Cultivating credibility: positive vs negative sentiment override
/By D Duncan Anderson. To see all blogs click here.
Summary:
Credibility = reputation = trust = belief in yourself = others belief in you.
IMO whether you are conscious about it you are constantly cultivating or killing credibility… in effect we are all creatures of credibility!
The more credibility you or your business has the more you can get done. The easier everything is. The less credibility, the harder everything is.
Jingle: IMO one should constantly consciously be trying to cultivate credibility.
Positive vs negative sentiment override - aka your reputation (credibility)
Negative sentiment override: 3:1 negative:positive track record means that others automatically think ideas you have are bad, aka you have a reputation for doing a bad job.
Neutral sentiment override: 1:1 negative:positive track record means that others don’t think your ideas are normally good or bad. You don’t really have a reputation.
Positive sentiment override: 1:3 negative:positive track record means that others automatically think ideas you have are solid, aka you have a reputation for doing a good job.
Game changer sentiment override: 1:5+ negative:positive track record means that others don’t just think your ideas are good, but if your idea is opposing someone else’s view they automatically think ‘i’m likely missing something’ not ‘the game changer must be wrong’. aka you have a reputation for being on a different plane.
IMO it is not good enough to do a good job, you have to have others know you do a good job.
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"
IMO you want to have a minimum of ‘positive sentiment override’ reputation for yourself and / or your company. Doing this makes everything easier. IMO do this by working in your circle of competence and proactively posting about how you are going AND consciously expanding your circle of competence each year.
Reading time: 10 mins
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Details:
Positive sentiment override
From nobel prize winning economist Danny Kanheman: positive sentiment override is the point where positive events mean you override a negative event with positive sentiment. Kahneman says the average of this point is 3:1.
Person lens:
for example if you have 4 interactions with a person and 3 are positive and 1 negative, you don’t mind the negative interaction. The 3 positives mean you have ‘positive sentiment override’ for the 1 negative. However if you have 2 positive for 2 negative then you will start to care about the negative interactions and not have positive sentiment towards this person.
Job lens:
if you work for 4 hours, and 3 hours are positive but 1 hour negative you don’t mind about the 1 negative, you have positive sentiment override and likely think ‘this is a good job’. However if in the 4 hours you had 2 hours positive and 2 hours negative then you might think ‘this is not a good job’.
Company lens:
if you buy a product from a company such as a textbook and for every 3 things that delight you 1 thing disappoints you, you don’t mind as you have ‘positive sentiment override’. However 2 delights for 2 freights could well make you think of the textbook in a negative light!
Credibility increments
-L1: negative sentiment override / don't trust other / don’t believe in yourself
Eg ~1:3 positive:negative. You have a bad track record.
Person lens: a person has actively destroyed credibility / trust to the point where others think this person’s recommendations are default wrong. “The imbecile is speaking again”. A person with negative sentiment override speaks and you are looking for why what they say doesn’t make sense.
Job lens: 3 hours negative for every 1 positive means even the 1 positive annoys you as you are dreading the next negative hour which will imminently occur .
Company lens: experience with the companies products has been so bad that if a salesperson from the company calls about a new product you actively block speaking to them.
Comment: your reputation is bad, it precedes you to the point of closing the door as you approach.
L0: neutral sentiment no override (i’m particularly proud of how convoluted that is)
Eg you’ve never met this person before, or the first time buying a product from a company. Or you have interacted with the person or company before but have had 1:1 negative:positive outcomes.
Person lens: You don’t overlook bad outcomes (positive sentiment override) or assume outcomes will be negative (negative sentiment override). If someone speaks / puts forward a proposal you see is ‘neutrally’ (or with your personal set of context (biases) and blind spots and ego distortions).
Job lens: you don't’ dislike or like this job. You don’t necessarily go the extra mile for the company or push yourself to level up because ‘this is a job, not a vocation’.
Company lens: you use the product, but you don’t recommend it to anyone and if another product came along you’d readily consider switching.
Comment: you don’t have a reputation, it’s not bad or good. When you approach you need to knock on doors and explain who you are and what it is you do.
L1: positive sentiment override / trust other / believe in yourself
Eg ~3:1 positive:negative. You have to have a track record here… and it’s a good one.
Person lens: due to past positive track record others think highly of you. When you come up with a new proposal, others stop what they are doing and make time to listen to you. Instead of closing doors as you come (negative sentiment override) they open the doors and welcome you in.
Job lens: you look forward to going to work on average. Yes there are always bad / draining periods, but they are worth it.
Company lens: you launch a new product and send an email to existing customers about it. They see the email in their inbox and actively open it to read what you are doing.
Comment: IMO this is the minimum you want for yourself, your job, the company you work. Doing a product outside your ‘circle of competence’ is often a way to try to build something great but execute not great and thereby have ‘neutral / negative’ response.
L2: game changer (Lee Kuan Yew, FDR, JK Rowling, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk)
Eg 5:1+ positive:negative. Long and positive track record. IMO no one is born a ‘game-changer’. No one is born able to talk or walk. IMO almost anyone can level themselves up into a ‘game changer’. Visionary is a word people use, but IMO this comes with much embedded fixed mindset.
Person lens: you put forward a new proposal that is against an existing view someone has.
