Work Matters

Author: supermoxie

  • Video and PowerPoints for Good Boss, Bad Boss Keynote at AlwaysOn

    Last week, I gave a keynote speech on Good Boss, Bad Boss at the AlwaysOn Conference at Stanford.  The folks at AlwaysOn videotaped the speech (and use a nice technology where you can follow the Powerpoints as well). You can find a short story by Andrew Bellay and a link to the video and Powerpoint slides here.  It was one of those speeches that was interesting because the audience seemed to start-out a bit disengaged but as time went on, I could feel them get into it.  (Alas, I have had the opposite experience plenty of times).

    P.S. I am introduced by the energetic and very smart Tina Seelig, who among other things things, is the Executive Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and author of What I Wish I Knew When I was 20 — a great book that sold well here but is REALLY HOT in Japan.  I think it reached number #1 on the bestseller lists there.  Now, when I introduce Tina, I get to say, "She is Big in Japan."

  • On HP’s Mark Hurd: “Assholes Sometimes Get Their Due”

    This was the entire content of an email that I just got from a well-informed Silicon Valley insider.   As most of you know by now, the HP Board canned Mark Hurd today because of his allegedly unsavory actions surrounding a sexual harassment claim.  The contrast between this story and my nostalgic post yesterday about the good old days at Hewlett=Packard could not be more striking.

    But the events that prompted the above line are a bit more specific.  I had recently sent a draft of a blog post to several Silicon Valley insiders in which I suggested that Mark Hurd was to be applauded for his skill at turning knowledge into action during his reign as  HP CEO.  Two of the people I wrote reacted by saying that, although Hurd had done a good job of leading HP's strategy execution, as the author of The No Asshole Rule, I would be hypocritical to write a post praising him because he was known to be a certified asshole. One wrote me:

    "I have heard a lot of horrific stories about how he treats people and how people are treated by the many high level managers (called "Mini Mark's)  he has hired from the outside."

    I am lucky to have such wise people reviewing my work, but none us realized how quickly their concerns would come to light so publicly.  I thank them from saving me from embarrassment. In addition, if these rumors about the "Mini Marks" are true it sounds like a lot more needs to be done than just canning the CEO.  Hewlett-Packard (or HP as it is now called) remains a market leader and still has many great people: perhaps a new leader and top team that are adept at marrying performance and humanity can turn it into a great company once again. 

    Bill and Dave must be rolling over in their graves. 

    P.S. I got an inquiry for a journalist writing about deadline on the story.  Here is what I wrote her, which continues the themes above, and in many other places in my writings:

    Hurd was a great CEO from purely financial
    measures. But the mass layoffs and soullessness that emerged under his leadership,
    and – if true – the persistent rumors that he and other members of the
    senior team treated employees with disrespect, all reinforced the belief that,
    to make it in business these days, it is OK – or even good – to treat other
    people like dirt.   The strength of this assumption seems to be
    growing, even though some of our best US companies don’t follow that model at
    all – from IBM, to Pixar, to Google, to P&G.  Perhaps a benefit of this story and what
    follows in its wake will be a realization that, to be called a great company or
    a great leader, both performance and humanity must be evident and revered.  That is one of the main points of my new
    book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, but I believed this long before I was ever saying it
    to sell books!

  • David Packard” “More organizations die of indigestion than starvation”

    My last post made me nostalgic for the old HP. Those of us who are faculty members in the Stanford School of Engineering have a special place in our hearts for the company that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started.  They were students here and started the company with $500 borrowed from Fred Terman, who was dean of the school for many years.  They also donated very generously to the school; a building is named after Bill, another after Dave, and a third after Fred Terman — all built with HP riches.  I also have been influenced by the old HP's values, which helped shape my belief that a good company or boss ought to be judged on both performance and humanity — indeed, that is is exactly how I define a good boss in my new book.

    I have blogged about it before, but it is a good time to revisit David Packard's wisdom.  His quote in the title is wonderful. The worst managers and companies often seem to be doing too many things, making things too complicated for insiders and outsiders, and suffering from scattered attention rather than a sharp focus on what matters most.  If you think about Apple, a big part of their brilliance is how few things they do — they have a remarkably small product line for such a big company, for example.

