By Kristen Hansen

I have just returned to Sydney highly stimulated by a whirlwind trip to Boston for the NeuroLeadership Summit 2010. Why was I so excited by this event? Many people have asked me about it, personally or via my online networks. Well, the conference confirmed the dramatic and rapid evolution of understanding about the brain due to technology such as PET scans and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). There is more and more evidence creating the “science” of leadership for the first time in history.

My own current postgraduate studies in the neuroscience of leadership are part of the world’s first Masters of Science in NeuroLeadership degree at Middlesex University. While learning core lessons that underpin my work as a coach, trainer and facilitator, I am also making deeply personal discoveries. We live our entire lives without really understanding our brains but here finally are some answers. They are also concrete tools for leaders to generate personal and team peak performance.

The NeuroLeadership Summit is a global initiative bringing together neuroscientists and leadership experts to build a new science of leadership development. This gives leaders a greater understanding of how to 1) solve problems, 2) regulate emotions, 3) collaborate, and 4) facilitate change.

Despite 60,000 books on leadership there is no real agreement on what makes a leader successful. A 2008 study showed that improving leadership was the second most urgent human capital imperative for most companies’ business strategies. (Rock, 2010)

Here are some of the many highlights from the Boston conference:

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Neural Challenges for Senior Leaders: Moderate Stress, Good Sleep, Positive Affect

Jessica Payne, from the University of Arizona, presented brain research on the challenges for the senior leader, identifying three key factors that lead to optimal brain performance. They are: 1) moderate stress 2) good sleep, and 3) positive affect. Target and improve any one of these and it benefits all three. Conversely, not achieving any one of them impacts all three. When overstressed, we do not sleep well, which impacts our mood (reduces positive affect), which in turn makes our focus problem-centred rather than solution-centred, creating more stress – and so the downward spiral continues.

Why the requirement for “moderate stress”? Peak performance certainly requires some level of stress. With too little stress leaders can be easily distracted and even bored. Without a certain amount of dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain, we underperform. But beyond optimal or peak arousal, performance levels fall. This is not dissimilar to the Flow principle (Csikszentmihalyi 1990).Too much dopamine creates stress at harmful levels and increases negative emotional memories. Cumulatively this explains why stress can lead to depression.  Ongoing stress impacts health. As stress increases, the hippocampus, the area in the brain responsible for memory, undergoes a very clear size reduction. In summary, stress reduces our memory.

Fortunately neuroscience has identified proven ways to substantially reduce the impact of stressful stimuli. Other speakers described these approaches.

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i) Emotion Regulation

Kevin Oshner PhD, a founding father of the social neuroscience field and head of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at Columbia University, described emotion regulation and strategies for dealing with stress. Among these, reappraisal is proving to have considerable impact: one methodology is that described in Peter Gollwitzer’s Implementation Intentions (1993), a popular and brain-friendly way to regulate emotions. This involves identifying the contexts where stress occurs and the stimuli that trigger it, then generating a statement in the form “If… then….” – a cognitive link between the context and stimuli that can provide a mental trigger or anchor which re-engages the pre-frontal cortex (our executive thinking) and moves us out of a limbic (emotion-based) reaction..

ii) Mindfulness

Mindfulness has been shown to reduce stress dramatically and increase an individual’s ability at meta-cognition, or awareness of their own thinking. Of course, Buddhism has been espousing the benefits of mindfulness for thousands of years. Finally science has caught up and seen the dramatic improvements in brain function and emotion regulation abilities of trained meditators..

Mindfulness expert Ellen Langer Ph.D, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, lectures all over the world and is author of over 200 publications and 11 books. A movie is currently being made about her life, starring Jennifer Anniston: Hollywood latches onto neuroleadership!  Langer described mindfulness as an active state of mind characterised by being in the present, noticing subtle differences, being sensitive to context and perspective. By paying attention to small changes in everything, we are mindful.

