Work Matters

  • Join Us and Whitney Mortimer for “IDEO in 4 Acts” this Wednesday at Stanford

    Mortimer_Whitney_bw1 This Wednesday, March 3rd, we are holding a special section of my class on Organizational Behavior: An Evidence-Based Approach.  Class will be held in an auditorium at Stanford, at Gates B01.  Our guest star for the day is IDEO Partner and head of marketing, Whitney Mortimer (pictured to the left). I have invited Whitney because our class is currently studying how to build and sustain a culture of innovation, and IDEO is the poster child for this feat.   \

    I've know Whitney more than 10 years and she has often been a guest in this class.  In general, she has refrained from being a public face who represents this great company, leaving that to others like the amazing Tim Brown and David Kelley.  But whenever I hear Whitney talk about IDEO, I always see them from a different and compelling vantage point, as her perspective on the links among IDEO's culture, strategy, brand, and history is unique, despite all that has been said and written about this great company and its leaders.

    This event is open to the public, but there are a few details and constraints.  First, pizza and soft drinks will be served right outside the classroom from about noon to 12:25.  Then Whitney's talk will commence from 12:30 to 1:30.  Because the room only holds about 200 people (and we will occupy perhaps 100 seats with our students and some other guests) we only have room for about 100 guests.  In addition, we need to know how much pizza to order. So, if you are going to join us, please send and rsvp to Carol XU, her email is jxcarol2001[at]gmail[dot]com.

    Also note that we are "closing" the invitation at 9AM on Weds. morning or when we are sold out, whatever comes first. We hope to see you there, it should be great fun, and it is a fun chance to learn about the history of one of the greatest and most civilized companies I know, and from a perspective that is a bit different than is usually told.

  • One Answer to the Question:””What’s the Worst Advice You Advice You Ever Received?”


    An editor at Psychology Today, where I am now blogging, wrote and asked for some ideas her might use in the print edition. His question was "What's the worst advice you've ever received (Or just some really bad advice …).       I wrote him that I had received — and given — so much bad advice, that I couldn't pick a "worst," but told this story. 

    Here
    is one — with two pieces of bad advice. 
    When I was working on marketing my last book,     The No Asshole Rule, I first had a publisher offer me a contract,
    but they insisted that I had to change the title — in part — because people
    wouldn't buy a book with that mild obscenity in the title.      I told them that I wouldn't consider an offer
    unless they went with the title and walked. 
    Then, as I was working on marketing the book in the months prior to
    publication a fellow with more than 25 years experience in the book industry
    insisted that I was nuts to send copies of the book to perhaps 100 bloggers
    (most of whom I knew because I am a blogger too) and to see if they might write
    something about the book months before it was published.      He insisted that trying to sell a book before
    it was available was waste of time and effort. 
    I believe that, in addition to the ideas in the book, that the main two
    reasons that the book became a     New York
    Times     bestseller are because of the title, which no one ever seems to
    forget, even when they hate it.      The
    second reason is that the buzz on the web created a lot of Amazon pre-orders,
    which helped the book become the #1 Non-fiction bestseller for much of the
    first week it was out and one of the top 5 business books for several weeks (it
    was ultimately the #8 business book for 2007). 
    When the book first came out, the major bookstores had done modest
    pre-orders and I had only a couple of stories in the media.  The Amazon numbers (created by
    pre-publication buzz) led the major bookstores to put in big orders and led the
    media to do many stories on the book.     

    One
    of my mottos in life (which I first heard from a Stanford undergraduate years ago named Kathy) is "Don't believe everythingt hey tell you"  This is especially true if
    they add something like "I have been in the business for 25 years and I know what I am
    talking about."  As one of my former
    students, Andy Hargadon used to say in response to this line, "Do you have 25 years of
    experience, or have you experienced the same year 25 times?"

    I wonder, dear readers, what your answer to this question might be, what is the worst advice you have ever received?

  • “From Chaos Comes Creativity, from Order Comes Profit”

    There is saying, kind of a crude little formula, I have been using for years when I write and give talks on what it takes to build a culture where people innovate routinely (which I think I stole from Charles O'Reilly at the Stanford Business School):

    Creativity + implementation = innovation

    I have always found it a useful oversimplification of the two big things that have to happen in order to innovate, to cash in on new ideas.  It is also related to one of the main ideas in Weird Ideas That Work, that creativity is about increasing the amount of variation and all around messiness and routine work is about driving out variance and driving in order and predictability.  

