Work Matters

  • 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.  

  • Richard Feynman On The Folly Of Crafting Precise Definitions

    One of my best friends in graduate school was a former physics major named Larry Ford.  When behavioral scientists started pushing for precise definitions of concepts like effectiveness and leadership, he would sometimes confuse them (even though Larry is a very precise thinker) by arguing "there is a negative relationship between precision and accuracy."   I just ran into a quote from the amazing Nobel winner Richard Feynman that makes a similar point in a lovely way:

    "We can't define anything precisely. If we attempt to, we get into that paralysis of thought that comes to philosophers… one saying to the other: "you don't know what you are talking about!". The second one says: "what do you mean by talking? What do you mean by you? What do you mean by know?""

    Feynman's quote reminded me of the opening pages of the 1958 classic "Organizations" by James March (quite possibly the most prestigious living organizational theorist, and certainly, one of the most charming academics on the planet) and Herbert Simon (another Nobel winner).  They open the book with a great quote that sometimes drives doctoral students and other scholars just crazy.  They kick-off by saying:

    "This is a book about a theory of formal organizations.  It is easier, and probably more useful, to give examples of formal organizations than to define them."

    After listing a bunch of examples of organizations including the Red Cross and New York State Highway Department, they note in words that would have pleased Feynman:

    "But for the present purposes we need not trouble ourselves with the precise boundaries to be drawn around an organization or the exact distinction between an "organization" and a "non-organization."  We are dealing with empirical phenomena, and the world has an uncomfortable way of not permitting itself to be fitted into clean classifications." 

    I must report, however, that for the second edition of the book, published over 20 years later, the authors elected to insert a short definition in the introduction: 

    "Organizations are systems of coordinated action among individuals and groups whose preferences, information, interests, or knowledge differ." 

    When I read this,  I find myself doing what Feynman complained about.  I think of things they left out: What about norms? What about emotions?  I think of situations where it might not apply: Doesn't a business owned and operated by one person count as an organization?  I think of the possible overemphasis on differences: What about all the times and ways that people and groups  in organizations have similar preferences, information, interests, and knowledge? Isn't that part of what an organization is as well?  I could go on and on.

    I actually think it is a pretty good definition, but my bias is still that I like original approach, as they did such a nice job of arguing, essentially, that if they tried to get more precise, they would sacrifice accuracy. Nonetheless, I confess that I still love trying to define things and believe that trying to do so can help clarifying your thinking.  You could argue that while the outcome, in the end, will always be flawed and imprecise, the process is usually helpful and there are many times when it is useful pretend that you have a precise and accurate definition even if you don't (such as when you are developing metrics). 

  • Andy Hargadon’s Brilliant Post On Jobs Versus Edison

    Andy Hargadon, a Professor at the University of California at Davis, just wrote a fantastic blog post that compares Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison.  Although there are many shallow comparisons of this kind coming out in the press, none are written by anyone who spent years studying Edison as Andy has done.  Andy also worked at Apple as a product designer in the 1990s and still has connections to the firm; and in his book and articles often does a brilliant job linking the history of innovation to modern applied and conceptual problems.  I couldn't help goading him to write something, and although he resisted at first, he couldn't help doing it — he just knows too much about the topic.  Here is his full post.  And here is a taste:

    How both men dealt with their very public failures is a morality tale far richer in their differences than in the simplistic connections between them. 

    Once ousted, both men jumped immediately back into the arena, intent on proving their detractors wrong. And both failed again. Edison returned to an earlier project, the phonograph, but would soon become embroiled in, and ultimately lose, another standards war. In 1985, Jobs founded NeXT computer, describing in a name his desire for redemption. Interestingly, both invested in new movie technologies (Edison pioneering moving pictures with a system of film, camera, and projector; Jobs investing in Pixar and the development of computer animation).

    Here, at the end of their second acts, our two heroes faced their greatest challenges and, here, their paths diverged.  

    Edison kept roaming. Whether by temperament or temptation, he kept pursuing the next great invention, investing his and investors money in ultimately fruitless ventures such as magnetic iron-ore mining and concrete cast-in-place houses (both doomed by a toxic combination of huge capital costs and his well-known predilection for experimenting).

    Jobs returned to Apple.  Clearly the wiser for these experiences, he discussed publicly the lessons he learned from his original ouster from Apple and from the failure of NEXT despite its brilliant technology.  Even brief conversations with former colleagues told me he had brought a new humility to the company’s innovation efforts. Gone was the effort to prove Apple’s technical genius, or inventive power.

