Bob Sutton

Wisdom From BART Executives

I give talk yesterday on The Knowing-Doing Gap to executives at BART, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system.  They run a system that includes over 100 miles of track in the San Francisco area and that carries almost 400,000 riders a day. I was fortunate enough to get a behind-the-scenes tour of some of the operation.  I was impressed with the great job that these people do of keeping this complex system running, and was especially struck by two things. 

The first thing was their story about how they built their internal, home grown, computer system for tracking trains and communicating with each other throughout the system.  They did it for about 5 million dollars and it is mostly open-source code.  It was a classic case where necessity is the mother of invention, or if you prefer different language, where innovation happened because of a big constraint that they had to work around (See what Diego says about constraint and creativity).  They couldn't afford a 20 million dollar proprietary system from an outside vendor, so they had to do something different.  The result is that they now have a system that does an impressive job of making information nearly all key aspects of operations easily and quickly available, that fits their needs, and that they can easily modify as they learn along the way.  I was also interested in what they had done because I know that one of the causes of Jet Blue's infamous fiasco on February 14th, 2007, where thousands of passengers were trapped on planes, was that they were using a system from an external vendor to track planes and so on that they had outgrown. 

 The second thing that I learned was a bit of wisdom from a senior executive who had been at BART for many years.  He was describing his leadership philosophy, which emphasized an urgency to act and to make things right.  But he also emphasized that the kinds of things they do at BART -- running and sustaining such a complex interdependent system -- can't happen without intense information sharing and cooperation.  As such, when we were talking about the challenges of managing performance, he commented that there are two kinds of things employees which could make that always provokes his immediate attention: 1. treating others with disrespect and 2. communicating poorly with others.  I think that is great advice for any leader.

I've been riding BART for over 25 years and it does work very well. It was impressive to see it from the inside. Certainly, they face all sorts of political challenges and other problems, but I think they are doing a mighty good job. Most of the trains do run on time!

Ten Commandments of Egoless Programming

Check out this list from Coding Horror. With just one or two exceptions, it could just as well be the Ten Commandments for how to be an egoless employee or boss, or even an egoless human being. Certainly, anyone who does work that requires interdependence with others would benefit from following most or all of these rules. I especially like #3:

'No matter how much "karate" you know, someone else will always know more. Such an individual can teach you some new moves if you ask. Seek and accept input from others, especially when you think it's not needed.'

That last sentence is really something. Think of how much human misery would have been averted if more leaders and so-called experts of all stripes had sought input especially when they thought they didn't need it.

The Knowing-Doing Gap Goes to Church

I’ve written about how the positive reaction that The No Asshole Rule received from several religious leaders and publications surprised me perhaps more than any other reaction to the book.  If you had told me a couple years ago, when I was starting to write the book, that The No Asshole Rule would be used as theme in a bible study class in Texas, but that The New York Times would still insist on calling it The No ******* Rule, I would have told you that you were insane.

I am less surprised, however, that some religious leaders are attracted to the theme of The Knowing-Doing Gap.  I still recall giving a talk (in 2001, I think) about how difficult it is for organizations to do what they know they should (it was to a group of non-profit leaders).   A big burly Baptist minister sitting in the front row raised his hand and said something like, “The Bible is one of the best-selling and most widely discussed books ever written; most people in my church know what is in it, but a lot of them have trouble doing it.”  

I had not thought of that in years until a friend emailed me to tell me that pastor John Ortberg at one of the biggest and most active church’s in my city, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, had recently started-off a sermon on “The World’s Greatest Talk” by explaining the main idea of The Knowing-Doing Gap.  I found out today that Pastor Ortberg’s sermon’s can be downloaded and played in iTunes and other formats (The call them Sermon-casts – here is the podcast).  I must say that Pastor Ortberg is quite a speaker, he provides one of the best summaries of the book I’ve ever heard in the opening minutes of the sermon.  Then he makes a transition to a similar argument to that made by that Baptist minister years back, but goes further by talking about how seriously Jesus takes the knowing-doing problem.  And you can see the effect of podcasting, as this pastor in Pittsburgh raves about the sermon and also picks-up on the notion of the knowing-doing gap.  As I’ve said before, I am not a particularly religious person, but I am glad that people who are religious find the ideas developed by my co-authors and me to be useful.