Children can tell when we are not mindful: they will demand attention until they have undivided, mindful attention. Mindless attention is worth very little and yet this is how, in a multi-tasking world, with ever-increasing demands, most of us walk around – lost in our thoughts of yesterday, tomorrow’s meeting or the next conversation, planning and ruminating and ‘multi-tasking’. It may feel functional and even efficient, but it is not. It dramatically affects memory, but worse, it stifles creative insights. With a noisy brain, we miss the significant connections. Insightful people have a quietened brain, have trained themselves to be present to stop the constant noise, and have much greater ability to tap into their unconscious processing. It is the ability to make distant links and create innovative solutions that sets the senior leader apart – even if it is more and more challenging to achieve with competition for attention from stakeholders, employees, information and technology. 

Quality Sleep and Memory

Jessica Payne’s second key area that can affect the senior leader’s brain capabilities is quality sleep. Getting enough of the right kind of sleep can have a big impact on memory. Interestingly, the old saying “Sleep on it” if things get heated between people is now proven by neuroscience to be the right medicine. After sleep, we retain the memory of an upsetting emotion but the negative impact is reduced. An area that is reduced during sleep, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, is responsible for cognitive control, rationality and decision-making. This explains why in dreams we can make such absurd connections and bring together quite distant relationships. It is also why we often wake up with completely new perspectives to problems: insights are generated when distant relationships are formed within the brain.

As we age, our memory is challenged and lack of quality sleep helps increase the demise of memory. The real issue as we age tends to be our inability to not get distracted by so many other memories. That is why something as simple as getting up to make a cup of tea can be confusing. We get to the kitchen and have been distracted by a number of other memories on the way so by the time we arrive we have no recollection of what we are doing there! It is more a focussing than a memory issue. Mindfulness, again, can improve focus and reduce distractions. Simply being more aware of the wandering mind can draw our attention back to the present.

Positive Affect

The third area that impacts the leader’s cognitive abilities is Positive Affect (put more simply, being happy). While happy, we improve our creativity and problem-solving. Higher hits of dopamine (the positive-reward neurotransmitter associated with novelty) create a continued positive spiral of improved thinking. Unlike when we are over-stressed, when happy we retain neutral and positive memories, which keeps us feeling positive and resourceful.

Issues arise when a leader becomes isolated by being overly involved in their work – sometimes so much that what makes them happy (friends and loved ones, exercise and hobbies) becomes hard to fit into the expectations of their senior corporate position. This is why executive coaches often focus on a senior leader’s personal life as much as their business goals. This can make an invaluable contribution not only to their happiness but also to business outcomes.

The best news about this is what has been called the “greatest discovery in neuroscience in 400 years” by Norman Doidge, MD, author of the recent best seller, “The Brain that Changes Itself”.  We previously believed the brain to be fixed and rigid, only disintegrating from its peak. Neuroscience has now discovered “neuroplasticity” – the ability for the brain to change. The key to this is attention. By working with goals and paying regular attention to them (mindful attention with attention density) – which can occur through working with a professional coach – the brain can change.

A brain may actually prove that “every cloud has a silver lining”. Thus a brain that has formed habits of procrastination can become one of action. A brain constantly full and never present can learn to be in charge of thinking rather than a victim of it. A brain that has only ever led people from the front, rather than creating leaders at every level, can become a leader of leaders.

Neuroscience and NeuroLeadership are changing our understanding and relationship with thinking, processing, memory, influencing and collaborating abilities, and ultimately our happiness and success in life. It is no fad to be finally cracking the code of leadership from a scientific, brain-based perspective. We are all hungry to understand human nature and how we can maximise our performance and outcomes, and the brain is the source of it all.