    John Edson In this spirit, one of
    the student groups in my class on Organizational Behavior: An Evidence-Based
    Approach, did a fantastic case study of the culture of innovation at Lunar Design. The members were Ioannis Alivizatos, Meeta Arora, Stephen Streeter, and Ben
    Merrick.  They heard the quote in the
    title of this post from John Edson (pictured to the left), Lunar product design firm that has designed many
    familiar products including the HP Touchsmart, the Oral B CrossAction
    toothbrush, and the Modu phone.  I think that "“From Chaos Comes Creativity, from Order Comes Profit” conveys a similar message to the one I borrowed from Charles – that the
    messiness and failure required to generate a new idea needs to be shut-off as
    you move into the implementation phase, where more control and order are
    required.  Knowing how and when to make
    that shift is tough, although the best firms and bosses make it happen
    routinely.  For example, Intel’s motto “disagree
    and then commit” reflects this spirit – you fight during the creative part, but
    join arms to make the idea work during the implementation part, even if you
    think the decision was wrong.

    P.S. And following my last post on failure, I also liked how a key element of their culture was that, when people made mistakes, they framed it as "Paying for education."

  • Blame, Failure, and The No Asshole Rule

    As I emphasize on my list to left of 15 Things That I Believe, one of the best diagnostic to assess whether an organization is effective or innovative is "What Happens When Someone Makes a Mistake?" I made that this argument one way or another in every book I have every written and perhaps 50% of the speeches I have made in the past decade.  As I say in the above link (which is a story about Amazon, an organization that continually impresses me with its learning culture):

    "Failure will never be eliminated, and so the
    best we can hope for from human beings and organizations is that they
    learn from their mistakes, that rather than making the same mistakes over and
    over again, they make new and different mistakes.

    The upshot for Jeff
    Pfeffer and me is that, perhaps the single best diagnostic to see if an organization is
    innovating, learning, and capable of turning knowledge into action is “What happens when they make a mistake?”
    Stealing some ideas from research on
    medical errors, leaders and teams can “forgive and forget,” which may be temporarily comforting,
    but condemns people and systems to make the same mistakes over and over again –
    in the case of hospitals, this means you bury the dead (or close the incision)
    and don’t talk about it.  Or you can remember
    who made mistakes, chase them down, humiliate them, and thus create climate of
    fear. In such situations, the game becomes avoiding the finger of blame rather
    than surfacing, understanding, and fixing mistakes (see Harvard’s Amy
    Edmondson    ’s wonderful research on drug treatment errors for evidence on
    this point).  Or you can Forgive
    and Remember    , which is not only the title of a great book by Charles Bosk,
    it is the philosophy that the best teams and organizations use. You forgive
    because it is impossible to run an organization without making mistakes, and
    pointing fingers and holding grudges creates a climate of fear. You remember –
    and talk about the mistakes openly –so people and the system can learn. And you
    remember so that, even though you have tried to retrain people and teach them,
    if some people keep making the same mistakes over and over again, then, well,
    they need to be moved to another kind of job."

    The connection to The No Asshole Rule, however, was made clear in a most thoughtful blog post from Peter Seebach in response to the book.  I was especially taken by this paragraph about his workplace:

    I don’t think we explicitly have a “no-asshole” rule; if we do, I’ve
    not been told of it. We do, however, have a corporate culture which
    undermines the things that are essential for bullying. There’s a total
    lack of interest in blame, so far as I can tell. People certainly can,
    and do, try to figure out how something went wrong — but not for the
    purpose of assigning blame, just for the purpose of fixing it. No one
    expects that people won’t make mistakes, or yells at them for making
    mistakes. As a result, people are more comfortable than they might
    otherwise be coming forward with information about problems which were
    caused by their mistakes. Net result: Less time trying to shift blame,
    less time before the problem is fixed.

    Now that sounds like a functional workplace.. a nearly perfect example of how "forgive and remember" ought to work. And the link to rule is splendid. 

