It is the season when many of us stop to reflect about what happened in the past year and start looking ahead to the next — and hope that we’ve learned something to help us and those we care about live happier lives. In that spirit, I offer my "top 10" list.
Let me tell you about why I started the list. I have been teaching courses on introduction to organizational behavior for about 25 years now. I’ve learned that after several months of teaching and talking with young people about what it takes to build effective and humane organizations (and to survive organization’s that aren’t), it helps us get a bit of closure if I step back and talk about some things that I believe most vehemently and people and workplaces. Many of these ideas are evidence-based, and if you read this blog, many will be familiar themes to you. But some are also simply beliefs that I try to follow (and have found that when I fail to do so, I am worse for it, as are the people around me). I offer them without explanation, although I have discussed some in detail here already and will talk about others in the future. I would be curious to see reactions, additions, and subtractions — and if you have have your own list, please add a comment or a link.
Ten
Things I Believe
Bob
Sutton
1. Sometimes
the best management is no management at all — first do no harm!
2. Indifference
is as important as passion.
3. In
organizational life, you can have influence over others or you can have freedom
from others, but you can’t have both at the same time.
4. Learning
how to say smart things and give smart answers is important. Learning to listen to others and to ask smart
questions is more important.
5. You get
what you expect from people. This is
especially true when it comes to selfish behavior; self-interest is a learned
social norm, not an inherent feature of human behavior.
6. Getting
a little power can turn you into an insensitive self-centered jerk.
7. Avoid
pompous jerks whenever possible. They
not only can make you feel bad about yourself, chances are that you will
eventually start acting like them.
8. The
best test of a person’s character is how he or she treats those with less
power.
9. Err on
the side of optimism and positive energy in all things.
10. Work is
an over-rated activity.