Life – Dinner Principle

The “Life-Dinner” principle is valid not only in the relationship between a parasite and its host, but also in a great many other inter-species and intra-species interactions. This principle was originally identified (and named) in systems of the predator and prey type. Put simply, rabbits run faster than foxes for the simple reason that they are running for their lives, while the fox is only concerned about its supper. But the rabbits always stay a little faster than the foxes; because a fox can afford to go without dinner sometimes, but a rabbit can never afford to BE dinner. So the foxes always push the rabbits to go faster. You decide which is the more potent motivator.

But, this isn’t an article about motivations, but rather a very simple principle with far reaching consequences: Priorities matter. Things survive for a reason. Existence implies viability.

Therefore we should always be on guard when given easy answers to hard questions and simple metrics to explain complex businesses.  Life is much more complicated than dinner.

Rabbits, Foxes and Cuckoo Birds

Let’s draw some analogy between the culture and business by thinking deeply about things like rabbits, foxes and cuckoo birds.

Rabbits that are born slow are more likely to get eaten, enlarging the proportion of fast rabbits in the gene pool. Foxes that are fast enough to catch the slowest rabbits survive and continue to propagate, but only need to be fast enough to stay well fed.

If foxes became too efficient or rabbits became too slow, neither would survive. All of rabbits would get eaten and the foxes would either starve or have to seriously change their business model.

The cuckoo story is more bizarre. They have evolved to lay eggs that look so much like those of other birds that they are able to drop them in their nests, leaving the unsuspecting victims to do the hard work of nurturing the cuckoo offspring.

Why haven’t the other birds evolved a defense mechanism against the ruse?  Most likely the costs would outweigh the benefits. They nurture far more of their own eggs than those of the deceitful cuckoos and that’s what they need to do in order to thrive.

Expending the energy of a few dinners is more than worth it when life hangs in the balance.  Nature is a great optimizer.

Life and Dinner in Business

Once you become aware of the Life-Dinner principle you start seeing it everywhere. All too often, it is put in clichéd terms of “long-term vs. short-term,” but it’s really about the difference between having a true commitment to excellence and just keeping up appearances.

Consider the following example:

Leadership vs. Optimization: Optimization is about getting more of what you want with fewer resources.  Leadership is about getting your people to want what you want. Leadership requires not only investment, but serious dedication to the overall mission.

It’s easy for an outside consultant to come in and optimize. Leadership doesn’t show up in excel spreadsheets and there are always ways to squeeze out a few points of margin for a few quarters. By then, the consulting project will be over and impressive ROI results will have been delivered.

Issuing directives is always easier than building a consensus. Organizational charts always look better when they are simple and streamlined. The real world, however, is quite a bit messier.

A False Choice

Many would like to pose the Life-Dinner principle as a tradeoff – do you want to eat today or tomorrow? It isn’t that simple. You have to do both.  What is really at issue is whether you truly want to win or just put up stats and make it look good.

Top professional athletes understand this. They don’t ask, “Is it better to practice hard or play hard?” To be at the top of your sport, field or industry you need to constantly work to be your best every day, even when no crowds are cheering and there is no relevant balance sheet item.

Here is an important note: doing your best and being your best does not mean being at your peak at all times. There is a natural ebb and flow of our energy, attention, and intention across each day. Some days you do better thinking than on other days. Some days you are better listener than on other days. Doing your best means being the best you can be in any given moment, even if you know you have done better on other days. Similarly, being your best varies from day to day and from time to time. One cannot be upbeat and enthusiastic all the time. Being your best means getting the most out of a particular moment, even if other moments felt a lot better.

Most of us operate under a myth in business and often in life in general. We think of it as the 110% rule. There is this unfortunate and unrealistic belief on the part of many leaders that they and their people can and should show up and operate at ‘110%’ every day. The danger is that dinner is always more obvious than life. At the end of the day, you know if your belly is full or not.

So, How Do You Measure ROI?

In our quest for measurable ROI, we forget that the term is meaningless without clear objectives. Are we evaluating only for our dinner or for our life as well?