    Great stuff, make sure and read the whole thing.

  • Our New York Times Piece on Evidence-Based Management: The Uncut Version

    Jeff Pfeffer and I had a piece appear today in The New York Times "Preoccupations" column called "Trust the Evidence, Not Your Instincts."  We are pleased with the points it makes and how it reads, but as is inevitable given the space constraints in newspapers, the final version is a bit shorter than the piece we submitted. In particular, we wish there had been space to include our point that, not only has linking incentives to standardized test scores been generally ineffective, a nasty side effect is that such programs often drive teachers and administrators to cheat (giving students the right answers or erasing wrong answers and replacing them with right answers).

    In addition, one point that we didn't emphasize even in the "uncut version" is that we are NOT arguing financial incentives are generally useless, dangerous, or unwise to use.  They do motivate human-beings, and seem to be especially effective (as Dan Pink shows us) for tasks that do not require high levels of imagination.  But a condition for any incentive system to work is that people need to have enough control over their work.  A big problem with many teacher incentive programs is that, all too often, individual teachers just don't have enough resources, enough influence over the preparation kids had before they enter their classroom, enough influence over what happens to their students outside the classroom, and enough support from the administration.  So no matter how motivated the teachers might be, they can't have a big impact on student's scores, at least through honest means. Although it isn't pretty or ethical, teachers and administration sometimes turn to something they can control: They give the kids answers, erase wrong answers and change them to right answers, or in some cases, find ways to get the weakest performing kids out of their classes and schools, even when those students need the most help.  Unfortunately, in too many schools, this means the weakest students are moved to special education classes, which raises mean test scores in regular classes, but hurts both the kids who don't belong in special education classes as well those who do.

    OK, here is the uncut version:

    Title:

    The Virtues of Evidence-Based Management

    Reading lines:

    We know a lot now about what it takes to build humane and effective workplaces.   Leaders and managers can avert a lot of unnecessary harm –and do much good – by learning and heeding the best evidence.

    Text:

    Consider this scenario.  You have a serious illness. Your doctor prescribes an intrusive, painful, and expensive treatment— and you have to pay for it.  What she doesn’t tell you—because she has not consulted the research – is that most studies show the treatment is ineffective and fraught with negative side-effects.  You go through the procedure, suffer severe pain, and spend a lot of money.  Unfortunately, as with most patients, the procedure proves ineffective. You later uncover the research your doctor failed to consult.  When you ask why she didn’t use this evidence, she answers, “Who pays attention to studies?  I have years of clinical experience.  Besides, the protocol seemed like it ought to work.”  

    Does that sound like malpractice?  It does to us.  Fortunately, pressures to practice evidence-based medicine are reducing preventable errors.  Not so in most of our workplaces, where failure to consider sound evidence repeatedly inflicts unnecessary damage on employee well-being and organizational performance.   But it doesn’t have to be this way.

    No workplace practice is as important—and apparently vexing—as pay.  Many people believe that pay for-performance will work in virtually any organization, so it is implemented again and again to solve performance problems — even in settings where evidence shows it is ineffective.  Consider the recent decision to end New York City’s teacher bonus program after wasting three years and 56 million dollars.  As this newspaper reported in July, a Rand Corporation study found this effort to link incentive pay to student performance “had no effect on students’ test scores, on grades on the city’s controversial A to F school report cards, or on the way teachers did their jobs.”  This bad news could have been predicted before squandering all that time and money.  The failure of such programs to boost student performance has been documented for decades.  A careful review of pay for performance in schools in the 1980s showed these programs rarely lasted more than five years and consistently failed to improve student performance.   The 300 page Rand report emphasizes that (although exceptions exist) evidence against the efficacy of teacher incentive pay in U.S. schools continues to grow stronger and is especially evident in the most rigorous studies. 

    This practice doesn’t just waste money.  As Chicago economist Steve Levitt and others show, strong incentive programs can entice – or scare — teachers and administrators to “cheat” on the tests, either by providing students with questions and answers in advance or changing student’s answer sheets to increase apparent performance.  Recent well-publicized cheating scandals in Atlanta, Baltimore, Washington D.C., and elsewhere could have been foreseen by anyone who read and heeded this research.  Building a culture of cheating in schools corrupts both students and teachers for no good purpose.