Worst Employees of the Year

This CNN.Com story is pretty sick.  Funny in some places, but deeply troubling in others.  The absolute worst employees I ever dealt with are at Air France.  If my experience is representative, they are openly hostile and proud of their incompetence. In The No Asshole Rule, I talk about why I once had strategic temper tantrum at six Air France employees who were so busy talking to each other that they seemed to totally forget that dealing with customers was part of their job.  I was a bit concerned that my French publisher would be unhappy about putting this story in the French version of the book, Objectif Zéro-sale-con. I didn't know whether to be relieved or upset when they told me that Air France was infamous for bad service, especially toward people who don't speak French!

Fry's Electronics in Palo Alto is a runner-up for me. They aren't hostile, just hapless and poorly trained.  My experience is that they are always trying to sell you things that you don't need, including accessories that don't work with the camera, TV, or whatever you are buying from them. The saving grace at Fry's is the customers.  There are a lot of very knowledgeable and helpful people in Palo Alto; indeed, I've witnessed (and benefited from) customers who interrupt and correct Fry's employees who are giving bad advice!

To return to the CNN story, here are of my favorite pair of bad examples from the story:

Forget about clients

The last employee to leave a child's day care center in Dallas accidentally left a 14-month-old girl locked inside alone; not realizing the child was still there. The girl was found safe and sound, according to police reports. (Source: The Associated Press)

In a separate incident, while a 73-year-old woman looked through her safe deposit box, employees of a California Bank of America accidentally locked her in the building, according to authorities. The cleaning person called police when she found the woman unconscious and cold to the touch. The woman apparently passed out because she hadn't taken her diabetes medication. (Source: The Associated Press, MSNBC.com)

P.S. An important footnote. Employees who are this incompetent usually act this way because they are victims of a bad system, bad management, or both.  As I've emphasized here before, when leaders focus on getting rid of crappy systems, the problems with "bad people" often evaporate.  Although I should hasten to add that even the greatest companies have a few "bad apples."

Fortune's 101 Dumbest Business Moments of 2007

I just read Fortune's list of the "101 dumbest business moments" of 2007 and it is deeply funny and deeply troubling.  My favorite, because it is such a stunning display of arrogance and bad business judgment, is number 51.  It might be subtitled "Yes, we really do believe that our customers are complete idiots." (And this letter may also explain why Apple's last General Counsel did not last very long: perhaps the options scandal has nothing to do with it.)

51. Apple

One, two, three, four, we'll sue you if you send us more

Nine-year-old Shea O'Gorman sends a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting ideas for improving her beloved iPod Nano, including adding onscreen lyrics so people can sing along. She gets back a letter from Apple's legal counsel stating that the company doesn't accept unsolicited ideas and telling her not to send in any more suggestions.

Let me know your favorite.  I also was impressed with Stanley Bing's humility and ability to laugh at himself. Check out his list of Bing's Dumbest Moments of 2007.  In the spirit of Bing's list, I had a lot of dumb moments this year.  A lot of them centered around forgetting things, including losing two cell phones, one iPod, a leather jacket, and checking into the wrong hotel in New York City (and not having any information about the right one).

P.S. Most of these dumb moments provide further support for the saying that Diego and I love so much: Failure sucks, but instructs.  As you read them, don't just think "those idiots," I would suggest thinking: "Why would such smart people do such dumb things?"  And perhaps "What can I learn from this mistake so I won't be on the list next year?" 

Why Sham Employee Participation Is Worse Than No Participation at All

I got an email for an unhappy colleague in Europe this morning, complaining about all the hours that he spent on a faculty committee that was supposed to provide "user input" that would allegedly shape the design of a new building. He complained:  "I feel so used for having agree to be part of the building committee.  I haven't felt this way since I came to [the university].    Not one thing I said or argued for the whole time mattered.  Not one thing the consulting company who did the early study of our needs for space mattered.....[My wife] warned me when I joined the committee that they would use the faculty committee for legitimation and do what they wanted anyway."

