Work Matters

Tag: wisdom

  • 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.

  • Being a Good Boss is Pretty Damn Hard: Reflections on Publication Day

    Today, September 7th, is the official publication day of Good Boss, Bad Boss.  I've got an hour or so before I need to run to the airport, and find myself looking back on what I've learned from writing the book, talking to people since the book was finished some months back, and all the blogging and comments (especially here at Work Matters and over at HBR Online where I have been developing my list of 12 Things Good Bosses Believe).

    The thing I've been fretting over most lately is how hard it is to be a good boss — the job is never done, it is amazingly easy to screw-up, and wielding power over others makes it all even harder because you are being watched so closely (and are prone to tuning-out your followers — the other half of the toxic tandem).  Yet, despite all these hurdles, the best evidence shows that many, if not most, people find their bosses to be competent and compassionate.  And most bosses I know work extremely hard and are dedicated to improving their skills.  Indeed, one of my main motivations for writing Good Boss, Bad Boss was that so many of the managers and executives who I spoke with and who wrote me in response to The No Asshole Rule were so concerned about becoming better at practicing their difficult craft.

    When I think of the bosses that I admire and want to be around versus those that I despise and want to avoid if at all possible, the main factor is not their skill at the moment.  Rather, it is whether or not they care and are working on core questions like:

    1. What does it feel like to work for me? 

    2. How can get more "in tune" with my followers, peers, bosses, customers, and other people who I deal with?

    3. What are my weaknesses and strengths?  What can I do to attenuate my weaknesses — what do I need to learn and who can I work with to best offset my drawbacks and blind spots?

    In contrast, people who are arrogant and suffering power poisoning — and never admit their weaknesses, let alone try to overcome or dampen them — are in my view, the worst of the worst, regardless of past accomplishments  Yes, as I emphasize on this blog and in Chapter 2, the best bosses need to act like they are in charge, to instill confidence in others and themselves.  But the bosses I want to be around  (and that I believe will triumph in the long run) have the attitude of wisdom, or as rocker Tom Petty put it, are confident but not really sure.

    That's what I am thinking about; I would be curious to hear your perspective on the kinds of bosses you want to be and be around.

  • 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? 

  • “Humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, but thinking less about yourself.”

    Gina from Maestro Consulting Group posted the above saying in response to my post today over at HBR on "The Delicate Art of Being Perfectly Assertive."  I think it is a lovely and wise saying.  Indeed, it is a perfect companion to the "the attitude of wisdom," the ability to have the courage to act on what you know in concert with the ability to doubt what you know and do.  Gina, great stuff!

  • 10 Wise Comments from Wally Bock

    As I was writing my last post about lists, I ran into some great
    comments from Wally Bock and wove them into the  post.  Wally is an experienced consultant, coach, speaker, and management writer and he writes a great blog called Three Star Leadership.  Reading Wally's comments related to my most recent post inspired
    me to look through the dozens of wonderful comments that Wally has made
    here over the past few years. I can't quite figure out how to get an exact count from Typepad, but there are well over 100 and the average quality is just wonderful.  The first comment was in 2006 and the last this week.  I picked 10 — I guess I am into lists this week — but there are many more gems and I can't promise these are the best. These ten are all Wally:

    1. We believe that creative people are different and therefore crazy in
    some way. So when anyone who is, by definition, "creative" acts like a
    jerk, or doesn't bathe, or insists on eating dessert first or bringing
    his pet iguana to work, we shake our heads and say, "Oh, well, you know
    he's creative."
    All of which is nonsense.

    2. There are three factors that make it hard to stay realistic, let alone
    humble, as you climb the ladder of success.
    The Reality Distortion Field effect. The higher you go, the more people
    tell you want you want to hear instead of what you need to hear. Result:
    You only hear "news" that agrees with you.
    The Ass-Kiss Factor. People will jump to do things to please you. "The
    wish of the commander has the effect of an order." Result: you smallest
    wishes are instantly gratified.
    The Competitive Advantage. Most folks who climb high on the corporate
    ladder are competitive by nature. Often they're too competitive and
    need to win all the time, even when discussing things with subordinates.
    Result: people don't push hard, because you have power over them and
    you get the idea that you're always right.

    3. There's a supervisor's corollary to "Nothing strengthens authority as
    much as silence." It is "You support what you allow."

    4. Great organizations like the Marines or GE try to inculcate in their
    leaders that they have two jobs. One is to accomplish the mission. The
    other is to care for their people. If you're going for long term
    competitive advantage and profitability you need both. If all you're
    after is short term financial results, the "care for your people" part
    doesn't matter as much.

