Work Matters

Category: Knowing-doing gap

  • Adopting The No Asshole Rule: Don’t Bother If The Words Are Hollow

    I just got off the phone with executives from an unnamed large company who are thinking about implementing a "no jerk rule." I am, of course, a big fan of this idea. And there are organizations that have such rules and the implement them effectively, such as Baird, the financial services firm.

    But I think they were a bit taken aback by how vehement I was about the dangers of just plastering the words everywhere, and not following it with the real work of implementing The No Asshole Rule (and, of course, this applies to any other norm in the organization… we wrote a lot about this in The Knowing-Doing Gap).  I wanted to know if the reward and prestige systems already supported the rule, and if not, how they were going to change things.  I wanted to know if the senior executives already modeled the right behavior, and if not, was something being done to make sure they changed their behavior.  I wanted to know if there were known assholes in visible positions, and if there were, was something going to be done to change their behavior or send them packing –to signal that the words were not hollow. 

    As with all norms, the espoused beliefs don't mean much unless they are backed by what people do — especially during the little moments.  Google is an interesting case in point.  Although they are imperfect like every human organization, it remains a civilized place because, as one senior executive explained to me years ago, "it isn't efficient to be an asshole here."  That is a sign to me that the norm is working, and all the strategy and product stuff aside, it is impressive they seem to have sustained this norm despite their size and the relentless performance pressures.  

    To return to the dangers of hollow rhetoric: It is especially destructive when it comes to the no jerk or or no asshole rule.  When organizations say it, but don't do it, when it does not constrain and describe how people act — and no serious efforts are being made to begin implementing the norm — the result is that double-whammy:  Leaders are seen as both assholes and hypocrites.  

  • What Would You Do If Your Doctor Relied on a Book Like This?

    As regular readers of this blog will know,  I am a strong advocate of evidence-based management.  Yes, there are times when sound evidence isn't available, can't be generated fast enough to make a pressing decision, or clashes so much that you need to go with your gut instinct.  But there are plenty of times when good evidence is available and ignoring it is management malpractice.  This is not only the basis of the book Jeff Pfeffer and I wrote, Hard Facts, it is a theme that runs through all my books.  There are certainly times when I express opinions that reflect my values and biases, or offer hunches or gut reactions that aren't grounded in strong evidence– I try to make clear when that is the case.  That is human enough, part of the creative process (see my P.S.), and as I said, sometimes necessary when no good data are available, but a pressing problem exists.

    But a huge flaw in the current practice of management is the often open disdain for sound evidence and logic that does or could exist, which is then quickly followed by absurd and extreme claims that are reminiscent of old-fashioned snake oil salespeople.

    Imagine if you had a serious illness and your doctor suggested a serious of treatments. She proudly proclaimed that it wasn't based on any theory or evidence, but assured you it would be effective.   Sounds like she is a quack, doesn't it? Pretty much the same thing happens all the time in management.  As an example, Jeff Pfeffer got a request to write a blurb for a book this week (I will not reveal the name to protect the innocent and the guilty) that begins with this claim:

    Don’t buy this book if you have the time and inclination for studying theoretical concepts. You’ll be disappointed in less than an hour.

    Do buy this book if you’re in a hurry and want to accelerate your achievements and your goals. You’ll be moving faster in less than an hour.

    I was a bit annoyed by the dig at concepts, as to me, that is an irrational rejection of sound logic. But what really bothered me was the second claim because, if you reject theory and evidence, how could you support such a claim? 

    I don't think there is any evidence that any management book can lead to significant self or organizational improvement after an hour of reading.  That is simply an unsupported claim.  It is, however, a nearly perfect example of Bullshit, at least as defined in the bestseller of the same name. As author Harry Frankfurt explained:

    "It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth—this indifference to how things really are—that I regard as the essence of bullshit."

    Following Frankfurt's perspective, a book like this one — and so much other management advice — fit the definition of bullshit quite well — people aren't exactly lying, they simply have no interest or respect for the truth. They just want your money.

