Renowned behavioral scientist and bestselling author, Brian Wansink, joined us at REACH 2012 to explain a common myth about obesity: buffets make us fat. If buffets really make us fat, then why are there plenty of skinny people at a buffet? Wansink and his team sought to uncover what skinny people do differently than heavy people when facing a plethora of food. By identifying and replicating the behaviors of the successfully thin, we can combat our tendency to overeat. By observing hundreds of buffet-goers, Wansink’s team found that skinny people did the following things: Sat 16 feet farther away from the buffet than heavy people Were 3 times more likely to face away from the food Were 3 times more likely to scout out the buffet before filling up their plate Ate off smaller plates Chewed 14 times on average, whereas heavy people chewed 11 times Interestingly, when asked, most skinny people had no clue that they had behaved accordingly, further proving Wansink’s mantra that "the best diet is the diet you don’t know you’re on." So, how can we put this research into practice? In his twenty-minute BIG Idea speech, Wansink says it’s easier to change your environment than your mind. Instead of assuming you’ll have enough willpower to simply eat less when in an environment where gluttony is the goal, do as the skinny did and get rid of the things that will derail your diet. Adopt these behaviors to cut calories at your next holiday party or buffet: Eat off a small plate Sit far from the food Sample the food choices before filling up your plate The secret to mindless eating is not mindful eating. The solution is to change your environment so it works for you instead of against you. Visit the VitalSmarts Video Channel and select Brian’s Mindless Eating Meets Influencer BIG Idea speech to learn how to cut calories. Related posts: Crucial Applications: REACH 2012 BIG Idea Video—Ron McMillan Turns Really Bad Days Into Really Good Data Crucial Applications: REACH 2012 BIG Idea Video—Joseph Grenny Asks Two Important Questions REACH 2012: One of the Best Professional Development Conferences

