Bob Sutton

Work Matters: The Best of 2009

I tried to resist the temptation to do one of these "best of" lists, but I succumbed as I started looking back at posts from the year. As I looked back at this year versus last, I realized that the focus on workplace assholes that was so strong when I started this blog in 2006 has faded quite a bit, and I tend to focus more broadly on workplace and management issues. Sure, I still talk about assholes (I have accepted that, no matter what else I ever have done or will do, I will always be "the asshole guy").  Yet, no doubt because it is the theme of my next book, I now talk more about bosses -- what it takes to be a good one, the difference between good ones and bad ones, and a host of related topics. 

I picked my favorite from each month. I usually picked a post that generated a lot of comments. I always appreciate the comments that people make, and I thought that they were better than ever this year -- so I thought it would also be fun to pick my favorite comment on each post.  I know this runs long; sorry,  I am professor who is prone to profess too much!

January: Eleanor Roosevelt vs. Randy Komisar on Failure.  This post was inspired by two opposing quotes, which are contradictory, but -- I believe -- both true.  'The first is from former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt: "Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself." This has to be true. But serial entrepreneur, serial author, and venture capitalist Randy Komisar also made a compelling case when he argued "yes, you can learn from others, but  "the only way to really, really get your money's worth, is to do it yourself" because "nothing else creates that hollow feeling in your stomach."  

This post generated 10 thoughtful comments.  My favorite was from John, who wisely pointed out "I also know a few airplane pilots. They are definitely in Eleanor Roosevelt's camp. It may depend on how onerous the penalties for failure are." 

February: CEO Compensation Research : Why You Want Rich People to Set Your Pay.   I picked this one because CEO compensation has been such a hot topic.  This post summarizes a study by Charles O'Reilly and his colleagues that shows -- independently of firm performance and size -- the more money that people on the CEO's compensation committee make, the more they pay the CEO. Essentially, people use themselves as the standard to set pay.  Here is a key sentence from the post " O'Reilly and his colleagues report that for every $100,000 that the average member of the compensation committee is paid, the CEO's pay goes up another $51,000 per year."

 Of the eight comments, I especially liked Murthy's (a former student) detailed response, which ends with "When you become an investor, your job is to help and support companies to increase their shareholder value. Bashing them or their leadership to the public does not increase your shareholder value. If anything, it creates essentially the same emotional dynamic that any of us have when we have a jerk for a boss. So maybe a little less "I think wall street sucks" and a little more "I believe in the American financial system" would be useful for the morale of those companies as well as the morale of the country in general."

March: My Final Exam Question: Can You Answer It?  This was about the final exam question that I have been using in my introduction to organizational behavior class for over a decade -- in fact, Murthy answered it when he was student.  I will be using it again next term: "Design the ideal organization. Use course concepts to defend your answer."  For years, I told the students that it was really hard and I would have trouble answering.  I realized that I finally did answer it a few years back when I wrote The No Asshole Rule. Every year, I wonder if I should try something else, but then every year the best answers are so good that I can't resist asking it again.

I suggested that, while the students get 3000 words, and The No Asshole Rule ran over 40,000 words, that if I was forced to write something short, I would say ""A place where people are competent, civilized, and cooperative -- and tell the truth rather than spewing out lies and bullshit."  I would also add that this is pretty similar to how I define a good boss in my new book.

The best part of this post were the 24 comments that people made about their vision of an ideal organization.  I can't resist picking two because they were so good. Whitney wrote "My ideal organization is one where I can have more positive impact in the world than I can accomplish on my own.I've worked for both kinds of companies. I left my last employer because group work took everyone down to the lowest common denominator. Where I work now, 1 + 1 usually adds to 3."  And Hayli wins the brevity award "Fewer meetings, more teamwork."

April: A Well-Crafted Critique of Business "Success" Books and My Ambivalence About Good to Great.  This post was about Drake Bennett's article in the Boston Globe, which reviewed the weak evidence that underpins many management bestsellers -- especially Good to Great.  Drake included a quote from me, ""There's value in mastering the obvious," he says. "If Jim Collins's impact is to get people to do stuff that they know they should do already - facing the hard truths or being selfless or whatever - I certainly don't think that's a bad thing." 