    P.S. If you want to read about a great example of a leader and, now investor, who cares about the truth, check-out this fantastic post by John Lilly, who grew Mozilla from 12 to 600 employees and now is a VC at a very hot firm called Greylock, which just hired a data scientist.  At the same time, John emphasizes that much of the creative process necessary for entrepreneurship requires inspiration, whims, and hunches — sometimes  fueled imperfect but rich and emotionally compelling illustrations from ethnography and related methods.  John offers the motto, "Design like you are right, read the data like you are wrong."  I love that, as it shows the path for linking the messiness and courage required for human creativity with the rigorous reality checks that are hallmarks of evidence-based action.  It is also a good example of the attitude of wisdom, which Jeff and I have written about a lot.

  • Indira Gandhi on Doing Work Versus Taking Credit For It

    I had a meeting today with my colleague Huggy Rao where we were batting around various ideas about systems that are effective versus ineffective at scaling good ideas. Huggy brought up this cool quite from Indira Gandhi:

    My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.

    He then went on to argue that systems that bring-in, develop, and reward people in the first group  — and that expel, reform, and punish people in the second group — are likely to be more effective at spreading and implementing constructive action. Sounds right to me.

  • Hope for HP’s Culture

    Hewlett Packard 3Par

    The histories of the Stanford School of Engineering (where I work) and HP are closely intertwined.  Most famously, when Bill Hewlett and David Packard were young guys, they borrowed $500 from Fred Terman, then Dean of the school, to start the company.   There are at least three buildings in the Engineering School donated by Bill and Dave.  Appropriately,  they are the Terman building, the Hewlett building, and the Packard building. 

    The events over the past decade or so have led this once beautiful relationship to dim — nothing nasty has happened, it has just sort of faded along with the decline of HP's once vibrant innovative and humane spirit.   Carly Fiorina got so mad at the Hewlett & Packard foundations that she changed the name of the company from Hewlett-Packard to HP — because these foundations opposed the merger she led between Compaq and HP.  This dimmed the company's links to its founders, and indirectly, to Stanford.  Moreover, the Compaq merger brought in many executives with no geographical or emotional ties to Stanford.  The ties really faded under the Mark Hurd era as he had little emotional connection to Stanford, did major acquisitions like EDS in Texas that further scattered HP's geographical identity, and during his era of cost cutting, nastiness, and lack of emphasis on innovation, HP further lost its soul. 

    I know many former HP executives, managers, and engineers and this is the exact phrase the all seem to use to describe what happened. They talk about it almost as if it is a human death, uniformly emphasizing that the HP that exists today is not the company the worked for — many say they worked for Hewlett-Packard, not HP.  Moreover, when I came to Stanford, HP was THE employer of choice in Silicon Valley for Stanford Engineering students– it is now viewed as an employer of last resort by most students. 

    As such, I was delighted to see the honesty and ambition expressed by HP's new CEO, Leo Apotheker, in this report:

    “HP has lost its soul,” he said in an interview at Hewlett-Packard’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California, offering a glimpse of the vision he will outline in greater detail at an event on March 14 in San Francisco. “The first thing I wanted to do when I joined HP was listen to the people. The rank and file usually know about all the shortcomings.”

    This is a dramatic change in behavior. I love that he is telling the turth and using the same term that everyone else does to describe HP.   I wish Mr. Apotheker well and look forward to a day when, once again, the best and the brightest Stanford engineers are clamoring to work at HP.  Perhaps Mr. Apotheker should change the name of the company back to Hewlett-Packard.  Short of that, I suggest they remove the word  "Invent" from the company signage — see the above sign at company headquarters in Palo Alto. They use this logo and slogan on all their buildings.  As one former HP executive explained, once they put that word on the signs, she knew that HP's brilliant culture of innovation was fading fast. You don't see the word invent at Pixar, Apple, IDEO, or Facebook.   They don't need to talk about it because they do it and it runs deep in their souls.

    P.S. Check out Tom Stewart's great post at BNET on What HP's New Chief Needs Most.

  • Kurt Vonnnegut on “Having Enough” A Reminder From The No Asshole Rule

    Yesterday, I was talking to a pair of very smart and very ambitious friends.  As I told them, I am all for high performing teams, excellence in performance, and I love the restlessness that drives creative people at places like Apple, Pixar, and Facebook.  But there is a negative underbelly to this human drive toward achievement.  It can become a disease where, no matter how much some people get, they keep wanting more, and the result is not only chronic unhappiness for themselves and those around them, it is also often propels unethical and otherwise inhuman behavior. 