Employee use of social media has been a controversial topic over the past year, and one I've covered several times in this blog. While I oppose company policies that unfairly limit employees’ rights to express themselves online, employers must be smart about training employees on what they should and should [...]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR David Maxfield is coauthor of two New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything and Influencer. READ MORE Dear Crucial Skills, How do you suggest we prepare to talk about something that matters immensely to us? We may think we are ready to engage in dialogue, but deep down, we are pretty sure we are "right." For instance, what if I believe that good nutrition and exercise is vitally important to good health, and my spouse—who just had a heart attack—believes those factors are negligible and that family history is the determining factor in whether a person is likely to have a heart attack? Or how about the situation where one brother believes the family business should be conducted in such a way that profits are maximized and the other brother believes that the environment must be the first consideration? How do I ready myself for these types of conversations? How do I open my heart and my mind to differing points of view? Unprepared  Dear Unprepared, Your question gets at the heart of why many conversations fail: at some point in the dialogue, our motives degrade. We start to care more about winning than about finding common ground and common solutions. Of course, this is especially likely when we care passionately about our position. The dialogue turns into debate or argument. And, as Dale Carnegie famously said, "You can’t win an argument." Today’s world contains a lot of polarizing issues, and zealots on both sides talk and listen mostly to themselves. They bolster their own positions and disparage the other side. Then, when the two sides meet, it’s to joust and score points, not to find common ground or common solutions. Why dialogue is valuable: I personally have trouble staying in dialogue when I know I’m right—not just factually right, but morally right. I do believe there are rights and wrongs. So, isn’t it sometimes better to bypass dialogue and defeat the other side? Yes, those occasions exist. While dialogue might not always be the best solution, it is especially important in two circumstances: When you care as much about the relationship as you do your position, such as with the spouse who is denying the importance of nutrition and exercise. When you and the other person or group are interdependent. You may not want a relationship with the other side, but some level of cooperation is required because neither of you can succeed on your own. This may be the case in a family business, in a relationship with a boss, and in a political stalemate. So what can you do in these situations to stay in dialogue and stay out of debate? Determine what you really want. Consider the two bullets above and ask yourself what you really want for yourself, for the other person, and for the relationship. Look beyond any single issue or conversation and focus on your long-term goals. If your long-term goal is to defeat the other side and discredit their point of view, then be realistic about whether you can succeed without their help. Again, take a long and inclusive view. Look beyond this particular issue and conversation. For example, if you need their help to govern, then you’ll need to engage them in dialogue—no matter how distasteful that may be. If you decide dialogue is necessary or desirable, then use the tips below to keep yourself and the other party in frank, honest, and respectful conversation. Establish ground rules that maintain respect. We’ve all seen debaters who score points by making the other person look bad. They try to undercut the person’s credibility and eventually descend into some kind of name-calling. These tactics destroy safety and poison dialogue. Begin the conversation by making a personal commitment to avoid hot words, loaded language, and personal attacks. Commit to listen and to take the time to understand the other person’s perspective. Ask the other person to make this same commitment and then hold each other to these ground rules. Build on common ground rather than seek out wedge issues. Think of two circles that overlap. The overlap is our common ground; the non-overlapping areas are our differences and disagreements. Too often, we focus on our disagreements and use them as wedge issues to drive the circles further apart. If we want to make progress, we need to focus on the areas where we overlap—where we have common ground and common purpose. For example, partners in the family business might find common ground around customer satisfaction, quality, and productivity. I’m not saying that you should ignore your differences, but try to build on areas of agreement. For example, New Jersey’s Republican governor and Newark’s Democratic mayor cooperate in areas of common interest despite having significant differences on a wide range of issues. Find "and" solutions, while avoiding "either/or" thinking. Look for what’s right in the other person’s position and then add to it. Notice how this is different from the assumption "If I’m right, then you must be wrong." Often, parts of both positions are right