I heard this line from a manager I've known for many years. He was describing how painful layoffs had been for him at his company, and how that was his gut reaction to being asked who should be let go. He believed layoffs were necessary for "feeding everyone else," but it reminded me how tough these times are on everyone. Even the most compassionate and caring companies are feeling compelled to cut people — including the top rated companies on Fortune's Best Place to Work survey: both Google (top in 2008) and NetApp (top in 2009) have done layoffs in recent months.
Author: supermoxie
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Born to Be Good — A Compelling Book
I have written about research by UC Berkeley's Dacher Keltner quite a bit here, including his essay on the power paradox and his research (with others including Debra Gruenfeld) that shows how giving people a little power over others turns them into self-centered jerks.
I am reading his new book Born to Be Good, which argues that people are "good," that being cooperative and generous, is part of how humans are selected and wired. Many of Kilter's arguments are grounded in his research on the microdetails of facial expressions and bodily movement, as he was trained by renowned psychologist Paul Ekman in this theory and method. But he pulls in research and stories from diverse places to make his arguments, for example, turning the assumption from many corners of economics that people are naturally selfish greedy on its head by presenting evidence that,when it comes to emotional-being (rather than the pure dollar count), it is in our best interest to give rather than receive. So spending 20 dollars on someone else or giving it to charity boosts happiness more than spending on yourself –even though most people predict the opposite effects.
There has been a lot of talk and disagreement about the assumptions that economists make about how people will behave over at the Harvard Business Review site, and although many (although far from all) economists will bristle at the notion that greediness isn't the natural human condition, Keltner does a nice job of presenting the opposing case. Indeed, while my argument is that greedy selfishness is a norm that varies across social groups and may operate more or less strongly depending on the cues in a situation — Keltner is implying that were are actually selected and wired to tilt toward goodness. And that it is in our best interests to do so — citing research that engaging in five acts of kindness to others a week (e.g., donating blood or buying someone a sundae) elevates our well-being. Keltner's writing style is great fun, and I am learning a lot from this gem.
P.S. I also like the simplicity of the title and the cover of this book.
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Another Badly Treated Nurse: How NOT to do a Layoff
I have written both here and The No Asshole Rule about the persistent nastiness that nurses face. There is quite a bit of research showing that they face insults, glaring. and insensitivity of all stripes at higher rates than most other occupations — for example a 2003 study in the Journal of Orthopaedic Nursing found that 91% of 461 nurses surveyed had experienced verbal abuse int he past month — mistreatment that left them feeling attacked, devalued, or humiliated. Note that doctors are the main culprits in this research, but nurses experience nastiness from a host of others: supervisors, administrators, patients, patient's families, and so on. I've also written here about the "Dr. Gooser" incident that Dan Denison I observed years ago when we were studying surgical nursing teams. And I've discussed how, in the United States, The Joint Commission, which accredits hospitals, has recently implemented new guidelines where hospitals that condone or don't stop persistent hostility can lose their accreditation.
Well, as we are in a time of layoffs and other moves associated with tough economic times, nurses are of course suffering the results along with millions of others. As every boss out there already knows (but all don't do), when it comes to implementing these tough decisions, there is an important difference between what you do and how you do it. Layoffs are hard enough, but when they are implemented with a lack of compassion and with insensitivity, they do further damage to the target, magnify fear and anger that spreads among both "survivors" and other potential targets, and undermine the humanity of bosses who implement them poorly. Unfortunately, there was recently a nearly perfect case of how not to do a layoff reported by the Wisconsin State Journal. Alas, a nurse was the victim of such incompetence. Here is the lead:
A Dean Health System manager removed a nurse from a minor surgical
procedure last week — in violation of medical protocol — in order to
lay her off, a spokesman for the company confirmed Monday.The abrupt removal, which spokesman Paul Pitas said posed no danger
to the patient, came after the Madison-based health care provider
announced Wednesday that it planned to “immediately” lay off 90
employees.The Dean Health Care system did admit that this was an error in judgment and admitted it was also a violation of operating room procedure:
“There was a period of time in which an RN was not present during the
procedure,” Pitas said. “While there were other clinical staff present,
including a physician, the absence of an RN goes against established
patient-care procedures at Dean Health System.”The manager who hauled the nurse out of the operating room was described as follows: "This person is very upset and is extremely remorseful over this,” Pitas
said, adding that the layoffs created “extraordinary circumstances.”In contrast, note the statement from a senior executive: 'Of the layoffs, Craig Smitty, Dean Health System president said last week, “We do not feel patients will notice.”' My reaction was that, even if I didn't notice that my nurse had removed from the operating room when I was receiving surgery, I would be most unhappy if I discovered this had happened.