    The worst examples are seen in the power poisoning and associated delusions among the worst of political leaders, with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his sons disgusting antics currently playing starring roles on the international stage.  But my focus has been on more mundane crimes against humanity.  In particular, if the charges are true, the insider trading and other unlawful actions taken by Galleon Group's  Raj Rajaratnam, whose trial just started, reflect a similar human flaw. Even more shocking to me is the news this week that Rajat Gupta — former board member at Procter & Gamble and at Goldman Sachs, and former Managing Director of McKinsey — was charged with insider trading.  Procter & Gamble and McKinsey are two firms I know pretty well, and while there is a strong focus on excellence in both places, I was troubled because — each in their own way — they are among the most ethical and non-greedy cultures I have ever encountered. 

    The fact that such a central player in both places fell victim to such apparent bad judgment and greed means, to me, that no matter how wonderful you may think you are as a human-bring,and no matter how good the people around you might be,  we are all at risk of falling prey to own greed, status insecurities, and that feeling that comes with power that "the rules are for the little people."   Apparently, part of Gupta's defense will be that, if he did leak inside information to Raj Rajaratnam, he personally did not benefit financially (See this New York Times column).  To me, this defense is meaningless — at least from a moral perspective –  because it simply suggests that Gupta was trying to get more status from Raj Rajaratnam, pay back some old favor, or set the stage for a future one — all signs of greed (and perhaps some insecurity too — often a hallmark of very successful people).

    The lesson for all of us, as I emphasized in The No Asshole Rule, is that sometimes it can be remarkably useful to tell yourself "I have enough."  Here is an excerpt from a longer post I put-up in early 2007 on the official publication day of The No Asshole.  Current events suggest that this lesson from the late Kurt Vonnegut  is worth bringing it out again (I edited it lightly for clarity):

    The process of writing The No Asshole Rule entailed many fun twists and turns.  But the very best thing happened when I wrote for permission to reprint a Kurt Vonnegut poem called "Joe Heller," which was published in The New Yorker.  I was hoping that Vonnegut would give me permission to print it in the book, both because I love the poem (more on that later), and Vonnegut is one my heroes.  His books including Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions had a huge effect on me when I was a teenager– both the ideas and the writing style.

    I wrote some anonymous New Yorker address to ask permission to reprint the poem, and to my amazement, I received a personal reply from Vonnegut about two weeks later (see it here).  The postcard he sent me was not only in his handwriting. He gave me permission to use the poem "however you please without compensation or further notice to me."  It remains one of my favorite things.

    The poem fits well in my chapter on how to avoid catching asshole poisoning.  Here is how I set it up in the book:

    'If you read or watch TV programs about business or sports, you often see the world framed as place where everyone wants “more more more” for “me me me,” every minute in every way. The old bumper sticker sums it up: “Whoever dies with the most toys wins.” The potent but usually unstated message is that we are all trapped in a life-long contest where people can never get enough money, prestige, victories, cool stuff, beauty, or sex – and that we do want and should want more goodies than everyone else.

    This attitude fuels a quest for constant improvement that has a big upside, leading to everything from more beautiful athletic and artistic performances, to more elegant and functional products, to better surgical procedures and medicines, to more effective and humane organizations. Yet when taken too far, this blend of constant dissatisfaction, unquenchable desires, and overbearing competitiveness can damage your mental health. It can lead you to treat those “below” you as inferior creatures who are worthy of your disdain and people "above" you who have more stuff and status as objects of envy and jealousy.

    Again, a bit of framing can help. Tell yourself, “I have enough.” Certainly, some people need more than they have, as many people on earth still need a safe place to live, enough good food to eat, and other necessities. But too many of us are never satisfied and feel constantly slighted, even though – by objective standards – we have all we need to live a good life. I got this idea from a lovely little poem that Kurt Vonnegut published in The New Yorker called “Joe Heller,” which was about the author of the renowned World War II novel Catch 22. As you can see, the poem describes a party that Heller and Vonnegut attended at a billionaire’s house. Heller remarks to Vonnegut that he has something that the billionaire can never have, "The knowledge that I've got enough." These wise words provide a frame that can help you be at peace with yourself and to treat those around you with affection and respect:

    Joe Heller  

    True story, Word of Honor:
    Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
    now dead,
    and I were at a party given by a billionaire
    on Shelter Island.

