If you or someone you know is struggling in college consider, once again, Implementation Intentions as a self persuasion tactic for winning the fight.  Here’s what you do.

Get a sheet of paper, close the door, clear your head, and take some uninterrupted time to write.

Step 1.  Take a few minutes and write your answer to the following questions.  Think about this.  You don’t need to write a Book, but you need more than a couple of sentences.

A. What is your ideal future?
B. What qualities do you admire in others?
C. What things could you do better at?
D. What kind of future do you see for your college and your work careers?
E. What areas would you like to learn more about?
F. What personal habits would you like to improve?

Step 2.  Re-read what you just wrote.  Think about it.  Now select specific actions you could do for each answer you wrote for each question.  Think of 6 to 8 specific, concrete, easy to see actions and write them down for each question A through F.

Step 3.  Now, rank order everything from things that are most important to least important.  You can’t do everything at once, so prioritize.

Step 4.  Write down what would happen if you achieved each of the goals you’ve set.  Think about how you would be different and how other people would respond to you.

Step 5.  Get serious about making these goals happen.  Think about and then write down for each goal:  Obstacles and Barriers, Needed Resources, Timeline, and Benchmarks and Standards.

Step 6.  Think about everything you done so far.  Honestly assess your commitment to each goal.  Do you really want to do this stuff or are you just kidding?

You’re probably thinking this is no big deal.  How can something like this make a practical difference in surviving college?  Well, consider this.

Dominique Morisano and colleagues recruited undergrads who were struggling in college and asked them to participate in a research study.  Half of the volunteers were randomly assigned to do pretty much what I’ve just described.  They kept a copy of their writing work and were free to use it however they wanted.  The other half in the Control group did tasks that required the same amount of time and effort, just not directed toward this goal setting and planning exercise.

Morisano et al. obtained the grade point averages and status in school for all the participants a semester later.  Not surprisingly, for the Control group, GPA did not change, but for the II group, their GPA increase half a letter (expressed as a Windowpane effect this increase was a medium+ increase, roughly 30/70).  Furthermore, all of the participants in the II group maintained full-time status in the college while 20% of the Control group either dropped out or went to part-time (a medium Windowpane of 25/65).

All the standard caveats apply:  Just one study, more research needed, Your Mileage Will Vary, and on and on.  Truly.  Be cautious.

At the same time when you blend these results into the large literature on II, it becomes Another Brick in the Wall.  When people effortfully set goals and plans, they change attitudes and intentions and more importantly behavior.  II works.

If you are struggling in college Do This Now!

If you have any kind of influence over others (parent, supervisor, teacher, manager, priest/rabbi/minister/imam, even a friend, lover, SO, main squeeze, or spouse) run II as a persuasion tactic to produce change.  You can either run this as a clear, obvious, and direct communication aimed at producing change or you can do this as an indirect approach.  Here are the crucial factors.

1.  Get the Other Guy to think about Goals and Plans.
2.  Get the Other Guy write or talk about those Goals and Plans.
3.  Make the Other Guy think that all of this is under His/Her control (an Internal Attribution).  If you “make” the Other Guy do this, it probably will not work as well.
4.  Stay out of the way and monitor indirectly.

The point of II is to get the Other Guy on the Central Route having that Long Conversation in the Head on goals and plans.  Let them make Internal Attributions and stay out of the way!

When science fails, try power!

Calorie counts on restaurant menus are now required as part of the new Health Care Reform legislation.  I hadn’t heard that this was on anyone’s table during the run up with this legislation, but I’m not surprised that provisions like this made it to the final bill.  This is how you change things when you’ve got bad science.  You buddy up with allies, horse trade on issues, and voila, you’ve saved the world.

The WSJ has a good article with nice balance on the pros and cons of calorie counts.  As I’ve reported in this blog, calorie counts on menus have no practical effect on obesity although advocates of the legislation assert that it does.  I personally know some of these advocates and from that experience I can publicly assert these folks can’t count past 10 without taking off their shoes.  They don’t understand their own work, but because they did the work with the intent of proving calorie counts reduce eating, IT MUST BE TRUE!

This action falls into the category of Nudges, those little things that make big differences.  I’ve assessed Nudge here and can’t imagine it will do anything except make Nudgers feel good about themselves, especially the zealots at FDA who will implement this.  It should be fun to listen to their stories in the future as they read the fast food tea leaves and try to link them to obesity.  I’ll go out on a thick limb here:  Obesity rates in America will not decline at even a Small Effect over the next three years (before the next Presidential election).

My angst over this is that there are proven ways to motivate people toward healthier lifestyles.  Whether this is a matter for government regulation is another issue.  My point is there is scientifically proven stuff that works.  Calorie counts on menus do not.  The law is a disaster for any one who wants to see healthier people, but great for advocates at the Cool Table.  This foolish Nudge will gobble up resources, produce no practical change, and divert, disrupt, or destroy efforts that would work.

Remember the Rules.

Power corrupts persuasion.

You Cannot Persuade a Falling Apple.