As I explained in the post, I do think that Collins book is a good read and has helped many managers do a better job, but as someone who believes in and has written about evidence-based management, I am disturbed by the book because it makes such excessive claims about the quality of the research and newness of the ideas.  As I wrote in the post "ironically, this book about the virtues of modest leaders reveals considerable hubris in its claims." 

Of the nine comments, I thought that Glenn's was especially thoughtful " I debate this with 'Collins Disciples' all the time. Also, I believe what adds to the issue is that too many people have stopped thinking. They read a book, follow it blindly, and believe they have all the answers. When they should read it, apply some critical thinking to see if and how it applies to their situation, then implement as appropriate." 

May: Of Baboons and Bosses. This post dug into a claim in my June 2009 HBR article on "How to Be a Good Boss in a Bad Economy" that "the typical member looks at the the alpha make every 20 to 30 seconds to see what he is doing."  I linked this to research showing that subordinates are often hyper-focused on every little move that their bosses make -- something that many bosses are remarkably oblivious to and that undermines their ability to lead effectively. 

Of the five comments, I liked John Foster's best, notably his reminder that "leaders should always remember they are on stage, being "looked at" for cues. It's a powerful way to create movement or change."

June: The Selfish Superstar Inventory.  The aim of this post was to ask for questions and ideas for a survey I was developing to assess if an organization breeds and rewards -- or punishes and expels -- selfish backstabbing superstars.  I suggested statements indicating that people who get ahead in such organizations do things like "stomp on colleagues on the way to the top" and "Are always loved by their superiors, but often despised by their peers and subordinates." 

The 17 comments in response to this post were especially wonderful. My favorites include many on Tory's long list including "Scrub subordinates names from their work before passing it up the chain," Ed's "If a project fails, I don't feel bad if my part of it was successful," and Stu's 'Believe in the 30 Rock mantra, "I'm going to get mine!"'  A descendant of the "SSI" will appear in my new book and I will put out an online version around the time the book is published.  I used a lot of the suggestions, so thanks everyone!

July: You Know Your Boss is A Certified Asshole When.....  I was inspired to write this post both because the ARSE continues to be completed by so many people (it is now well over 200,000 completions) and by a note I got from an executive who had an asshole boss that her kids called Mr. GIANT BUTTHOLE."  The responses to this questions from readers who wonderful, including Lesa's "Making a staff person drive 80 miles round trip at 9:00 pm at night to a client's house to get a (non-essential, non-urgent) signature because "we do whatever it takes to get the job done."  I also cringed at Ergoboy's "He corners every employee that you work with and interrogates them looking for dirt on you. Any possible dust particle gets wildly exaggerated, documented, and then shown to you on a write-up." 

August: Wal-Mart and Girl Scout Cookies: Thin Minty Gate.  This post was inspired by CV Harquail's story about how Wal-Mart was test-marketing imitations of two of the best-selling Girl Scout cookies -- a post that generated a lot of national media attention.  I expressed disgust with Wal-Mart's actions and I especially focused on why it was a bad business decision for them, taste and ethics aside.  I also warned readers that I was biased because my wife, Marina Park, is CEO of the Northern California Girl Scouts. I thought Cecelia summed it up well "The most important issue in this article is the community responsibility Walmart carries. (Or lack thereof in this case). It is in bad taste to go into direct competition with an organization they work closely with in order to provide a safe place for these girls to fund-raise. In communities where Walmart is already established, their profits exceed that of the local Girl Scout troop by a disgusting amount."  

September:  What are the Dumbest Practices Used By U.S. Companies?   This one was pretty fun, as I asked for ideas for a speech I was going to give in Singapore. I started with three: 1. Dangerous complexity; 2. Dysfunctional internal competition, and 3. Breaking-up teams constantly.  Then 27 great comments roared in, including Pat's wise 'Rewarding Firefighters not Fire Inspectors.In other words, the people spotting the problems and fixing them before the "fire" do not get rewards. The "firefighters" who rush and put out fires in progress do get reward.'  I also loved Patricia's "Killing the messenger" and Rodney's ""When the risk of making a decision for employees inside the organization is considered to be greater than the benefit of making one."  I can't resist one more, Wally has made a lot of great comments this year, including "We hope for magical leadership instead of developing good systems. When we do develop systems we favor the engineered and the technological over the human and common-sensical."