·   Are we happy with brand awareness or do we also measure brand attributes such as quality, value and other category specific measures of satisfaction?

·   Are we satisfied with marketing campaigns that produce sales, or are we working towards consumer advocacy?

·   Do we measure only sales and profits, or are we pushing for an increasing return on capital?

Research studies have shown that the best companies spend years determining which factors drive their business. Key metrics are specific to a company’s strategy and culture and are therefore often elusive. There is no textbook answer.

Dinner is simple. Life is complicated. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.

Dangers in using Fear to Motivate People

When you present a “burning platform” story to spur your people into action, there are inherent risks. People may jump into action, but will it be the right action? Will it be purposeful?

Most of the big problems we encounter in businesses and/or society are ambiguous and evolving. They don’t look like burning-platform situations. Yet, we still want people to buckle down and execute a hard, well-defined game plan.

Yoda was right. Fear creates anxiety and anger. And this leads to frenetic activity that is more distracting than useful.

When people are driven to act by fear rather than desire – the action isn’t motivated by any personal determination to move in a direction to win. It’s not action designed to create real results for long term success. It’s simply action, frenetic action, designed to diminish the fear and anxiety.

There is no question that negative emotions are motivating. But they are also constricting. They narrow our focus. Fear will get us to take fast specific action designed to reduce the feelings of fear and anxiety.

Negative emotions will help us avoid risks and confront problems. But the quest to take your business to the next level, that is, to execute a brilliant strategy, design quality customer experiences, and to improve team performance and the bottom line… well, that requires more than avoiding risks and problem solving.

These situations require creativity and flexibility and ingenuity. A burning platform won’t get you there. Negative emotions have a narrowing effect on our thoughts. We become focused on getting the stone out of our shoe, so to speak.

Positive feelings, on the other hand, broaden and build our repertoire of responses to a situation. Joy, for example, makes us want to play with new ideas and possibilities. We want to explore new ways of doing things, experiment and explore. In this way, we require positive emotions to fuel our creativity and curiosity.

What are you doing in your life/business to use positive emotions to inspire change?

The next time someone suggests lighting a fire under your people’s feet, consider these differences. Fear and negativity will, indeed, spark people into action. But only for specific action, and not necessarily purposefully directed.

An atmosphere of positivity, on the other hand, will give people the enthusiasm to create new solutions to broaden and build resources for innovation.

To solve bigger more ambiguous problems, those we are currently facing every day, we need to encourage open minds, creativity and hope.

Effective Executive and the Listening Skills

Peter Drucker is a highly regarded consultant and prolific writer in the sphere of management and leadership. His classic 1966 work, The Effective Executive, emphasizes the importance of focusing the executive's work load to avoid "wasting time" on non-essential matters.

Drucker's basic model for an effective executive can be summarized as follows:

• one, executives must carefully choose how to spend, and not to spend, their time;
• two, executives must consciously choose what they want to contribute to the organization and ask their subordinates to make such a choice also;
• three, executives must choose people to perform tasks based on their individual strengths and the fit between strengths and tasks - people should not be chosen for whether or not they lack weaknesses; 
• four, executives must deliberately choose long-term business priorities; and 
• five, executives must choose from among all of the alternative opinions offered within their organization.

Drucker's five-part effectiveness model depends heavily on listening ability, particularly steps one, two, and five.


Drucker's step one, choosing how to spend and not to spend time, requires aggressive delegation in order to avoid spending time on peripheral matters. Although he doesn't say it in as many words, it's implicit that his vision of delegation relies on a coaching management style - essentially, periodic listening as subordinates describe their planning and progress - because a direct-control style of management would negate the executive's decision not to spend time on delegated projects.

In step two of Drucker's model, executives ask both themselves and their subordinates what they contribute now to the organization and what they could contribute in the future. According to him, regardless of whether an individual's view of what they now contribute, or could contribute, matches their manager's view, bringing out and stressing the importance of everyone's role as a contributor is essential to the organization's overall effectiveness. (The same general principle is embodied by Covey's and Goleman’s emphasis on self-awareness, as in listening to one's self, and being aware of others, as in listening to subordinates.)

