Management at WorkStanding up for TrustundefinedAmy Cuddy, a social psychologist who teaches at the Harvard Business School, recently delivered a presentation at the prestigious TEDGlobal Conference in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her subject was body language and its effect on “the way your life unfolds.” TED presentations are offered for free online viewing, and since 2006, they’ve been watched more than a billion times worldwide. Cuddy’s talk has the distinction of being the second most-watched TED presentation of all time, with nearly 26 million views and counting. Time magazine immediately put Cuddy on its list of “Game Changers,” and Business Insider ranked her 37th among “50 Women Who Are Changing the World.”What did Cuddy have to say that was so important? Basically, “Smile and sit up straight.” The advice, of course, is pretty simple, but the reason why it’s good advice is not. Cuddy had research to back her up, and that research had led her to a series of significant insights into the significance of body language. What inspired Cuddy’s research? “I noticed in class,” she recalls, that women tended to make themselves small, holding their wrists, wrapping their arms around themselves. Guys tended to make themselves bigger. They’re leaning back, stretching out, draping their arms around chairs. We know from studies of facial feedback that if you smile, you fake yourself into feeling happier. We wondered whether just asking people to spread out would help them feel more powerful.So Cuddy and her colleagues invited students into the social-psychology laboratory for a few experimental exercises. Participants were asked to spend two minutes alone in a room striking what Cuddy calls “power poses,” either “high-power” or “low-power.” For high-power poses, think superhero posture—chest lifted, head held high, arms either raised or propped on the hips. (Cuddy prefers “the Wonder Woman”—hands on hips, legs wide.) Low-power poses include putting your hands on your neck and crossing your limbs. In general, says Cuddy, “expansive, open postures reflect high power, whereas contractive, closed postures reflect low power.”Before and after the posing exercises, Cuddy’s team recorded participants’ levels of two hormones: testosterone, which is known to increase feelings of power and confidence, and cortisol, which is associated with feelings of anxiety and stress. After just two minutes of posing, high-power posers experienced a 20 percent increase in testosterone and a 25 percent drop in cortisol. “Not only do these postures reflect power,” explains Cuddy, “they also produce it.” In addition, high-power posers displayed behavior associated with the exercise of power in the real world—a fact that didn’t surprise Cuddy: “Effective leaders,” she points out, “have a classic hormone profile: high levels of testosterone, low levels of cortisol…. When people take over the alpha role, their testosterone rises and their cortisol drops.”The study’s findings show not only that our hormonal levels can change, but that we can take the initiative in changing them. The process engages a series of feedback loops. As we’ve seen, for example, the principle is evident in the effect of a smile: “Feeling happy makes us smile, and smiling makes us happy,” observes Cuddy. But what if you don’t feel like smiling? “Fake it till you become it,” she advises: Faking happiness, it seems, has pretty much the same effect as being happy. The key is the smile: Using the muscles of your face to communicate nonverbally sends a message to your brain, and as with smiling, so with standing up straight. Thus the purpose of power posing, explains Cuddy, “is to optimize your brain”—to balance your hormones in the way that you want them balanced. “Let your body tell you that you’re powerful and deserving,” she says, and when you pass that message along to your brain, “you become more present, enthusiastic, and authentically yourself.”Perhaps even more importantly, adds Cuddy, the feedback that you get from such nonverbal behavior as smiling “is also contagious. We tend to mirror one another’s nonverbal expressions and emotions, so when we see someone beaming and emanating genuine warmth, we can’t resist smiling ourselves.” In addition, such responses typically reflect first impressions and often contribute to snap judgments about people—what Cuddy calls “spontaneous trait inferences.” Her research has thus extended to the effect of body language on first impressions, and she’s found that there are two critical variables: warmth and competence. These two factors, she says, account for 90 percent of our evaluations of other people and, more importantly, shape the way we feel about and act toward them.Unfortunately, projections of both