October: The post that probably had the most content was Challenging Ingrained Assumptions at HR, which summarized the short speech I ultimately gave in Singapore -- and the 27 comments were great.  Dblwyo, for example,  was tough but (often) on target when he argued that "HR like many other functional specialties, e.g. IT and logistics, doesn't have more clout because it hasn't earned it."

But I can't resist picking Art Imitates Life: The Muffin Incident on Entourage as the best post.   In this scene on the HBO show, my favorite TV asshole, Ari Gold fires an assistant for bringing him the wrong muffin -- which is exactly what (according to the Wall Street Journal) Academy Award winning Producer Scott Rudin did to one of his assistants. There were only two comments, but I thought Tony summed-up Ari well "I am also a big fan of Ari Gold from Entourage. It is funny how such an ego-centric, manipulative character can be so interesting. Working with someone with his personality would be a nightmare but his aggressive drive is impressive." 

November: Your Lack of Planning is Not My Emergency.   This is a saying I love.  This post generated seven comments, I especially liked Flint's comment "Or the corollary, "If everything is an emergency, then nothing is."  This was also the month where I did a bunch of posts on testosterone -- including the study that showed young men who drive a new Porsche respond with higher levels but not when they drive an old Toyota Camry station wagon. 

December: The Boss's Journey.  It was my last post, but it was my favorite because the comments were so good.   My argument was that  'As psychologist William Schutz explained, “Understanding evolves through three phases: simplistic, complex, and profoundly simple.”'  I suggested that  bosses might follow much the same journey. Wally, as usual, was spot on, commenting that  'Most "leadership development" programs are isolated courses that don't recognize that leadership development is cumulative. If you can help less experienced supervisors learn, use peer support to help them get vicarious experience, and teach them to use feedback and mentors, you can help them develop faster and more effectively.'  

The Good Cop, Bad Cop Technique also generated some great comments, notably "culture guru," who reported "You just explained our parenting style, added at least another 10 years to our already 22 year old marriage, and have removed my final resistance to going into business with my husband."

Congratulations if you have read this far. I suspect this is my longest post of the year.

It's been quite a year. And now I am not the only blogger in the family.  My wife, Marina Park, now blogs regularly at SF Gate, the online arm of the San Francisco Chronicle, in the City Brights Section. I especially liked her recent post on Small Steps to Make the World a Better Place.

I started writing Work Matters in June 2006. It  passed one million page views this year (1125533 as of this moment, with a lifetime average of 863 page views per day.)  It now includes 815 posts and 3195 of your comments.  Thanks for reading my stuff and thanks for all those wonderful comments.

I hope you and yours have a happy new year.

The Boss's Journey: The Path to Simplicity and Competence

Being a great boss is a lot tougher than it looks.  I realized this a few months back when one of my former students came back to chat.  When he took my introduction to organizational behavior class, he routinely ripped apart his former bosses and many bosses we studied in class, calling them “lazy,” “idiotic,” and “incompetent.”  He sure changed his tune after getting his first job as a boss -- heading a small product development team.   During our conversation, he admitted that he needed “a little therapy” and confessed “This is really a tough job.  I am confused and keep screwing-up.”

This new boss was in the second phase of the journey required to develop true expertise in any craft. As psychologist William Schutz explained, “Understanding evolves through three phases: simplistic, complex, and profoundly simple.”  (I have written about Schutz before, see this post). This process means, as my distraught student learned, being a great boss seems deceptively easy at first blush.  But no boss can master the craft without traveling through a purgatory of uncertainty and confusion.  The best bosses also realize that, although the stretches of confusion become shorter and less frequent over time, this quest for deep understanding never ends.  There is no magic cure or shortcut that will instantly transform youy into a skilled boss.  But I do believe – following Schutz’s model – that path becomes easier if you devote yourself to the relentless pursuit of simple competence (a theme I expand on in my BusinessWeek essay published earlier in the year).

My view is that great bosses realize there will always be times when they are overwhelmed and baffled, that confronting and wallowing through excessive complexity is necessary for developing useful rather than useless simplifications.   Yet no matter how bewildered great bosses might be at a given moment, they strive to develop a simple mindset and master seemingly obvious moves.  The result is that, if you talk to the best bosses about their craft, they often make it seem so simple -- P&G’s AG Lafley being exhibit one here. After all, this clear thinking and elegant expression are the fruits of their labors.  This is why, when you ask great bosses about the “secrets” of their success, they usually answer there is no mystery; they are just doing their jobs. 

