Work Matters

  • 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.

  • Mass Exodus at Gorilla Coffee: Employees flee from “perpetually malicious, hostile, and demeaning work environment”

    One of the last posts I wrote before taking a couple weeks off warned that, since the economy seems to be finally coming back and job opportunities are on the rise,it just might be the last chance for many incompetent and nasty bosses and organizations to finally start treating their people right — otherwise employees may start running for the exits.

    Well, although I am not sure the economic upturn played a role, the story of Gorilla Coffee in New York City provides a cautionary tale for every asshole boss.  The New York Times "Diner's Journal" reported on April 11th that nearly all the employees resigned, that the coffee shop "isn't going to open anytime soon," and the allegedly abused employees who quit are seeking jobs elsewhere.  The story in The Times (it looks like a blog post) reveals staggering differences between the employee's and owner's perspective:  The owners said things like:

    “It’s a complete surprise." 

    And they portrayed Gorilla as a workplace that "is mostly happy if
    often busy,"     but:

    When one employee started expressing her dissatisfaction,
    “it got out of hand.”

    In contrast, the long letter (see the story) from employees explaining why the mass resignation occurred tells a much different tale:

    The issues brought up with the owners of Gorilla Coffee yesterday are
    issues that they have been aware of for some time. These issues which
    have repeatedly been brushed aside and ignored have created a
    perpetually malicious, hostile, and demeaning work environment that was
    not only unhealthy, but also, as our actions have clearly shown,
    unworkable.

    The Times also reported that employees felt especially abused by:

    Carol McLaughlin, one of
    the two owners, and demanded that she withdraw from daily operations at
    the coffee bar.

    And that:

    When both owners refused, seven baristas quit. (Another barista
    resigned, but the owners say that person wasn’t an employee.)

    Of course, I can't know all the facts here because the stories are so different and the 87 comments from Times readers further muddy the picture — although there is a pretty strong hint that the asshole poisoning also was evident in how employees treated customers.  And if you look at research on power dynamics, odds are that those in power — the owners — were oblivious and insensitive to their underlings. 

    Regardless, this story, along with my earlier post, suggests that it is a good time for all bosses to ask themselves what their followers really think of them — a lot of leaders out there are living in a fool's paradise.  As this story shows, the costs of being seen by your people as an asshole (or simply incompetent, I would add) can be mighty high regardless of what YOU believe about yourself as a boss.  Remember, if you are the boss, the test of the quality of your leadership is what your followers think of you, NOT what you think of yourself.

    This story also reminds me of a saying by Jim Goodnight , CEO and co-founder of SAS software, which is currently #1 on Fortune's best place to work rankings.  He often says something like, " When my people go home at night, I just hope that they come back in the morning, otherwise I am out of business."   The Gorilla Coffee case reveals the truth of Goodnight's wise words. 

    P.S. Thanks to Johanna for sending this story my way. 

  • A Week With My New Apple iPad: I Like it But Don’t Love It

    The stock market is going crazy today over Apple's higher than expected earnings — I just looked and at this moment the stock price is already up about 6% since opening today and has more than doubled in price in the past year.  The primary driver of this success is the iPhone, the stories say, along with a big increase in PC sales and optimism about the more than 500,000 iPad's sold.

    I bought an iPad last week because I love my iPhone so much (I just got it about 7 or 8 months ago, and the user experience never ceases to impress me — everything about it is great except the battery life) and also because I figured that, since I was going to have a lot of time on hands recovering from my surgery, it would be fun to have a cool new to toy.  The rave reviews for it in the the New York Times and Wall Street Journal convinced me that it would be a great device for occupying my time, providing a handy way to read books, watch movies, read newspaper and magazine stories, casually surf the net, play some games and so on.  And as I owned an iTouch for years, I loved it and often said "Wow, a giant version of this would be awesome."

