Recently I was doing some research on how people make decisions and how they may be influenced. I stumbled across some fascinating data. Small cues can have a large impact on the way people think. Add a faint smell of cleaning fluid into the air, and people tidy up more thoroughly. Put a briefcase on the table during a meeting and people become more competitive. Put live green plants in a room you plan on having a creative session in and you’ll get 15% more creativity from the men and more flexible solutions to problems from the women.

Small but powerful

If you are in food and beverage, have a waiter or waitress offer a candy treat when presenting the bill to each customer in the group and then as he/she is leaving stop as though forgetting, reach in their pocket and quickly give everyone another piece of candy. This small strategy in the study increased their tip amount by a staggering 23%. Who would not want that?

One of the very basic tenants we have at our office is to tell many stories in many ways. They don’t have to be big or complicated, But they do need to be interesting and fun. It’s these small stories that can create the tipping point in the decision equation about your destination.

It’s the small things stupid.

Every one knows we are swamped in advertising clutter. I can’t even go to the restroom in the office without reading an ad above the john. In Orlando, you can’t look up in the sky because some jackass is writing something with his airplane or there’s a huge blimp that looks like Shamu. Hell, with Southwest Airlines you can fly in the belly of the beast since they are a sponsor of Sea World.

Are you smarter than a Neanderthal?

If it’s good enough for the Neanderthals, it’s good enough for me. 

You know the key is a great story told in a very simple way with great graphics and few words. The Neanderthals had it down; stick figures throwing spears at Deer, Wooly Mammoths and some of their other favorite things. Signed with an air brushed hand. The stuff these boys and girls put on the walls of their gathering places has stood the test of time. Not decades but tens of thousands of years.

A very simple, message without one word.

Still speaking across time and cultures that are radically different.

Maybe we should stick with simple stuff we know works.

Do you remember the panic, whipped up by fear-mongers, fire and brimstone preachers during 1999? The mantra and the message was that the coming of the millennium spelled doom for the human race. If not physical then surely economic. All of them had supporting evidence from the book of Revelation to Nostradamus. 

Today we are in the last year of the first DECADE of this new millennium.

The media continues to makes sure we have no reprise from fear or worry.

How are they preparing us for the second decade of the new millennium? Global Warming. That’s a really big one. I’m worried about my lights staying on and having enough baby formula and now I’ve got to worry that Aspen will be a beach town in about 20,000 years.

Hollywood’s already seized impending doom with the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. I know the accuracy of the calendar is legendary. But lets get real - these people never saw a wheel until the Conquistadors arrived.

So what can you do to maintain your sanity...

... and enthusiasm and dedication during those staff and committee meetings?

Close your eyes and mentally look around the conference table. There’s your Chairman, the County Manager, your corporate attorney, your department heads, individual board members and a few guests. The meeting opens and you can feel the panic.

The first words from one of your fear-mongers who loves his position and can speak with the passion of an evangelist in a tent meeting reminds you occupancy is falling, ADR, is down, and tax revenues are off. Once the first guy is done four others pile on.

When the blood bath is over there are 5 giant files of fear, anger, and frustration laying on the table right in front of you. What do you do?

Put on your HAZ-MAT Suit.

DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING. THEY ARE TOXIC.

These good folks have spent an hour desperately trying to give you their fear and frustration. The first step is to see what’s going on, it’s their fear, and frustration, not yours.

Listen to their pain. Turn up your regulator. Put your hands in your pocket, leave it right where they dumped it. If you pick up any of it you will never know peace or be clear enough on where to start attacking your challenges until business is running record gains.

By then you’ll be worrying about the next slide. If you still have the job.

...and let me off or I’m going to PUKE!

I asked a friend the other day who’s the President of a DMO at a well known international destination if she felt in control. She asked, “In control of what?”

“How about work or your life?” Her reply: “Unfortunately, work is my life and no, I’m not in control of it.”

I sense our business is full of very talented people who are frozen in debilitating fear that spreads terror, dread, and trepidation, causing the brain to retreat into this grey cloud of uncertainly. Every day seems like a constant struggle of dissatisfaction, despite a life time of worldly achievements.

My friend continued,

‘I feel disconnected from my job, my board, my co-workers. When I walk down the beach and look at our visitors, I think to myself, “I used to know who you were, where you were from, what you liked, how long you were going to stay, how much you were going to spend, and where I could reach you.”  

'Now it feels like I don’t know anything. Tax revenues off 40%, the old way of doing stuff isn’t working, the hype from every pro-ported marketing guru is burying me in data, suggesting I pull out all the stakes we’ve spent millions of dollars and years to plant and dump it in a dozen different places that I’ve never heard of and trust some social media contacts who are a friend of a friend and may or may not say, “Hey! Why don’t you go to her beach for a vacation?”’

As her words sank in, I was stunned and depressed.

I easily slipped into an affiliation and then an assumption of her feelings. They felt horrible. I wondered if there there was a way to shed this mindset of fear, not just for myself, but anyone else locked in this prison. Could it be done without Prozac or some other serotonin active drug?

I regret to admit that it took me a week to sort my way through all this stuff. The catalyst for the elixir was an anonymous quote:

“Living is tearing up one rough draft after another.”

Reflecting on this, I thought of five things that I could offer her that can bring perspective.

1. Problems need to be viewed from a holistic point of view across time, not from a single point
2. Every problem already contains its solution: in other words, it’s not the problem, it’s our way of thinking about it
3. Integration is key to simplifying complexity
4. A strong platform of research is critical - its hard to argue with the facts
5. The key to connecting with customers is still an emotional story, regardless of what the number crunchers might tell you.

I feel better already.