn’t stop, of course, when your head leaves it; it goes merrily on without you, leaving you to play catch-up. If the passion and integrity of Krazy George can make a positive Wave, one that propels innovation and success, the Janet Jacksons of business can make a negative one, a Wave of distraction and de-focus. Both positive Waves and negative Waves derive their force and power from the ways we choose to interrelate. Our experiment demonstrates the many ways in which small lapses of HOW can harm us in significant ways.
Business consultant Stephen Young made popular a new management buzzword about these small moments; he calls them microinequities .6 Bad body language in a meeting, a question asked in a mocking tone, an off-color joke told at an inopportune moment—all lapses in how you fill the spaces between you and those with whom you work—can