Certainly, patients should not receive inferior care even if they don't notice it. But that is just part of the story. Given these are extraordinary circumstances, it seems to me that extraordinary care is required by management to assure that the layoffs are done as humanely as possible — for everyone's benefit. Indeed, take a look at the article, and you can see further descriptions of how waves of fear rippled through the hospital the day the layoffs were done because excessive fear and uncertainty were introduced in the process. My hunch is that it is senior management who dropped the ball on this one. When layoffs are done, orchestrating the process so it does as little additional damage as possible is their responsbility — HR usually gets blamed when things like this are botched…. but everyone in senior management should help with the process.
I suggest that any boss who is planning layoffs take a look at the story. It is a lot less painful to learn from someone else's mistakes in this case than to be that seemingly insensitive manager or president.
P.S. Nathan, thanks for sending me this story.
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A Well-Crafted Critique of Business “Success” Books and My Ambivalence About Good to Great
Yesterday's Boston Globe published an excellent story by Drake Bennett called "Luck Inc," about the questionable value of books about how to build great companies (the graphic is to the left). Drake provides an excellent summary of the arguments in The Halo Effect that rip apart the methods used in many such books, as well as arguments from Hard Facts, the book Jeff Pfeffer and I wrote on evidence-based management. The story focuses most heavily on new research by Michael Raynor and his colleagues, which apparently shows that luck (i.e., randomness) provides the best explanation for which companies enjoy exceptional performance and are then celebrated as superstars in books like Good to Great and In Search of Excellence. This point makes sense to me, and in fact, follow-up studies of Peters and Waterman's excellent companies and Collins' good to great companies are consistent with that view — and also consistent with an argument that — when it comes to picking which stocks will perform best — a "random walk" is mighty tough to beat — that most stock pickers don't top a randomly selected stock portfolio. I had a pretty detailed conversation with Drake, and although most of it focused on the drawbacks of these kinds of books, he ended-up quoting me as defending these books. I think he was completely fair, and in any case, I am on record many places raising concerns about the suspect methods used in both In Search of Excellence and Good to Great. But I have an especially ambivalent reaction to Good to Great — let me explain why.
There are a lot of things that bother me about the book:
1. It is a very small and flawed sample. Most notably, we have 11 companies that used the practices that Collins celebrates, but the sampling strategy made it impossible to discover how many companies used these practices yet failed to make the leap to greatness.
2. The main method was retrospective — they would label a company as "great" and then look for articles and do interviews to determine why it happened. This is a quite biased method — if you ask someone to explain the secrets of their success, you get a certain kind of story that differs from if you ask them to explain why the failed (regardless of actual performance). Winners will report having better leaders, being more focused, and persistent — and trying to untangle what is part of the sensemaking process versus what really happened is tough.
3. Good to Great cites almost no prior research, even though there are literally thousands of more rigorous studies that are pertinent to claims in the book, especially studies of leadership. Indeed, as knowledge accumulates one study at a time, and there are few if any definitive studies. So any author who claims or implies that he or she has done THE definitive study is immediately suspect — indeed, it is something that well-trained researchers never do, even Nobel Prize winners. I think that Collins needs to say — "this is just one study, we learned a lot from it, but it isn't definitive… and it has flaws."
4. Perhaps the biggest problem of all is that Collins makes bold and excessive claims based on the research; ironically, this book about the virtues of modest leaders reveals considerable hubris in its claims. Perhaps that is necessary to get a bestseller — but, as an example, Malcolm Gladwell would never make such claims.
BUT despite all these concerns, what if Collins had actually reviewed and integrated rigorous research and had built a book based on that body of evidence? If he had done so, he could have found considerable support for his ideas in published peer-reviewed research. Although there is a good deal of randomness in the process, and Collins probably overstates the wallop packed by leaders, the fact remains that leaders do need help (it is a damn hard job), and the simple and compelling ideas in Collins' book are probably mostly right and have probably helped a lot of leaders and managers. Spreading the message to leaders that they need to face facts and to be persistent and humble strikes me as a good thing, and also consistent with studies from diverse places.
