Work Matters

  • The Strategic Use Of Anger During Negotiations: It Doesn’t Work With East Asians

    I was doing some reading on cultural differences in management styles and, once again, BPS Research has a cool study.  There is a stream of research on negotiation that shows the strategic expression of anger is effective, apparently because it is taken as a sign you are "tough" and thus leads your intimidated opponent to make concessions.  A new study by Hajo Adam and his colleagues suggests that this may be a culturally specific finding, which applies to people of Western descent but not necessarily others.  In a pair of studies that compared people of European descent to people of East Asian descent they found, in both a hypothetical and a more realistic negotiation, that people in the two groups had opposite reactions to negotiating with an angry opponent:

    "Western-ancestry students were more likely to make a concession to their
    negotiation partner whereas the East-Asian ancestry students were less
    likely to do so."

    This study is quite fascinating for at least three reasons.  The first is that these are pronounced cultural effects.  The second is they aren't simply pronounced in magnitude — rather they demonstrate a reversal depending on the cultural background. So although many of us may claim that people are the same no matter where they are from, this apparently isn't so (at least on some dimensions).  The third is more practical: if you are a Westerner and are accustomed to getting your way by browbeating negotiation opponents (and speaking in an angry tone), your usual approach may backfire if you try to use it on East Asians. And if you are from an Asian background, and have to negotiate with Westerners, it might help you to get pissed-off (or at least pretend to be) at times. 

    Cool study.  And instructive. It is only one study, but there are other experiments that show such cultural differences on other dimensions — for example that Westerners are more like to "free-ride" or engage in "social-loafing" then people raised in Asian cultures.  For example, this study found that Chinese school kids performed better when working in pairs than working alone on an "auditory tracking task"; but U.S. school kids performed better when working alone than in pairs.  Again, there is a reverse effect, and evidence that well, we aren't all the same. 

    What are your reactions to these cultural differences?  The usual explanation for such findings is that Asians are from "collectivistic" cultures and that Westerners are from "individualistic" cultures.  Is that why? Any other explanations or implications strike you? 

    P.S. The citation for the negotiation study is: Adam H, Shirako A, & Maddux WW (2010). Cultural variance in the interpersonal effects of anger in negotiations. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 21 (6)

  • Being Busy Makes Us Happier, But Our Instinct Is To Do Nothing

    BPS Research does it again. Check-out this study.  The upshot:

    Forced to wait for fifteen minutes at the airport luggage carousel
    leaves many of us miserable and irritated. Yet if we'd spent the same
    waiting time walking to the carousel we'd be far happier. That's
    according to Christopher Hsee
    and colleagues, who say we're happier when busy but that unfortunately
    our instinct is for idleness. Unless we have a reason for being active
    we choose to do nothing – an evolutionary vestige that ensures we
    conserve energy.

    This research explains nearly 100% of my emotions, actions, and predilections!  And it is very consistent with what every parent knows: When the kids are complaining about being bored or are sitting around being grumpy, get them to do SOMETHING no matter how trivial or inane it may seem.  This may apply to bosses too, but I have to think about it.

    The citation is: Hsee CK, Yang AX, & Wang L (2010). Idleness aversion and the need for justifiable busyness. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 21(7). 

  • 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?

  • How Would The Dalai Lama Tell Someone To Fuck-Off?

    One of the themes I have been writing about lately is on The Delicate Art of Being Perfectly Assertive. I have been focusing on this skill as a hallmark of great bosses, but I have been noticing lately that it is also a hallmark effective people more generally.  I love working with moderately pushy and competent people — be it my research relationships, other colleagues, my clients, the folks who often write me emails and comment on this and other blogs where I post, or friends and acquaintances.  I don't like dealing with flakes who never answer or follow-up.  But I especially don't like dealing with people who treat everything as an emergency that needs to be done right now.  I can think of at least five different types of people who drive me especially nuts in this regard:

    1. Friends and colleagues who believe that their concerns are ALWAYS so important that they can interrupt whatever I am doing.  I had one colleague who, although she was competent and caring in many ways, believed that whatever concern she had was so important that regardless of who I was meeting with, she had permission to barge into my office, drag me out into the hall (or if it was a student, she often ordered the student in the hall), and then press her (usually) non-urgent issue on me.

    2. People who are very flaky about answering my questions and inquiries, but whenever they have a question or concern, they make very clear — using terms like ASAP or those awful exclamation marks in Outlook that their concerns must be answered right now, no matter how trivial.