warmth and competence can produce seemingly contradictory behavior in other people. According to Cuddy,people judged to be competent but lacking in warmth often elicit envy in others, an emotion involving both respect and resentment that cuts both ways. When we respect someone, we want to cooperate or affiliate ourselves with him or her, but resentment can make that person vulnerable to harsh reprisal…. On the other hand, people judged as warm but incompetent tend to elicit pity, which also involves a mix of emotions: Compassion moves us to help those we pity, but our lack of respect leads us ultimately to neglect them.The first type that Cuddy describes here falls into the category cold/competent and the second into the category warm/incompetent—two of four categories into which people may fit in Cuddy’s warmth/competence matrix. At the extremes are warm/competent, which elicits admiration, helping, and cooperation, and cold/incompetent, which elicits contempt, neglect, and harassment (and even violence).As revealing as it is, this matrix raises further questions: Is there any difference between, say, warm/competent and competent/warm, and, if so, which is optimum, particularly if one’s job involves leading other people? According to Cuddy, “putting competence first undermines leadership” because doing so fails to prioritize the most important factor in any relationship—trust. “Prioritizing warmth,” she sayshelps you connect immediately with those around you, demonstrating that you hear them, understand them, and can be trusted by them…. In management settings, trust increases information sharing, openness, and cooperation…. Most important, it provides the opportunity to change people’s attitudes and beliefs, not just their outward behavior. That’s the sweet spot when it comes to the ability to get people to fully accept your message.So, how can you project warmth? First, says Cuddy, “Find the right level…. Aim for a tone that suggests that you’re leveling with people—that you’re sharing the straight scoop, with no pretense or emotional adornment.” Second, “validate feelings”: Begin by agreeing with people, letting them know right off that “you hold roughly the same worldview that they do.” Last but not least, “Smile—and mean it.”Cuddy hastens to add that coming across effectively is a matter of prioritizing, not of minimizing one trait in favor of the other. The best way to lead, she concludes,is to combine warmth and strength…. The traits can actually be mutually reinforcing: Feeling a sense of personal strength helps us to be more open, less threatened, and less threatening in stressful situations. When we feel confident and calm, we project authenticity and warmth.Case QuestionsMust include a summary of the above case.What about you? How do you sit in class? Does Cuddy’s description of students’ classroom body language seem to apply to you? Specifically, what might you do to improve your classroom body language? How about your body language in other situations?Review the section in the text on “Individual Barriers” to communication. How might Cuddy’s analysis of the impressions that we make on people help in understanding these barriers? More specifically, how might that analysis be used in helping to overcome them? Now ask yourself which of these barriers seem to affect your own communication habits. How might Cuddy’s analysis help you to understand and improve the barriers to your own communication habits?Here’s a list of Cuddy’s four ideal types in the warmth/competence matrix, along with examples of people who, according to her research, tend to fall into each category:Warm/competent—fathersWarm/incompetent—working mothersCold/competent—Asian studentsCold/incompetent—economically disadvantaged individualsBearing in mind that these examples reflect generalized perceptions of people, explain why each group falls into its respective category. Add another group to each category. Explain the role played by stereotyping in assigning people to each category. Finally, to what extent do you yourself tend to succumb to these generalizations?As we’ve seen, Cuddy has observed “a gender grade gap” in her MBA classes at Harvard, in which classroom participation accounts for a significant portion of students’ grades. “It’s competitive—you really have to get in there,” she says, and women aren’t quite as successful at contributing to discussions as men. Men, she reports, volunteer to answer questions by shooting their arms in the air while women tend toward a polite bent-elbow wave. Women often touch their faces and necks while talking and tend to sit with tightly crossed ankles. “These postures,” says Cuddy, “are associated with powerlessness and intimidation and keep people from expressing who they really are.”Why does this “gender gap” exist in the classroom? Does it help to know that nonwhite males are often subject to the same disadvantage?