For more information on these topics, please contact :

Kristen Hansen of EnHansen Performance atKristen@enhansenperformance.com.au or

            +61 414 504 797      

From Ed Batista

Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety, first published in 2004, remains a thought-provoking and helpful text as I continue to think about happiness (and its absence.) De Botton, "a philosopher of everyday life," seeks in this book to acknowledge the intensity of status anxiety in contemporary Western society, to explore its causes, and to suggest some means of relief.

He begins with a brief set of definitions and a concise statement of his thesis:

Status [is] one's position in society... In a narrow sense, the word refers to one's legal or professional standing within a group... But in the broader--and here more relevant--sense, to one's value and importance in the eyes of the world...

Status anxiety [is] a worry, so pernicious as to be capable of ruining extended stretches of our lives, that we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success laid down by our society and that we may as a result be stripped of dignity and respect; a worry that we are currently occupying too low a rung or are about to fall to a lower one... Like confessing to envy (to which the emotion is related), it can be socially imprudent to reveal the extent of any anxiety and, therefore, evidence of the inner drama is uncommon, limited usually to a preoccupied gaze, a brittle smile or an over-extended pause after news of another's achievement.

[The book's thesis is] that status anxiety possesses an exceptional capability to inspire sorrow; that the hunger for status, like all appetites, can have its uses...[b]ut, like all appetites, its excesses can also kill; [and] that the most profitable way of addressing the condition may be to attempt to understand and to speak of it.

I suspect that the fears that "we are in danger of failing to conform to the ideals of success" or that "we are currently occupying too low a rung or are about to fall to a lower one" are close at hand for many of us at the very best of times. But today, with the economy poised on the brink of ruin, with layoffs mounting and 401Ks melting away, these fears are lurking just below the surface (and bubbling over) almost everywhere we turn.

But my reading of de Botton suggests that our status anxiety and our fear of failure isn't purely--or even primarily--an economic phenomenon. The first half of the book covers five causes of status anxiety, beginning with "Lovelessness":

1. Every adult life could be said to be defined by two great love stories. The first--the story of our quest for sexual love--is well known and well charted, its vagaries for the staple of music and literature, it is socially accepted and celebrated. The second--the story of our quest for love from the world--is a more secret and shameful tale. If mentioned, it tends to be in caustic, mocking terms, as something of interest chiefly to envious or deficient souls, or else the drive for status is interpreted in an economic sense alone. And yet this second love story is no less intense than the first, it is no less complicated, important or universal, and its setbacks are no less painful. There is heartbreak here, too.

2. Adam Smith, The theory of Moral Sentiments (Edinburgh, 1759): "To what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? What is the end of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power and pre-eminence? Is it to supply the necessities of nature? The wages of the meanest laborer can supply them. What then are the advantages of that great purpose of human life which we call bettering our condition?

"To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it. The rich man glories in his riches because he feels that they naturally draw upon him the attention of the world. The poor man on the contrary is ashamed of his poverty. He feels that it places him out of sight of mankind. To feel that we are taken no notice of necessarily disappoints the most ardent desires of human nature..."

3. The predominant impulse behind our desire to rise in the social hierarchy may be rooted not so much in the material goods we can accrue or the power we can wield as in the amount of love we stand to receive as a consequence of high status. Money, fame and influence may be valued more as tokens of--and means to--love rather than ends in themselves...

4. William James, The Principles of Psychology (Boston, 1890): "No more fiendish punishment could be devised, were such a thing physically possible, than that one should be turned loose in society and remain absolutely unnoticed by all the members thereof. If no one turned around when we entered, answered when we spoke, or minded what we did, but if every person we met 'cut us dead,' and acted as if we were non-existent things, a kind of rage and impotent despair would before long well up in us, from which the cruellest bodily torture would be a relief."

De Botton goes on to discuss four other causes of status anxiety--Expectation, Meritocracy, Snobbery and Dependence--but it's noteworthy that he addresses Lovelessness first. Our drive to succeed and our quest to attain (and maintain) positions of high status are fueled by our need for attention, for recognition, for love. We need to be assured that we matter, to someone.

