Don McMinn

In religious art, saints and angels are often portrayed with halos, and the devil and demons have horns. Through the years, these contrived images have worked: when we see a halo, bathed in heavenly light, we think that the figure is good and pious; horns suggest the opposite. 

Psychologists use these two symbols to illustrate an interesting phenomenon we often fall prey too. The halo and horn effects are cognitive biases that cause us to allow one trait, either good (halo) or bad (horn), to overshadow other traits, behaviors, actions, or beliefs.

We often create an overall impression of someone or something based on one, unrelated trait. This bias can cause us to think too highly of someone or something (halo effect) and cause us to think poorly of someone or something (horn effect) because of a single characteristic or trait.

The halo and horn effects bias our assessment of people.

• • • We may assume (wrongly) that physically attractive people are more informed, intelligent, or competent. 
    • We may think someone who is disheveled and untidy is struggling in life and lacks acumen.
    • We may think someone with a complicated-sounding name—Stephan Lewandowski—is more debonair than someone named John Smith. 
    • Someone who is winsome and engaging may be thought to be insightful or competent. 
    • One research study found that jurors were less likely to believe that attractive people were guilty of criminal behavior. 

The halo and horn effects will prejudice our thinking in other areas of life.

• • • A car dealer will place its fanciest car in the middle of the showroom (fully realizing that the average buyer cannot afford it) because it enhances what customers think of the other models.
    • A restaurant will list a $900 bottle of 2014 Penfolds Grange wine on their menu, (knowing that no one will probably buy it) because having it on the list makes customers think more highly of the entire restaurant. (I often wonder, do they even have a bottle of that wine? Perhaps they did, and sold it, but continue to list it.) 
    • A law firm will maintain high-dollar offices to perpetuate the appearance of success and expertise. (I wonder who is paying for those fancy offices. Hint: you, the client.) I thought we paid attorneys for their wisdom and experience so why be swayed by mahogany desks on the 20th floor of a downtown office building? 
    • When consumers have an unfavorable experience, they may allow that one negative experience to influence what they think of the entire brand. (When eating at a restaurant, if the bathroom needs servicing, I may unfairly dismiss the entire restaurant even though all other factors are good.)

How can we guard against these unproductive and misleading tendencies?

1. 1. 1. Think holistically. A comprehensive approach recognizes that there are many parts to a whole entity and that the whole should not be judged on one part. One characteristic cannot adequately or fairly define an entire entity. 
      2. Be skeptical of advertising and marketing because they often intentionally use the halo effect to promote a product and the horn effect to demean the competition.  

Identify situations in which you have been tricked by the halo and horn effects. How can we develop an immunity to these two biases?

The human face has around 30 muscles on each side, depending on how they are counted. It takes 47 muscles to frown and only 13 to smile. The main muscle used in smiling is the zygomaticus major, also known as the smiling muscle.

The simplest, quickest, and easiest way to enhance your well-being in life is to exercise that muscle often. Train yourself to display a perpetual smile. 

Dale Carnegie’s terrific book, How to Win Friends and Influence People is a must-read. Though written 100 years ago (1926), it still speaks to our modern age.

Carnegie taught seminars based on his book to large audiences in New York City. He devoted an entire chapter— A Simple Way to Make a Good First Impression— to the topic of smiling. When he taught this chapter at his seminars, he gave his students a simple assignment: Smile at someone every hour of the day for the next week and then come back to class and talk about the results. The positive results of this simple exercise were profound. His students learned that a smile is one of the most potent people skills and that it can dramatically improve human relationships.

Carnegie concluded his chapter on the power of a smile with these words:

The Value of a Smile

• • • It costs nothing, but creates much.
    • It enriches those who receive, without impoverishing those who give.
    • It happens in a flash and the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.
    • None are so rich they can get along without it, and none so poor but are richer for its benefits.
    • It creates happiness in the home, fosters good will in a business, and is the countersign of friends.
    • It is rest to the weary, daylight to the discouraged, sunshine to the sad, and Nature’s best antidote for trouble.
    • Yet it cannot be bought, begged, borrowed, or stolen, for it is something that is no earthly good to anybody till it is given away.

