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IT WILL PROBABLY come as no surprise to you that I got the idea of
business excellence from my late mother—Nanay Lucing who was my
business mentor. Why not? Nanay was an excellent teacher
when it comes to earning honest living made possible when she used
to operate a dry goods retail store in Santa Cruz, Laguna, few
decades ago.
If only I continued with the legacy, we could
have probably approximated the success of National Book Store which
was founded by another Nanay— Socorro Ramos, or if not SM, now
celebrating 50 years of Serving Millions with its Spectacular Malls,
Structural Marvels, and Selfless Motivation or so it claims it to be
in its print ads this week.
I ignored the path of entrepreneurship due to
the lure of lucrative and secured employment when I became an active
human resource executive for major companies, and partly because of
my interest in demystifying the Halo Effect.
It was Edward L. Thorndike, an American pioneer
of comparative psychology who was first to prove the existence of
Halo Effect with empirical evidence. He was successful in
establishing it as “a cognitive bias where the perception of a
particular trait is influenced by the perception of the former
traits in a sequence of interpretations.”
In hiring people, the Halo Effect is often times
manifested by job interviewers who are influenced by only one
dominant attribute (say, beauty of a woman) to ignore other
weaknesses of an applicant.
Corollary to the Halo Effect is the Horns Effect
where an individual is judged according to one single undesirable
trait, allowing it to triumph over the qualities of the same person.
In marketing, the Halo Effect can be used to
capitalize on the success of one product to extend it to the brand
and contribute to the positive image of the organization carrying
it. Take the case of Toyota, now poised to take the lead as
the number one car maker in the world beating General Motors and
Ford.
If Toyota can produce a much-sought Lexus as an
exceptional halo vehicle, then it follows that it could duplicate
the same feat with its other car models. The same thing is
true when Prof. Jeffrey Liker and McGraw-Hill followed-up a
best-selling book like The Toyota Way with potential hot sellers
like Toyota Talent, The Toyota Way Field Book and Toyota Culture.
In Philippine politics, we know how the Halo
Effect adversely affected the mind of the electorate when it voted
into political office the likes of Joey Marquez, Lito Lapid, and of
course Joseph Estrada.
If they could do something good in the movies,
then it follows that they can do the same thing in real life, or so
it appears that way, except that time has proven that it was a
terrible idea, to say the least.
As a columnist, I have always been fascinated by
people who appear to have even more spare time than I do and yet
earn their bread so I took the liberty of talking to an ordinary
man-on-the-street who was deeply involved lining up in a lotto
outlet in SM Bicutan.
“It looks like the Super Lotto is attracting a
lot of people with its P115-milion pot!” I said as I added a
friendly “Excuse me po” to assure him I was a decent person
trying to pass the line on my way to Goldilock’s.
The line breakout was a critical success, and it
got me thinking how come I’m not addicted to the lotto habit
despite the small P20 bet and the big money that it offers. So
anyway, may be the Halo Effect is working to the benefit of the
Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.
With the volume of people lining for financial
assistance from PCSO, it is but reasonable to shore up its earnings.
I could look through my eyeglasses and watch
people scuttling around every lotto outlet with their hard-earned
bets, hoping against hope. Maybe there’s an option to this,
like for instance putting up a TV noontime show called “Eat Live
Cockroaches for P50,000” to beat Wowoweee.
This is the wonderful thing about Free
Enterprise.
Send reader’s feedback to kairoshq@info.com.ph
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