On previous talks, I have touched on attitude quite a few times. I remember once talking about how attitude tops performance even in appraisals. I had quoted from an article by Shruti Sabharwal and Devina Sengupta who had said that in Microsoft's Global Technical Support Center in Bangalore, performance rating was not linked to the aptitude, but to behavior and the ability and willingness to learn from the problems that the people were solving. It was linked to willingness to share knowledge and the doggedness and persistence in solving problems were very high on the desirability charts at the company. In fact, Microsoft junked its performance review system doing away with targets for engineers, and instead judged them on behavior and the way they performed the task rather than what they did – looking at the how rather than the what in terms of an appraisal and found that there was a 20% increase in employee satisfaction within that year.
Attitude seems to be very important in the scheme of things. Zig Ziglar once commented, "Your attitude is more important than your aptitude," and I remember rounding off on that. But he's also been credited with saying, "Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude." That's a nice pithy way of saying: How high you go depends on the kind of attitude that you have, not so much the skills and the aptitude that you have, though that is important as well.
I was reading an article by Andrew Cooke and he quotes a study by Leadership IQ of over 20,000 new hires over 3 years. The study found that 46% of new hires failed within the first 18 months on the job. The reason: 89% of them because they had the wrong attitude and only 11% failed because of a lack of technical skill and competency. So important is attitude these days that more and more people are trying to understand what is involved with attitude, not only in the hiring process but also in terms of marketing.
How does attitude play a role in consumers? If you are trying to sell something, what role does attitude of a consumer have towards the chances of them buying a product that you are offering? Gregory Dean brought out a book called "Understanding Consumer Attitudes." In it, he talks quite extensively about some of the things that go into the buying patterns of consumers and references, what psychologists have called for many years, the ABC Model of Attitudes. I may have alluded to this before, but for the sake of what we are talking about today, I'll highlight it again.
The ABC Model of Attitudes consists of 3 components:
· Affect – the feeling that the individual has regarding an object. It's the opinion about a product or service that a company may be offering.
· Behavior – the response of the consumer resulting from that affect and cognition. Behavior only implies intention.
· Cognition – is an individual's belief or knowledge about an attitude object. What do you know about the company, the product, etc?
The hierarchy of effects is the result of all three components working together. So when you look at how you market something to people, you must take into consideration their attitude, which can be broken down into these three – affect, behavior and cognition. What they feel about it, what they know about it and what they're going to do about it. These 3 areas come together in different permutations and combinations, which let us know how people buy things. Standard-learning hierarchy, low-involvement hierarchy and experiential hierarchy are the 3 hierarchies of effects. That's how people buy something.
For example, the standard-learning hierarchy has this mix: it has the CAB mix – cognitive-affect-behavior. Here, the consumer will conduct extensive research, really do due diligence on the product and establish beliefs about the object. Then through that knowledge, feelings come in that are based on the information that the person has. The feelings will then lead to the behavior. So if you are buying a house or a car, that's what you do. All the knowledge that you can gather about it contributes towards the feelings you have towards buying it and then finally you go out and buy it.
The low-involvement hierarchy however, changes the combination to CBA: cognition-behavior-affect. I remember when my daughter was planning to buy a phone and unlike a lot of people who would walk into a store and look at different phones and see what they feel good about and looks nice, she made an Excel chart and went through all the phones that could find in her particular budget. She made a nice comparison and then determined which one was the best that she could get. Then she went out and bought that phone, or as it happened, I ordered the phone for her. After that, she came and said that she loved the phone. So it was the CBA that was playing. First cognition, then behavior and finally affect, or the way she felt. But this is not suitable for life-changing purchases like a car or a house.
The third is the experiential hierarchy of effects which is defined by ABC – affect-behavior-cognition. Here, feeling is the #1 motivator and this comes normally from an advertisement that you have seen which evokes some feelings that then leads straight away to behavior. And then finally, the cognitive kicks in and you wonder whether this was a good buy or not a good buy. It's mostly influenced by the emotion of an advertisement or a sales pitch.
Attitude is just so important in everything, not only in terms of how we hire or the kind of people that we work with and the kind of environment that they will create, but even in terms of understanding consumers, understanding the people that you are trying to sell products to and understanding how they make those purchases. But, when you look at attitude, you realize that it can always begin with you. Even in terms of how you respond to reaching out to people buying depends on your own attitude – what you think about the possibility of changing somebody's buying or purchasing power.
I love another quote by Zig Ziglar: "You can complain that roses have thorns, or you can rejoice that thorns have roses." It's all about attitude. Attitude is so important for everything that we do. Yet we don't pay too much attention to it. We go through our day more by rote, just the way we are put together. Yet, my friends, I think if we just take a little bit of time and consider some of the ways we respond. And check and see whether we need to do a little bit of thinking about our own attitudes and how we can influence the attitudes of others in their interactions with us. I think it will go a long way in helping us to be better people doing things in much more efficient ways.
I want to end with this little thing. Unfortunately I don't know who wrote it, but it prodded me this morning about attitude. It says, "I woke up early today, excited about all I get to do before the clock strikes midnight. I have responsibilities to fulfill today. I'm important. My job is to choose what kind of day I'm going to have. Today I can complain because the weather is rainy or I can be thankful that the grass is getting watered for free. Today I can feel sad that I don't have more money, or I can be glad that my finances encourage me to plan my purchases wisely and guide me away from waste. Today I can grumble about my health or I can rejoice that I'm alive. Today I can lament over all that my parents didn't give me when I was growing up or I can feel grateful that they allowed me to be born. Today I can cry because roses have thorns, or I can celebrate that thorns have roses. Today I can mourn my lack of friends or I can excitedly embark upon a quest to discover new relationships. Today I can wail because I have to go to work or I can shout for joy because I have a job to go to. I can complain because I have to go to office or eagerly open my mind and fill it with new tidbits of knowledge. Today I can murmur dejectedly because I have a lot of chores at home or I can feel honored because God has entrusted treasures into my care. Today stretches ahead of me waiting to be shaped, and here I am, the sculptor who gets to do the shaping. What today will be like is up to me. I get to choose what kind of day I will have.
My prayer for each one of us is that we will lean on the wisdom that only the Almighty God can give us in enabling us to shape a wonderful day and that's my prayer for each one of us, that we will have a great day.
May I pray with you? Almighty God, into your hands we give the pen and the script. Help us to shape our day with a great attitude, one of anticipation and expectation and great learning. Help our attitudes to even shape the attitudes of people we interact with, that it would be a win-win right through the day. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
• Shruti Sabharwal & Devina Sengupta, "Aptitude tops performance in appraisals; workers judged on risk-taking, willingness to learn." http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-01-13/news/30623961_1_thomas-payyapilli-behaviour-senior-managers
• Zig Ziglar quotes: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/z/zig_ziglar.html
• Andrew Cooke, "Growth & Profit Solutions," http://growthandprofit.me/2013/03/01/the-exactitude-of-attitude/
• Gregory Dean in Market Strategy, "Understanding Consumer Attitudes." http://marketography.com/tag/abc-model-of-attitudes/
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