In step five, Drucker emphasizes the importance to the executive of actively seeking competing opinions and inquiring about the basis for those opinions before choosing a course of action, rather than acting on the basis of pre-arranged or tacit consensus. Of necessity, this requires consistently listening with genuine curiosity in order to encourage development of diverse opinions and supporting rationales, rather than simply setting forth proposals and working to build consensus around them.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you follow Drucker’s model in your business?

Positive Influence by Effective Listening

Positive influence happens in a variety of forms between managers and those they supervise. It surprises many managers to learn that one of the most significant ways to influence others in a positive way is by effectively listening to them.

"I was astonished! All I had to do was listen, and this employee of mine worked through his own problem without me giving a bit of advice." Newly aware of his own listening patterns, this manager whom I was coaching for some time stopped himself from jumping in with solutions when an employee began sharing a problem. Instead, he listened quietly and occasionally summarized what was being told. The employee came to his own conclusions right in front of him. The manager realized how much he had been interfering, by being too quick to give advice, with his staff’s ability to build confidence. He was amazed that most people just want him to listen to them.

Most Important Attribute

Listening to the individual is the most important attribute of an effective manager. Managers who listen, earn employee’s respect and loyalty. They discover important things about how the business is going. One company hired an expensive management consultant to find out why workers had low morale. The consultant began searching for the cause of dissatisfaction using a method the company's managers could have used themselves. He directly asked the workers why they were unhappy - and listened to their answers.

Employees frequently have excellent ideas about improving productivity of the work environment. Managers who listen for these ideas solve more problems than those who do not. These managers create a sense of concern for their staff while receiving better-quality information.

Dave, the foreman of a large manufacturing plant called Jorge, a supervisor of a production line, into his office to explain plans for a new way to assemble machinery. Dave described how he thought the procedure should be changed. Jorge's only response was silence and a frown. Dave realized something was wrong and sensed Jorge might have something to say because of his non-verbal communication. So Dave said, "Jorge, you've been in the department longer than me. What's your reaction to my suggestion? I'm listening." Jorge paused, and then began to speak. He realized his manager had opened the door to communication and felt comfortable offering suggestions from his years of experience. As the two employees exchanged ideas, a mutual respect and trust developed, along with a solution to the technical problems. While listening, the manager remained in complete control of the situation. He was an active, not passive, listener.

Why People Are Poor Listeners

When we think about listening, we tend to assume it is basically the same as hearing; this is a dangerous misconception because it leads us to believe effective listening is instinctive. As a result, we make little effort to learn, or develop listening skills, and unknowingly neglect a vital communication function. Consequently, we create unnecessary problems for ourselves and others: misunderstanding, hurt feelings, and confused instructions, loss of important information, embarrassment, frustration, and lost opportunities.

Listening involves a more sophisticated mental process than hearing. It demands energy and discipline. Listening is most often a learned skill. The first step is to realize that effective listening is an active, not a passive process. A skilled listener doesn’t just sit there and allow listening to happen haphazardly.

The belief that the power of the talker plays a major role in communication is why many managers are poor listeners. In our society talking is viewed as more important, with listening categorized as only a supportive function.

Levels of Listening Model

Listening can be seen as a model that has three levels. They are distinct categories into which people fall; they may overlap or interchange depending on what is happening. As managers move from level 3 to level 1, their potential for understanding, retaining what is being said, awareness, responsiveness, creativity, and effective communication increases. All managers listen at different levels of efficiency throughout the day, as their listening habits, their attitude toward listening, their mental alertness, and physical health change.

Level 1
At this level there is conscious attention, understanding, awareness of the moment, respect and a spirit of cooperation. This means managers will see things from the other person's point of view, be empathetic to the person’s feelings, and thus avoid internal distractions that interfere with effective listening. They pay attention to the talker's total communication by listening to content and the intent of what is being said; such as, tone of voice, inflections, volume. A critical ingredient of this level is the managers' attitude of mutual respect which helps suspend negative personal labels and is non-intimidating. This positive mindset promotes a communication process of inquiry and informing rather than an advocating position of "know–it–all." Summarizing and paraphrasing techniques will be applied to clarify meaning and understanding.