It is easy to understand this professor's unhappiness; he devoted a huge amount of time to this process, and felt as if no one listened to his committee at all.  Perhaps the committee did have an impact; but let's just assume -- as he reports -- that the administration did convene this committee, that the committee spent many hours giving input to the process, and that not a single bit of advice they offered was used.   I would call this "sham participation," a term I think I have stolen from another organizational researcher.  This professor isn't the first victim of sham participation and won't be the last.  It will keep happening for several reasons:

1. First, as research on "Institutional Theory" has shown again and again, organizations often take "symbolic actions" that have no effect on what is actually done, but that administrators can point to as evidence that they are doing "the right thing."  In other words, these are "ceremonial" signs that they are conforming to social norms.  The classic case is when an organization appoints a diversity officer, or even builds an entire diversity office, but then takes no steps to hire or promote minorities or women -- and whenever anyone complains about diversity issues or just wants to talk about them, they trot-out the diversity officer.  In the present case, appointing a faculty committee and bringing in a consulting firm to talk to users provides a serious amount of "window dressing" that can be used to "legitimate" decisions even if the faculty had no influence over at all, and perhaps never could have had any influence over the building design.

2.  There is also an issue of power dynamics.  In the case of universities, the users (faculty, staff, and students) are different from the customers.   The administration is the customer, and often, more specifically, the decision is made by building planners, accountants, and other groups who will have the real power over budget and design decisions.  As such, the preferences held by people with the real power will usually trump those of the people who will use and live in the building.  If you look at many other decisions, you can see similar dynamics.  In hospitals, the people who make decisions about medical supplies -- including those used in surgery -- are often different than the people who use the supplies, and on and on.  I have heard a lot of surgeons complain about the lousy equipment that the hospital buys them.   

3. In addition to these more "organizational," explanations, there are some psychological forces at work that make it very difficult for experts (like architects and builders) to learn from users -- who are seen as naive.  Being an expert is great, because you know so much about a given subject, but it is also narrowing.  In general, we all suffer from what psychologists call confirmation bias:  we tend see what we believe, to place great weight on facts or opinions that support our beliefs, and to place less weight on facts and opinions that clash with our beliefs. As Simon and Garfunkel sung it (I think in The Boxer), "a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest."  There is reason to believe that this cognitive bias is even stronger among experts than others.  One of my Stanford colleagues, Pam Hinds, has studied aspects of this problem, which she calls "the curse of expertise." It turns out that experts have an especially difficult time putting themselves in others' shoes.  Or to put it another way, people with great experience have a hard time "listening as if they are wrong."  Over time, the irony is that, the more years of experience an expert has, the harder it may become for him or her to update in the face of new information, as the expert says to him or herself "I've been doing this for 20 years, I know more than you." In such cases, my colleague Andy Hargadon likes to ask: "Do you have 20 years of experience, or the same year of experience 20 times?"

For an extreme view of the danger of experts, see this story about David Sackett, one of the founders of the evidence-based medicine movement in North America.  To give you a taste:

'Writing in this week's British Medical Journal (BMJ), Canadian-based researcher, David Sackett, said that he would "never again lecture, write, or referee anything to do with evidence based clinical practice". Sackett is not doing this because he has ceased to believe in evidence based clinical practice but, as the BMJ comments, because he is worried about the power of experts in stifling new ideas and wants the retirement of experts to be made compulsory.'

So, a host of organizational and psychological forces suggest that administrators will keep using sham participation. Doing so legitimates their decisions even when the users needs are completely ignored; when users are not the customer, they will be routinely ignored (especially when they lack power); and even when experts try to listen to "naive" users, they will have a hard time "hearing" anything users say that clashes with their prior opinions.

My view, however, is that isn't completely hopeless. and I suggest a few guidelines for starters:

1.  If you are an administrator, you should realize that if you really have no intention of listening to users or employees, that they will be happier in the end if you just tell them the truth -- that they don't really have any influence over the decision, and and that you don't want to waste their time by pretending that the users have any influence.

2. If you, as an administrator, feel compelled to still have a symbolic process to point to, if you feel compelled to engage in sham participation anyway, appoint a small committee of employees and select people who aren't doing anything especially valuable anyway.  Also, hold just a few short meetings. That way, the productivity of the organization will suffer as little as possible.

3. Hire the least expensive and least disruptive consultant you can find; if you aren't going to listen to them anyway, you might as well waste as little money and time as possible.

4. If you as an employee or user are asked to join a committee of some kind to provide input or to represent some group of users, and you are fairly certain that it will be an exercise in sham participation, refuse to join the committee. 

5.  In some organizations, a more socially acceptable strategy is to say you will join the committee, but to miss most meetings, and to arrive late and leave early when you do attend a meeting.  I guess this is a safer strategy for anyone who wants to be an effective organizational politician. These latter strategies mirror institutional theory -- you as an individual can engage in "symbolic" membership in the committee, and thus have little or no impact on a committee that, in turn, has little or no impact. That way, you can ingratiate yourself with your superiors by pretending to support the sham, and everyone is happy that you are playing the meaningless game so well (except perhaps for the users whose needs are completely ignored).