    So one of the first things I did after getting home from Cleveland was to buy an iPad.  I have been using it a few hours a day for a week now.  I like it but love it far less than expected, to the point that  I am thinking of selling the modest number of Apple shares I bought the day it was announced that Steve Jobs was taking leave (I believed that Apple had built such a strong organization that it would be fine without Jobs)and the stock plummeted to around $80 (it is about $260 right now, this is one of my rare smart investments). I am thinking, solely based on my experience with the iPad, that perhaps it is time to sell my stock (although I hesitate I because the iPhone is so great and part of me wonders that, even if the iPad does not turn out to be such a huge success, if the lessons learned from developing it will make the iPhone ever greater).

    Why am I so lukewarm about the iPad after a week?  In short, the combination of the surprisingly heavy weight and the glare on the screen make using it for any length of time a constant battle for comfort — the result is a surprisingly bad user experience despite all the hype to the contrary.  I am annoyed and uncomfortable whenever I use the thing for more than 5 or 10 minutes. Claims that it is a laptop killer strike me as dead wrong.  The software is great but using the thing sucks in many ways.

    The first day I had it, I rented a movie I have always loved, Blade Runner, and tried to watch it for over an hour before simply giving-up. I struggled to get in the right position where I could see it perfectly without glare and get in position where I did not have to hold the surprisingly heavy thing up in the air in the perfect position.  After carefully piling up pillows on my lap, and adjusting them, I got it just right, until I got up to got to the bathroom, and readjustment took another 5 minutes.  A laptop, buy the way, would have been much easier because you can adjust and hold the angle screen more easily.

    Then, I started reading books.  It especially sucks for that — if reading books is important to you, do it the old fashioned way or buy a Kindle.  It's not bad for reading a quick newspaper story or two, but is awful for prolonged reading.   I am currently reading a great book called Open by Andre Agassi on the iPad — the best sports memoir I have ever read. Fortunately, because we also have Kindle, I was able to get it (for no additional charge) and all the books other books we bought for the Kindle moved onto my iPad (which was one reason I bought it).  My wife mostly uses the Kindle, but I use it sometimes, and I can tell you that using it for reading books provides a VASTLY superior experience to the iPad.  The Kindle is so much lighter, comfortable for me to hold in any position, especially holding it in the air for long periods in various positions (as I have been doing) as I read it in bed or sitting.  In contrast not only does the weight of the iPad make it uncomfortable to read for even short periods in many different the same positions where a book or Kindle would work well, getting it positioned just right to avoid the glare adds a second variable to the struggle (a problem the Kindle's non-glare screen largely avoids, even though it lacks the beauty of the iPad screen) — one that is often more vexing the wright or, to be more precise, creates a bad human experience for the user as you try to deal with these two challenges at once. Right now, my plan is to finish Open, but I will probably never try reading another book on the iPad again: destroying one of my greatest pleasures with constant discomfort seems like a ridiculous thing to do to myself again. 

    Note the thing I like the IPad best for is it provides an instant and beautiful way to to surf the web, so I am using it right now as a second machine to help me figure out which links to remove from my blog and and how to reorganize it on my laptop, and having the second screen on the iPad is much easier than switching back and forth between tabs in a browser on one machine.  The iPhone navigation is also fantastic in the larger format. And the iPad provides wonderful opportunities for "social" internet surfing. Rather than huddling around a monitor or passing back and forth that tiny iPhone, the iPad is wonderful for sharing the Internet with others — we used it the other day to show my 80 year old mom my daughter's prom pictures, and it was great for passing around, as the screen is dazzling and it is perfect for people to hold for short periods.  So for easy access and instant access to the web, social surfing, and that wonderful iPhone browsing experience made even more wonderful, I love it. I also quite like the keyboard.

    But for just about everything else so far, I find it a very awkward device, lousy for movies and books because of the blend of glare and weight.  Also note that after my wife used it just briefly, she usually refuses to pick it up because "it is too heavy and the glare drives me me nuts." So I am a bigger fan than her of this device.

