THE SURPRISINGLINK BETWEENCOFFEE ANDORGANISATIONALCULTURE

w i t h o u r M D , K a t e H a r g r e a v e s

I was listening to an excellent Tony Robbins andGary Vaynerchuck podcast on the way into workthis morning during which they shared some greatideas and offered advice in respect of goodpractice for entrepreneurs/business leadersregarding business, wealth, strategy andpsychology.

As some of you may already know, Tony Robbinsis a big advocate of ‘priming’. His view is that ourthoughts don’t actually belong to us; they arisebecause we’ve been ‘primed’ to think in a certainway. Priming occurs when we are exposed tosomething, often a word, an image or an idea thatinfluences our behaviour later on without us beingaware of that guiding influence. Any Derren Brownfans among you will be aware of just how powerfulthese influences can be and particularly when theyare frequently reinforced.

During the podcast Tony refers to a renowned Yalestudy that took place back in 2008, a study whichhighlights the impact of priming. The study wentsomething like this… Researchers askedparticipants to come to the lab to answer a shortquestionnaire – however, the participants weren’taware that the experiment had already startedbefore they even entered the room.

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THE SURPRISINGLINK BETWEENCOFFEE ANDORGANISATIONALCULTURE

w i t h o u r M D , K a t e H a r g r e a v e s

Each participant was joined by a research assistant whilst taking the lift up to the appropriate floor. Theresearch assistant had her hands full and at one point she asked the participant to hold a cup of coffee whileshe wrote his or her name down.

Half the participants held a hot cup of coffee, and the other half held an iced coffee.

When the participants got to the lab, they were asked to rate the stranger's personality — whether they weregenerous, caring, good-natured, or otherwise warm.

The results: The participants who held the warm coffee said that the individual had a warmer personality. Theparticipants who held the iced coffee said that the individual had a colder personality. The authors concludedthat holding a warm object leads people to regard others more fondly.

I’ve experienced this phenomenon myself during an unconscious bias workshop I attended a couple of yearsago. Participants were placed into 3 separate groups and then each group was handed an image of a car forthem to review and discuss. The first group was given an expensive car, the second group were given a mid-range priced car and the remaining group were given an inexpensive car. Later on that morning eachparticipant was asked how much they’d be prepared to pay for a reasonable bottle of wine. The results wereincredible, the first group gave an average price of £17.00, the second group £9.00 and the final group £6.00.We had been unconsciously primed or some might say ‘programmed’ earlier in the session – scary stuff!

Having been reminded of all this on the way into work this morning it got me thinking about how powerful thisknowledge can be when working with organisational culture. Once we know that people are subconsciouslyprimed by words, images and ideas we can then start to think about the kind of influences people areexposed to in our organisational environment. We may wish to examine how we may be subconsciouslypriming our people and then decide whether it is helpful or unhelpful in terms of taking us closer or furtheraway from the desired culture and behaviours we are actively trying to encourage within our organisations.

Something to ponder over your coffee perhaps... N O M A D I C | 2 4

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