Bridging Psychological Distance

Four types of psychological distance can separate you from your goals: (1) social (between yourself and other people); (2) temporal (between the present and the future); (3) spatial (between your physical location and faraway places); and (4) experiential (between imagining something and experiencing it). Success depends on bridging those gaps. For example, skillful negotiation requires considering the interests of other parties as well as your own (which narrows social distance). Effective time management means accurately predicting which commitments will be most pressing in the future (temporal distance). Inspired leadership involves not only appreciating and incorporating different people's goals, but also anticipating how they will change over time (social distance and temporal distance). And profitable product management means using imperfect information to figure out how to meet distant customers' changing needs (social, temporal, spatial, and experiential distance). None of this is easy to do. But, relying on more than 15 years of academic research and her own work with students and executives, the author has found that leaders who recognize and understand the effects of psychological distance and then use two specific strategies to reduce (or sometimes increase) it can improve their outcomes in many professional scenarios.

• Negotiation strategies
• Decision making
• Psychology and neuroscience
• Leadership and managing people
• Interpersonal skills