This perspective is based on some theory and research, but of course, it is just an opinion colored by my biases and the quirks of my experience. What do you think?  Does it fit your view of the boss’s journey. Also, what important parts have I left out?

Workers Who Chew Gum Report Less Stress

I was disappointed by this study as I have a pet peeve about chewing gum. Everyone else in my family chews it now and then but I have always found it a bit gross.  And my dislike for it was amplified when my young kids would get in the carpet and other tough places to remove.  They were all delighted to hear about this study and my 13 year-old suggested that if I chewed gum I wouldn't be so uptight about other people doing it. As with many great research summaries, this one comes from the BPS Research Digest Blog. Here is a key paragraph from BPS:

Andrew Smith at Cardiff University surveyed over 2,000 workers and found that the 39 per cent of respondents who reported never chewing gum were twice as likely to say they were extremely stressed at work, compared with gum chewers, and one and a half times as likely to say they were very or extremely stressed with life in general.

So, does this mean that bosses who are leading tense teams ought to pass out the Wrigley's or -- worse yet -- bubble gum?  I hope not, but there seems to be a hint here that this is an evidence technique.

P.S. The reference is: Smith, A. (2009). Chewing gum, stress and health Stress and Health, 25 (5), 445-451.

This is probably going to sound really weird, but were you ever on a japanese gameshow?

This is an email I got recently from a reader -- one I don't recall hearing from before.  The answer is no, I have never been on a gameshow of any kind. But it just cracked me up, because that was the whole question and it seemed to so random, although I am wondering if I have twin out there who has been on such a show. 

Switch: The Heath Brothers Have Another Awesome Cover

I just started reading an advanced copy of the Chip and Dan Heath's new book Switch: How to change things when change is hard. So far, it is at least as good as their last book, Made to Stick,which was a bestseller and has rapidly become the standard handbook for anyone who wants to design an idea that will spread and endure -- people in almost every field I know now use it, marketing, public health, political campaigns, organizational change efforts, and on and on.  I will write a more detailed post on the content of the new book as the publication date of February 15th approaches, but I wanted to devote this post to the cover of Switch, which I think is magnificent and perhaps even as good as the amazing Made to Stick --which even included textured and realistic feeling duct tape on the cover.   I include it below, followed by the Made to Stick cover. What do you think?  Do you agree with me that the Heath brothers have perhaps the best pair of book covers ever on two business books? Or am I being overly biased because I like these two guys so much? 

 

Drive: Daniel Pink's Definitive and Fun Guide to Motivation

I just spent a couple hours reading Daniel Pink's new book, DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.  Dan's publisher sent me an advanced copy of the book and I became very interested in it after seeing his splendid TED talk, which I blogged about some weeks back.  The book is even better than the talk, as Dan does a masterful job of boiling down the results of a huge body of behavioral science research, presenting in way that is extremely engaging, and showing how it has profound implications for managers, teachers, parents or anyone else who wants to motivate others (and themselves) to be as effective as possible. It will be for sale in about two weeks.

He does a masterful job of showing the limits and drawbacks of widely accepted assumptions about motivation -- showing the limits of carrots and sticks, and then showing the power of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In addition to his compelling use of stories and examples (you don't want to miss his "Tom Sawyer" effect and explanations of why so many lawyers dislike their jobs so much), I especially liked his toolkit at the end of the book, which offers fantastic evidence-based advice. Check out the idea for peer-to-peer bonuses, illustrated by a civil engineering firm where at any time anyone can award a $50 bonus to one of his her colleagues.  I also like the steps he offers managers for giving-up control, which is also based on piles of evidence about what really motivates people -- consider his argument that the best bosses are careful to avoid not controlling language when possible.  Using words like "must" or "should" can undermine the perception of autonomy and control that is so motivating to people. And we all like his advice that employers should pay above the industry average --- which is based on research showing that the motivational gain is so high that doing so REDUCES company costs. 

Drive provides a splendid summary of the best research on motivation, but never seems like a textbook, it carries you along as Dan adds his little creative twists to show why we as parents and managers are doing so many things wrong that seem so right -- and how the best solutions to motivating people are usually so simple and so inexpensive.  Millions of people take introduction to psychology courses each year and nearly as many take introduction to organizational behavior classes: If you teach one of these classes, you might consider using Dan's book in place of or as a supplement your text for part of the course -- your students will love it.  And anyone who wants to motivate others -- which is pretty much all of us -- can learn a lot from this book.