These guidelines are, I confess, fairly obnoxious.  Here I turn to my colleague and friend Jeff Pfeffer, who often points out that  leaders and managers in many organizations complain that their people aren't productive enough, while simultaneously placing demands on people that make it impossible for them to find time to actually do their jobs.

Comments? 

Why These Two Guys Are So Much Alike

There was a great article in this Sunday’s New York Times about music guru Rick Rubin, who was hired last May to be co-head of Columbia records. Rubin took the job under unusual conditions. He never goes to a corporate office. He doesn’t have a phone or a desk. He doesn’t travel. What he does do is just listen to music, select artists, and help them make their material stronger. Rubin has one of the strongest track records in the business, serving as a producer to stars including the Dixie Chicks, Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Weezer, and Neil Diamond.  It can take him years to finish an album. As the artists write songs, they are constantly scrutinized and criticized by Rubin. The Dixie Chick’s Natalie Maines says that “he listens with his eyes closed” and then he gives precise and instant advice like “You need a new chorus.” Rick Rubin is not your usual executive.  He is, however, deeply knowledgeable about the process of making music.

Two things about this story struck me. The first is about creativity. It is interesting that Columbia has paired Rubin with a traditional executive named Steve Barnett. Barnett is the guy who has an office and a phone has to go to all those corporate meetings.  And a guy like Rubin needs a partner like that. That’s one of the things that I realized when I was writing Weird Ideas That Work. Whenever there is someone who seems to be breaking all the rules – -be it Richard Branson of Virgin, Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman, or Beatle John Lennon -- there always seem to be  a “straight man” (or woman), or a lot of them, who provide cover and does the routine and often less glamorous stuff that needs to be done – John Lennon admitted toward the end of his life that he never could have been so creative (and so difficult) without the “cover” provided by Paul McCartney and manager Brian Epstein.

   The other thing that struck me about this story was that the move was lot like what Ford Motor Company did in 1985. They appointed a lifetime Ford executive, Don Petersen, as head of the company.  The comparison between Petersen and Rubin may seem odd, but when I interviewed Petersen in 1990’s, a few years after he retired, he said something that really stuck with me. He said something like: “I guess that they were so desperate to save the company that that they actually appointed someone to be CEO who knew something about making cars and trucks, not another bean counter.”  Under Petersen’s leadership, they came out with the Ford Taurus and massively increased the quality of their cars and trucks.  Jeff Pfeffer also told me a story – he has talked to Petersen more than I have – that goes something like this: During the first meeting that Petersen went to as CEO, he pointed out after an hour or so that no one in the room had yet mentioned the words “car” or “truck,” and perhaps that was part of their problem.

Indeed, when Jeff Pfeffer and I started looking into leaders that were skilled at turning knowledge into action, who weren’t just masters of smart talk, a pattern emerged – they actually understood something about the work they were leading and the product or service that their firm is providing. Indeed, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Martha Sterwart, and Steve Jobs certainly have their quirks, as do the Larry and Serge at Google, but I think it is no accident that those folks know so much about the products that their companies produce and the markets where they are sold. So, to me, the move to hire Rubin is a lot like the move to Petersen – - both companies reached a point of desperation where they felt compelled to find someone who had the deepest possible knowledge about what they make and sell.

Finally, what should leaders do who end-up leading a company where they don’t understand the work? That happens a lot, and executive firms often press for leaders from outside the company or industry to take CEO jobs. One answer is provided by Bill George, who led Medtronic during the period that it went from “Good to Great,” and is profiled in Jim Collins' best-seller.  George is now a Harvard Business School Professor and author of a couple of books.  When he took over Medtronic, he didn’t know much about the medical device industry, so rather than jumping in and ordering everyone around right away, he spent most of his first year in hospitals, watching doctors install medical devices, talking to them, to patients, and to executives and managers at hospitals who often make the decisions to buy the devices. After he learned a bit about the business and the work done by its customers, George then started devoting more time to more traditional CEO activities.

So, the lesson is that organizations are lot easier to manage well when the people in charge understand the work itself.  They can provide better guidance, they know when to get out of the way, and they are better able to tell when an employee or external advisor has good -- or bad -- ideas.