    I especially love Dave's 11 Simple Rules, which he first presented at a company meeting in 1958 but are just as valid now as they were then.  Here are the first five:

    1. Think first of the other fellow. This is THE foundation
    — the first requisite — for getting along with others.
    And it is the one truly difficult accomplishment you must
    make. Gaining this, the rest will be "a breeze."

    2. Build up the other person's sense of importance.
    When we make the other person seem less important, we frustrate
    one of his deepest urges. Allow him to feel equality or superiority,
    and we can easily get along with him.


    3. Respect the other man's personality rights. Respect
    as something sacred the other fellow's right to be different
    from you. No two personalities are ever molded by precisely
    the same forces.


     4. Give sincere appreciation. If we think someone
    has done a thing well, we should never hesitate to let him
    know it. WARNING: This does not mean promiscuous use of obvious
    flattery. Flattery with most intelligent people gets exactly
    the reaction it deserves — contempt for the egotistical
    "phony" who stoops to it.

    5. Eliminate the negative. Criticism seldom does
    what its user intends, for it invariably causes resentment.
    The tiniest bit of disapproval can sometimes cause a resentment
    which will rankle — to your disadvantage — for years.

    Looking at these rules and the others on Dave's list, my gut reaction is that gurus who say we need to "reinvent management" are wrong or at least greatly exaggerating things. Perhaps what we need to do instead is to go back to the future.  It strikes me that all we need to really do is to include women in Dave's vision and then implement such ancient truths in our modern workplaces.  The evidence I know suggests that we would all be better for it, in terms of both performance and humanity.

  • Shooting The Messenger: A Disconcerting Story About Carly Fiorina

    I generally try to stay apolitical here.    I think that taking sides in elections and political issues when my focus is on management and organizational life can ignite ideological reactions that polarize people and make it hard from them to talk about the merits of management ideas and evidence.  In the case of the upcoming California election, I generally won't take sides here and in fact, for the Governor's race, I find both candidates so unattractive, that I really can't decide who to vote for (Indeed, governing the state is an impossible chore, so perhaps it does not matter).  But it will be very difficult for me to vote for Carly Fiorina (who is running for U.S. Senator against Barbara Boxer).  Besides the clear public record of her missteps and narcissistic actions at HP (see the Fortune article that was the final blow before she was fired), I had a lot of contact with HP executives during her reign and have since had a fair amount of contact with former HP executives who worked closely with her.  And what I have learned is not encouraging, at least given my ideas about the things that effective leaders do. 

    In particular, as I discuss in several of my books, including Good Boss, Bad Boss, a hallmark of bad bosses is that they "shoot the messengers" who deliver bad news. This is exactly what one fairly senior HP executive experienced when he delivered some alarming news to Carly.  I first heard about it the day it happened, as I had dinner with with the executive that night.  He was very upset as he felt that Carly was blaming him for the bad news that he was delivering about customers' low opinion of Compaq products — the company that HP was in the process of merging with.  As Hard Facts reports on page 160:

    Hewlett-Packard (HP) insiders told us they were flabbergasted to
    discover that HP had done no research on how consumers viewed Compaq products
    until months         after HP CEO Carly
    Fiorina announced that the two firms intended to merge. Fiorina was unhappy to
    hear that consumers viewed many Compaq products as among the worst in the
    marketplace and saw most HP products as far superior to Compaq’s products. But
    this information was only considered long after HP’s top management and board were committed to the merger and after
    Fiorina had told her top management team that she didn’t want to hear any
    dissent over the merger plans.

    Mergers unfold in strange ways and perhaps it was not possible to perform the due diligence about products earlier (although I am skeptical about that) but the disturbing part about this executive's story was that, following the long-standing tradition at HP that facing the facts and using them to make decisions was expected of everyone, even when the facts aren't pretty, he was was hurt and a bit dumbfounded for getting "beat-up" simply because he was reporting the findings from some careful research.  Perhaps this story is not representative of Carly's behavior or, if it is, perhaps she changed her ways.  But regardless, it provides a cautionary tale about how NOT to react to bad news for any boss.