and these constitute the common ground you can build on. For example, your spouse believes that family history is a major risk factor for heart attacks. Of course, your spouse is correct. Take this opportunity to agree. This is common ground you can build on. Once you’ve agreed that family history is important, you can move on to other risk factors, which may be within an individual’s control—such as nutrition and exercise. You’d want to focus on these risk factors even if you thought their contribution was minor—because they are within your control. Seek ways to eliminate the other person’s worst fears. Humans are designed to be very risk averse. A side effect of this survival strategy is that we tend to catastrophize. We anticipate the worst that could happen and act as if it’s imminent—even when it’s not. For example, I’m guessing members of the family business are each imagining the worst possible scenario. One brother thinks the other wants to bankrupt the business in favor of the environment, while the other thinks his brother wants to pollute every river and stream. What if each brother made a commitment to avoid the other’s worst fears? Then they could have fruitful dialogue about the middle ground. This approach takes extremism out of the dialogue. I hope these ideas help you prepare for your tough conversations—even if you are "right" or care passionately. Let me know how it works. David Related posts: Finding Middle Ground Finding Fault with the Facts Finding Respect for Your Ex

Thirty million Americans now work from home at least one day a week, with that number forecast to increase sharply in the coming years, according to the Telework Reseach Network. By 2020, 1 in 3 people will be hired to work online, from anywhere they want, according to an estimate [...]

Do you Tweet, Pin, or use Facebook and LinkedIn at work? Don’t feel guilty about it - be proud! You’re becoming a more productive employee. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife) Two recent studies suggest that plugging into social apps and networks makes employees more productive at work. The studies - one by the start-up "Big Data" firm Evolv and [...]

ABOUT THE EXPERT Steve Willis is a Master Trainer and Vice President of Professional Services at VitalSmarts. READ MORE One of my year-end activities is tallying up the total number of training days I delivered (one way to ensure my fingers are ready for any math challenge that comes my way). It gives me a sense of how many individuals were impacted by these sessions as well as of my own learning experiences with the different groups. This year, as I was right in the middle of reflecting and pondering—in a state of really "deep think" about the year’s experience as a whole—I received an e-mail from a work colleague. Attached was a Wall Street Journal article titled, "So Much Training." As that was exactly the topic I’d been contemplating, I opened it straightaway. It wasn’t until I was about three paragraphs in that I realized that, due to the heavy meditative haze I’d been operating under, I’d misread the title. There was a second half that I had overlooked entirely: "So Little to Show for It." And as you might guess, this second phrase was more indicative of the article’s content. The article explores why many organizations aren’t realizing the full potential of their training initiatives and makes the point that, in order to receive the full value, what happens before and after training is more important than what happens during training. While this isn’t the first time that I’ve heard this, because I was in the middle of my review exercise it hit me in a different way. It got me thinking of the degree to which I helped and hindered the groups with which I worked. In training terms, I’m the "during" guy, not the "before" or "after" guy. I arrive to deliver a training session or two, and then I’m off to another organization. But just because I’m not responsible for the "before" and "after" doesn’t mean that I should focus solely on the "during." I can talk with those who are responsible—ask them what needs the training fulfills in their organization, provide them with learning objective worksheets they can distribute to the managers of those who will participate in the actual session, suggest ways to measure achievement of learning objectives across individuals, recommend post-training practice strategies, etc. And as the "during" guy, I think there’s a lot I (or anyone in this position) can do in the session that can help support (not replace) "before" and "after" activities. I have activities to use (have the class take two minutes to brainstorm common tough situations they face), commitments to extend (have participants set a date and time to follow up and practice with a partner from the class), questions to ask ("Where and how do you think you’ll be able to use this skill?"), and tools to offer (introduce the contract cards as an easy-access review or checklist). As you prepare for your 2013 training sessions, consider what you can do to change the title of the Wall Street Journal article to "So Much Training, So Much to Show for It" for your organization. Related posts: From the Road: What Happens in Training, Stays in Training From the Road: Training Ritual 53-Collect Evaluations What are some ways I can further participants’ learning after the training?