So, although it is mediocre research, I think the message has done a lot of good. I just wish that Collins had shown more modesty. The upshot is that I end-up being the one who defends Good to Great at the ending of the article. So I did say, and agree, that ""There's value in mastering the obvious," he says. "If Jim Collins's
impact is to get people to do stuff that they know they should do
already – facing the hard truths or being selfless or whatever – I
certainly don't think that's a bad thing."As I think about this now, perhaps the most important standard for business books is that, whatever basis is used to support the authors advice should be stated clearly and not be overblown. I don't expect a book by Jack Welch to be based on anything but his experience, and my favorite business book of all time, Orbiting The Giant Hairball, is based only on Gordon MacKenzie's personal experience and opinions — but you know where the claims have come from.
Indeed, as I think of the books I have written, and things I am writing now, the lesson I take away is that my values and biases do affect what I write, but I also draw as heavily as I can on peer reviewed research, as that is so much of a part of my history and identity. So I am going to start making more clear that what I write is best seen as "evidence-based opinion." I also think that is the most honest way to describe what Gladwell does so well and Dan and Chip Heath do too… management is a craft, requiring a complex mix of experience and evidence. Think of what great doctors do, it is much the same thing. If they ignore the evidence too much, they are making a big mistake, but they also need to take into consideration the particular case, what they and the patient want and value, and their clinical experience. To that end, as Pfeffer and I wrote in Hard Facts, we believe that management will always be a craft, but that evidence needs to play a bigger role in how the craft is practiced — so "evidence-based opinion"" fits that perspective well.
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Publication Day: For Both The Peter Principle and What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20
The two HarperCollins books I've been blogging about are both officially published today, and are shipping at Amazon. The first is 40th Anniversary edition of The Peter Principle, which as I wrote a foreword for and inspired a BusinessWeek editorial on The Virtues of Simple Competence. The second is Tina Seelig's delifghtful What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20. If you live near the Stanford campus, please join us at the launch party at Kepler's bookstore on this coming Friday at 7:30. It should be some party, as Tina is so widely known and widely loved. I will be introducing her and am going to buy a copy of the book for my teenage son and ask her to sign it.
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Information Sharing in Teams: Impediments To Overcome
The Journal of Applied Psychology just published a "Meta-Analysis" on the links between information sharing and team performance. This method entails using quantitative analysis to uncover patterns across large numbers of studies — in this case, 72 studies of nearly 5000 groups. The overall findings aren't a surprise, that groups that engage in more information sharing enjoy better performance, cohesion, knowledge integration, and satisfaction with decisions made — but given the best bosses are usually masters of the obvious first and foremost, this is useful reminder that getting people to feel safe enough and to have enough time to share their knowledge is worth the trouble.
There was another twist, however, that bosses ought to devote a bit more attention to, a pair of red flags. The first was that the more distributed the information (the more different places it is in, including spread among different people,locations and departments), the less sharing there was and, perhaps most troubling, the more heterogeneity there was (i.e., the more diversity there was on things ranging from gender, to race, to age, to professional background) the less likely they were to share information.
The upshot for people leading teams and in teams is that you've got to remember that in the situations when you need to share information most — both in terms of avoiding pitfalls and reaching top performance –are times when there are strong impediments. To be more concrete, if information is spread around different people and places, and if people have different backgrounds, you really need to work in getting them to trust each other, take the others' perspective, and listen carefully to each other.
I see this in the best Stanford student teams. Last year, we did project for a major airline to increase the customer service experience at a large airline. The three person team was about as different as you could construct in a three person team (except all were under 35). An African American female MBA, A female Romanian doctoral student in chemistry, and a male Ph.D student in engineering. They went through a brief period of getting to know each other, but once they got past their differences, the speed at which they started talking, listening, and brainstorming, and combining knowledge was breathtaking — and indeed, they came-up with implemented a prototype to improve the experience of retrieving luggage that was implemented a few months later. The worst groups, however, are composed of people who, say, act like the most stereotypical of MBAs, engineers, and designers, don't listen to each other and don't teach each other. On average, though, I am impressed that, if you create conditions were the differences are raised and people have time to work together on short projects to learn each others strengths and weaknesses, teams that have the most diverse members do the best work — and to add a note of warning, the worst work too, because if they never get past their differences (as people open-up more slowly to others who are "different"), they are the worst.