    Others, of course, may have a different experience and I am not quite ready to say I am sorry I bought it.  But part of me wonders, for a just a a few hundred extra, bucks I could have got one of the new Apple laptops, and especially because we have a Kindle, it might have been a better use of my money.  I will keep experimenting and as I said I do like some things about the iPad, but my advice at the moment is that it is not a must have device. 

    I wonder if my experience with the iPad is consistent with others who bought or used the device.  Let me know what you think.

    And what do you think, is time to sell my Apple stock? 

  • Repairs at the Cleveland Clinic

    Please forgive my vague post a couple weeks back saying that Work Matters would be silent for a few weeks, but I wanted to protect my family's privacy as I had a serious health matter to deal with.  I am glad to say I on the mend and (slowly) getting back to work far more quickly than expected. 

    On April 6th, I had open heart surgery at the renowned Cleveland Clinic to fix a leaky aortic valve.  This problem was detected about five years ago and my doctors have been keeping an eye on it since then.  Essentially, the problem was that my valve was leaking badly enough that about 50% of the blood that it pumped out was leaking back in.  This is probably something I was born with that just got worse over the years.  I was without symptoms, and in fact, until a just a few days before the surgery, was riding my bike through the hills around Stanford for a good 90 minutes at least 5 times a week — in part I kept of the exercise because, as my doctors advised, the better shape I was in going into surgery, the better shape I would be coming out.  It was also crucial to maintaining my mental health. But as there was eventual risk of heart failure, my doctors helped me make the decision to have the surgery before any irreversible damage occurred.  I was also pleased to discover from various other tests that (despite my family history of blocked arteries and an imperfect diet and other health behaviors) my coronary arteries were clear and so there is no indication I will need anything stents or a bypass in the foreseeable future and that the repair should last a long time.

    Patients First logo FINALa I went through a fairly complex decision process with numerous conflicting opinions about whether to do it at Stanford or Cleveland, whether to wait or do it now, and what kind of valve to have (tissue –usually from a cow or pig –or mechanical).   I decided on Cleveland because they do so many more of these surgeries than Stanford and, as I decided on a tissue valve, they especially do far more of those (perhaps 1000 a year) than other places — and volume is among the main predictors of surgical success. I also was impressed by their low mortality and complication rates and that they simply seemed generally more organized than Stanford.  Of course, their are many great places to get heart surgery, and Stanford is one of them. but I was more comfortable with Cleveland.  So, although I never thought of myself as a medical tourist, there I was, fitting the definition perfectly.  Fortunately, my Stanford insurance appears to apply in Cleveland as well as it would in California.  I would describe the Cleveland Clinic as a kind of heart surgery factory. but one where nearly every employee we met, from the people who cleaned the floors and rooms, to the dedicated nurses (especially Amanda, Theresa, and the rather magical Virginia), to the cardiologists and surgeons, where competent and compassionate.  Many employees at the clinic wear buttons (see to the left) that say "Patients First." If my experience is representative, this isn't just hollow talk, that saying guides and reflects how people at the Clinic think and act.

    I am especially grateful to my surgeon, Dr. Gillinov Marc Gillinov (pictured to the left).  Dr. Gillinov is surrounded with a team that worked together to keep track of the big
    picture and little details associated with each patient — which I found most comforting as in too many hospitals information flow is remarkably bad.  Gillinov
    also operated on Robin Williams, doing a very similar operation, cow valve and all.      Check out this video of Robin Williams on
    Letterman talking joking about the surgery… at one point Robin does an imitation/paradoy of
    Gillinov’s voice that is pretty spot on:      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IhaAC4dN2Q.       Not
    only is Gillinov     quite famous on the traditional
    measures used to judge surgeons (experience, awards, publications in peer reviewed journals) and well-loved by those who work with him (rather than respected but deeply
    feared and disdained for his narcissism, which a    re hallmarks of     too many other
    world-class surgeons),     he has a child-like enthusiasm about
    practicing his craf    t.     Dr.     Gillinov  seems to bounce around the hospital spreading
    positive     energy — one of is colleagues said her nickname for him was "Sparky."      He loves his job as much as anyone I ever met —  the last time I encountered that same level of dedication, joy, and pursuit of perfection all in one package happened several years back when a group of us     interviewed Brad Bird, Pixar's Academy Award winning director.     