  • The Best Asshole Buster Story I’ve Heard In a Long Time

    A reader named Kevin just wrote and told me a great story:

    A good friend of mine in college was at a busy nightclub, on
    the crowded dance floor, dancing with his girlfriend.  It was very crowded,
    to the point where you could barely dance and in close proximity to everyone
    around you.  He overheard a guy that was “hitting” on a girl.  He had
    been drinking and was pretty obnoxious.  He told the girl that he very
    much wanted to get” into her pants”.  Her response was “sorry buddy, there
    is already one asshole in these pants, and no room for another”.  The guy was
    immediately defused and left the dance floor with his tail between his legs,
    and no longer bothered anyone at the nightclub.  Thought you might get a
    chuckle from this brilliant comeback.

    Is it true? I don't know and don't care, it is the best asshole put-down story I've heard in a long time.  Another great story came from Tina a few years back on an funny moment in her MBA class — and that one is better documented than the tale above.

  • Is It Time for a Stupid Rules Contest at Stanford?

    I love my university, I've been treated far better than I deserve during my 25 plus years at Stanford.  But as much a I love it, I wonder if it is time for us to run something like a "stupid rules contest" here.  I once met the CEO of a large bank in New England who explained to me how they had made things much better by running such a contest and taking the suggestions seriously. For example, they got rid of a rule that people waiting outside a branch could not be let in until official opening time.  They changed things so, if it was 10 or 15 minutes before opening time and, say, people were waiting outside in the cold, employees could open the door and let them wait in the warm lobby.

    I don't want to mention any specific rules at Stanford, as I don't want to point fingers at any group or person.  But although no doubt each was developed and implemented with the best of intentions, it seems to me that they accumulate like barnacles on a ship, with one after another being added.  Each one slows down the process of teaching and research, and the old ones never seem to be removed.

    Perhaps a stupid rules contest here would help. I admire Stanford's leaders, so this is not meant to be an attack on any individual, I just think it is something that happens to organizations over time, and I wonder if it would be a good time to haul our organizational ship into the dry dock and scrape off some of those old barnacles — and perhaps some new ones we have grown to that make things harder to do than need be. 

  • How Much Do You Hate Performance Reviews? Take Sam Culbert’s Test

    One of the most lively discussions we've had on this blog was around a post I wrote a couple years ago called Performance Evaluations: Do They Do More Harm Than Good.  The reason, I argued, is that that they are done  badly in most places that the best performance evaluation might be no performance evaluation at all. In too many places, they are done by badly trained people, the forms and procedure  often have little relevance to the people being evaluated or to organizational goals, they take a huge hunk of time (a bad 360 degree evaluation can waste weeks), and often leave both the evaluator and the person being evaluated feeling less rather than more motivated. As I said in my earlier post,the famous quality guru W. Edwards Deming was vehemently opposed
    to using them at all.  As Jeff Pfeffer and I wrote on page 193 of     The Knowing-Doing Gap:

    Deming emphasized that forced rankings and other merit ratings that breed
    internal competition are bad management because they undermine motivation and
    breed contempt for management among people who, at least at first, were doing
    good work. He argued that these systems require leaders to label many people as
    poor performers even though their work is well within the range of high
    quality. Deming maintained that when people get unfair negative evaluations, it
    can leave them "bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent,
    dejected, feeling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for work for weeks after
    receipt of the rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior.    "      

    To Deming's point, there is one organization I work with — a high tech firm with about 250 employees — that eliminated formal reviews except when people are being considered for a promotion or when they are having serious performance problems and need to "on plan" (i.e., shape up or be fired). They have about ten different levels in the organization, and everyone at the same level gets the same pay and same sized bonus.  And they have been emphasizing frequent and lower stakes feedback instead.  So I know of at least one place that is having some success breaking from this often hollow and destructive ritual.

    Dustcoverv2-web  If you want to read the most compelling and complete case against the traditional performance evaluation, however,I suggest that you pre-order UCLA Professor Sam Culbert's new book Get Rid of the Performance Review. He first made this argument in the Wall Street Journal, but the book digs into this argument in far more detail and offers solutions for managers and companies who want to replace the traditional review — or at least reduce the damage that they do.  To help spread the word about the book, and to find out if as many people despise the performance review as Sam (and I) believe, he has — a bit like the ARSE — designed a ten-item test called How Much Do You Hate Performance Reviews?  I just took it and scored a 36, which means I really hate them.  