The Good Cop, Bad Cop Technique

Perhaps my last post on assholes and policing got me thinking about the word cop, but in any case, I don't think I've talked much about a stream of research that I did years ago -- about 20 -- with my colleague Anat Rafaeli on "the expression of emotion in organizational life."  We studied various settings in which people were expected to express certain emotions and suppress others, or used emotions strategically as part of their jobs.  We studied occupations including grocery store clerks, telephone bill collectors, and cops.  In particular, Anat and I published a paper that combined qualitative data that she collected on Israeli police interrogators (to be clear, these were Israeli cops trying to get confessions from Israeli citizens, as we wanted to avoid the entire Arab/Israeli and terrorist thing) and data that I gathered during a three-month ethnography of U.S. telephone bill collectors who collected overdue Visa and MasterCard payments for a large bank.

Our research, building on prior work on influence (especially Robert Cialdini's masterpiece), suggested that the reason that encountering both a nice and a nasty person was more effective than just a nice person or a nasty person was because of the "psychological contrast effect." In essence, the impact is to make the "carrots" offered by the good cop seem even sweeter and the "sticks" offered by the bad cop even harsher.  Both the cops and the bill collectors used this method routinely, although as the cops worked mostly face-to-face and the bill collectors did this over the phone, there were different variations used, and of course different stakes.  But the contrast effect seemed to be evident in both settings. For example, Anat's fieldnotes of an interrogation she observed indicated:

There were two interrogators in the room. There was an extreme difference in their style. One (the manager) was a real source of stress to the suspect, while the other was much less threatening, even friendly. The second one was also physically less threatening. He was slim, less muscular, more dressed up, and more delicate in his appearance. During the interrogation he also drifted along with the suspect, while the other used a much harsher tone.

It also seemed to be effective.  For example, one "good cop" bill collector told me how when his friendly style isn't working, he sometimes has a "bad cop" co-worker do the call:

Then, usually, they pay pretty quick. Especially if it is Tom who does it. He has had a couple of managers tell him to cool down, where he has just pissed this person off and this person hangs up in a huff. But the next thing you know they're on the phone to the nice collector going, "What do you want, what do you want? Don't you ever have him call, I don't ever want to talk to him again, he was so rude."

We also identified some interesting variations of the good cop. bad cop method. Looking back, they sound to me like we could have used simpler language, but I was a young academic then, and was probably rewarded by the peer review process for doing so... and wasn't quite at the career stage where I was concerned about writing for human-beings.  The variants include:

1. Sequential good cop, bad cop: This is the classic approach, as we saw with the above bill collector, where you start with the good cop and go back and forth between encounters with the two until your "target" complies -- in this case wither paying the bill or confessing to the crime. Just like in the movies, the targets usually caved-in to the good cop, sometimes saying things like " I never want to see that guy again." 

2. Simultaneous good cop, bad cop. That was they both work on you at once. The bill collectors didnt use this method, but the police did -- and would argue openly with each other to strike fear in the heart of the suspect (Anat has notes of a bad cop saying "He looks like dirt to me" and the good cop saying "He looks like a good guy to me."

3. One person plays both bad and good cop.  The idea here is to create contrast, as one interrogator explained "I speak in a very low, relaxed tone. So that way, when I yell, it really makes them jump."

4. Good cop in contrast to hypothetical bad cop. The bill collectors used this a lot, they would be customer service oriented but warn that if the debtor didn't pay now, they would be turned over to a collection agency, where not only would the people be nastier, they would be taking more aggressive action to take away their house or car.  

Please note I am not endorsing these methods, especially by the police, but the fact is that good cop, bad cop is an effective tool for compliance because using it -- often in very subtle ways -- does apparently enhance the impact both the carrots and the sticks. In fact, this qualitative study is bolstered by experiments on negotiation teams by researchers Susan Brodt and Marla Tuchinsky  showing that -- under most situations -- having both a good cop and a bad cop on a negotiation team is a winning strategy.