    Croke_225 I also want to give a huge thanks to my primary care doctor in Palo Alto, the amazing Jeffrey Croke (pictured to the left), who first detected the problem and provided clarity at a key moment when I was receiving conflicting opinions  and to Dr. Erik Price, my cardiologist in Palo Alto, who is better at explaining things than anyone I have ever met.  I was helped by so many doctors and nurses at Cleveland, and was sufficiently delirious much of the time, that I can't remember them all (I mentioned a few by first nake above), but I want to mention and thank Chris Webb, a Cardiothoracic Nurse Practioner who did such a great job of keeping track of my case as a whole and Dr. Colleen Koch for special help getting a great cardiothoracic anesthesiologist Michelle Capdeville.  My brain seems to be working just as well (or some would say just as badly) as before the surgery.  For this kind of surgery,  where I went on the heart-lung machine,  a big part of the anesthesiologist's job is to protect the brain.  And I was especially taken with the Dr. William Stewart, a cardiologist at Cleveland who showed remarkable wisdom — especially  the ability to treat me as a whole person rather a collection of symptoms.  I will eventually do a post about just Dr. Stewart, as I found him to be such an exceptional human-being.  

    Perimount I don't want to leave the impression that every thing went absolutely perfectly, that I was the perfect patient, or that the people at Cleveland are without flaws.  None of that is true, as I have more than my shares of human flaws, the Clinic is a human organization, and as in all places, some people are stronger and more caring than others. I also  can't assure anyone that they will have as positive an experience at Cleveland as I did — there are always risks and variation across cases.   But for me, the experience (and so far the outcome) have turned out better than I ever hoped.  Today, just two weeks after surgery, I feel far better than I ever thought was possible at this juncture.   This is serious surgery as they crack open your chest, put you on the heart lung machine, stop your heart, cut out (and repair) the bad parts and put in new good ones.   In my case, I have a new aortic valve that that is built around a cow's valve (see the picture to the left) and they also did repairs to the "aortic root"  by replacing much of the tissue with Dacron.  I have some aches and pains and am taking some pain pills.  But I am up and around, able to work three or four hours a day, and have
    done a 45 minute walk each of the last two days (with a little rest in
    the middle).  And my mind feels quite clear — although in evaluating this post and other things I write (as I slowly return to work) in the coming couple weeks, please keep in mind that they are written by a man who is slightly stoned on Oxycondone. 

    Thank so all of you who wrote comments and nice personal emails in response to my post saying I was out for awhile, and to my family, friends, and colleagues for being so supportive.  Please forgive me if I am a little slower to respond to things than is usual, as I am trying to pace myself.

  • I Won’t Be Posting For a Few Weeks

    Dear Work Matters Readers,

    I've got a personal matter to take care of over the next few weeks. After that, I will be back to blogging with enthusiasm, learning the wonders and weirdness of Twitter, and talking about some new projects I have cooking.  I also promise a detailed explanation of my absence when I get back.  Thanks and I look forward to your comments and emails when I return.

    Thanks,

    Bob

  • Dear Bosses: Is It Your Last Chance To Reverse Your Vile Ways? Or Is It Too Late?

    I was delighted to read that, finally, we saw some serious job growth last month in the United States, with 162,000 new jobs added in March.  When this bright news is blended with the recent Conference Board study showing that employee dissatisfaction is at an all time high (less than half of Americans are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61% in 2005, and workers under 25 are especially dissatisfied), it suggests that a lot of companies and bosses better come to grips with the fact that many of their best people are laying in wait, patiently grinding out the days, but will dash for the exits when the job market gets better. 