Negative sentiment override outcome: see this person has no idea what is going on, another event of ‘negative’.
Neutral sentiment no override outcome: hmmm, I don’t get why this person is saying this, not good.
Positive sentiment override: I don’t agree but everyone misses the mark from time to time, they are still a good operator and someone we want around.
Visionary: hmmm, they have a different point of view to me, maybe I need to re-examine my synthesis. AKA Your ability to change people’s minds is strong.
Comment:
You can dig your way out of ‘negative sentiment override’. But it takes work.
If you have positive sentiment override credibility you can move way faster with people as you need to worry less about your ‘messaging’ and more about ‘progress’.
Job lens: this negative event is an opportunity to grow, not a reason to question whether I should be looking for a new job. IMO for a job to be a game changer most of the levelling up required is by the person doing the job (as opposed to the ‘company’). IMO many jobs can be made into game changers (an increasingly higher percentage).
Company lens: you launch a new product people line up to get it (eg ne harry potter book, eg iphone, eg tesla).
Comment: when you approach, people don’t just open their doors and greet you, they organise a town meeting and try to get as many people to come to listen to what you have to say.
Credibility cultivation categories
L0: Reactive
"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If you do something good but no one sees it did you do anything good?
It’s not enough to do a good job, you need to have others know you do a good job.
Ways to build credibility reactively:
Eg 1: you had solid sales numbers for the year that can be seen in a report at the end of the year. So someone can see after the fact you did a solid job.
Eg 2: you were involved in the team who made the first iPhone. The product did amazing, you were on the team, so therefore you must be good.
L1: Reports
You are sending regular updates (eg weekly, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly) about the progress you are making.
In this you likely have the key metrics that matter (eg KPIs, OKRs), qualitative and quantitative explanations of them and some small free from thoughts about how you are 1. Understanding the problem space more and / or 2. Proposing new solution sets.
You need to demonstrate progress that can be measured after the fact (AKA like in “L0: Reactive”) but you also ‘L1: report’ on upstream improvements.
L2: Proactive
You do not just deliver good outcomes (e.g. sales numbers for the year, or a product that has strong traction). You don’t just show that along the sales year or product build you are improving your approach, you break new ‘blue ocean’ ground.
One key way to demonstrate you making new ‘blue ocean’ ground is through ad hoc larger blogs / strategy pieces / presentations that are not minor small updates (eg small free form thought) but large conceptual steps forward.
An example of this would be Elon and ‘self driving investor day’. Or Lee Kuan Yew’s national addresses to Singapore.
Comment:
IMO it’s best to do all three levels of credibility cultivation.
How to turn a bad outcome into a positive event. “The only way to fail is to fail to learn.”
IMO what matters is not the outcome of an event, but the sentiment of the event.
Education vs Innovation
Education = what happens in most of secondary school and undergraduate university = learning the knowledge others created.
Innovation = creating new knowledge yourself (Earned Secrets).
Education = 1. Learn => 2. Do => 3. Succeed
Innovation = 1. Do => 2. Fail => 3. Learn => 4. Succeed
Comment
For the longest time I didn’t realise there was a difference between ‘Education’ and ‘Innovation’. To me they were both ‘new knowledge’. However IMO learning existing knowledge others have created is a world apart from creating new information yourself.
I used to feel that if I wasn’t gaining knowledge while attempting to innovate at the same rate as when being educated that I was wasting time!
“To innovate you have to be comfortable wasting time.” If you don’t know what to do, you’ll spend a lot of time learning what not to do ;)!
Education vs Innovation visualisation (Hat tip to Mikayla for this image)
IMO it does not matter if you ‘fail’, it matters what you do with ‘failing’.
The only way to fail is to fail to learn! [*aside: maybe this should be a blog in it’s own right].
Cultivating vs killing credibility
Option 1 - Cultivating: Fail => demonstrate that you recognise you failed => show explanation for why you failed and how it is unlikely you will do it again => credibility built (AKA someone chalks up a positive event to you / the company)
Option 2 - Killing: Fail => don’t demonstrate that you recognised you failed => don’t show an explanation for why you failed and thereby are likely to commit the same mistake in the future => killing credibility.
High credibility allows you to lift the outcomes of those around you.
There is a lot of education research around how expectations of others affect outcomes... but it also makes intuitive sense.
Low expectations bad - I don’t expect much of you
High expectations good - I expect that you are able to level up from where you are
Unrealistically high expectations bad - you need to level up 5x levels immediately
The zone of acceptable ‘high expectations’ (overton window) is partially determined by your credibility with someone.
The higher the credibility you have with someone
=> the higher the reasonable range of expectations you can have with someone
=> the higher their growth / performance will be
Or in visual form:
The expectations you are able to inspire in someone else is partially driven by the respect / trust / credibility / reputation of you. The more credible you are the more they want to change.
So high credibility doesn’t just allow you to get more done, it inspires others to get more done.
If you only take away on thing:
IMO whether you like it or not, or whether you know it or not, everyone is constantly calibrating the credibility of people and products around them.
Credibility is earned. If you have high credibility (eg positive sentiment override+) then everything is much easier than if you low credibility (negative sentiment override).
IMO you can and should be consciously cultivating credibility.