At a time when we may legitimately wonder how long our wages will be sufficient "to supply the necessities of nature," I don't expect a clearer understanding of status anxiety to alleviate more fundamental economic concerns. But I do find it helpful to distinguish between the two and uncouple them. When we worry about "the economy," to what extent are we truly concerned about our ability to feed, house, and clothe ourselves, and to what extent are we concerned about our status (current and future)? And if we can't do much about the former, what means are at our disposal to address the latter?

In the second half of "Status Anxiety," De Botton explores five ways of relieving status anxiety through Philosophy, Art, Politics, Religion and Bohemia. I don't disagree with any of these strategies, but I also think it's important to strive to be happier in any number of small ways on a daily basis and to insure that our needs for attention, recognition and love are being met by people who truly care about us, rather than by those who take notice primarily of our status.

And I fully agree with de Botton's assertion that "the most profitable way of addressing [status anxiety] may be to attempt to understand and to speak of it." And the first step in that process is acknowledging the status differences that exist--never an easy task in the United States, but particularly at a time when many traditional status markers have disappeared or even inverted. (For example, in many professional settings here in the Bay Area only low-status service people [and a handful of die-hard traditionalists] "dress up." The ability to dress without regard to convention in a professional setting is an assertion of power and a clear status marker. It's also a way for us to collectively pretend that status differences don't exist.)

Some final thoughts from de Botton:

However unpleasant anxieties over status may be, it is difficult to imagine a good life entirely free of them, for the fear of failing and disgracing oneself in the eyes of others is an inevitable consequence of harboring ambitions, of favouring one set of outcomes over another...[of] acknowledging that there is a public distinction between a successful and an unsuccessful life.

Yet if our need for status is a fixed thing, we nevertheless retain all say over where we will fulfill that need. We are at liberty to ensure that our worries about being disgraced will arise principally in relation to an audience whose methods of judgment we both understand and respect. Status anxiety may be defined as problematic only insofar as it is inspired by values that we uphold because we are terrified and preternaturally obedient; because we have been anaesthetized into believing that they are natural, perhaps even God-given; because those around us are in thrall to them; or because we have grown too imaginatively timid to conceive of alternatives.

I'm reminded that as an undergrad I dropped out of Duke to go to art school in Boston and to be closer to a girl who went to Dartmouth, and in the years since then I've quit four jobs--all very rewarding--without knowing what I was going to do next, knowing only that it was time for a change. I was certainly terrified during some of those transitions, but I wasn't obedient or anesthetized.

This winding path hasn't necessarily resulted in success, by some measures, and at my most "imaginatively timid" I can feel like I've failed. But then I ask, failed at what? I've failed "to conform to the ideals of success laid down by [my] society," in some ways, but I sure as hell have succeeded at upholding the values that matter most to me--a commitment to be my authentic self, a passion for growth and renewal, a desire to make positive change in the world. (And I'm still with the girl.)

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"People are constantly observing your behavior and forming theories
about your competence, character, and commitment, which are rapidly
disseminated throughout your workplace," she says. "It is only wise to
add your voice in framing others' theories about who you are and what
you can accomplish."

There are plenty of books telling you how to "dress for success" and
control your body language. But keeping on top of your personal traits
is only part of the story of managing your professional image, says
Roberts. You also belong to a social identity group—African American
male, working mother—that brings its own stereotyping from the people
you work with, especially in today's diverse workplaces. You can put
on a suit and cut your hair to improve your appearance, but how do you
manage something like skin color?

Roberts will present her research, called "Changing Faces:
Professional Image Construction in Diverse Organizational Settings,"
in the October issue of the Academy of Management Review.

She discusses her research in this interview.

Mallory Stark: What is a professional image?

Laura Morgan Roberts: Your professional image is the set of qualities
and characteristics that represent perceptions of your competence and
character as judged by your key constituents (i.e., clients,
superiors, subordinates, colleagues).