    Take the test and let me know what you think, and after you complete
    it, you can read the first chapter of the book.  I predict that this
    book is going to spark a lot of controversy and, I hope, inspire
    leaders and organizations to use performance evaluations less, and to
    do a better of using them.  At least I hope so.

    Here is the first question to give you a taste:

    1- My favorite performance review was:

    a. when my boss correctly identified weaknesses that I was eager to work on.

    b.when I was reviewed, anonymously, by many insightful colleagues I interact with, including some who want my job.
        c. when my boss asked me to first review myself, allowing the boss to correct my silly self impressions.

    d. when my boss forgot to give me one

  • The Urban Dictionary Accepted Passhole! Please Vote for it When It is Posted

    I just got an email (it took them just a couple hours) from the Urban Dictionary that our definition of Passhole as ""someone who opts out of participating in a decision, but then complains bitterly about the outcome." has been accepted."  BUT — and I should have looked before — Passhole is already there, with 14 different definitions of the word, most having to do with driving.  The top rated one is:

    The idiot drivers that move steadily along, but suddenly increase speed
    when they wake up and realize you are passing them. If they succeed in
    blocking your opportunity to pass, they will immediately resume the
    former, annoying pace. If you pass them successfully, they will ride
    your bumper for a short time before returning to la-la land.

    Our definition will appear in a couple days. When it does, please get in there and vote for it early and often!

    Thanks again, that was fun.

  • Passhole Wins: But Don’t Use It to Blame the Victims of Broken Organizations or Bad Bosses

    Or, in the words of Steve Jobs, the journey was the reward in this case.  As most readers will recall, this all started as a little contest in response to Mozilla's Asa Dotzler: Let's
    Invent a New Word or Phrase: What do you call someone who "opts out of
    participating in something but then complains about the outcome.    "  I have been overwhelmed by the number of suggestions, and even more than that, the quality and complexity of the conversation about the various candidates.  At the moment, there are a combined 80 comments on the post above and the follow-up post that listed the "finalists."   My reading of the votes is that — although not everyone liked it –  passhole got the most votes.

    I just submitted Passhole to the Urban Dictionary  as a new word.  I changed the definition just slightly to  "someone who opts out of participating in a decision, but then complains bitterly about the outcome."

    In order to honor some of the other suggestions (I apologize if yours didn't make it, I picked them based on my biases, but of course, other will have different preferences), I added the following words to the list of synonyms and related words and phrases that ask for: passive-aggressive,
    Monday morning sniveler, detached dissident, douchenag, sour grapers, unconscientious
    objector, inverted  cheerleader,
    submarine, seagull, weenie-whiner, whampire, free-griper. I have never submitted anything to the Urban Dictionary, but I felt compelled given your remarkably thoughtful suggestions and comments. I understand that they reject a lot of submissions — I will let you know how it turns out. Once again, I can't thank everyone enough for making so many comments, and make such thoughtful comments.

    Indeed, as much as I love the fun of the names and all that, I was even more taken with the wonderful conversation about the dangers of labeling people passholes. Many smart comments were made, and although labeling people has advantages ( I would argue, for example, that openly talking about norms against assholes or passholes, and calling others or yourself when you violate those norms, are signs of a healthy culture), nonetheless, multiple commentors did a lovely job is calling out the risks of the label. Note these comments in particular, as I think they are especially wise:

    Bob G. makes a great case that labeling people as passholes can, at times, be a case of blaming the victim:

    If an
    organization finds itself populated with large numbers of the
    "non-participating disgruntled," perhaps a little self-examination is
    in order. Are they really all just a bunch of worthless whiners? Or is
    it *possible* that the organization has somehow attracted them, or even
    created them? Is this, in fact, a symptom of an asshole environment,
    rather than simple flawed characters? People who have been ignored,
    abused, and had their ideas twisted and/or stolen are easily dismissed
    as having a "bad attitude." Do not blame the victims, folks. This is a
    complex and nuanced problem    .

