Stephen H Baum Leadership

3 Second Rule for Business Owners

Some of you may recall the “3 second rule” from childhood: when food fell on the floor it was ok to eat it as long as you picked it up within 3 seconds. This was true especially for foods like cookies, candy and such.

For business owners and CEOs, there is a different 3 second rule but it works just as well. When someone says something that triggers your anger or otherwise upsets you, or when an event does the same thing, if you leave it alone for 3 seconds before you speak (a feat that is surprisingly challenging for business owners and first-time CEOs), it will be more often than not much better than if you simply react.

I have the privilege of being able to learn on two parallel paths: observing and working with business owners and CEOs and reading insightful books on behavior. Recently, several have come together in an interesting way.

Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth, a very difficult read) teaches us to check if our ego is driving (literally) before it causes an accident. Some of my business owners have learned this three second rule the hard way, unable to un-ring the bell of some insult hurled at a valuable person. Or regret at sending a “hot” email to a supplier or lender.

Jonah Lehrer (How We Decide, a terrific read with riveting real life stories) teaches us that intuition is often smarter in the first three seconds than our intellect. My clients have often said the biggest regret was not going with their instinct on a decision. Especially about people.

But Richard Thaler (Nudge, a worthwhile though arduous read) teaches us that we must learn to vet our intuition with logic in the first three seconds to check that the intuition is consistent with what we know about the particular situation (lest the instinct be based on some prior experience that does not apply).  In fact, he says, we and our advisors must be “choice architects,” framing a choice correctly for ourselves and others.

Another author, Richard Neustadt (Thinking in Time, The Use of History for Decision-Maker, an easy read with great lessons), argues that many catastrophes in public policy have occurred because decision-makers had a flawed or wrong analogy in their mind, thought they knew something when in fact it was not so, and failed to seek to find out what we could know. They simply went with their gut and preconceived thinking. Three seconds would have saved lives.

In my recent Vistage CEO peer advisory meeting, one of the business owners posed the question of how to get his business unit presidents (who happened to be shareholders) to step up drive and accountability for themselves and their teams without his having to micromanagement. . Though the feedback varied in specifics, the overwhelming theme was to frame the choice for them in ways that motivate stepping up rather than an approach more threatening or dictatorial.

Finally, Stuart Diamond (Getting More, another arduous read but worthwhile if you can skim it) teaches us that negative negotiating tactics most often get you less than if you connect with your adversary enough to learn their wants and weak spots.

I have been working with two particularly intense, driven, “quick on the trigger” and previously successful people whose growth is limited because they have not controlled themselves in the first five seconds. Gradually, they are learning to “count to 1” and a little higher while they:

–       check if their ego is driving their reaction

–       listen to what their intuition is telling them

–       ask themselves if this situation is identical to what they have experienced before

–       don’t go first — ask the other person for more information before expressing your own view (“active listening” to connect, to understand where the “other’ is coming from  and time to work out the best approach)

They tell me it is starting to work. And that it helps at home too.

That’s just my view. What’s yours?

This will be one of my topics on Small Business Advocate, the terrific resource of Jim Blasingame, advocate and ambassador for U.S. small business.

Small business Advocate (small business brain trust)

And, if you are interested in peer advisory for business owners and CEOS, see my Vistage page on this website or go directly to:

Vistage International