Q: What is the difference between "desired professional image" and
"perceived professional image?"

A: It is important to distinguish between the image you want others to
have of you and the image that you think people currently have of you.

Most people want to be described as technically competent, socially
skilled, of strong character and integrity, and committed to your
work, your team, and your company. Research shows that the most
favorably regarded traits are trustworthiness, caring, humility, and
capability.

Ask yourself the question: What do I want my key constituents to say
about me when I'm not in the room? This description is your desired
professional image. Likewise, you might ask yourself the question:
What am I concerned that my key constituents might say about me when
I'm not in the room? The answer to this question represents your
undesired professional image.

You can never know exactly what all of your key constituents think
about you, or how they would describe you when you aren't in the room.
You can, however, draw inferences about your current professional
image based on your interactions with key constituents. People often
give you direct feedback about your persona that tells you what they
think about your level of competence, character, and commitment. Other
times, you may receive indirect signals about your image, through job
assignments or referrals and recommendations. Taken together, these
direct and indirect signals shape your perceived professional image,
your best guess of how you think your key constituents perceive you.

Q: How do stereotypes affect perceived professional image?

A: In the increasingly diverse, twenty-first century workplace, people
face a number of complex challenges to creating a positive
professional image. They often experience a significant incongruence
between their desired professional image and their perceived
professional image. In short, they are not perceived in the manner
they desire; instead, their undesired professional image may be more
closely aligned with how their key constituents actually perceive
them.

What lies at the source of this incongruence? Three types of identity
threats—predicaments, devaluation, and illegitimacy—compromise key
constituents' perceptions of technical competence, social competence,
character, and commitment. All professionals will experience a
"predicament" or event that reflects poorly on their competence,
character, or commitment at some point in time, due to mistakes they
have made in the past that have become public knowledge, or competency
gaps (e.g., shortcomings or limitations in skill set or style).

Members of negatively stereotyped identity groups may experience an
additional form of identity threat known as "devaluation." Identity
devaluation occurs when negative attributions about your social
identity group(s) undermine key constituents' perceptions of your
competence, character, or commitment. For example, African American
men are stereotyped as being less intelligent and more likely to
engage in criminal behavior than Caucasian men. Asian Americans are
stereotyped as technically competent, but lacking in the social skills
required to lead effectively. Working mothers are stereotyped as being
less committed to their profession and less loyal to their employing
organizations. All of these stereotypes pose obstacles for creating a
positive professional image.

Members of negatively stereotyped identity groups may experience
an additional form of identity threat known as "devaluation."

Even positive stereotypes can pose a challenge for creating a positive
professional image if someone is perceived as being unable to live up
to favorable expectations of their social identity group(s). For
example, clients may question the qualifications of a freshly minted
MBA who is representing a prominent strategic consulting firm.
Similarly, female medical students and residents are often mistaken
for nurses or orderlies and challenged by patients who do not believe
they are legitimate physicians.

Q: What is impression management and what are its potential benefits?

A: Despite the added complexity of managing stereotypes while also
demonstrating competence, character, and commitment, there is
promising news for creating your professional image! Impression
management strategies enable you to explain predicaments, counter
devaluation, and demonstrate legitimacy. People manage impressions
through their non-verbal behavior (appearance, demeanor), verbal cues
(vocal pitch, tone, and rate of speech, grammar and diction,
disclosures), and demonstrative acts (citizenship, job performance).

My research suggests that, in addition to using these traditional
impression management strategies, people also use social
identity-based impression management (SIM) to create a positive
professional image. SIM refers to the process of strategically
presenting yourself in a manner that communicates the meaning and
significance you associate with your social identities. There are two
overarching SIM strategies: positive distinctiveness and social
recategorization.