    5.  I have three questions I use to get a quick handle on the culture of an
    organization.
    What kind of people get promoted around here? The behavior and
    performance you reward is what you'll get more of.
    What "bad" behaviors are tolerated here? This is good for patterns of
    behavior.
    What kinds of stories do people tell each other? Stories are the
    carriers of culture. Beware if all they tell are "dumb boss" stories.
    Understand that service is a value if what you hear are "heroic service"
    stories.

    6. When I studied top performing supervisors, we found that there were a
    few behaviors that they did differently from their less-effective peers.
    They showed up more and had more informal conversations with their team
    members, including conversations about changing behavior or
    performance.
    That enabled them to catch problems early, when they're easier to solve.
    Thus, they had fewer cases where they needed to do documentation and
    formal conversations. Their team members had a good idea of how they
    were doing because they got frequent and usable feedback.

    7. There are good bosses and bad….. But there are also
    ineffective behaviors from good bosses and effective behavior from
    overall awful bosses.
    What seems important to me is that a lot of a boss's behavior is picked
    up unconsciously and practiced without conscious choice.

    8. The key to your advice and Wendy's is "during tough times, a good boss
    gives people as much predictability as possible." It's important when
    times are good, necessary when times are tough.

    9. I love the quote from Woody Morcott, CEO of the Dana Corporation: "Why
    did we hire 55,000 brains and only use three of them?"

    10. Thankfulness is important. Among other things, it helps you stay
    balanced in a world that exalts the quest for "things." One of the
    easiest ways to show gratitude is to send thank-you notes. I try match
    my mother's performance of at least three a day. Once I asked her what
    she did if there was no one to thank. She gave me her "mom-look" and
    said, "Wally, there's AL    WAYS someone to thank.

    On that note, a big thanks to Wally. And these ten quotes only scratch the surface.  Check out his blog and the extensive comments here as well. I find #2 to be especially striking as it is a pretty good summary of hundreds of peer reviewed studies.

    The web is still strange to me. Wally is the wisest person I never met. Don't miss Wally's bio here, I love this quote from when he joined the Marines:

    A Marine Major was in charge of
    that panel. He enlisted during World War II and landed at Iowa Jima.
    That adventure gave him a scar that started above his hairline, ran
    across his cheek, and disappeared down into his collar. He fixed a
    steely glare on me.
    “Don’t worry
    too much if you don’t make it all the way, son,” he said. “You’re
    seeking promotion to the most important job in the Marines. Those
    Generals may win a battle or two, but it’s Sergeants that win the wars.”


  • Bosses, Empathy, and Teaching: Thoughts from an Anonymous CEO

    One of the bad and good things about spending a couple years writing a book is the process requires writing and then deleting a huge amount of text.  This morning, I was reading through some of the scraps from Good Boss, Bad Boss and I ran into an inspired argument from a local CEO (I am not using his name because I didn't ask him if I could use it here, and so I think that is the civil thing to do). This CEO argued that he is most effective at his job when thinks and acts a lot like a teacher.

    I wish we could have found a place for this section in the book.  But I've learned (in line with this post quoting Steve Jobs) that if you are an author (or do any other kind of creative work) you not only have to discard a lot of bad ideas, you also have to get rid of a lot of good ideas — otherwise there is too much complexity in the final product and you can't focus your full energy on what matters most.  So every author ends up deleting things he or she loves, and this is one of my favorite "discarded darlings" from Good Boss, Bad Boss.

    For this post, I've changed the CEO's name to "Sam," but the rest is just as it would have appeared in the book and reflects multiple emails where this very sharp CEO and I exchanged revisions to reach a point where the text reflected both of our beliefs on the subject.  Here is the excerpt:

    Sam reports that to be an empathetic
    boss, he has learned to devote close attention to his little facial expressions,
    off-hand comments in emails and conversations, and seemingly trivial things like
    whether he acknowledges people when passing them in halls.  Sam went on to explain that this becomes
    easier when he adopts what might be called a follower-centered mindset:

     
    “Life is a lot better when think about my job as one of helping everyone be good,
    helping everyone learn whatever they need, and teaching where I've got
    experience and expertise. When I think in terms of helping people learn to be
    even better, it automatically puts me into an empathetic mode (because
    teaching, fundamentally, is about understanding where the learner is coming
    from), and that sets up the interaction really well.  I can't always stay in this teaching mode.
    Sometimes there are real pressures and things I need to deliver on.  Sometimes external stressors in my life cause
    me to forget to be empathetic. But usually now I can notice when it's happening
    and correct it.”