Part 1 – Create / Download • Create a blank workbook. Name it using your Last name followed by your initials and then and underscore and 2EX. For Example: WarnerBL_2EX.xlsx. • Copy/paste the data from Ex2 Data S16.docx , into the 2nd worksheet in your workbook. Name the tab DVDs. • Adjust the column widths so the DVD data is not wrapped onto 2 lines or cut off. • Then adjust (wrap) the column headings so that each word of the heading is on a different line within the cell. This wrapping should stay the same, even if the column width is increased. • Sort the data (do not sort or remove the title/heading rows) by DVD Code. Check the sort to be sure all is correct. Your first DVD Code after the sort should be BQ101 with a Year-End Sales Goal of 420. • Select all of the cells on that worksheet and name that range of data. Call it AllDVDs. • No additional data/formulas should be added to the worksheet. Part 2 – Set up your Lookup worksheet • Name the tab for the first worksheet, LookUp. Below is a sample of how I set up my worksheet – See the descriptions of the components below for the details. Use your own color scheme for your project – but include borders and backgrounds and include all of the components. Component #1 – Title o Include a title with your name and any other information you think is appropriate. Merge and center it across all columns with data. o Below the title put the current date. Be sure you use the appropriate formula so that whenever your worksheet is opened, the current date is displayed (will change as the date changes). Again use the merge and center feature. o Add a colored border to the title and date rows (not black/dark blue) & be sure the border is visible on all 4 sides (you can add a blank row above the title and a blank column to the left of the title so the whole border can be seen). Include a background color and font color (besides black/dark blue). Page 2 of 3 o Add a comment or note feature (using Excel’s feature) to your title and in the comment insert the date the worksheet was created and your email address. Component #2 – Input Area o Add an area to enter a DVD Code (Cells B5:C5 in my example). Try to make it obvious to the user that this is the data entry area. Use placement, borders, and/or background colors to distinguish it from the rest of the worksheet. o Include an arrow in this section; make it a color other than black/dark blue. Use an arrow ‘shape’ from the shape / illustration feature of Excel. Component #3 – Student Lookup Information o Type in the labels (column B in my example) o Then, use the VLOOKUP function/formula and search the DVDs worksheet for the DVD Code that the user entered in Component 2. o Display all information for the DVD Code selected – use the same layout as in the example above. You’ll use VLOOKUP formulas for all of the data except the calculations (see component 4 for these fields). o Correctly use relative and absolute cell references and your named range (AllDVDs) in your VLOOKUP formulas. o Note: Be sure you have a valid code entered in the input area (component 2) when you start creating your VLOOKUP formulas, so your formula can find data from the DVDs worksheet. Component #4 – Calculations (8 pts) o Calculate and display the following in the Lookup worksheet. Don’t add any new formulas to the DVDs worksheet. o Markup (Dollars) o Markup (Percent) o % of Sales Goal Met o DVDs to be Sold (how many units need to be sold to reach the sales goal). Use an If function/formula and if the goal has been met, display a zero. o Inventory to be Ordered (how many units need to be ordered so the sales goal can be met). Use an IF function/formula and if no additional inventory is needed, display a zero. **Hint: first calculate this without worrying about values <0, once you have this formula, add it to an IF function. o Inventory Order Message: Use an IF function/formula and if additional inventory is needed, display a message in a bright color (see TIPS area on Bb for an example). If no additional inventory is needed do not display anything (not a zero, not another message, etc.) **Hint: first calculate this without worrying about values <0 or no inventory needed, once you have this formula, add it to an IF function. o Again, display the Lookup information & calculations in the same order as the example above. Component #5 – Graph/Chart o Create a column chart similar to the one displayed above: ▪ Select only the data needed for the chart (don’t select all data & delete items from the chart). Do not display any additional fields. ▪ Display the data values above each column ▪ The title should include the DVD title and