Ideas from Google to Help Microsoft

About two weeks back, I wrote a post about the search engine battles between Yahoo! and Google.  I acknowledged that Google was and is one of the most impressive companies in business history.  But I titled the post: Arrogance: Google's Achilles' Heel?.  I expressed concern (as have others) that excessive pride and the feeling that somehow people in the firm were smarter than other human beings could be the firm's undoing; and I contrasted the Google spirit with the Jerry Yang's renowned modesty (Yang is Yahoo!'s co-founder and now new CEO).

That post generated some interesting comments, notably from a couple current Google job candidates.  And it prompted Dave, one of the folks who makes comments on this blog and sends me some very interesting emails, to point me to a fascinating blog posting that is -- apparently -- making the rounds at Microsoft.  This post is called Life at Google - The Microsoftie Perspective.  It is intriguing because it seems to be written by someone who worked at Google, but now works at Microsoft, and it presents one of the rare balanced inside glimpses into Google.  And it contains thoughtful suggestions about practices that Microsoft should steal from Google (including free food and Google's amazing tech support). 

My view is that the competition among Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft is a great thing for consumers.  I am rooting for it to go on for years.  In particular, I think a little more competition in the search engine business would be especially beneficial to everyone (well, except perhaps to Google shareholders).

P.S. I thought one of the most interesting comments that I got was from a current Google job candidate who asked about Google's "Don't be Evil" policy. As I discuss in the The No Asshole Rule,  my discussions  with people at Google (including senior executives and recent hires) suggest that this motto is, or at least was, a force against hiring and encouraging nasty people. Here is what the candidate (who posted under "anonymous") reported:

'I have had two phone interviews with Google in the past week. I have asked each interviewer about the “don’t be evil” policy at Google. In both cases, the first words out of the interviewer’s mouth were “We are environmentally friendly….” I was working under the prevailing assumption that the first cannon of the “don’t be evil” policy would be “Don’t treat your fellow employee like an asshole.” I guess my assumption was incorrect.'

Management Philosophies: The Virtues of Authenticity vs. the Dangers of Hypocrisy

I led a discussion of The Knowing-Doing Gap with a group of about 60 project managers yesterday. The Knowing-Doing Gap was my first management book; Jeff Pfeffer and I published it in 2000. But interest in it persists.  After all, every organization (no matter how successful) struggles to turn knowledge into action.

Project managers are an especially interesting group to talk with about gaps between talk and action because they are often charged with implementing what senior managers say. This means that, if what executives say is helpful and authentic, it helps them do their jobs.  But if those words are useless, hypocritical, or insincere, then it makes their jobs a lot harder – and it breeds cynicism as they are forced to ignore or even defy what their leaders say to get their jobs done.

This all came into sharp focus yesterday when we were talking about management philosophies, and how the best leaders use philosophies that are general enough to guide a wide range of actions, but specific enough to actually be useful.  I gave some of my favorite examples. At IDEO, they say “enlightened trial and error outperforms the planning of flawless intellects.” This sounds like fancy language, but at IDEO, it means – whether it is a product, a customer experience, or an organizational process you are developing – that you better spend most of your time developing and testing prototypes, rather than talking about ideas that MIGHT work. At Intel, they say “disagree and then commit.” This means that, before a decision, you are expected to argue about what should be done and why, but after the decision is made, the time for argument is over.  Instead, it is your job to help implement it rather than to keep second guessing the decision.

The project managers gave lots of examples, both good and bad, of management philosophies that they lived under. The most impressive was manager who worked at Genentech who printed out their philosophy, brought to the class, read it, and explained how it affected so much of what she and her colleagues did every day. Here it is, straight from the first page of their website:

Genentech's mission is to be the leading biotechnology company, using human genetic information to develop novel medicines for serious and life-threatening diseases. We commit ourselves to high standards of integrity in contributing to the best interests of patients, the medical profession, our employees, our communities and our stockholders.

This project manager emphasized that the phrase “using human genetic information to develop novel medicines for serious and life-threatening diseases” shaped whether or not they would try to tackle a problem and how they would do it. In particular, she emphasized, that Genentech focused on projects where they used cutting edge science and carefully avoided “me too” products that are developed by so many pharmaceutical firms. She emphasized that they talked about this phrase constantly, and that it not only affected which projects they started, it also guided the decision-making process for pulling the plug on projects. Finally, she emphasized that there was virtually no cynicism within the company about the philosophy -- something I find impressive, and perhaps the best litmus test of any management philosophy.