  • THANKS. A really neglected form of compensation

    This is the entire contents of page 129 in the late Robert Townsend's masterpiece Up the Organization. I wrote a rave about this book awhile back, and I still find myself going back to it often.  Townsend was, among other things, CEO of Avis, and a complete character.

    I was reminded of this page by a comment at HBR in response to my list of 12 Things Good Bosses Believe. Carmilla, who is a personal assistant to a busy surgeon, wrote that her boss had only thanked her once in five months, and it was a sarcastic throw away line. IT does not sound like she is going to stay in the job much longer.

    In addition to teaching surgeons all that fancy jargon and how to do procedures, perhaps they should also have them practice saying "thank you" as part of their training.  Unfortunately, from what I know of the occupation, I suspect that veteran surgeons model the opposite behavior when dealing with residents and medical students far too often. 

    P.S. I was thinking of my favorite management books of all time the other day.  As an academic, I guess I am supposed to like more research-based books, but to be honest, right now my top two might be Up the Organization and Orbiting the Giant Hairball — both books by dead white guys who told personal stories, and didn't use research at all to support their claims.  But they were honest and authentic, and both are funny too — a tough thing to do in a management book.

  • Goldman Sachs Bans Swear Words in Emails

    This story was reported in the Wall Street Journal the other day. I guess Goldman is doing this because emails leak — or in their case — may surface during legal proceedings against them.  And all that dirty talk isn't helping their already rather soiled reputation.  But given how most people I know in their industry actually talk, there is a lot of hypocrisy here.  On the other hand, an interesting research project (given this is now an explicit norm at Goldman) would be to see if, as a result of sanctions for violating the norm in writing and what will no doubt be new training material, if this new norm leads them to yes fewer cuss words in conversation.  It just might — that would be an interesting demonstration of how norms in a company can change through explicit management action. 

  • Leading a Good Fight: Stories and Rules

    If you read Work Matters, or my books or articles, you know that I believe that one of hallmarks of constructive team dynamics are healthy and respectful arguments over ideas.  And I believe it is a hallmark of skilled bosses, especially when it comes to sparking creativity.  For example, I have written about the importance of having strong opinions that are weakly held and fast fights at the  d.school. I continue to dig into this issue in Good Boss, Bad Boss, which has a section in the chapter on what wise leaders do called "Fight Right."  It discusses Karl Weick's lovely advice to "fight as if you are right and listen as if you are wrong," and offers ten guidelines for "How to Lead a Good Fight."

    As a preview, and as point 7 on the list of 12 Things Good Bosses Believe that I am rolling out at HBR, I have new post at HBR called "It's Up to You to Start a Good Fight," which includes some guidelines for leading a good fight.  It also includes this section about one of the heroes of the computer revolution, Bob Taylor:

    I suspect that a lot more of you have heard of Brad Bird than Bob Taylor —
    but Taylor probably has had a bigger influence on your life. The
    researchers he funded and guided in the 1960s developed, among other
    things, ARPANET, the forerunner to the Internet. In Dealers of Lightning,
    author Michael Hiltzik depicts how Taylor conducted meetings among the
    super-smart people whose research his group at the U.S. Defense
    Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) funded:

    "The daily discussions unfolded in a pattern that remained
    peculiar to Taylor's management style throughout his career. Each
    participant got an hour or so to describe his work. Then he would be
    thrown to the mercy of the assembled court like a flank steak to pack of
    ravenous wolves. "I got them to argue with each other," Taylor recalled
    with unashamed glee….. "These were people who cared about their
    work…. If there were technical weak spots, they would almost always
    surface under these conditions. It was very, very healthy."