So, having the information spread around a team and having diverse team members is a high magnitudes situation — it brings out the best and worst in teams, and as a boss, part of your job is to make sure it brings out the best.
Finally, the weirdest twist is that groups that tended to TALK more, shared LESS information. My guess is that this happens because some groups are prone to having norms and a status game where the goal is steal the air time and display dominance, rather than to listen to each other, combine what was said, and act. This is especially true in occupations where people aren't paid to talk, but to do stuff. I recall a great old study of British string quartets where the best groups would talk and fight less, and play more. They were more effective partly because you can't fight as easily when you are playing and partly because disagreements about what to play are worked out best while testing what will work, not arguing over it.
P.S. I found this article described at BPS Research Digest. Here is the reference:Mesmer-Magnus, J., & DeChurch, L. (2009). Information sharing and team performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94 (2), 535-546.
Here is the study of quartets: Murnighan,
J. K. and Conlon, D. J. (1991). The dynamics of intense work groups:
A study of British string quartets. Administrative Science Quarterly,
36, 165-186 -
Steve Jobs: 30 Billion a Year in Value?
Portfolio has an article estimating that Steve Jobs adds 30 billion a year to the economy. I agree that Jobs is enormously talented, but giving him 50% the credit for what Apple does and 50% of the credit for iPod and iPhone ecosystem strikes me as a classic case of the "romance of leadership;" there is a lot of evidence that leaders get too much credit and too much blame . CEOs matter less than observers usually think –this well-documented "overattribution" seems to be happening in this article too. In Apple's case, for example, much of the creative work is done by others in the company (including the magnificent Jonathan Ive, who leads design) and hardly anyone talks about how well they manage their supply chain and how brilliantly they control other costs — that is a big part of their success.
Yet, even though I talk about Jobs in my "Virtues of Assholes" chapter, I do love Apple products and experiences (the stores are wonderful and seem to be getting even better), believe Jobs is a genius, and wish him good health and would love to have him back in the saddle. Yet, regardless of what happens, it is clear that Jobs will go down in history with the likes of Thomas Edison. The two are similar in that, their technical talents, marketing, creating excitement, and managing the business of innovation were perhaps their greatest skills. Edison had a quite an impressive "reality distortion field" himself. Indeed, one of the biggest differences is that Edison wasn't great technically, at least according the biography in the above link. Edison's men joked openly about what a lousy inventor he was — no one jokes about Jobs' technical skills, he understands the details, and even when he drives his people crazy, they respect his knowledge.
In any event, it is fun to read the article and argue about Jobs' value. For example, they could have added billions more if they had included Pixar in the count — Jobs was CEO and sold to Disney for a fortune. If you read The Pixar Touch, you will see that although the leaders of the culture and technical focus are Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, the huge haul from the IPO was all Jobs. As I recall, everyone (including investment bankers) thought he was nuts when he started pushing for the IPO because Pixar had a pretty thin track record when they went public. It was IPO, making Jobs a billionaire for the first time.
P.S. Dave, thanks for the tip!
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Scott Berkun: 10 Reasons that Managers Become Assholes
I found Scott's post to be quite thoughtful. He actually lists 11 reasons. My favorite is this one, although all are on target. The mental health of managers is something that people don't think about enough (and it is especially tough to be a boss these days, and perhaps those of who encounter an asshole boss who is usually civilized should cut them slack):
Their life sucks. What percentage of people are
miserable in the corporate world? I think 20-30% is a safe bet. If
you’re miserable, you tend to inflict your misery on those who have
less power than you do. If your life sucks badly enough you won’t even
notice how rude you are to waiters, assistants, and sub-ordinates. It
may be nothing personal, or even work related, these people simply have
a volcano of negative emotions that must escape somewhere, often in
eruptions that they can not control. Just be glad you’re not their
spouse or offspring.In addition, as I talk about in The No Asshole Rule another reason that managers become assholes is that — as a growing pile of studies shows, see here and here — just giving people a little power can make them more focused on their own needs and wants, and less focused on the needs, wants, and actions of others.