BUT there was also a twist we did not address in our research, and in fact, would have been tough to do as we were studying people in "the wilds" of organizational life.  Their research shows that starting with a good cop and then using a bad cop was not effective, that the method only was effective for negotiating teams when the bad cop went first and the good cop followed.   So, this may mean it really should be called "The Bad Cop, Good Cop Technique."   In thinking about this finding, and looking at our old data, I notice that -- in just about all the cases we looked at -- although the cops or bill collectors started out nice at times, they would switch back and forth between good and bad cop, so there would be many times when the good cop followed a bad cop -- as the example of the nice and nasty bill collector above shows.  One exception is the "hypothetical" bad cop technique, where the good cop warns that if you don't pay now, things are going to get a lot nastier -- which in the case of debts, everyone knows is not a hollow threat.

As I wrote in The No Asshole Rule, although I generally am opposed to workplace assholes, there are times when they do seem to be effective -- after all, fear and intimidation do change human behavior, despite the dangerous side-effects.  The implication of this theory and research is if you are an asshole, and want to be a more effective one, you would be wise to team-up with a good cop.  This isbecause doing so will make your nastiness sting even more and because good cops also often play the role of toxic handler, cleaning up the mess that asshole bosses and other nasty people leave behind.

I wonder, do other people use variations of good cop, bad cop? Or have you had it used on you?

Here are the citations to the articles:

Brodt, S.E. and Tuchinsky, M. (2000) Working together but in opposition: An examination of the “good cop/bad cop” negotiating team tactic. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81, 155-177.

Rafaeli, A., and Sutton, R., (1991). Emotional contrast strategies as means of social influence: Lessons
from criminal interrogators and bill collectors. Academy of Management Journal, 34, 749–775.

The Asshole: John Van Maanen's Classic Article on Police Officers

This the opening page of MIT Professor John Van Maanen's delightful and insightful article  It is about the meaning and power of the word "asshole" among the police officers he studied during his now classic ethnography of police officers, which he did for his dissertation research in the 1970s. John didn't just talk to cops, he went through the police academy, rode along with them on patrols (and got involved in all sorts of crazy things like chases), and was otherwise embedded with them for a year or so.  He has since gone on to become among the most renowned organizational researchers.  John had a huge impact on my generation of organizational researchers because, when we first started graduate school, qualitative methods were generally treated as unscientific, obsolete,  and so biased as to be enticing but not anything that should ever be published in a top academic journal.  Due in large part to John's example and leadership, by the time many of us had graduated with our PhD's, there were many corners where qualitative studies had become acceptable and encouraged.  And even once exclusively quantitative researchers were starting to do qualitative studies.  There is still controversy about them in my field, but also a fairly widespread acceptance now that such methods are useful for describing organizational life in rich detail and for generating theories and hypotheses that can be tested with quantitative methods.  This is an oversimplification as academics get very emotional and anal about little differences, but I think it is as close to the truth as I can get without delving into a very dull and very long rant.

To return to John's article, the thing that strikes me is how compelling the opening and the language are -- it is impossible for me to read this, although I have many times before, without getting excited about reading the rest. That opening sentence still cracks me up, "The asshole -- creep, bigmouth, bastard, animal, mope, rough, jerkoff, clown, scumbag, wiseguy, phony, idiot, shithead, bum ,fool, or any a number of anatomical, oral, or incestuous terms -- is part of every policeman's world."  He then goes onto to turn the corner (with the help of that great opening quote) and show the reader that this language reflects sense-making and guides action in a police officers world.  I discuss this article in The No Asshole Rule, and, no doubt, it was one factor that encouraged me to write the book and have the courage to use the title. 

John's other work is equally fascinating (and even sometimes uses cleaner language). He has had a big positive effect on my field, and I appreciate it. I also love the opening line of his bio at MIT "John Van Maanen studies groups of people the old-fashioned way: by living with them."

The Happiness Project: I Hate Self-Help Books But Love This One

I wondered out to look at the mail, and there it was, the result of Gretchen's Rubin's year long quest to make herself happier. "The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun."  Frankly, perhaps because I was a psychology major for ten years (through my PhD in Organizational Psychology), most self-help books make me want to vomit.  But once I started reading Gretchen's book, I couldn't stop because -- unlike all those books that seem to tell fake stories about others or promise too much or are too sappy -- Gretchen's compelling voice, great stories, and first person-perspective (and brutal self-assessments at times, few of us are as aware or as open about our imperfections) make the book simply irresistible.