    During the years that my wife was managing partner of a large law firm, she always described the use of those exclamation marks in emails as a personality characteristic.  She had some partners who never sent emails about anything without using those things.  Recently, I was dealing with a corporate lawyer over the release of a teaching case and — although there were perhaps 15 people involved in the discussion from four different organizations — only one person used those awful exclamation marks and used words like "urgent" and "ASAP," the lawyer.  I wrote him a note saying that he was doing a disservice to himself and his profession by using such repeated and claims of urgency, as it reinforced negative stereotypes of lawyers.  I also noted that he was the least responsive person in the group to requests from others.  

    3. People who I have never met, but insist that their questions or
    concerns are so important that I must drop whatever I am doing right now
    to deal with their concerns.      As readers of this blog who email me
    or make comments know, I really do try to be responsive to everyone's
    emails and questions.  But I can only move so fast and must do triage.  I
    got a phone call from a woman — followed by an email — I have never
    met the other day demanding that I stop everything I am doing and help
    her with deal with her asshole boss.  I feel bad for her and I try to be
    responsive to such people, but her request came on a day that my dog
    was very sick, and I had to deal with that.  She wrote back a couple
    more times and I can't bring myself to answer her emails.

    4. People who show no respect for the fact I have a personal life and a family, and there are many times when those concerns come first.   Frankly, I am pretty aggressive about pushing back when people do this to me.  I really do put my kids and wife first most of the time.  But I do have some colleagues who treat this a weakness and press me to change priorities.  I have become especially clear on this since having open heart surgery in April.  

    5. People who won't let a conversation end.   I am a pretty friendly guy, but like everyone else, I have lots of different things to do, and there are some people I deal with who don't seem to get even the most blatant efforts to end the conversation.  Saying "I have to go now, I am late" seems to cause some of colleagues to block the door or grab my short so I can't leave!

    At this point, I best emphasize that I am not perfect and have committed all of the sins listed above.  But I am trying to do such things less and hope I am making progress.  In closing, I have two questions for you:

    1. What kinds of overbearing people do you find especially distressing?

    2. How can you fight back against such intruders without being an overbearing jerk yourself?  In my old age, I seem to be using passive aggressive methods more — being especially slow to respond to people who want an instant answer for example.   I still use confrontation but am trying to learn to be more polite about it.

    This reminds me, I had a colleague ask a really funny and intriguing question a few weeks back: How would the Dalai Lama tell someone to fuck-off? I am using that as a headline because I think that might be the skill required here — the ability to gently, firmly, and graciously assert yourself.  And it is a great question — and it is a great book title too! 

  • Tom Davenport on Great Decisions at Pixar

    Check out Tom's new post at HBR on Five Ways Pixar Makes Better Decisions.   As often strikes me when I learn more about a great company like Pixar, their success is grounded in knowing and consistently doing obvious but powerful things.  While some management gurus are saying we have to reinvent management for the times, what they are doing at Pixar are approaches that I have been around for a long time.

    Indeed, when we interviewed Brad Bird (Academy Award winning director of Pixar blockbusters The Incredibles and Ratatouille) he emphasized that the most important lessons he learned — like persistent attention to quality, the power of pride in doing good work, constant feedback and constructive conflict, and on and on — came from his early interactions with the master animators ( known as Walt's Nine Old Men ) at Disney who produced classic films like Snow White, Dumbo, and so on.

    Here is just a little taste from Tom's great post:

    Even though directors have autonomy, they get feedback from
    others.     "Dailies," or movies in progress, are shown for
    feedback to the entire animation crew. In The Economist
    interview, Catmull also describes a more extensive periodic peer review
    process:

    We have a structure so they get their feedback from
    their peers. … Every two or three months they present the film to the
    other filmmakers…and they will go through, and they will tear the film
    apart. Directors aren't forced to respond to the feedback, but they
    generally do — and the films are generally better for it.

    This is a great example of striking a healthy balance between autonomy and control, which is always a balancing act.

    Also, I wonder, do people agree with my argument that there really isn't difference between what great bosses did 50 or 100 years ago and what they do now? Or, as some thought leaders argue, it is time to reinvent management?  My view, perhaps too cynical, is that claims that a brand new management paradigm and practices have been invented, that I as a thought leader or guru am selling them, and if you don't use my stuff or accept my given truth, you are doomed for trouble, smacks of snake oil.  

    P.S. If you want to read a great book on Pixar, I suggest The Pixar Touch, which I wrote about here. Their history will just amaze you.