    As much research shows — by Gallup and many academics too — people quit bosses, not organizations for the most part. If you are a boss and believe that your people love you and will never leave you, well, it just might be a good time to look in the mirror.   As I've discussed here before, the very act of wielding power can make you blind to how your subordinates are really responding to you.  And, of course, given the lack of options, many smart employees (especially those with emotional control and long-term time perspectives) realize that the wisest strategy is to stay on the good side of a bad boss to avoid negative performance reviews and the demotions or firings that often follow — and so they will get good recommendations when they try to land a better job (and boss) down the road.  This means, dear bosses, that you may well be victim to a game of mutual deception, where you are deluding yourself into believing that you are great at your job, but if you really knew how it felt to work for you, you would be shocked to discover that you are seen as an asshole, incompetent, or both.  AND your most able employees are helping you sustain this delusion to protect themselves in the short-term and keep their options open in the long-term.

    After these years of cost-cutting and treating employees as if they are damn lucky to have a job, we are seeing hints that the balance of power is starting to swing back back to employees. A lot of companies and bosses have treated their people badly during the rough last few years — doing far damage than is necessary (as I have written about in Harvard Business Review article and talk about in this related video on the McKinsey site).  It is probably too late for many lousy employers and managers out there to reverse course, as even if they try to do so, their people will  rightfully see it is an inauthentic ploy.  But a good start for many companies might be to try to figure out who your worst bosses are and make an extra effort to reform or (if necessary) remove them as quickly as you  can.  And even if you have been a truly good boss — or good company — during these tough times, it might be a good time to take stock and consider how to treat your people even better and find out what they really need to be happy and perform well on their jobs — and do everything within your power to give to them. 

    I would be very curious to hear from readers: If you are a boss, are you stepping up your efforts to treat your people well?   What about those of you out there with good bosses?  Is the research right?  Have you built up loyalty that will persist when the good times return?   And what about those of you with crummy bosses, have you been waiting, patiently, to politely tell your vile overseer to take this job and shove it when something better comes along?

  • The Power of the First Follower

    Check out this fantastic 3 minute TED video.  Derek Sivers provides a brilliant brief conceptual analysis, touching on points including:

    1. Leaders are over-rated, if someone does not follow, they are just lone nuts.

    2. The first follower is the one who creates a leader.

    3. The leader had the wisdom to treat the first follower as an equal, which encouraged him to join and stay.

    4.  The people who come after everyone's doing it are interesting, as they rush to get there soon enough when it is still cool but safe because a lot of people are doing it.

    5. At some point, it may spread so far that people will risk ridicule for not joining.

    6. Leaders are over-rated, early — especially first followers — followers provide an underrated form of leadership.

    I would add, as a small addition, that another way to think about the leader here is he succeeded because he was sensitive to what would motivate the first follower and the other early followers. 

    This is a case of influence by someone without authority.  But just think if you had authority and also applied these principles. That is what great leaders — and first followers — do, it seems. 

    P.S. A big thanks to Scott for sending this my way.

  • I Think Bloggers Matter at Lot, But Blurbs Don’t Matter Much for Creating Buzz: What is Your Opinion?

    I have been putting the final touches on my new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss: How To Be The Best …. and Learn From The Worst.  It is already available for pre-order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, but as it isn't out until September 7th, it seems a little early to talk about it too much and in any event, the pictures and text there need to be repaired.  You will be hearing more about the content book here in the coming months, but in the meantime, I thought I would raise a little marketing theory that I have, and ask people what they think.

    When I did my first book  The Knowing-Doing Gap, now a decade ago, with Jeff Pfeffer, we were told by our publisher that we needed blurbs, those endorsements by well-known people, to help sell the book.  I commented that I didn't think they were necessary, my publisher agreed, but said to go ahead and get some anyway. And so we spent weeks and weeks — getting turned by quite a few people — but ultimately got some pretty good people, notably John Chambers from Cisco (who did not read the book),  and Bob Waterman (who did read it), and also Richard Kovacevich of Wells Fargo (who also read it).  For my next two books, I got blurbs as instructed and got a lot of well-known people, and we turned down by many more.  These three books sold pretty well, but none was a blockbuster. 