I cheated and read the first and last chapters and have now worked through most of the rest of the book (I am supposed to be writing several letters of recommendation right now and doing some work on my book, but this is making me much happier).  This is the rare book that is remarkably conceptually and empirically sound (she really knows research on happiness well), linked to great literature and other writings, but somehow at every stage is tied to her experience in a way that made me introspective, but I thought in a constructive rather than selfish way. 

I don't want to give away too much, as really, you deserve to give yourself the gift of reading the book.  I first put in a few quotes from the book in this post, and then decided to take them out, as I think that presenting them out of context undermines the flow of emotion and logic that hit me as I read paragraph upon paragraph. I would also add that her voice is similar to her blog, but in reading her book, you can see why the daily rhythms of writing a blog can never replace a great book (even one based partly on a blog)-- it comes across as a complete and emotionally satisfying story, and ends with a set of lessons (and a lovely twist about the effect of the project on her husband) that both sides of my brain believe will make me -- and those I care about --  happier as we travel through life.  

As I suggest in the title of this post, The Happiness Project might be the perfect self-help book for people like me who hate self-help books. 

P.S. The book comes out December 29th.  Reading it strikes me as a great way to start the year.

Jeff Pfeffer on "Perverse Norms" About Good Management

I was reading through an old but still spot-on book by my friend and co-author Jeff Pfeffer,  The Human Equation, which provides an evidence-based case about why companies that put people first enjoy superior financial performance over the long-run.   Jeff makes an argument that is a variation of something one of my college friends used to say, "eat shit, 10 billion flies can't be wrong."  But he adds prestige and status as an added twist in a section he labels "Perverse Norms about What Constitutes Good Management," and how such norms often emerge even though they conflict with the evidence.   He uses the example of layoffs -- which are no doubt sometimes necessary.  But executives often seem to act in ways that clash with evidence showing that companies that do layoffs last and least tend to perform best over time:

" If the world believes that laying-off employees by the carload is good management and confers status on those that do it with the most vigor, it will be difficult for executives to resist the temptation to conform to the normative definition of "good management" and thereby achieve approval."

As usual, Jeff is smart and blunt.

Eight Signs You Are Boring: Wisdom from Gretchen

Gretchen over at The Happiness Project has a great list of eight signs that you are boring another person. They are all wonderful, but I especially like the last one:

8. Audience posture. Back in 1885, Sir Francis Galton wrote a paper called “The Measurement of Fidget.” He determined that people slouch and lean when bored, so a speaker can measure the boredom of an audience by seeing how far from vertically upright they are. Also, attentive people fidget less; bored people fidget more. An audience that’s sitting still and upright is interested, while an audience that’s horizontal and squirmy is bored.

As usual, I find Gretchen to be insightful, funny, and remarkably helpful -- alas, I see a bit of myself in a number of her tips and it makes me squirm.  It also reminds me, however, that I have a weird obsession with the virtues of being boring. I touch on it in this post, in more detail, in Weird Ideas That Work.

There are just certain times in life that you don't want to attract attention, don't want people to listen to you very carefully, and don't want to get their emotions cranked-up --- and boredom is a perfect solution in such cases.  A former Stanford administrator I knew was the master of strategic boredom.  He could fairly charismatic and entertaining when he believed it was constructive.  But the more controversial and heated that things became, the more dull and mind-numbing his delivery became.... I saw him defuse tense meetings on at least two occasions by lulling angry people into a listless state.   It was tiring to experience, but fascinating too.

Guys List of the Top Ten Candidates to Run GM

Guy Kawasaki has applied his usual charm and delightfully twisted sense of humor to develop a list of 10 candidates to run GM. Here are Guy's top three, but don't miss the list:

1. Steve Jobs (Apple). GM would create the most beautiful cars, but you’d need to refill it once a day. You could only buy accessories from the GM store after Phil Schiller approved them. Gas pumps would need new nozzles because Steve mandated non-standard gas-tank fittings.

2. Steve Ballmer (Microsoft). GM cars would look similar to those of German and Italian marques, but it would be seven revisions into the car’s lifecycle before they ran decently.