    Evidence about numerous other practices is ignored too.  Harvard University’s J. Richard Hackman finds that stable membership is a hallmark of effective work teams.  People with more experience working together typically communicate and coordinate more effectively.  Although this effect is seen in studies of everything from product development teams to airplane cockpit crews, managers often can’t resist the temptation to rotate people in and out to minimize staffing costs and make scheduling easier.  This happens even though, for instance, the National Transportation Safety Board found that 73% of the safety incidents reported on commercial aircraft occur on the first day a new crew flies together. 

    Hiring the right people is another key decision in every workplace.  Many studies show that unstructured face-to-face interviews are biased; for example, interviewers prefer candidates who are likeable, similar to them, and physically attractive (even when these qualities are irrelevant to performance).  Numerous selection methods are superior – among the best is to simply see if the candidate can perform the work.  Yet interviews remain the primary selection method used by organizations.  And we’ve often been astounded by the refusal of seasoned managers and executives to even consider evidence that interviews are a flawed selection tool.

    Strongly-held but weakly supported beliefs about workplace practices reflect what psychologists call “confirmation bias.”  When people hold firm beliefs about something, they tend to ignore, reject, and forget facts that clash with their beliefs; and remember, accept, and more readily accept facts that support their beliefs.   A related impediment is the excessive self-confidence that plagues many people, especially those who wield power over others.  Decision-makers may acknowledge they use a practice that is ineffective for most other people and organizations — but believe they are so talented that the usual findings don’t apply to them.  

    To illustrate, numerous studies show that mergers typically inflict economic damage on the acquiring company.  Yet when one of us served on the board of a software company that was contemplating an acquisition — a “target” company in a different city and of comparable size (conditions that predict merger failure) — the CEO argued it would succeed despite the evidence because he wasn’t like most CEOs.  He was wrong.  It failed, just as most acquisitions do under these conditions.

    Despite such impediments, there is an evidence-based movement afoot in some organizations.  When Gary Loveman became COO of Harrah’s in the late 1990s, he decided that improving the service provided to the best customers—“the people who made the cash register ring”—was a priority.  Loveman had taught service management at Harvard Business School, so was well-versed in research on customer loyalty — and how employee turnover undermined it. Loveman’s team implemented numerous evidence-based tactics including realistic job previews. After candidates were offered a job, they were informed about the good and bad elements so they could decide if the work was right for them.  Turnover plummeted, service improved, and coupled with Harrah’s innovative marketing, the company went on a decade-long run of outstanding performance. 

    A recent study at Google demonstrates the power of accepting and acting on evidence, even when it clashes with ingrained beliefs.  For most of its history, Google’s leaders believed that deep technical expertise was the most important quality for a manager. They believed the best bosses pretty much left their people alone, and their main role was to help with technical problems when people got stuck.  Yet when Google examined what employees valued most in a manager, technical expertise ranked last of the eight attributes examined.  Attributes like being even-keeled, asking good questions, taking time to meet with people, and caring about employees’ careers and lives were most crucial.  Google found that managers who did these things led top performing teams, had the happiest employees, and suffered the least turnover. In response, Google is making many changes in how it selects and coaches managers, and is devoting particular effort to improving its worst managers.  We applaud Google’s leaders for overcoming their biases. But note the attributes of great managers Google “discovered” were evident in hundreds of prior studies. Perhaps if Google’s leaders hadn’t believed they were so “special” and “different,” they might have launched such efforts to improve their managers years earlier.

    The evidence-based medicine movement arose in response to thousands of unnecessary deaths and billions of wasted dollars that could have been averted by implementing proven practices.  Similarly, the growing pile of studies on the human and financial costs of employee disengagement, management distrust, bad group dynamics, faulty incentive schemes, and other preventable damage suggests the need for an evidence-based management movement.  Some organizations are leading the way.  It’s time for many more to do the same.

    P.S. Speaking of evidence-based management, Teresa Amabile and Steve Kramer, authors of The Progress Principle, had a great editorial The Times today called "Do Happier People Work Harder?"

  • 5 Warning Signs to Watch for at Apple

    I declined several media inquiries to comment on Steve Jobs and the impact his departure will have on Apple.  I did so because predicting the future of any company is always hard, but especially so for Apple where the secrecy is so severe.  For example, although Tim Cook has stepped in and out of the CEO role multiple times, the assumption seems to be that Jobs has retained influence on daily operations throughout the past three or four years. Clearly, Steve is quite sick and has been for a long time, which leads me to wonder to what extent Steve Jobs himself versus the IDEA of Steve Jobs has held stronger sway in Apple.  In any case, it is clear the Cook has been running a big proportion of day to day operations for years now.  But perhaps Jobs has had little more than symbolic influence for years.  If that is true — and I have no idea if it is — the odds that Apple will continue its impressive run might be a bit higher than pundits predict.  Regardless, in the short-term, my hunch is the capital markets have the right take on Apple (the stock is holding rock steady) as it has such great products, pizazz, stores, and operations that sudden trouble seems unlikely.