  • Confident But Not Really Sure: A JetBlue Boss and Other Examples of Wisdom

    Today, Julia Kirby over at HBR posted number 6 of my list of 12 Things That Good Bosses Believe.  My new post digs into nuances of a theme that I have been writing about for years, attitude of wisdom and the related notion that the best bosses have strong opinions, weakly held.  It is called Confident But Not Really Sure, a line from a Tom Petty song.  I use a number of examples, but perhaps the most timely and compelling comes from my former student and now colleague in multiple d.school adventures, Bonny Warner-Simi.  As I say:

    Many of the bosses I admire most — from P&G's AG
    Lafley    , to IDEO's David
    Kelley    , to Pepsi's Indra
    Nooyi    , to venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Randy Komisar, to Xerox's Anne
    Mulcahy    , to less well-known bosses like JetBlue Director Bonny Simi — seem
    to have this ability to act confidently on what they know, while
    doubting their knowledge.
    Take Bonny, for example, who is a three-time Olympian in the luge and
    still an active commercial pilot (both excellent metaphors for the need
    to maintain forward motion while making judicious course corrections!).
    She recently led JetBlue's successful effort (after a pair of failed
    ones) to develop procedures for delaying with flight delays and airport
    shutdowns caused by bad weather. Dealing with such "irregular
    operations" is crucial to JetBlue's reputation, even its survival.
    Remember its infamous failure to deal with a winter storm delay, when it
    kept thousands of passengers packed in planes sitting on socked-in
    runways for hours and hours? That was February 14th 2007, and the
    incident not only made for horrible press, it ultimately cost CEO David
    Neeleman     his job. Bonny and her team tackled the challenge through a
    process of prototyping, identifying all the steps involved in a model
    shut down and re-opening of airport operations, and then putting their
    refined system through its paces again and again under different
    scenarios, looking for the ways it could fail them.
    Iterative prototyping like this is so powerful because the attitude
    of wisdom is at its heart. Each iteration represented a decisive act:
    Bonny's team had arrived at a new approach they felt confident about
    implementing. But even while believing it would work, they knew their
    job was to stay atuned to new information coming in, look for signs of
    problems and imperfections, and find ways to improve upon it further.
    They were confident, but not really sure.
    Early signs suggest that the "irregular operations" systems and
    procedures are a huge improvement; they worked perfectly earlier this
    year when JetBlue was forced to suspend operations at Kennedy Airport
    for a day as a result of a bad storm: There were no stranded passengers
    on planes, operations resumed to nearly normal levels the next day, and
    it was all so routine that the press didn't write a thing about it. The
    company, Chip
    and Dan Heath tell us    , now recovers from major delays and setbacks
    40% faster than just a year or so ago. That saves it millions of
    dollars, and buys incalculable amounts of customer goodwill.

    Along similar lines, I was quite struck with a New York Times article this morning about Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, who is generally lauded for handling the meltdown better than any other CEO prior to and during the financial meltdown.  The article is interesting because he expresses a a great deal of confidence about things the bank is doing now, but at the same time, is open about things he worries about and cannot control.   As the Times notes:

    But taking a victory lap, or even basking in the adulation he has
    received while his fellow bank chiefs have been pounded, is the last
    thing Mr. Dimon claims to want. He knows all too well the dangers of
    swaggering in the footsteps of former Wall Street kings like Sanford
    I. Weill    , his onetime mentor, who helped build Citigroup
    into an institution so unwieldy it nearly went bankrupt, or Lloyd
    C. Blankfein    , the Goldman Sachs chief whose crown has been tarnished
    by accusations of double-dealing under his watch.

    Many bad things have come of the meltdown, but if it has made Wall Street titans like Mr. Dimon a bit wiser and along related lines, a bit more modest, at least something good has come of it.

    This all leads me to a question you might answer here or over at HBR. Who are the wisest leaders you can name? Who are the least wise? 

  • Strategy Is For Amateurs, Logistics Are For Professionals

    I first heard this saying a few years back from Joe McCannon of the Institute for Health Improvement, who was campaign manager for an amazing effort by this non-profit to reduce the number of preventable deaths in U.S. Hospitals. It was called the 100,000 Lives Campaign, which according to most experts who have looked at the data, probably did reduce 100,000 preventable deaths as a result of implementing simple evidence-based practices like hand-washing and keeping the bed elevated about 45 degrees for patients on respirators.  Huggy Rao and I have written about the campaign in the McKinsey Quarterly if you want to read more.