    Taylor continued the same pattern later as assistant lab manager at
    Xerox PARC, where during a rather magical and now mythical period of the
    computer revolution, researchers developed many of the technologies we
    use everyday including WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) word
    processing, hypertext, laser printing, Ethernet and TCP/IP, to name just
    a few. At PARC, Taylor organized a weekly meeting where a different
    speaker each week (called "the dealer") would propose an idea and try to
    defend against questions and criticisms raised by some of the most
    critical, motivated, and brilliant engineers and researchers on the
    planet at the time. As Hiltzik explained:

    "[I]t was not to be personal. Impugning a man's thinking was
    acceptable, but never his character. Taylor strived to create a
    democracy where everyone's ideas were impartially subject to the group's
    learned demolition, regardless of the proponent's credentials or rank."

    I love that phrase, " Impugning a man's thinking was
    acceptable, but never his character."  I also believe that one of the most important things we can do when teaching people to do creative work is to teach them to participate and lead good fights.  

    I wonder, have you had — or do you know about — other bosses who are especially skilled at leading a good fight?  What else do they — or you — do to make this happen? 

  • Buying PR In Blog Posts?

    I suppose that I should have known this was going on, but I just got an email titled "Sponsoring a blog post," which says:

    My name is Samantha and I work for a management consulting
    firm. We are currently in the process of growing our online presence and would
    like to know if we would be able to sponsor your upcoming post. The sponsorship
    is not a product review but rather a mention within the body or the byline of
    the post. Do you think we would be able to work something out?

    I was a bit taken aback, as this something that would never occur to me to do or to accept.  But I guess it is a little like product placements in movies or TV.  Has anyone heard more about this practice?  Am I being too touchy in my negative reaction?

    P.S. Samantha used a gmail address and did not say what firm it was. 

  • “I Have Already Told You More Than 125% Of What I Know”

    I first heard from a charming and honest statement years ago from a Stanford colleague who was being asked question after question about a case study he had done. He was providing us one compelling answer after another. But then he stopped himself in mid-sentence and said he refused to answer more questions because, as the headline says, "I have already told you more than 125% of what I know."

    I think that those of us who are alleged to have expertise in certain topics can easily fall into this trap as we try to be helpful to others, and rather than stopping and realizing that we are beyond our expertise, we just keep saying more and more about things we know less and less about.

    I was thinking of this comment this morning after I got yet another media inquiry to talk about swearing in the workplace, a topic I officially retired from talking about after my NPR interview on power players and profanity.  I did devote time to reading research on swearing and such and did learn some interesting lessons from The No Asshole Rule (especially from all the great comments and emails).  But after being pressed pretty hard by a reporter to do another interview, I realized it was time to turn back to topics I know more about, and I used the "125%" line to deliver the message.

    I don't think it is always bad, by the way, to tell more than you know so long as you make clear that you are speculating or hypothesizing beyond the information you have.  A lot of creativity happens that way, but when you do so, it is good to understand (and explain to others) that this the case.  This isn't an easy thing to do, however, because we human beings often have excessive confidence in our knowledge and expertise ESPECIALLY about areas we are must ignorant about. Comforting, isn't it?  The path to self-awareness is not easy for any of us humans.

  • Why BP’s New CEO Is Lucky — and the BP Board Is Shrewd

    Earlier in the week, I was interviewed by Michael Krasny at KQED (our local public radio station) about BP's new CEO Robert Dudley and the more general question of CEO accountability.  You can listen to the interview here if you like.  To get ready for the interview, I took a bit of time to read up on the infamous outgoing CEO Tony Hayward — who even as he was departing, continued to stick his foot deep down his throat.  As The New York Times reports, Hayward admitted that it was time for new leadership at BP, but then emphasized how hard he had worked to improve safety standards at BP, but “sometimes you step off the pavement and get hit by a bus.”  I was surprised that this comment did not get more play, as one of the worst things that a leader can do is to convey that they have no control and no responsibility when things go wrong.   As is well-documented, this is just one of many misguided comments by Mr. Hayward, his most infamous being his comment that he wanted his life back.

    As I was reading such reports, and thinking about research on the romance of leadership, executive succession, and the illusion and reality of CEO influence, I realized three things.