Managers at this level handle difficult situations more effectively because they know the importance of dealing with others from a non-blaming attitude. Usually stress at this level provides motivation, improves performance and excitement, increases focused energy, and fosters mental alertness.

This mental alertness often results in improved decision making, creativity, and memory. There is a greater ability to explore alternatives and choose the best one. Managers at level 1 avoid becoming preoccupied with their own internal dialogue that can inhibit effective listening. They also are aware that conversation requires a substantial amount of conscious processing because it involves novelty. We are not sure what the other is going to say, and we try to formulate unique responses appropriate to the discussion.  This lessens the ability to listen effectively.

Level 2
This level of listening is characterized as containing partial awareness, being in and out of consciousness, listening to words but not fully understanding the meaning of the message. Managers at this level don't realize information is being missed. This results in making little effort to understand the talker's intent or to clarify for understanding.

Each person has their own meanings for words because they filter them through their varied beliefs, knowledge, cultural upbringing, education, and experience. As a result no two people have exactly the same meaning for the same word or expression; meanings are not in words, meanings are in people.

Much is being communicated interpersonally that isn't verbalized. Research shows that there are three factors that impact on the outcome of effective communication: words (verbal), vocal (tone of voice), and body language which include, facial expression, body posture, gestures and eye contact. The relative impact is: words 7%, tone of voice 38% and body language 55%. When managers are experiencing level 2 listening, they are mainly focusing on the words. Much of what is not being communicated non-verbally is being missed.

Level 3
This level has dangerous consequences. It’s an automatic “tuned-out” mode. Internal distractions include daydreaming, thinking about something else, self - dialogue, finding fault, and negative feelings. Not much of what is said will be remembered. Managers will experience concentration problems resulting in difficulty in making appropriate decisions.

A major factor that contributes to level 3 is a blaming attitude that perpetuates negative feelings of frustration, anger, worry, impatience, and loss of humor. These factors cause stress which then reduces alertness and creativity. Fatigue is often part of this level: a feeling of not being up to par, loss of initiative, increased indifference. Managers can become complacent about getting the job done.

The following example illustrates the three levels. A manager named David met with one of his key employees. "Carol,” he said, "I have the feeling there's something that disturbs you about our professional relationship." Carol took this encouragement as an opportunity to explain that she felt he made some very degrading comments to her a week ago. Instead of reacting defensively, Dave listened to Carol's whole explanation and acknowledged her feelings. "I appreciate you telling me," he said. "I can see how you thought my comments were a putdown." "Yes", Carol remarked, "I was upset about it." David listened to that, too, and expressed concern that Carol was upset, adding, "I didn't intend it as a putdown."

This listening encounter proved a success because David stayed in level 1 throughout the conversation. By doing so, he influenced Carol in a positive way that encouraged Carol to feel comfortable talking about her negative feelings. David's level 1 behavior impacted Carol in such a way that she could respond to him at level 1. A few days later, Carol was heard mentioning her rapport with David as an example of a good working relationship.

Imagine what might have happened if David had reacted defensively at level 3 after inviting Carol to discuss what was bothering her! Often, when managers offer someone the opportunity to express his or her feelings about their behavior, they feel attacked and find it difficult to handle the feedback as David did. Usually managers take what is being said personally, become defensive or even verbally attack the person.

If David had responded at level 3 in a defensive manner to Carol's expressed negative feelings, the conversation more than likely would have ended with no resolution and increased alienation. Defensive listening is a major barrier to effective communication and problem solving because it perpetuates resistance, hostility, and an argumentative atmosphere.

Listening to others gives managers the information needed. Listening to themselves gives them the information to act in their own best interests. As managers achieve self-awareness, they are more able to choose their response rather than react automatically. They would then respond to what is real, rather than to emotions or misconceptions.

Information is power. Effective listeners are able to concentrate and find the most valid information in whatever they listen to. Effective listeners are powerful people that have positive influence on others.