    Then along came The No Asshole Rule, with my then new editor Rick Wolff at Business Plus.  His philosophy was, if you could get someone really famous who was exactly right for the book, blurbs were good, but otherwise, they have little impact because after all they are not reviews, they are praise (and in fact, are edited by authors and publishers). So I tried for Richard Branson of Virgin fame as he seemed perfect.  That didn't work, so we went forward with no blurbs, just a statement on the back that says "Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?"   So, my first book with no blurbs also became my first New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller. I believe that, any qualities of the book aside, the the most effective thing we did was to send out a bunch of advanced copies to bloggers (especially people who I had some past relationship with through Work Matters or for other reasons), and that got the buzz going.  There are other reasons, but I think that is the most important.

    So, here I am with my new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss.  The story is the same. I tried one very famous boss that i admire more than the rest.  He has never endorsed a book before, but I figured I would try. That failed, he told me he liked the book but decided to continue his policy so he would not be deluged with requests.  As a result, we decided to ask no one else, are putting a bit of text about the book on the back, and are again going to rely on bloggers for advanced buzz and of course all the usual press outlets.  Now, I still do blurbs for other people and I do hope they help.  And it is always fun to read a book in the early stages.  But as you can tell, my perspective at this point is that blurbs don't help much — but having a lot of bloggers and other websites buzzing about a book does.

    I wonder what other people think.  Am I overgeneralizing from my very small sample?  What do you think when you read a blurb on a book?   Is it a hollow ritual or something that actually affects your opinion?

  • NUMMI Story on This American Life

    Nummi

    I have been following the NUMMI plant (in Fremont California) in a haphazard way since it was opened as joint venture by Toyota and GM in the 1980s.  I have visited a few times and talked to lots of folks from GM, Toyota, and NUMMI since its inception.  As most of you probably know, the plant is closing on April 1.  It is just a shame for many reasons, the jobs lost, the failure of GM to learn what they should have from the joint venture, the feelings of helplessness and on and on.

    If you want to learn about the plant's history from its birth to (nearly) its death, check out the astounding episode of This American Life, a compelling tale of how it went from the worst of the worst GM plants (drug use and drinking were routine on the line, and you could buy sex in the plant — and the quality and cost numbers were awful), to how Toyota started the NUMMI plant (the only unionized Toyota plant in the country) with a workforce composed (85%) of the same people who worked at that awful plant, how they retrained them in Japan, how these same workers once put in a different system started making some of the highest quality cars in the U.S. — even the world –  from the day the plant opened, to all the twists and turns including how Toyota itself is repeating some of the same mistakes that nearly killed GM, and onto the near final sadness.

    I am a big fan of This American Life and I think this is one of their best episodes ever.  The lessons about the power of a good — versus a lousy — system are especially compelling, as is the rather pathetic tale of GM's inability to learn from NUMMI.  Their quality still trails behind most of the rest of the world now, over 25 years since the NUMMI plant opened.

    Fascinating stuff. I will start assigning this episode to my classes, there are so many great lessons and it is so emotionally compelling.

  • Twitter: I am at work_matters

    I have taken my sweet time trying learning about twitter but I finally am beginning to make the plunge.  Tim Keely (who does a great job of helping me with all things IT, I would be lost without him) and I are going to be messing with this blog a bit to weave Twitter into this blog over the next couple months, and is always the case, I expect it will take me awhile to understand how to use this in ways that are fun and useful.   

    My user name is work_matters. 

    If you have any advice about how to use this thing, especially to link people to my blog, please let me know. Thanks!  I will tweet this post, which will be, I think, my fourth one.