3. Sarah Palin (Unemployed). Palin would introduce cars that you couldn’t brake or steer called Rogues. Shotgun racks would be a factory option on the Cheney model. However, before they ship, she would resign. When Katie Couric asked her which car magazines she read, she responded, “Most of ‘em.”

Also, I was thinking that a serious candidate might be Xerox's Anne Mulcahy, as she led one of the toughest turnarounds in recent U.S. history. Plus all the men have failed at this job, so perhaps it is time to try the other gender! Or, perhaps Carly Fiorina could do this instead of running for the Senate in California to demonstrate that she can keep and flourish in a job where she P& L responsibilities -- something she didn't demonstrate at HP.  And if Carly failed, she could have the special distinction of having been thrown under the bus by both John McCain and Barack Obama!

Quote of the Day: Roaches and Assholes

I want to thank everyone for the great comments on my last post, which raises the question: Is the only effective way to deal with an impossible boss to suffer in silence until you can escape? 
Every comment so far is extremely thoughtful. I was especially taken taken with how John described how he had learned to deal with impossible bosses as he traveled through his career.   My favorite line, however, comes from Jason, who comments:

"Since I read your book I've been watching at my firm and my observation is that asshole bosses are like roaches--there is never just one."

As I've written here many times, being an workplace asshole is often a malady that you catch from other people.  But the roaches analogy is a lovely way to out it.

Working for an "Impossible Boss:" Is the Only Option to Suffer in Silence Until You Can Escape?

I was just reading a compelling and heavily research based by psychologist Robert Hogan called Personality and the Fate of Organizations.  In Hogan's chapter on "The Psychology of Managerial Incompetence," he cites an interesting study by by McCall and Lomdardo (see this book for a summary of much of it) where they had interviewed a large number of managers about "career defining events."  Every manager reported that they had spent a long stretch "working for an impossible boss, not difficult, cranky, or abusive, but impossible."  So their first conclusion is that just about every adult will have to work for an impossible boss at some point.  The researchers reached a second conclusion that troubles me, "when working for an intolerable boss, if a  person sticks up for him or herself and refuses to bullied,  his or her career will be irreparably damaged.  When working for an awful boss, a person's only option is to suffer in silence."  

I was taken aback by this advice. It certainly isn't always wrong, as I suggest on my list of tips, there are times where the best option when working for a bad boss is to suck it up and take it -- and get out as fast as you can. But there are just too many examples -- and research too -- about how trampled underlings have successfully fought back against abusive and incompetent bosses.  A couple famous cases come to mind right away --- Brad Bird now of Pixar fame and Robert Townsend, the author of the classic Up The Organization --- indeed, Bird's case, he was hired by Pixar in part because he had no tolerance for incompetent authority figures; indeed, his past firing from Disney was career enhancing move. 

These guys ultimately succeeded, in part, because they fought back against bosses they did not think were competent.  I also have had several longstanding email exchanges with people who are now CEOs because they fought back against and ousted their incompetent and mean-spirited predecessors.   In The No Asshole Rule,  I do emphasize that if you have an asshole boss, sometimes the best thing to do it is become emotionally detached and not let it touch your soul. But I also argue that there are times you can fight back, and when underlings band together and fight back --- and practice some skilled politics --- they can win against a bad boss, and help rather than damage their careers too.

I should also add that, although the typical person stuck with an impossible boss might be better off riding out the storm in silence and turning the other cheek, if everyone followed this advice, bad bosses would never be punished, reformed, and fired and terrible decisions would never be stopped.  If you haven't read Michael Lewis' story about AIG, this might be a good time to do it.  He presents well-researched evidence that one reason that AIG messed up so badly was they had an "impossible" boss named Joe Cassano running their Financial Products unit, who was intolerant of dissent, and those who tried to stand-up to him learned it was better not to and left, leaving only people who didn't fight back, suffered his tirades in silence, and said things like "Joe, you are right."  The article estimates this unit lost about 45 billion dollars, and suggests that the fear that Cassano instilled in his followers was a large contributing factor.  I wonder, are those underlings who suffered in silence really better off now -- not to mention U.S. taxpayers who have loaned AIG nearly 200 billion bucks.

That's my reaction. What do you think?

1. Is this advice right?  If you have an impossible boss, is it usually is a career-limiting move to fight back?

2. How do you know when to fight versus when to keep your head down and escape as fast as you can?

3. What is the best way to fight back?