    The first, as my headline says, is that the new CEO Bob Dudley is mighty lucky to follow someone like Mr. Hayward.  Indeed, because of the power of psychological contrast, the more that Mr. Hayward comes across as an insensitive buffoon, the better a scapegoat that Mr. Hayward becomes — and the better that Mr. Dudley looks in contrast.  If I were Bob Dudley, I would be delighted with Mr. Hayward's final gift — the comment about the bus — as it makes it appear that BP's leadership has been repaired by his promotion to the position. The fact that Dudley is from the U.S. (Louisiana in fact), has been focused on managing the fiasco and thus spent a lot of time in the Gulf, and has made no major gaffs so far, all look even better when contrasted with Mr. Hayward's English accent (because confidence in the U.S. market is so important), the relatively little time that he his spent in Gulf and of course his many gaffs.( As an example, look this  attack on Hayward by Harvard's Rosabeth Moss Kanter)

    There is an interesting lesson here, a broader one, for every boss who is offered a new job.  If you are lucky, or perhaps strategic, following damaged goods like Mr. Hayward will make things a lot easier (at least at first) than if you follow a widely admired boss.  This is also a pattern that I commented on in The No Asshole Rule — where quite a few bosses explained to me that it was great to take a job where the last boss was a certified asshole because, in comparison, they seemed to civilized. 

    The second thing I realized was that, although calls for Hayward's resignation have been ringing for months, the BP board was very shrewd to leave Mr. Hayward in the position and to let him take all the slings and arrows on behalf of the company and his colleagues.  He was beat-up by Obama, the U.S. Congress, and many many others until the leak was (apparently) stopped.  By doing so, Mr. Hayward served as an excellent scapegoat.  If Mr. Dudley had stepped in before the leak was stopped, he would have taken heat that would have undermined his honeymoon period and, by association, BP's credibility.   But since Dudley was in charge in Gulf operations, the "symbolic repair" appears credible even if it is left unsaid:  "It was Hayward's fault, so he is gone, and the guy who fixed it is now in charge."  So I have to give the board credit for playing a lousy hand pretty well. (I would also note that if you look at the level of responsibility that the board is still giving Mr. Hayward, it appears they have faith in his technical skill, if not necessarily his ability to deal with press and public — which further suggests that this is necessary scapegoating rather than a complete loss of confidence in his abilities).

    The third thing I realized is that all these theatrics are an interesting sideshow that may distract BP insiders and outsiders from fixing the real problems.  As is well-documented, especially when a company is large, old, and complex, leaders almost always get far more credit and blame than they deserve.  As such, although it appears that BP's board has been wise in terms of handling CEO succession, the real question is if BP can ever change from what is a culture that has had ethical and safety problems for a long time — apparently worse than other major oil companies.   That will be the real test of Bob Dudley's leadership and the board's skill.

    Although should add, as I emphasize in Good Boss, Bad Boss, that if a leader can create the illusion that he or she is charge and has the power to make positive organizational changes, the confidence and effort that it inspires can help bring about such changes. A great example is George Washington — check-out David McCullough's 1776.  In other words, sometimes such theatrics are pure bullshit (like BP's "Beyond Petroleum" campaign), but if a leader is persistent and authentic, a symbolic change can be a powerful step toward real change.  There are lot more oil wells in our oceans, so for everyone's sake, I hope that the symbolic change at BP leads to real changes.

    As a final comment, although I have vented plenty of anger at BP, at the same time, I have some sympathy for BP's board, Mr. Dudley, and most people who work for BP, as they are in a very difficult spot because of both the the stigma and the difficulty of what they are trying to accomplish.  I would not want to be in their position right now, and finding a way out of this mess isn't going to be easy.

    P.S.  Tom Davenport — a brilliant knowledge management  guy — just put a great post over at HBR called "If Only BP Knew Now What BP Knew Then."  Tom makes a compelling case that BP's narrow focus on speed and profit helped destroy an emerging safety culture.  I was especially intrigued by this link to a Financial Times post on BP's narrow focus, which ends by reporting BP's motto ion recent years "every dollar counts, every seat counts."  A seat is an employee at BP.  Surely, that is true in every company, but if you are just hyper-focused on every penny, it turns attention away from other things, like safety.