I’ve experienced two bad taxi moments in my life.  The first occurred in Chicago when Melanie was dressed to kill and in my distraction I made the mistake of telling the cabbie we were late for a dinner reservation at Charlie Trotter’s.  We spun out from the taxi line at the hotel like a NASCAR start and dodged through downtown rush hour traffic arriving exactly on time at Trotter’s, an outcome that violated both the rules of physics and the laws of Chicago.  I was so badly shaken I briefly forgot about Melanie’s legs and gulped a double Martini just to get my heart rate down to normal.

The second occurred in New York when we were standing in the queue outside our hotel at dinner time during a rainstorm.  After a very long wait, our turn coincided with the screeching arrival of a cab whose doors flew open for both driver and occupant who were continuing a verbal brawl, both swearing and hollering in various languages at each other with a female occupant actually taking a swing at the driver.  We declined that cab and waited for the next one.

Past those two moments, most of my taxi experiences are positive.  Most drivers have been good at their job and some have been eminently useful which is why I am a bit surprised at the vigorous venom unleashed over accusations that Big Apple taxi’s have been routinely gouging customers.

You’ll recall the Rule:  If You Can’t Count It, You Can’t Change It, meaning it’s hard to know your persuasion is working unless you can track it even with the simplest Yes or No number scale.  Yet, the opposite of the Rule – If You Can Count It, You Can Change It – is not true.  Simply because you can count something does not mean that you understand it, the count is meaningful, or most importantly, you can change it.

At first blush people jumped on the Count.  Four million dollars in overcharges!  Four thousand taxi drivers!  Zillions of trips!  They assumed that the numbers Counted something real, explainable, and indictable:  Those damn drivers!

Now, it appears that the Count may not mean what we thought it means.  Turns out that a lot of the Count was a mistake.  Yeah, there were several really bad Apples in the Big Apple fleet, but nothing like the first take.  (And that’s what made me initially suspicious – nearly ALL the drivers did this?)

Remember:  If You Cannot Count It, You Cannot Change It.

But, simply because you can count it doesn’t mean you can explain it.

Finally, never tell them you are late AND always take the next one if your cabbie curbs up and expels a cursing passenger!

I wanted to be an actor, writer, and director in theater.  I pursued that with a child’s enthusiasm from my youth until young adulthood when even my considerable energy could no longer resist reality.  I just wasn’t that good and worse still I wasn’t getting better.  So, I followed my talent elsewhere, but never forgot those early lessons.  And, my experience as a dancer, while proving me no hoofer, still taught me persuasion metaphors.

In high school I had a great part in the chorus with the musical, George M! I had made the cut for the lead, George M. Cohan that great Broadway musical theater talent, but because I could not sing or dance outside of my bathroom shower, I didn’t get the part.  But, I was good enough for the chorus line!  Great experience, too, for as it is written, There Are No Small Parts Only Small Actors.  My partner could dance like the wind with all the effortless grace of a spring breeze.  I enjoyed just watching her and had to resist becoming the audience with her skill.  Not only could the girl dance, she could teach.

After our first miserable rehearsal where we were bouncing off each other like bowling pins in a mix master, Barbara gave me a sweet smile, pointed to a distant edge of the stage, and asked me to stand over there, WAY OVER THERE, and just watch her.  Only when I walked 30 feet from her and no longer threatened her safety, did she then run through our pas de deux routine alone.  And then I saw the soft breeze of her talent as she floated through the routine, gracefully lifting into the air, swinging, pivoting, gliding all without my controlling manly strength.

Teaching by showing, she sized up my limited talent and explained how to develop my skill.  Instead of lifting, tossing, and swinging her body around the stage floor as if I was the motive force behind her actions, my job was to act like I was lifting, tossing, and swinging her.  Simply:  She’s the dancer and I’m the actor.

Our rehearsals got a lot better from that first failure as I learned how to dance like Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune.  Just move gracefully on time and don’t hit anything.  Work in some funny bits with a hat or a quizzical look but only if you can do it on time and without hitting anything.  In other words, don’t dance; just act like you’re dancing.

The proof of this pudding was in the performance, of course.  Everyone who knew me couldn’t believe I got cast in the chorus line and eagerly anticipated my star turn in Demolition Derby.  But, I disconfirmed their accurate anticipation by fooling them with my acting and Barbara’s dancing.  After a few weeks of working with her, I learned how to move on time without hitting anything and adding little dazzles, charms, and bits to boot.  My friends and family were dumbfounded backstage after the performances.  Who knew we had a Fred Astaire in the family.  Mom wept.  Even our director, who knew how to crush you and did so as needed, congratulated me.  He knew it all along, he said, nervously wiping sweat off his face.

If you ask me today, I’ll tell you I’m a good dancer because I know how to act like a dancer with a girl who knows how to dance.  If you want some other kind of dancing, you’ll have to look elsewhere.

Persuasion is acting like a dancer with someone who is a dancer.  If you can get the Other Guy moving the way you want, all you have to do is move on time, not hit anything, and add dazzles, spangles, and bits along the way.

5, 6, 7, 8, give my regards to Broadway!

This geometric image, the icosahedron, is a 20 faced polyhedron.  It has many flat sides, but rolls like a sphere, yet comes to rest on a plane.