    I said, "Joe, how does it make you feel
    to know that our host only yesterday
    may have made more money
    than your novel 'Catch-22'
    has earned in its entire history?"
    And Joe said, "I've got something he can never have."
    And I said, "What on earth could that be, Joe?"
    And Joe said, "The knowledge that I've got enough."
    Not bad! Rest in peace!"

    –Kurt Vonnegut

    The New Yorker, May 16th, 2005

    (Reprinted with Kurt Vonnegut’s permission)

    To return to Rajat Gupta, if the charges against him are true, it might have spared him and his former colleagues much pain if he had repeated  "I have enough"  to himself over and and over again at key moments.  While this lesson may come too late for him, it isn't for many of us.

  • Do you want to DO design thinking? Start with the d.School’s Bootcamp Bootleg

    Last year, I wrote about the first Bootcamp Bootleg here, a compilation of materials and methods assembled by the team that teaches our introductory course on design thinking at the Stanford d.school, which we call Bootcamp. As with last year's model, you can download the latest version free, courtesy of the d.school.  The team has outdone themselves this year, the content is just awesome — fun to read, detailed, useful, and great pictures and drawings to guide and inspire anyone who is applying design thinking (from novices to veterans). 

    I love the opening paragraph:

    Check this out —
    It’s the d.school bootcamp bootleg.

    This compilation is intended as an active toolkit to support your design thinking practice. The guide is not just to read – go out in the world and try these tools yourself. In the following pages, we outline each mode of a human centered design process, and then describe dozens of specific methods to do design work. These process modes and methods provide a tangible toolkit which support the seven mindsets — shown on the following page – that are vital attitudes for a design thinker to hold.

    Then the fun begins.  Here is the crisp summary of the d.school philosophy:

    Show don't tell.  Focus on human values. Craft clarity. Embrace experimentation. Be mindful of process. Bias toward action. Radical collaboration

    Then it goes through the fives "modes" of the design process (By the way, note the term "mode" rather than "step" or stage"  is important here because we never mean to convey that this is a clean and linear process):

    Empathize. Define. Ideate. Prototype. Test.

    To me,while philosophy and process are important, the real stuff, the material here that really makes the Bootleg so valuable, are the dozens of methods it contains.  These have been tried and fine-tuned for the six or seven years the d.school has been around, and for decades before that at places including IDEO and the Stanford Product Design program.   In d.school speak, these methods help you DO TO THINK.  Here are a few samples, there are many more:

    Assume a beginners mindset. Use a camera study. Interview for empathy. Extreme users. Team share and capture. Journey map. Empathy map. Fill-in-the blank character profile. Why-how laddering. Point-of-view want-ad. "How might we" questions. Stoke. Facilitate a brainstorm. Bodystorming. Impose constraints.

    Try the Bootleg. You will like most of it — and will probably get frustrated and fail along the way too. That's part of the process too.  Please let us know what did and did not work for you. Let us know you changed or, as we say "flexed," these methods so they would work for you.  And please let us know other methods you have used, and perhaps invented, to do design thinking

    Once again, a big thanks to the team that developed the first cut at the Bootleg last year and the team that cranked0out this lovely revision.

  • Team Guidelines From A New Boss: How Can He Make Sure People Live Them?

    I got a fascinating note from an employee of a big company about the "team norms" that were articulated by his new boss.  I think they are great, but have a crucial question about them. Here they are: 

    I. Show respect

    Support one another…don't blind-side one another in public.

     Provide one another with a safe place…honor confidentiality.

     Show up to meetings on time…and if you're running late, call.

     Maintain professionalism…especially with clients / learners.

    II. Be transparent

    No hidden agendas

    Get to the point…don't beat around the bush. 

    III. Stay positive

    Celebrate successes

    Have fun

    Here is my question. Talk is not a substitute for action.  Guidelines like these are great when they are drive and reflect behavior, but when they are consistently violated, they are worse than having no guidelines at all because the stench of hypocrisy fills the air.  As such, what advice do you have for this boss to make sure that his team actually lives these norms?