    When I finally did a media interview for FT Germany yesterday, I got to thinking about Apple from an organizational and cultural perspective.  I was especially influenced by Adam Lashinsky's magnificent Fortune piece called Inside Apple.  The story that emerges from Adam's piece and other bits of information is that Apple's structure, work practices, and beliefs about how to get done are woven together to support a highly centralized model of decision-making, where very talented individuals and small teams are given specific tasks, individuals are held highly accountable for implementation, and extremely strong cultural, interpersonal, and performance pressures are present. 

    Although I won't dig into the debate about trade-offs between centralization and decentralization, centralization works best when leaders face a relatively small number of important decisions, when they find ways to reduce the emotional and cognitive load on the relatively small number of people making major decisions, and tight personal, organizational, and cultural controls mean that decisions from on high are implemented quickly and without much question.  At its best, in a centralized system, there is much confidence in leaders, fast communication up and down, and relatively little time spent on dysfunctional politics (as there is no power vacuum, little second guessing, and severe penalties for ignoring or undermining orders from on high).   Although it is mighty hard to know exactly what is going on in Apple, this description seems to fit most stories and other information about the place under the shared leadership of Jobs and Cook. 

    Assuming this is more or less accurate, I started wondering, what would be some signs that such a system was heading for trouble? Consider five:

    1. The size of the board of directors starts to grow.  Apple has been criticized for having a board that is too small, only 7 people.  Smaller teams not only make better and faster decisions, and have better dynamics, a small board helps a senior management team move faster as there are fewer masters to serve and, on average, the speed and quality of their advice should be better.  If more members are added to Apple's board (especially if they get to 10 or more) it would suggest the board and top team are putting too many things on their plate, trying to please too many masters, and creating more complex group dynamics that will slow and complicate decision-making and implementation in both groups. 

    2. The number of products expands dramatically.  When Jobs first returned to Apple, they had a huge pile of products — he killed all of them within the year.  For example, as Jobs said ten months after his return, they had so many different kinds of Macs and other hardware that Apple employees couldn't even tell their friends which ones to buy (See this old 1998 video, especially minute 5:20 to 7:30 or so).  In contrast, look at the product line now, they only make one iPhone at a time, one iPad, and have a pretty narrow set of Macs too.  If you are going to run a highly centralized organization (as one friend of mine calls it "genius driven"), a smaller product line is especially important because, that way, the senior team need only track a relatively small number, which averts placing excessive cognitive load on them.  As I wrote here earlier, Jobs has argued that a hallmark of great companies is that they not only kill all the bad ideas, they kill most of the good ones too so they can focus on doing a few things well and not design inelegant products or experiences that reflect an effort to jam every seemingly good idea in someplace.

    If Apple's product line gets bigger, especially a lot bigger, it gets harder to run the organization without delegating more major decisions.  In addition, and perhaps most crucially, when an organization has an irrationally large product line, when consumers and even insiders can't understand the logic, the real explanation often is that there are many medium power groups that have enough resources and influence to build their own hardware, software, or whatever BUT not enough power to stop others.  As a result, many medium size fiefdoms emerge, attention turns inwards to gaining political advantage over competitors, and away from what is best for the company and customers.  I saw this at GM before the bankruptcy.  This was also exactly the situation that Jobs faced when he returned to run Apple in the mid 1990s. My conversations with Apple insiders suggest that dysfunctional politics explained the big product line, not the strategy.  So a big increase in products — and one that doesn't seem to make much sense — would signal the team is putting too much cognitive load  on itself, moving to a more decentralized model that does not fit with other elements of Apple, and that people are spending more time battling to get THEIR product out and to kill others developed by colleagues instead of making a few INSANELY GREAT products.

    3. Departures of senior executives.  One of the most consistent strengths of Apple that observers emphasize is the quality of their top team.  The same goes for their board too, with perhaps the star being the amazing Bill Campbell, one of the most renowned coaches and mentors on the planet and THE most desirable board member in Silicon Valley. Presumably, Tim Cook has had years to work with them, and the dynamics are healthy; I suspect one reason Apple is so effective partly is because of this stability.  When people start leaving any group, there is good evidence that the resulting disruption undermines group performance as it takes time for groups to absorb and learn how to work with new people.  I would be especially concerned if people who left are replaced by outsiders, as Apple clearly has distinct ways of thinking and acting that would take time for even the most able outsider to learn.  Moreover, when people start leaving a top management team at unexpectedly high rates, it often signals trouble: They are unhappy with their CEO and fellow executives, they are being forced out, or both. Note that there have been some key departures of senior executives  in recent months, so this is something to keep an eye on.  In particular, if head designer Jonathan Ive left, that would signal that something is terribly wrong.