    As Sam and I talked, we realized that
    – whether it is a big important meeting or the most trivial conversation,
    email, or blog post – the best bosses seem to keep asking themselves:     “Why am I doing this? Is it because I am on
    an ego trip and trying to get more goodies and glory for myself?  Or is it really the best thing for enhancing
    my people’s collective performance and humanity?”

    When bosses can honestly answer the
    question with a “yes” (and peers, bosses, and followers concur with their
    assessment), good things happen.  People
    do good work. They experience dignity and pride in each other. 

     I am so struck by this comment from Sam that I want to repeat it:  "When I think in terms of helping people learn to be
    even better, it automatically puts me into an empathetic mode (because
    teaching, fundamentally, is about understanding where the learner is
    coming
    from    )."  I believe he is talking about a hallmark of the most admired and effective bosses.

    What
    do you think of this view of
    leadership?  Does it strike you as
    right?  Or is it too idealistic? 

    P.S. If you read the comments below, you will see that the "anonymous" CEO quoted here has read it and is comfortable with having his name attached.  It is John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, which is most famous for the Firefox browser.   So "Sam" is really "John."  John, thanks for wisdom and great exchanges.  Also, John writes a great blog, which among other things, contains great stuff on all the book's he reads.

  • Intuition vs. Data-Driven Decision-Making: Some Rough Ideas

    A Stanford undergraduate doing a case analysis on using intuition versus systematic analysis wrote me an email last night to get my thoughts on the difference between the two, especially in light of the work that Jeff Pfeffer and I did on evidence-based management.  Below is my lightly edited response.  This is just off the top of my head (is it mostly intuition?).  I would love to hear your thoughts on this distinction — if it is useful, how the two concepts fit together, when one is more useful than the others, and so on:

    I don't think that intuition and evidence-based management
    are at odds. There are many times when decision-makers don't have very good
    data because something is new, the situation has changed (e.g., where do you invest
    money right now?), or because what might seem like
    intuition is really mindless well-rehearsed behavior that comes from years of
    experience at something, so even though people can't articulate the pattern they
    recognize, they still are acting on a huge body of experience and knowledge.
    And on the very other side of experience there are virtues to the gut reaction of naive people, as those who are not properly
    brainwashed may see things and come up with ideas that expertise drives out of
    their brains (e.g, that is why Jane Goodall was hired to observe chimps, in
    part, because she knew nothing).

    The trouble with intuition is that we now have a HUGE
    pile of research on cognitive biases and related flaws in decision-making that
    show "gut feelings" are highly suspect.  Look-up confirmation bias — people have a
    very hard time believing and remember evidence that contradicts their beliefs. There
    is also the fallacy of centrality, a lot more obscure, but important in that
    people — especially those in authority — believe that if something important
    happens, they will know about it.     

    My belief — and it is only partially evidence-based —
    is that intuition works best in the hands of wise people (this is all over hard
    facts), when people have the mindset to "act on their beliefs, while
    doubting what they know," so that they are always looking for
    contradictory evidence, encouraging those around them to challenge what they
    believe, and constantly updating (but always moving forward), then I think that
    intuition — or acting on incomplete information, hunches, conclusions — is
    right. Here is one place I've talked about it. Brad Bird of Pixar is a good
    example of someone with this mindset, as we learned when we interviewed him for
    the McKinsey Quarterly.  So is Andy
    Grove.  I think the most interesting
    cases to look at are those where people with a history of good guesses or gut
    decisions — what mistakes has Steve Jobs made? 
    What about Google… indeed, it is interesting that they believed they
    were going to crush Firefox with Chrome , but their market share remains modest a year later. My point here isn't to say anything negative about Jobs or Google — they have impressive track records, plus some history of the usual failures that all humans and human organizations suffer from.  Rather, my point is that by looking at errors by people and firms that have generally good track records, you can learn a lot about conditions under which judgment fails, because you can rule out the explanation that they generally suffer from judgment. 

    There is a lot written on intuition and the related topic
    of quick assessments — see Blink — and some evidence (although Gladwell
    exaggerates about the virtues of snap judgments, as the best are often made by
    people with much experience in the domain, but as always he makes wonderful points). Also see this book     by David Myers for a balanced
    and evidenced perspective on intuition.

    My view is that intuition and analysis are not opposing
    perspectives, but tag team partners that, under the best conditions, where
    hunches are followed and then evaluated with evidence (both quantitative and
    qualitative, that is another issue, qualitative data are different than
    intuition, and often better) versus when hunches and ingrained behaviors are
    mindlessly followed and impervious to clear signs that they are failing. 

    Work Matters readers: Again, I would appreciate your thoughts, as this is one of those core challenges for every boss and for a lot of behavioral scientists too!