    Dave described such an asshole environment:

    I think
    you are all jumping on the trashing bandwagon a little too fast. I
    happen to work in one of those very toxic environments where you are
    pretty much discouraged to contribute, when you do contribute, your
    feedback is pretty much disregarded and the administration does what
    they want anyways (meaning they "pretend" to want feedback, but only go
    through the motions), and very often decisions made do go down south,
    affecting those of us on the frontlines. So yes, after a while, those
    like us who actually care just stop giving the feedback or saying
    anything…     I refuse
    to take the blame for asshats who make bad decisions in spite of
    getting good advice (ie they choose to ignore the good advice). So, you
    know, lay off a bit. It is not always as simple as you think.

    Thomas raised an important concern about the labeling that really made me think:

    What's
    the net effect of an exercise in this sort of "personality branding".
    Let's come up with a name for the sorts of people that annoy "us".
    Let's come up with something mean to call "them". What's up with that,
    Bob?

    And I thought that CV Harquail did a great job of wrapping things-up:


    I've
    gotten a kick out of the suggested names, but I have to chime in to
    support of Thomas's concern about the 'branding' of a person by
    applying such a label.There are several important and serious concern about labeling a
    person — one of which is that depersonalizes them and makes them all
    about the behavior, not about who they are in toto.Plus, as Maren pointed out, once we attach a label to the
    behavior/person, it can lead us to "complain about the complainers" and
    let ourselves off the hook for acting to fix i    t.


    So, let's find a good (and funny!) name to capture this
    dysfunctional behavior *and* also figure out a generous, positive way
    to respond to it when we see folks trying it    .

    I put C.V's comment in bold, because, after going through this exercise — which was more involved and educational than I ever imagined at the outset — that is pretty much where I stand.  For me, the upshot of all this is that organizations and leaders have a responsibility to remove obstacles to authentic participation and when they find that — after decision has been made — passholes surface and start torpedoing the decision, they should look in the mirror before blaming them.  On the other hand, a well-functioning team or organization will stop this kind of behavior in its tracks and in particular leaders will model the right behavior — which includes resisting the temptation to be a passhole even though they have the power to do so and calling out their own sins when they act like one. 

    Once again, a big thanks to all of you for individual and collective wisdom.

  • Lazy Bee, Passhole,Unconscientious Objector, Inverted Cheerleader, Submarine, Seagull, Weenie-whiner, Whampire, or Free-griper?

    I am both delighted and overwhelmed by the deluge of smart and often responses to my  last post: Let's
    Invent a New Word or Phrase: What do you call someone who "opts out of
    participating in something but then complains about the outcome.     You made 57 comments — by far a record for any Work Matters post and C.V. Harquail put up a related and quite inspiring conversation with Maren, one of her readers that i found very thoughtful.  As you may recall, this was all sparked by an email from Mozilla's Asa Doztler, who asked the question.  There are about 100 suggestions in the various comments and so many are wonderful, that is isn't easy to pick the best.  So how about this. I will pick some I especially liked.  Please let me know what your favorite is, or if you prefer another, and we will see what Asa and his colleagues prefer as well. Here are nine and I pasted in text when people offered it. 

    Lazy Bee.
    Instead of being a busy bee who helps everyone out and brings in honey,
    this is a bee who doesn't help out the group but reserves the right to
    sting you once the work is done.

    Passhole.  Describes someone who passes on the opportunity to contribute to an
    idea, then criticizes what others come up with. Also appropriate for a
    driver in the right lane who speeds up and recklessly cuts in front of
    you

    Unconscientious objector

    "Inverted cheerleaders" comes to my mind; goes with the people who suffer from rectal-cranial inversion syndrome.

    Submarines: They stay
    at depth until the last minute (when you are about to ship a product or
    are trying to pass a final milestone) and then pop up and torpedo
    (obviously with no constructive criticism either).

    Seagull: A
    "seagull contributor", like a seagull manager, usually holds themselves
    above and beyond the fray, but sporadically swoop down to steal your
    french fries and crap on everything.

    Weenie-whiner

    Whampire: someone who whines while feeding off the energies of the living. Someone who whines while feeding off the energies of the living.

    Free-griper: captures both the free-riding and the kvetching…

    What is your favorite?  Which one did I leave out that you liked even better?  Any more suggestions?