    I was quite taken with Joe's use of that expression and emphasis on logistics and the campaign he led did have a grand strategy and a big hairy goal.  But big hairy goals don't mean much without thousands of small wins.   My colleague Jeff Pfeffer and I have argued for years that implementation, not strategy, is what usually separates winners from losers in most industries, and generally explains the difference between success and failure in most organizational change efforts, sales campaigns and so on.  I also believe (and wrote here) that one of the dangers of talking about leadership versus management is that the implication is that leadership is this important high status activity and management is the shit work done by the little people.  My view (and there is plenty of evidence to support it) is that effective management — the work done by the collection of bosses and their followers in an organization, if you will — is probably most crucial to success. After all, they are the people who turn dreams into reality.

    P.S.  There is also another possibility.  It could be that strategy is very important to the success of firms, but it does not explain differences among firms in an industry because following the right strategy is required to stay alive and that executing strategy explains the differences in performance among living firms.  In other words, all the firms that followed the wrong strategy are dead — which I think is a reasonable and quite plausible explanation and is supported by some research in a subfield of organizational studies called population ecology.

  • Cover for Updated Italian Edition of The No Asshole Rule

     
    Metodo cover compressed

    I got a note from my Italian literary agent, Roberto, last week with the proposed cover for the updated Italian version of The No Asshole Rule, which appears in September.  I love it.  What do you think? 

    I have been amazed by the popularity of the book in Italy, as it has sold over 200,000 copies.

  • Fortune Names Diego Rodriguez as Among the Smartest People in Tech

    4_diego_rodriguez
    The latest Fortune magazine has a list of the Smartest People in Tech, they listed 50, starting with Steve Jobs. Also on the list was IDEO's Diego Rodriguez, who has written the inspiring Metacool blog for years (Don't miss his innovation principles on the right side of his blog).  I was delighted to see Diego on the list because we are friends and he has helped me in many ways over the year.(he got me started on both blogging and the twittering thing). But I was also delighted because, after seeing him in action at IDEO for over a decade (off and on, he went to Harvard Business Business school and did a stint at Intuit), first as young engineer and now as a partner and founder of their business design discipline.  I also taught a class at the d.school with Diego called Creating Infectious Action the first year the Stanford d.school was open. 

    I have him watched him grow into one of the most imaginative and practical people in the innovation world.  Diego's ability to understand design and business, and their intersection, at such a high level constantly amazes me — he takes design principles (often with his own twist)  such "the mind of a child,"  "build to think," "prototype until you puke,"  and "failure sucks but instructs" and then applies them to hardcore business problems — strategy, organizational design, the CEO's role in a company, performance metrics for innovation — that are both new and at the same time reflect the practical realities of running a business. 

    I am glad to hear this as it is nice pat on the back for Diego.  I am also glad to hear it because it is a nice reflection on IDEO and the Stanford d.school.  And I am also glad because Diego's success, like so many people I know, would not have been possible without David Kelley's amazing creative courage and vision, as in the process of founding and building IDEO and then the Stanford d.school, Diego is just one of many of us who have been taught and inspired by David, and benefited in more tangible ways too, from the the fruits of David's imagination (See this recent post on creative confidence for a bit more about David along with this older one on the inevitable messiness of innovative work).

    Once again, congratulations to Diego.

  • Power Players and Profanity: Talking About Talking Dirty on NPR

    I have been blogging a bit here about the strategic use of swearing (see here and here), which was originally inspired by Dan McGinn's great post at HBR on "Should Leaders Ever Swear?" This was followed by a podcast at HBR where I talked about about the same subject.  NPR got wind of all this and I was interviewed for a story that aired on NPR yesterday, on All Things Considered.  It is called Power Players and Profanity, and it a four minute segment that covers characters from Carol Bartz and Michelle Obama, to President's Obama and Bush, to General George Patton.  Here is a little excerpt from the transcript:

    Gen. Patton was once quoted as saying, "When I want it to stick, I
    give it to them loud and dirty." Sutton says that's consistent with the
    idea that words are just tools in an executive toolbox.

    "Sometimes, when you really need that wallop, you want to
    get out the word. But then there's other times when you don't want to
    give it to them 'loud and dirty,' because you embarrass them. You get
    them all cranked up and you've got a mess on your hands."

    This comment was inspired by  inspired by by psychologist Timothy Jay's work on
    the evolutionary value of swearing. As noted in an earlier post, he wrote: Taboo words persist because they
    can intensify emotional communication to a degree that nontaboo words
    cannot .  Fuck you!
    immediately conveys a level of contempt unparalleled by nontaboo words;
    there is no way to convey Fuck You! with polite speech." 

    Finally, a comment about the experience with NPR; I was interviewed on Friday by Lynn Neary, on tape, and had felt as if I had not answered a couple of the questions very well.  NPR's great editing made me sound much more coherent than I was, and I appreciate it.  

    P.S. The link to the story has both a written summary and the audio.