Positive distinctiveness means using verbal and non-verbal cues to
claim aspects of your identity that are personally and/or socially
valued, in an attempt to create a new, more positive meaning for that
identity. Positive distinctiveness usually involves attempts to
educate others about the positive qualities of your identity group,
advocate on behalf of members of your identity group, and incorporate
your background and identity-related experiences into your workplace
interactions and innovation.

Social recategorization means using verbal and non-verbal cues to
suppress other aspects of your identity that are personally and/or
socially devalued, in an attempt to distance yourself from negative
stereotypes associated with that group. Social recategorization
involves minimization and avoidance strategies, such as physically and
mentally conforming to the dominant workplace culture while being
careful not to draw attention to identity group differences and one's
unique cultural background.

Rather than adopting one strategy wholesale, most people use a variety
of strategies for managing impressions of their social identities. In
some situations, they choose to draw attention to a social identity,
if they think it will benefit them personally or professionally. Even
members of devalued social identity groups, such as African American
professionals, will draw attention to their race if it creates mutual
understanding with colleagues, generates high-quality connections with
clients, or enhances their experience of authenticity and fulfillment
in their work. In other situations, these same individuals may choose
to minimize their race in order to draw attention to an alternate
identity, such as gender, profession, or religion, if they feel their
race inhibits their ability to connect with colleagues or clients.

Successful impression management can generate a number of important
personal and organizational benefits, including career advancement,
client satisfaction, better work relationships (trust, intimacy,
avoiding offense), group cohesiveness, a more pleasant organizational
climate, and a more fulfilling work experience. However, when
unsuccessfully employed, impression management attempts can lead to
feelings of deception, delusion, preoccupation, distraction, futility,
and manipulation.

Q: How do authenticity and credibility influence the positive outcomes
of impression management attempts?

A: In order to create a positive professional image, impression
management must effectively accomplish two tasks: build credibility
and maintain authenticity. When you present yourself in a manner that
is both true to self and valued and believed by others, impression
management can yield a host of favorable outcomes for you, your team,
and your organization. On the other hand, when you present yourself in
an inauthentic and non-credible manner, you are likely to undermine
your health, relationships, and performance.

Most people use a variety of strategies for managing impressions
of their social identities.

Most often, people attempt to build credibility and maintain
authenticity simultaneously, but they must negotiate the tension that
can arise between the two. Your "true self," or authentic
self-portrayal, will not always be consistent with your key
constituents' expectations for professional competence and character.
Building credibility can involve being who others want you to be,
gaining social approval and professional benefits, and leveraging your
strengths. If you suppress or contradict your personal values or
identity characteristics for the sake of meeting societal expectations
for professionalism, you might receive certain professional benefits,
but you might compromise other psychological, relational, and
organizational outcomes.

Q: What are the steps individuals should take to manage their
professional image?

A: First, you must realize that if you aren't managing your own
professional image, someone else is. People are constantly observing
your behavior and forming theories about your competence, character,
and commitment, which are rapidly disseminated throughout your
workplace. It is only wise to add your voice in framing others'
theories about who you are and what you can accomplish.

Be the author of your own identity. Take a strategic, proactive
approach to managing your image:

Identify your ideal state.

* What are the core competencies and character traits you want
people to associate with you?
* Which of your social identities do you want to emphasize and
incorporate into your workplace interactions, and which would you
rather minimize?

Assess your current image, culture, and audience.

* What are the expectations for professionalism?
* How do others currently perceive you?

Conduct a cost-benefit analysis for image change.

* Do you care about others' perceptions of you?
* Are you capable of changing your image?
* Are the benefits worth the costs? (Cognitive, psychological,
emotional, physical effort)

Use strategic self-presentation to manage impressions and change your image.

* Employ appropriate traditional and social identity-based
impression management strategies.
* Pay attention to the balancing act—build credibility while
maintaining authenticity.

Manage the effort you invest in the process.