If you haven’t disclosed the details of a drinking binge, blasted music from your cubicle, or taken a mid-meeting nap at work recently, then you’re in better shape than many of the employees at a Fortune 500 healthcare company, where lately some business unit managers have asked the HR department [...]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Kerry Patterson is coauthor of four New York Times bestsellers, Change Anything, Crucial Conversations, Crucial Confrontations, and Influencer. READ MORE Listen to Kerrying On via Mp3 Most Christmas stories don’t start the day after Christmas. This one does. On December 26, 2006, after opening presents with her husband and baby boy and then hurriedly packing her bags, my daughter Becca climbed onto a jet and started the first leg of a journey to Stavropol, Russia. Becca traveled to this former communist stronghold in response to what she described as an aching in her heart. After she and her husband, Bruce, had adopted a newborn baby boy a year earlier, Becca was left with the impression that there was more to be done. There was something missing. There was someone who needed her. After scouring adoption agency websites for several weeks, Becca eventually stumbled on the picture of two Russian sisters, ages six and seven. The two rather fragile looking children were currently residing in an orphanage in one of the bleakest corners of the world you’ll ever find. And now, as if a fire had been lit under her, Becca was on a mission to meet the two helpless waifs. Perhaps they would be new additions to Becca and Bruce’s growing family. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. She hadn’t even met them yet. Whatever she did, Becca realized that she would have to act quickly because the older of the two would soon turn eight and by policy would be shipped to a different orphanage, forever separated from her beloved sister. Twenty-four hours of rather tortured travel later, a stern official led Becca into a room where she met Tatiana and Veronica, the two prospective adoptees. The girls, shy at first, quickly warmed to Becca, and despite the fact that neither spoke a word of English, were soon auditioning for the role of daughter. First, they demonstrated dance moves they had practiced for just such an event. Next, they climbed a rickety ladder that leaned against a wall (left from an earlier repair job) and held on by one hand while leaning out precariously and singing Russian folk songs. The girls had lived in the orphanage for two years, and Becca was the first visitor to call on them—no family members, no prospective parents, not a soul had thought to pay them a visit. Knowing that this might be their only chance to escape a fate that they were too young to even imagine, the two flirted, winked, and did everything in their power to beguile their prospective mother. And just when Becca thought her heart would break from watching the two girls fight for a chance to join her family, Veronica looked into her eyes and promised (through a translator), "If you adopt us, we’ll wash the dishes every day." As Becca cried herself across the globe, back to her home in the mountains of Utah, she carefully put together a plan that ended four months later when she and Bruce returned from Stavropol with two little Russian dolls. A year later, after passing through the standard waiting period, the new family gathered before a judge who asked the girls a few questions and signed a few papers. And then, as if writing the script to her own life story, Veronica turned to her younger sister and pronounced, "Now we’re a family." It had been a hard journey for the two little girls and still more challenges lay ahead. Abandoned by their father at birth and then one day unceremoniously dropped by their mother at their grandparents’ door, Veronica, the older of the two, taught herself how to beg for food. In the winter, she braced against sub-zero weather as she knocked on doors, kneeled before strangers, and begged for her and her sister’s lives. By the time the neighbors turned the two girls in to the authorities, each was more skeleton than girl. The first time I met the two was at our home a few hours after they arrived in America. Nica (Veronica’s shortened name) rushed to the kitchen counter, grabbed a cookie, and then took another one for her younger sister. "One for Tanya," she explained through our neighbor who spoke Russian and was helping as a translator. "One for Tanya," Nica learned to express in English as she gathered in a new toy or sweet for her younger sibling—always her younger sister’s defender and keeper. Always the protector. But the gift that started the day after Christmas didn’t end with the signing of the adoption papers. Witnessing the monumental sacrifice, feeling the love, and welcoming two grandchildren into the family—you’d think the Christmas gift would now be complete. But it wasn’t. There would be a second act. This part of the gift, the surprise part, comes from Nica. You can’t survive the streets of Stavropol and then be thrown into an orphanage—where you reign supreme as the oldest member of a near-feral mob—without consequence. For years after arriving in the U.S., you’ll act in ways that are out of sync with kids whose greatest childhood tragedy took place when they lost a puppy or tore their princess costume. Fresh from a life of deprivation and confinement, you’re very likely to be seen as strange, selfish, pushy, or forced. Fighting for your younger sister, who no longer requires or wants a protector, comes off as strange. Pushing your way to the head of the cafeteria line in a primal response to procure food—whenever and however you can—appears selfish. Taking charge of every childhood game seems pushy. Trying too hard to make a friend feels forced. And then there’s the fact that you’re a Russian immigrant who speaks English with a bit of an accent. As you move into junior high school where being different can be a liability, trying too hard to be accepted practically guarantees you’ll be bullied. Eventually, you’ll learn dozens of swear words—all used as an adjective placed in front of the word "Russian." And when faced with these challenges, you’ll fight back because, first and foremost, you’re a survivor. One day, when someone who doesn’t know your history observes you verbally attack, take charge, or hoard, it’s easy to see how they might become annoyed. Anyone might become upset as the kid from the streets (now dressed in clothes that belie her upbringing) does something odd or off-putting. And from all of this comes the surprise gift. Nica has sat beside me on our living room couch and given me glimpses into her heart-breaking story. I’ve imagined her as she faced unspeakable circumstances and have mourned for her, her sister, and everyone who has similarly suffered. I’ve watched Nica step in harm’s way for her sister. I’ve seen her stand strong in the face of adversity. I’ve also seen her do things that can drive you nuts and would be the first to say that she needs to be carefully instructed. No doubt about it. Just like her American-born cousins, she’s still young and she needs lots of guidance and, given her history, special assistance. But unlike a stranger who might immediately become upset when Nica commits a social faux pas or inappropriate action, I can’t see her do anything—no matter how untoward—without also seeing a little girl in the streets of Stavropol begging for her and her sister’s next meal. With this poignant image firmly in mind comes the surprising gift, the gift of compassion. Not compassion for me (which I’ve often received), but compassion within me—something I sorely need. Of course, over the years, I’ve felt sympathy for others. I understand the need to view the whole picture before drawing conclusions. I’ve even used the bromide of looking at both sides of a coin. But this story isn’t about two sides, it’s about simultaneity. Having felt and mourned Nica’s past, I now see both her missteps and her history in a single glance. This sweeping view fills me with an understanding that makes up the very spirit of this holiday season. It fills me with compassion—a surprising and wonderful gift. Visit our Facebook page to download our free holiday e-book, Kerrying On Christmas: A Collection of Holiday Stories by Kerry Patterson. The e-book includes this story as well as two other Holiday stories from Kerry Patterson. Related posts: Kerrying On: A Christmas Gift Kerrying On: The Great Valentine’s Day Debacle Kerrying On: Stumbling on Christmas

As a big fan of The Huffington Post, I recently found myself comparing the sleek, social site to many of the corporate learning programs I see in the marketplace, and wondering what the latter could learn from Huff Po’s history. Since its start in 2005, The Huffington Post has been a game [...]

Before Intel giant McAfee revamped its new-hire orientation, it was over 80 hours long and consisted of roughly 40 hours of pre-work, 5 days of on-site training, and a "robust" syllabus of post-work, meant to be completed at home. But as McAfee’s Senior Director of learning Lori Aberle says, "Once [...]