should change each time new DVD is displayed (experiment with the data series - name feature in the chart wizard). It should also be a larger font (greater than 12) and be a color other than blue or black. ▪ Place the chart on your LookUp worksheet. ▪ Use a 2-color gradient to format the columns, a colored background on the chart, colored fonts on all numbers / and colored axes and gridlines. Label both axes. Do not use dark blue/black for these colors. Part 3 – Pivot worksheets • Using the data in the DVDs worksheet, create 2 pivot worksheets o The first should be a pivot table showing each Promotion Code / Color and the total current inventory. Format the table so that your numbers have commas and no decimal places. Add a title and format it so it looks nice. Name the tab Pivot 1. o The second should be a pivot chart showing each Promotion code and the sales to date as well as the year-end sales goal. The numbers should have commas and no decimal places and include data labels. Add a title and format it so it looks nice. Name this tab Pivot 2. o Add one more Pivot worksheet that shows some interesting analytics. Add a textbox to the worksheet to explain what you are showing. Include a title and nice formatting. Name this tab Pivot 3. Page 3 of 3 Part 4 - Filtering • Create 3 worksheets and name their tabs Filter1, Filter2 and Filter 3. • Copy the DVDs spreadsheet data into each one of the filter worksheets. • Filter 1 – display blue promo codes with current inventories between 100 and 200. • Filter 2 – display red and purple promo codes with sold to date numbers greater than 500 and year-end sales goals greater than 500. • Filter 3 – show some interesting analytics. Add a textbox to the worksheet to explain what you are showing. Part 5 – Finishing Up • Check your worksheet and be sure there are no errors or error symbols in your finished worksheet. If you don’t have this feature come into the lab to do this step. • Check your formatting – currency should have a $ and 2 decimal places, percents should be formatted with a % sign and 1 decimal place. • **Experiment with the IFERROR function and if a user enters a DVD Code that doesn’t exist – display some appropriate messages instead of the #N/A. See the overview or Excel 1 sample for an example of this. • If any information is changed in DVDs worksheet, the changes should be automatically reflected in the other workbooks (you may have to ‘refresh’ your pivot sheets for changes to appear). • Once a user enters a new DVD Code in the LookUp worksheet, all of the data and chart should automatically change. • Your worksheets should be in the following order: LookUp, DVDs, your 3 pivots and then your 3 filter worksheets. • **Protect the LookUp worksheet so that the only change a user can make is to enter a different DVD Code. They shouldn’t be able to change any other cells in the worksheet. Don’t use a password, just leave that blank. Don’t guess how to do this, if you don’t know – watch the Tips on it. Test it when you’re done to be sure we can open the worksheet and enter a new DVD Code and be sure we can’t change any other cells in the worksheet. Project Submission Instructions / Notes: • Office/online hours get busy as deadlines approach. If you procrastinate and wait until the last days to work on your project, you may not be able to get all the help you want. • The only way we can fairly grade the projects is if we check for each requirement. Please go through the instructions before you submit & be sure you have done each one correctly so you don’t miss out on points. Compare your solution to the project overview. • Submitting: o Remember to leave all of the internal file properties intact for your project, if they are modified or deleted, you project won’t be accepted (see syllabus for more on this). o Read and follow the instructions in the Assignments section of Canvas on uploading and checking your upload. If you follow these instructions you can ensure that your project is uploaded correctly (and is the correct project). Be sure Excel is closed before you try to upload your project files. o If your project doesn’t upload correctly before the due date, it will be considered late and be assessed the late penalty – even it was finished on time. This is the only way we can ensure that students check their Canvas submissions. • Technology problems relating to your home computer (Windows based or Mac), internet connection or slow Canvas access are not valid excuses for late/missing work, unless Canvas is down for 6+ hours on the due date. Also give yourself enough time that if a TA can’t answer a question, you’ll have time to contact me & I can either help you or make an allowance in your grade. If you wait until the last days, I may not be able to do either.