Chris Malone of Fidelum Partners explained how social psychologists have long pegged two specific personality traits that largely and best surmise individuals; warmth and competence.
Malone, co-author of the book The Human Brand, spoke last month at ORX (Operating Room Excellence) 2015 at the Marriott Riverside in San Antonio. The seventh annual conference was hosted by Herrin Publishing of Malvern, Pennsylvania. Herrin is the publisher of Outpatient Surgery magazine.
Malone linked warmth and competence with their resulting emotions and behaviors. He then asked the audience to gauge two individuals based on those perceptions.
Taking advantage of the political climate, the two subjects were Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. By using their audience response cards, 185 participants voted on a scale of 1 to 7 for each candidate based on their perceived warmth and competence of the Presidential candidates. The range representation was 1 equaled ‘Does not describe at all’ to 7 equaled ‘Describes extremely well.’ The results were, to say the least, remarkable.
Neither scored well. Clinton was perceived as being more warm and trustworthy than Trump. However, Trump was viewed as more competent and capable than Clinton. In the end, when averaging their two scores, they were nearly identical.
-Trump's two traits carried a mean score of 3.0736
-Clinton's two traits carried a mean score of 3.0704
As it relates to the OR environment, Malone emphasized that numerous judgements are made daily when engaging with colleagues, patients and their families. Because so many of these perceptions are made quickly, loyalty is harder to sustain now than ever before despite the fact that we’re more connected to one another digitally than ever. Malone concludes that we’ve been missing half the picture - the half that’s driven largely by warmth perceptions and results in human trust and loyalty.
Next year’s OR Excellence will be held October 12-14, 2016 at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point in Bonita Springs, Florida. For more information, visit http://www.orexcellence.com/
For more information about ‘The Human Brand’, visit thehumanbrand.com