    4. Leaks to the press.  As an outsider who would like to know more about Apple, and who often talks to journalists that cover Apple, the difficulty of learning anything about the company just amazes me.  It took me a good four months to confirm that my former Stanford colleague Joel Podolny had become head of HR after hearing the first rumor it had occurred — and of course Joel was too smart and well-socialized to answer the email I sent him asking him if the rumor was true.  While information does sometimes get out (consider Adam Lashinsky's great Fortune piece) a hallmark of Apple's culture is that people in the company take secrecy so seriously — especially when it comes to forthcoming products and release dates (the current secrecy around the iPhone 5 being a case in point).  I have friends who work at Apple, not just Joel.  It is amazing to see what happens to them when they go to work there.. they stop talking, they won't return emails, and you learn — if you do run into them — not to ask them about anything sensitive.  After all, should they slip and tell you, they are putting their own jobs at risk.  Now, such paranoia, although unattractive in some ways, does have advantages in that competitors are kept in the dark and consumers don't really know when an Apple product they buy will be outdated.  Apple has been able to do an especially brilliant job of tweaking production levels (thanks to Tim Cook's amazing supply chain) and pricing so they can squeeze the most out of existing but soon to be outdated hardware and software.  Perhaps even more important, Apple's infamously effective secrecy is a sign of fantastic cultural control and individual commitment to the company. If we start seeing more leaks than in the past, it signals the strength of the bonds among people are weakening and their fear of breaking this most sacred of Apple commandments in waning — that Apple's carrots and sticks aren't working as well as in the past.

    5. Acquisitions, especially big ones.  Just this morning, I was reading some stories quoting management professors who predicted that Apple is sitting on so much money that they would probably go on a shopping spree and buy a bunch of companies.  If this happens, I would really start to worry.  Yes, small strategic acquisitions to bring specific people or specific technologies that Apple needs to move ahead are probably necessary and wise.  But if you look at research on acquisitions, especially big acquisitions, not only do they tend to fail, they do a bunch of things to organizations (especially senior teams) that would be especially deadly for Apple.  They distract leaders from the day to day operations of their firms, increase the overall cognitive and emotional load, bring in different and change resistant subcultures that are usually harder to transform than senior executives predict, they result in additions (and subtractions) to the top management team and board of directors (and thus create the group dynamics problems outlined earlier), and often broaden the product line (The Compaq/HP merger being a case in point).  As such, it seems to me that doing a big acquisition — or worse yet, a stream of them — would be an especially efficient way to undermine Apple's seemingly magnificent structure and culture.  Apple got big by doing a fairly small number of things very well and by doing them for themselves.

    As I said at the outset, it is impossible to predict Apple's fate.  I would speculate, however, that regardless of whether all or none of the things above happen, the best bet is that Apple will slip a bit in the next decade.   One reason is simply regression to the mean, that things even out over time, so extreme outliers in any distribution tend to drift toward the average.   There are some forces that helps this process along in very successful companies.  As my colleague Jeff Pfeffer likes to say, whether it comes to a great restaurant or a great technology company, the inevitable distractions, overload, outside scrutiny,  arrogance, confusion, and fear of screwing things up (rather than focusing on making things better and better) mean, all too often, that "success ruins everything."   Regardless, regression to the mean seems to happen in most or all systems where large variance in performance is seen.  Certainly every high flying technology company that ever existed has eventually drifted toward the middle or bottom, at least for awhile.   Even the most enduring, such as IBM, have gone through some hard times and, of course, Apple had some mighty tough times in the mid 1990s. 

    Meanwhile, I confess that I hope Apple continues to be great and become greater.  If the iPhone 5 is as cool as I hope, I will get one.   My old 3GS is still running strong, but I don't think I will be able to resist.  About a year ago, I had dinner with design guru Don Norman , who was once a senior executive running advanced development at Apple,  Don was quickly fired when Jobs returned.   Don, who is smart, charming, and has a sharp tongue, noted that Jobs' decision was understandable, he just wished that Steve had been a little nicer about it.  Don — who owns both a Droid and iPhone — made an interesting comment.  That you could argue all day about the technical pros and cons of each phone, but he pretty much always grabs the iPhone because it is just more fun and that "fun thing"  is a reflection of Steve Jobs' and Jonathan Ive's combined genius: Something no other technology company seems to ever figure out quite so well or so consistently.   If Apple can protect and keep spreading that human magic across its products, and keep running that amazing supply chain, nothing that any of us say will matter.  Their greatness will persist.