    My first thought was that he should focus on what happens when team members — or himself — violate the norms.  After all, in any human group, people will break rules.  In healthy groups, bosses call out others (and themselves) when transgressions occur, but do it in ways that builds rather than destroys safety and trust.  It's noteasy to do, but I;'ve seen great bosses like IDEO's David Kelley do it in masterful ways.

    That's my first thought. I would love to hear others.

    P.S. A big thanks to the unnamed employee for sending these norms to me.

  • A Concise and Brilliant Peer-Reviewed Article on Writer’s Block

    Below you can see an entire article (including a reviewer's comment) that may look fake, but is legitimate. It was published by Dennis Upper in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis in 1974, and is funny, true, and inspired — and a great demonstration that "brevity is the soul of wit."   Academics, especially the editor's of our journals, have a well-deserved reputation for being humorless assholes (note I edited a couple academic journals and include myself in this swipe), so I give these editors a lot of credit.  A big thanks to Thomas Haymore for telling me about this masterpiece and to Professor Brad DeLong for publishing it on his blog a few days ago.

    20101202-byxs511wwrihgy5rcac24kucbr

  • The Difference Between a Bad Job and The Wrong Job

    I was interviewed for a New York Times column by Phyllis Korkki on The True Calling That Wasn't, which appeared last Sunday.  In course of the conversation, I started thinking about what I learned from Richard Hackman (one of my mentors) about what kinds of jobs motivate people and about theory and research on identity in organizations.   In doing so, I realized that while much of what I write about focuses on bad versus good bosses, jobs, and organizations, that I ought to also be emphasizing that there are many perfectly good jobs out there held be people who are, nonetheless, quite unhappy because the kind of work they do, the mission of their organization, and a host of other factors simply do not mesh well who they are and what they would want to be. 

    Of course, one of the key dimensions here is whether a person is an extrovert or an introvert.  I had a little glimpse of this with my own family a few weeks back when we were on vacation in Mexico, and my daughter and wife started talking about what job they would most like at the resort.  My daughter loved the idea of being the bartender because there would so many people to talk to; my wife picked being one of the landscapers because the idea of working in silence and sustaining beautiful plants and grounds appealed to her sense of order and aesthetics.  In her case, I should add one of the main reasons that she loves her job is that helping girls grow into confident young woman with great skills and character counts so strongly in her value system, that doing all the extroverted things she does as CEO of the Girl Scouts of Northern California trumps her inner introvert.

    But some of us have jobs that don't fit who we are and we would be much happier doing another kind of work.  As the article says, in talking to Phyllis, I thought of three signs that someone is in the wrong job. These are:

    1. "People whose careers aren’t the right fit often feel like impostors, even if they are very skilled at their jobs."

    2. "Another symptom is constant annoyance with the demands being made of
    them, even though these are reasonable for the business they’re in."

    3. "An additional warning sign is a feeling that their current work doesn’t rank very high in their value system."

    This little list just begins to scratch the surface.  As we are — I hope — beginning to move to a time when many people who have decent jobs that don't fit their identity can find a better calling.

    I wonder: What are other signs that a competent person is in the wrong job?  And, when they are looking for a new job, what are signs it will be better for them?

  • AT&T’s Suicidal System: How Apple Stores Teach People to Despise the Company

    I did a post a couple days back about my mixed reactions to the iPad. I also started writing about AT&T but it ran so long that I realized it was really a new post.  The upshot is that I am both bewildered and fascinated by AT&T's suicidal tendencies.  I suspect that the people who run that company have not quite come to grips with the deadly mix of their horrible system and the brilliantly managed Apple stores — where so many people are forced to purchase their services.  I wonder if they realize that each Apple store appears to serve as a grass roots organization for providing people with bad experiences with AT&T, watching others have bad experiences with AT&T, and an arena for telling and listening to horror stories about AT&T among customers and Apple employees.  If a panel of experts tried to design a system to destroy AT&T's reputation among its most valuable customers and salespeople, I am not sure they could do a  better job than what seems to be happening in Apple stores throughout the country.