* Monitoring others' perceptions of you
* Monitoring your own behavior
* Strategic self-disclosure
* Preoccupation with proving worth and legitimacy

She finds herself surrounded by too much stuff acquired. She is
increasingly skeptical in the face of a financial meltdown that it was
all worth the effort. Out will go luxury purchases, conspicuous
consumption, and a trophy culture.

Tomorrow's consumer will buy more ephemeral, less cluttering stuff:
fleeting, but expensive, experiences, not heavy goods for the home.

The economic boom of the 1990s fuelled consumption and democratized
access to a wider than ever spectrum of goods transforming former
luxuries into "must-have" necessities. Millions played the lotteries
or aspired to what they viewed on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous."
As they grew richer, pressure increased on those below to trade up.
And, as they traded up, pressure increased in turn on the well-off to
buy even more—the second home, the big screen TV, and the latest
sport-utility vehicle. Enter the big houses that measured success in
thousands of square feet of floor space, topped by the
40,000-square-foot, $50 million palace that Bill Gates has built
outside Seattle. In 2006, 35 percent of new homes exceeded 2,400
square feet in floor space compared with 18 percent in 1986.
Ironically, these mansions, many owned by businesspeople on the road
half the time, grew in number as the size of the average American
household declined.

These huge houses had to be filled with more stuff, good news for the
home-appliance and home-furnishing industries. Even grocery
manufacturers benefited. Larger homes with bigger refrigerators can
absorb more inventory. Flat birth rates in developed economies have
put pressure on durable consumer-goods companies desperate for
top-line growth. Product quality improvements mean these goods break
down less often. So durable-goods sales depend on two things: the
launch of new, higher-priced, higher-featured, often customized
products that persuade consumers to trade in their existing appliances
before they break down (think cellphones), as well as household
penetration of products such as fax machines and printers previously
used only by businesses.

As the world economy slumps, one consumer segment will grow faster than ever.

The Simplifiers have four characteristics:

* First, they perceive that they have more stuff than they need.
Sure, they may collect something specific like porcelain figurines as
a hobby, but they are the opposite of the pack rats who fill their
attics and basements with "you-never-know-when-you-might-need-it"
stuff.
* Second, they want to collect experiences, not possessions. And
they give experiences rather than goods as gifts to friends and
relatives. Experiences may seem ephemeral. They cannot be inventoried
except in the form of "Kodak" moments; but they do not tie you down,
require no maintenance, and permit variety-seeking instincts to be
quickly satisfied. Dining out, foreign travel, and learning a new
sport will prove more resilient than expected in the face of
recession.
* Third, their stuff embarrasses them. Their Range Rovers no
longer tell the world that they are sophisticated town and country
socialites. There are simply too many of them on the road to offer
much social status. Worse, they now signal the irresponsible selection
of a gas-guzzler.
* Fourth, they have wealth that is so assured that it no longer
requires conspicuous display. They lease their cars, rent other
people's holiday homes, and would happily outsource other aspects of
their lifestyles. They reject the marketer's continual pressure to
spend more money on possessions rather than on education, health care,
and other social goods.

These are the consumers who are now trading in their sport-utility
vehicles. They include the empty-nester baby-boomers, less confident
than before, who are tired of heating unused spaces in cavernous
mansions, now preferring smaller houses with architectural character
and intimate spaces, more charm, and less maintenance. Their families
are scattered, unable to share conveniently the family holiday home
and often unwilling to inherit the burden of something they will never
use. The new economy has made it even easier for consumers to get rid
of their stuff. The high-tech equivalents of the yard sale—electronic
auction sites—bring Simplifiers together with those who are yet to
catch the habit.

This growing segment of Simplifiers presents a challenge to marketers.
These are well-off people who value quality over quantity and who do
not buy proportionately more goods as their net worth increases. Their
increasing reluctance to consume will dampen expected demand growth in
developed economies further and therefore slow economic recovery,
requiring consumer-goods multinationals to further focus their efforts
on emerging markets where stuff will still be king.