  • 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.

  • New Study: Helpful and Friendly Co-Workers Can Keep You Alive

    Tiffany West from the World Economic Forum just alerted me to an intriguing new study that suggests having the right co-workers can help us live longer, while having the wrong ones might kill us.  The article was published by Arie Shirom and four of his colleagues and is based on a diverse sample of approximately 800 Israeli employees, who were tracked by the researchers for 20 years.  The main finding is that those who had unsupportive co-workers died at a much higher rate (2.4 times lower).  You can read a good summary here, along with some other bells and whistles. 

    Here are the two questions they used to measure "peer social support, as described on  page 270 of the original article:

    Peer social support was scored high for participants who reported (a) that their immediate coworkers were helpful to them in solving problems, and (b) were friendly to them.

    I was most intrigued by these two items because they remind me of the two hallmarks of a good boss that I saw over and over again as I read research when writing Good Boss, Bad Boss.  A good boss is one who is both competent at the work at hand and who treats his or her charges with dignity and respect.  One of the most fun variations of this theme is David Kelley's "love and money" balancing act. 

    But it is instructive that, when you step back and look at all this evidence about what we, as humans, want and need from the people for lead us and who work with us, much of it boils down to two simple things. We want people who are skilled at the work and using to use those skills to help us perform our jobs when we have too much work to do or don't know how to solve the problem at hand.  And we want people who treat us with warmth, respect, and who inject a bit of fun in life (at least that is what I want from from a friendly co-worker).  Academics have found many nuances and will find many more, but these two simple categories jump out again — and they make sense.

    These findings also reinforce that advice I have given again and again about the kind of workplaces it is best to seek versus avoid, and my related advice on surviving an asshole infested workplace.  As I have always said, if you are surrounded by a bunch of assholes — and people who won't help you solve work problems and who are unfriendly would qualify — get out as fast as you can.  This study suggests that, they longer you stay around such people, the more your health will suffer, and eventually, your risk of an early death will rise.

    This is not a perfect study, the sample is not representative, a larger one would have enabled the researcher to do more fine-grained analyses, and while the two item measure of co-worker support was suggestive, it is rather coarse.  But all studies are imperfect, and this one is impressive because the authors followed this group for so long and took considerable care to rule out competing explanations, such as the health of the worker when the first measurements were taken in 1988.

    P.S. There was an interesting twist in the findings, the mortality effects seen in 2008 were driven mostly by the impact of support on workers who were 38 to 43 when the measurements were first taken in 1988. As the authors suggest, the younger workers may have still been healthy enough to avoid the mortality effects of bad co-workers, but the lack of effects on older workers seem harder to explain.

    The citation is: Work-based predictors of mortality: A 20-year follow-up of healthy employees. Shirom, Arie; Toker, Sharon; Alkaly, Yasmin; Jacobson, Orit; Balicer, Ran. Health Psychology, Vol 30(3), May 2011, 268-275.

  • The Progress Principle: A Masterpiece Every Manager Should Own

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    The Progress Principle was just published. A big congratulations to Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer.  I love this book, it is based on incredibly rigorous research, it provides the the best evidence ever of the power of small wins (one of my obsessions in Good Boss, Bad Boss), and it is chock full of useful advice that every executive, manager, and team member needs to do better work and to take more pleasure from the process of doing work.  My advice is to simply buy the book.  But if you want a few more details, here is a review I just did at Amazon because I got excited all over again when I started re-reading the book:

    I read an advance copy of The Progress Principle several months back, and I just went back and read the book again. I am even more impressed this time than the last. Four things struck me in particular:

    1. While most management books are based on anecdotes, the biased recollections of some famous executives, or on research that is presented as rigorous (but is not… Good to Great is a perfect example), the Progress Principle is based on the most rigorous field study ever done of creative work. And it draws on other rigorous work as well. As a result, the overall advice about the importance of small wins may be known to many people, but once you start digging into the smaller bits of advice about how to keep work moving along, the evidence behind those is very strong. In my view, the Progress Principle is the best example of an evidence-based management book I have ever seen.