    Rather than buying a new iPad last week, I thought about waiting for the iPad that
    allows you to connect to the web anywhere through an AT&T account (not just via wifi as my model does).  But I have had so many experiences
    with that deeply defective organization that I do whatever I can to
    avoid entanglements with AT&T. I have had multiple lousy experiences with AT&T in recent months, and based on my experience at least, I
    suggest you never believe any of their promises and always assume they
    are up selling you. They don't care about you, they just want to
    squeeze every cent out of you.  I  also found that when they up, they often aren't trained well-enough to explain the strings attached and limitations.

    My worst and most intriguing experience in recent
    months happened one Friday in March when my wife, two teenage daughters, and I were trapped in the Apple
    store in downtown Palo Alto.  Our salesperson there spent a full four
    hours trying to get something done for us with AT&T.  I thought it would be pretty easy but turned out to be absurdly complicated –  we were buying one new
    iPhone and replacing another that had been stolen from my daughter.  The Apple guy
    ultimately succeeded despite dozens of obstacles put up by AT&T's
    people, system, and rules (which were interpreted differently by just
    about every employee he and we dealt with, by the way).  Our Apple guy succeeded only through his raw persistence
    and because, as he explained, he had learned that such a high percentage of the
    AT&T people are so incompetent, that sometimes the
    best thing to do is to just hang-up and start from scratch (in hopes the
    next one will be competent). I believe that, in the process of making this happen, at least 10 different phone calls were made to At&T, some by him and some by us.  During this time, we talked to virtually every employee and manager in the place, and each assured us that our salesperson was among their best people.  The problem, they explained, was that AT&T can be impossible and time-consuming to deal with — and their system meshes very poorly with Apple's in many ways.

    An added problem is that the AT&T people
    are apparently on a  flawed incentive system. So rather than actually
    trying to what was best for us as customers or relationships with Apple,
    there was constant up selling  directly to us and through our Apple person — which he
    resisted and advised us to
    ignore. He also reported that, on multiple occasions, AT&T employees resisted doing what was needed to get our phones working because it meant they would get no incentive pay (I never quite understood this, but I heard him say many times to AT&T employees something like "I know this will mean you don't get your incentive, but this is how what we have to do it to serve the customer.")   I was amazed to find that AT&T does not have a dedicated hot
    line that enables Apple salespeople and "Geniuses" to connect directly to AT&T people who are especially trained to deal with Apple stores as
    Apple sells so many AT&T accounts — but apparently that isn't the
    case. I would give At&T a solid "F" on customer service,
    relationships with a key vendor, incentive system, and organization
    based on my recent experiences with them.

    I would love to have a
    film of our experience in the Apple store to show to AT&T
    executives.  We were there so long that virtually every employee in the
    place at one time or another came up to us and told us there favorite
    story about how much AT&T sucked and how lucky we were to have the
    most skilled and persistent person in the place helping us. Also, quite a few
    customers overheard the stories or asked us what was going on, and
    jumped into the conversation with their own bad experiences.  This was a busy Friday night at the store closest to Steve Jobs' house, and in fact, it was the store where he made a surprise appearance the day the iPad was released.  Perhaps
    AT&T ought to spend less money advertising and brag less about wonderful they are and devote more
    attention to fixing their defective system and improving their training.  I especially believe that
    they don't quite fathom how much damage their incentive system does because it focuses their people away from helping customers and toward getting as much money as possible out of them. Perhaps they should read Steve Kerr's classic "On The Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B."

    In
    any event, for better worse, the effect of all this is that tens of thousands of customers a day get to experience
    Apple's competence and AT&T's incompetence side-by-side in a public arena.  This contrast not only affects the particular employees and customers involved in a given
    transaction, it often spreads to many others in the setting — especially when it is a long ugly one like ours.

    If you are an
    AT&T executive, you don't need a fancy survey, you don't need a marketing consultant, just walk into a few
    Apple stores and ask employees and customers what they think of your company and why. And stand around awhile and watch the dynamics surrounding the especially bad customer experiences.  Apple stores create experiences that teach customers and key opinion leaders to despise your company and see it as greedy, incompetent, and out of touch. 

    As always, I assume I am biased and my experiences are not representative. Am I being unfair to AT&T? Have others had good experiences with them, especially in Apple stores?  Note that I had good experiences when I simply bought my iPhone, but whenever anything at all complicated has happened, it has been awful.