It’s helpful to consider the difference between our resting face and our engaged face.

Resting face – the way your face looks when you are at ease, with facial muscles relaxed. 

Engaged face – the way your face looks when you are consciously manipulating your face to appear more engaged, approachable, and friendly. I’ve also heard this called a “yes face.”

To display an engaged face, raise the eyebrows, open up the eyes, smile, and raise the forehead. To exhibit a resting face, do nothing. 

Let’s accept the same assignment Dale Carnegie challenged his students with: Put on your engaged face and smile at someone every hour of the day for the next week and then come back to class and talk about the results. Or, in our case, respond to this blog post.

I don’t want this post to be morbid but it starts out that way. The main theme is living life to its fullest; but first, let’s talk about death.

Death is inevitable and unforeseeable. It can occur suddenly at any time, or it can approach slowly and predictably.  We all know the day of our birth but no-one knows the day they will die.

As I get older (and particularly as I approach that ominous statistical factor—the average life-expectancy of a male living in America), I often think about final experiences, because for everything I do in life, there will be a last time I do it. There will be a last time that I eat dinner with my family, embrace Mary, sing For the Beauty of the Earth, see a sunset, visit London.

This thought doesn’t bother me or make me anxious or fearful. To the contrary, it’s beneficial because it reminds me to savor every moment of each day and to delight in experiences both great and small … to approach every experience as if it were my last time to do so.

For instance, the last time we visited Dubai I said to Mary, “This is probably the last time we’ll ever come to Dubai, so let’s enjoy it fully.” Though we go to London every year at Christmas, last year may have been our last. You get the point.

This exercise in crafting perspective requires negotiating the inevitability of death with the immeasurable joy of living.

Hermann Hesse wrote,

“Life passes like a flash of lightning
Whose blaze barely lasts long enough to see.
While the earth and the sky stand still forever
How swift changing time flies across man’s face.
O you who sit over your full cup and do not drink,
Tell me, for who are you still waiting?” (from Klingsor’s Last Summer)

You never know when you’re experiencing something for the last time so enjoy every moment of life.

“One can’t lead unless he can leverage more than his own capabilities.”   Scully

There is a significant difference between an achiever and a leader.

• • • An achiever gets the job done.
    • A leader gets the job done through other people.

This is huge; don’t miss it.

Many people have honed their “get it done” skills; they live disciplined lives and accomplish immense amounts of work. They are achievers. Give them a job and they’ll get it done. I admire these people, but I don’t consider them leaders, because leaders accomplish work through others.

Peter Drucker illustrates this difference by challenging us to think of which pronouns we use when given work to do: “The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say ‘I.’ And that’s not because they have trained themselves not to say ‘I.’ They don’t think ‘I.’ They think ‘we’; they think ‘team.’ They understand their job to be to make the team function.”

When you are given an assignment or when you have a vision to fulfill, what is your first thought? “I can do that.” Or, “I need to put a team together.” As Drucker says, leaders think first of accomplishing work through their team. Leaders use plural pronouns when planning work.

No doubt, a good leader must also be an achiever—you must possess the skills necessary to accomplish tasks. When a leader doesn’t know how to get work done, he loses credibility with his team and progress suffers because he doesn’t understand how work is accomplished. So for a leader it’s not “I’m either an achiever or a leader” but “I am both an achiever and a leader.”

There’s even a difference between a leader and an achiever with helpers. Some high achievers will surround themselves with a group of assistants and helpers whose job is to help the achiever be more efficient, but this is still not the exercise of leadership. For instance, a dentist may have a staff that assists him in his work—a dental assistant, dental hygienist, receptionist, x-ray technician—but all the work centers around the dentist. A leader will empower others to conceptualize and perform work on their own.

The ability to get work done through other people is fundamental to leadership. In fact, if you’re not doing that, you’re not leading.

As you reflect on your past, have you functioned more as an achiever or a leader?