I would like to see some research on this, but I am hypothesizing that more employees have asshole managers than just a year ago or so. If you think about the economy, people are stuck with an asshole boss have a much harder time leaving for another job. Those who are stuck are more afraid to fight back against an asshole boss because they are afraid that they will move to the head of the layoff or "performance based" firing list (See this Dilbert cartoon — people who complain or fight back are among those who make bosses 10 squirm), and finally, on the life sucks theme, if you as a boss are getting your budgets cuts, being ignored and abused by your own boss, facing the stress of laying-off people, and so on, these are all things that drive even the most upbeat manager into a nasty mood. So I fear that the asshole are on the rise and the power to fight back is plummeting in too many workplaces. In fact, I would be very curious to hear from those of you out there in real jobs of examples that refute or support this hunch of mine.
Finally, I have a little reminder for both asshole bosses and their victims. For victims, this too shall pass, it may be unwise to fight back now, but it is a good time to patiently gather the facts and weave together a coalition of fellow victims and supporters. Bide your time and protect yourself as much as you can — the day may come when things change, when you have more options, or your boss losses power, and you can fight back. As for you asshole bosses out there: You may believe that your nasty style is helping you maintain control via intimidation, and perhaps it is (for now), but your enemies may by laying in wait — and you may reap what you are sowing right now.
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The Helicopter and Lemonade Story: A Favorite from “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20”
Yesterday, I put up a post about Tina Seelig's new book What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20. I sang the book's praises and listed some of the crazy chapter titles I loved. But as I was re-reading the book, I realized that I could give readers a better sense of how fun, useful, and life-affirming the book is by printing a little excerpt. Recall that one of the chapters is called "Turn Lemonade Into Helicopters." Here is the story behind it, and it is SO TINA. Here it is:
Being
observant, open-minded, friendly, and optimistic invites luck your way. Take
this simple story: several years ago I was at a small local grocery store
frequented mostly by those who live nearby. A man and his young daughter
approached me in the frozen-food aisle and politely asked how to prepare
frozen, canned lemonade. The man had an accent I couldn’t identify, and I was
pretty sure he must be new to the area. I told him how to prepare the lemonade
and asked where he was from. He said Santiago, Chile. I asked his name and
what brought him to our town. I had no ulterior motive. I was just curious. He
told me his name was Eduardo and that he and his family were in the area for a
year so he could learn about entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. He was in line
to run his family’s business and was in search of tools to make it more
innovative. I told him about the entrepreneurship program at Stanford’s School
of Engineering and said I’d be happy to do what I could to be of help.
Over the next few months I introduced Eduardo to various people in the
entrepreneurship community, and he expressed his thanks for my assistance.Fast-forward
two years. I was heading for a conference in Santiago and sent Eduardo a
message asking if he wanted to get together for coffee. At the last minute, he
wasn’t able to make it, but invited me to go to a specific location in downtown
Santiago with a few of my colleagues. We showed up at the office building and
were led to the roof, where we were picked up by Eduardo’s family’s private
helicopter for a simply spectacular ride above the city, up to the surrounding
mountains, and over his family’s ski resort. It was incredible! And to think
that it resulted from helping him figure out how to make lemonade. Of course, I
didn’t help Eduardo because I wanted a helicopter ride. But by putting myself
out there, being open to helping someone, and following up years later, I
became quite “lucky.” Earlier I discuss the art of turning lemons (problems)
into lemonade (opportunities). But luck goes beyond this—it’s about turning
lemonade (good things) into helicopters (amazing things!). -
Diego Rocks
Diego just put up an absolutely inspired post over at Harvard Online about Travis Pastrana. Who cares about the MBA debate when there is innovation stuff like this to think about! Really, what degree you have doesn't matter, and having a degree does not even matter in many cases, it is what people do and think that counts. Diego's Harvard MBA has apparently not hurt him one bit. Read the post and watch the film with it. He uses a 28 second video of a crazy stunt to extract some "metacool" lessons for our time. A taste:
2. Use planning to minimize the stupid risks. even
Travis is wearing a helmet for this one. And notice that this is his
third-time-charmed attempt. Now more than ever, when the price of
failing is so high, it's a good idea to minimize secondary risks even
as we embrace big leaps. That might mean building an extra prototype,
running another market test, or getting out in the field with customers
more than usual. These days your big or small leaps really need to
work, so a little extra midnight oil is probably worth it. There's
enough risk out there as it is, why not cut out all the dumb risks to
better focus on the big ones?