    2. The authors didn't drown in their rigor and the details of their work. They worked absurdly hard to write a book that is quite engaging to read and chock full with one implication after another about what you can do right now to do more effective work and to motivate it in the people around you.

    3. Finally, the main point of this book may seem obvious to some readers, but if you listen to most management gurus and fancy consulting firms, the approach that the authors suggest is actually radically different. The broad sweep of strategy and radical change and big hairy goals is where much of modern management advice focuses, yet the finding from this book that it is relentless attention to the little things and the seemingly trivial moments in organizational life that really makes for greatness is not something that most leaders and their advisers get, yet it is the hallmark of our most creative companies like Pixar, Apple, Google, IDEO and the like. The implication of The Progress Principle, for example, that management training should focus on how to deal with the little interactions and smallest decisions — and that is what makes for great leaders and organizations — would, if taken seriously, mean completely revamping the way that management is taught throughout the world.

    This book isn't a bag of breathless hype, it doesn't make grand and shocking claims, and it doesn't promise instant results. But it is fun and easy to read, it is as strongly grounded in evidence as any business book ever written, and it is relentlessly useful because it points to little things that managers, team members, and everyone else can do day after day to spark creativity and well-being. And it shows how those little things add-up to big victories in the end. I believe it is one of the most important business books ever written.

    In the name of full disclosure, I am friends with the authors and did endorse the book. But I am friends with a lot of authors, but when they write bad books, I decline endorsement requests, and as I did very recently, let them know that I think their books aren't very good. Yes, I am biased, but I believe that this book deserves to be a #1 bestseller.

    P.S.  A special request to you, dear readers.  If you love the Progress Principle as much as I do, please do a little something to get the word out about the book — an Amazon review, a blog post, a tweet, or tell a friend.  The authors are working hard to get the word out, but they don't have a huge marketing machine or giant budget behind them, all they have is a great book. 

  • A Talk On Fast Innovation, All In One Great Picture

    A couple weeks ago, I did a talk on "fast innovation" at IDEO.  I gave the talk from a powerpoint deck, but at the same time, while the audience and I discussed the the talk, there was a guy named Kevin Bain who does this thing called
    "graphics scribing."  On a single big piece of paper, he drew images and a few words that summarized the main points.  This is the the third or fourth time I have worked with one of these scribes.  When they are good, like Kevin is, the interaction with the audience unfolds in an interesting and better way than a standard talk.  You see the main points unfolding all on one piece of paper, every now and then the scribe will stop and summarize what he or she has been recording so the group gets a sense of where it has been, and at the end, you've got a cool summary of the talk for the group that is all on one place. 

    It is hard to see the details of the picture below, but if you click on it, you can see a bigger version that is easy to read. Regular readers of this blog and my books will recognize some of my standard themes, like creativity being about doing new things with old things, small wins, and the smart-talk trap.  But I have never seen them put together quite like this, and while "you had to be there" to understand the full context, I am still rather amazed and humbled what a great job he did summarizing core ideas that have taken years for my co-authors and me to develop.  Kevin's website is here if you want to see a few more samples and to contact him about his "graphic facilitation" services.

     

    Bob sutton_innovation_scribing

  • Horrible Bosses and Revenge: The Uncut Version

    I had a little piece published today in the Financial Times called "Revenge Can Be Sweet for Smart Workers."  Follow the link if you want to read the article (you need to register, but it is free).  I have been doing a lot of interviews and such lately about Good Boss, Bad Boss and The No Asshole Rule as both books are related to the new comedy Horrible Bosses, but the Financial Times is the only place where I have done an original piece.  I found the editors at the FT to be wonderful, far better than most I work with to be blunt (although no one beats Julia Kirby at Harvard Business Review). Nontheless, given space restrictions, the editors cut several hundred words out of my original piece, so I thought I would put the "uncut" version here.  Like most films that are "director's cuts," the shorter version is probably better.  But I hope you might like the long one too:

    The new hit movie, Horrible Bosses, provides a satisfying if rather shallow dose of guilty pleasure for just about anyone who has endured a nasty and incompetent superior.  The three hapless protagonists, played by Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, and Jason Sudeikis, hatch a plot to murder their cruel overseers.  Their plans fail miserably, but they (sort of) win in the end anyway.   Horrible Bosses, like any decent comedy, is both logically absurd and emotionally truthful.  Plotting to murder your boss, let alone trying to do it, is immoral, unlawful, and impractical.  And while people may love hearing and telling stories about dramatic acts of revenge short of murder, this approach usually backfires.  The audience in my theatre laughed and laughed when the cruel dentist played by Jennifer Aniston, a heartless sexual harasser, was filmed stripping-off an anesthetized patient’s pants by her long-suffering dental assistant – who used the incriminating evidence to force Aniston to pay for his honeymoon.

    Unfortunately, real-life victims who live-out their revenge fantasies rarely fare so well.  Since publishing The No Asshole Rule in 2007, I have been told and emailed a steady stream of “getting even” stories from victims of lousy bosses.  My readers especially like the story I heard from a radio producer whose relentlessly demeaning boss kept stealing food off her desk. She got even by cooking brownies that contained Ex-Lax, the chocolate laxative, and placing them prominently on her desk.  Her boss promptly gobbled them down (without asking permission, of course). She waited an hour or so before telling him the ingredients.  Like most dramatic and entertaining revenge stories, it did not end well for the victim in real life.  The boss stopped eating her food, but he turned even nastier in other ways — browbeating her and giving her time-consuming, boring, and useless assignments. So the producer quit, even though she did not have another job lined up. The problem with revenge, as this story hints, is that all too often it fuels a vicious circle – and because bosses have more power than their underlings, they typically inflict the greater damage.

    Yet the impulse to exact revenge that fuels Horrible Bosses is not only a potent and widely felt emotion, it has helped bring down many managers who have fallen prey to power poisoning.   The actions by the three awful bosses in the film were cartoonish, but all suffered symptoms identified by psychologists who study the perils of power: They were self-absorbed, greedy, lacked impulse control, insensitive to subordinates feelings, and acted like the rules applied to everyone but them.  When the Kevin Spacey character gave himself a promotion and knocked down walls to reward himself with an even bigger office, it didn’t seem like fiction to me.  It reminded me of real bosses who had done similar things and how, just like the Kevin Spacey character, they were oblivious to the resentment it fueled among employees who felt that the boss already had enough money, power, and related goodies.

    Yes, it stinks to work for one of these creeps, as millions of victims of bully bosses can tell you.  Fortunately, although enacting revenge fantasies is a recipe for self-destruction, smart employees who are unable or unwilling to escape such jerks battle back via less dramatic and more effective steps.  They patiently document every cruel word (like the nurse who counted how often a surgeon said she was “chubby”), every hostile move (like the TV producer whose boss flicked a lit cigarette at her during a contentious meeting), and every unethical or incompetent act (like the executive secretary who kept records of every suspect travel expense claimed by her boss).  They band together with fellow victims so the documentation comes from multiple sources.   That way, when they do go to battle, they have a stronger case and can’t be portrayed as a single nut case.  Above all, smart victims are patient. They build an iron-clad case and a large group of allies.  And they wait for the right moment to strike back – after stretch of poor job performance by the boss, a widely known ethical lapse, or perhaps best of all, after the boss’s superiors have started asking around because they have their own concerns about that boss.   The top management team of one U.S. nonprofit organization did this rather masterfully.  As a member of the team explained to me, the board of directors was initially unresponsive to concerns raised by an individual staff member about their two-faced executive director.  This boss was apparently unusually adept at kissing-up to the board and kicking-down at those she led.  The team members patiently built their case and waited for the right moment – which came after a board member ran into a couple former staff members and was horrified by the stories he heard.  When the board  brought in the full management team (minus the executive director), the team presented extensive documentation against their boss and, as group, threatened to resign unless the bully was fired – which the board voted to do later that day.

    The lesson for victims of nasty and incompetent bosses is that, if you can’t or won’t flee from your vile overseers, and want to get even, having revenge fantasies is probably inevitable.  But acting on such fantasies is probably a bad idea for you — even though doing so (sort of) worked for the three underlings in Horrible Bosses.  Your boss has a lot more power than you do.  So you’ve got to build your case, develop allies, and wait to fight back when your boss turns vulnerable.  

    Nonetheless, putting all the silliness and impracticalities aside, Horrible Bosses offers a useful cautionary tale for every manager and executive.  If you treat your people like dirt, just because they comply with your absurd requests and smile sweetly through your insults and tantrums does not mean that all is well.  Your charges just might be waiting oh-so-patiently for you to slip-up or for your past sins to catch-up with you.  Then your followers will pounce and you will be in a world of hurt.   Certainly, there are plenty of nasty and incompetent bosses out there who escape unscathed – the world is not perfectly just place.  But if you are a horrible boss, and you lead some smart and patient people, the revenge the exact against you may, in the end, be just as sweet for them as any Hollywood fantasy.