In contrast, another project manager from a large utility gave an unfortunate example of what happens when a company has an inauthentic philosophy, something that executives write and say that turns out to be untrue or a half-truth. In this case it was “Delight the Customer,” which she emphasized was not a true goal because they are monopoly and so it was the kind of thing that did not actually guide anyone’s behavior inside the company, but did generate cynicism among both employees and customers.

My “philosophy” on such statements is that, if you aren’t absolutely serious about living-up to them, or your company will be unable to do so, it is better to say nothing than to come across as hypocrite. The best cautionary tale I know of in this regard (given my focus on civilized workplaces) was the fiasco that the large law firm Holland & Knight had a few years ago, when after ballyhooing their “no jerks” policy to the press, a host of accusations of sexual harassment and related problems leaked out into the press -- especially to the St. Petersburg Times.  To quote that newspaper, the lawyer at the center of this storm, Doug Wright, tried to defend himself at one point as follows:

In his defense during the investigation, Wright said he did not target women, and this week denied the harassment allegations to this newspaper.

"I joke and tease with everyone," he stated last year. "I suppose some might think that makes me an indiscriminate jerk."

I don’t believe that being an equal opportunity jerk is “better” than just acting like a jerk toward woman alone. And I do believe that that being known as a hypocritical and asshole infested company is even worse than being known as just an asshole infested company.

The upshot of all this is that a well-honed philosophy can have powerful and positive effects, in part, because one of the most important jobs of leadership is to help people make decisions about where they should be focusing efforts -- and a good philosophy like the one at Genentech can have such effects. BUT if a leader pushes a philosophy, he or she better mean it, or the hypocrisy will become obvious  to everyone, and breed cynicism both inside and outside the organization.

15 Things I Believe

These 15 beliefs are posted to the left on this blog too.  But I thought it might be useful to have them in a post as well,  These are current as of December 26, 2007.  I expect that they will change.

1. Sometimes the best management is no management at all -- first do no harm!

2. Indifference is as important as passion.

3. In organizational life, you can have influence over others or you can have freedom from others, but you can't have both at the same time.

4. Saying smart things and giving smart answers are important. Learning to listen to others and to ask smart questions is more important.

5. Learn how to fight as if you are right and listen as if you are wrong: It helps you develop strong opinions that are weakly held.

6. You get what you expect from people. This is especially true when it comes to selfish behavior; unvarnished self-interest is a learned social norm, not an unwavering feature of human behavior.

7. Getting a little power can turn you into an insensitive self-centered jerk.

8. Avoid pompous jerks whenever possible. They not only can make you feel bad about yourself, chances are that you will eventually start acting like them.

9. The best test of a person's character is how he or she treats those with less power.

10. The best single question for testing an organization’s character is: What happens when people make mistakes?

11. The best people and organizations have the attitude of wisdom: The courage to act on what they know right now and the humility to change course when they find better evidence.

12. The quest for management magic and breakthrough ideas is overrated; being a master of the obvious is underrated.

13. Err on the side of optimism and positive energy in all things.

14. It is good to ask yourself, do I have enough? Do you really need more money, power, prestige, or stuff?

15. Jim Maloney is right: Work is an overrated activity

More Trouble Canceling HP Orders

I wrote a post a couple months ago about how difficult it was to cancel an order I had JUST made for an HP computer, and how when I complained on the phone to the HP salesperson, his justification was that it was "industry standard," which really pushed my buttons -- as the logic is "I am going to treat my customers badly just because everyone does."

It seems that their systems remains the same. I got a note from Michael Wellman from Washington, titled "HP Hocus Pocus." Here is Michael's note:

Dear Bob,

 I am going through almost the exact thing you have suffered at the hands of HP.  Right down to my complaint about not having a way to cancel the order on line.

I placed my order on Dec 17 and I tried to cancel several times beginning on the 19^th.  I finally talked to “Mark” at HP Home on Thursday Dec 21.  He said he would “try” to cancel the order, and HP would contact me within 48 hours.  Today, Dec 25, I got an email that the order had shipped from Shanghai, China. I have also been a loyal HP Customer for over 30 years, and feel the entire system is designed so that you cannot cancel an order.  And in this case, the order was not supposed to ship until Jan 12, 2007 anyway.  Do you suppose they put a rush on it to prevent it from getting canceled?

I am not sure what is going on at HP, but I find this discouraging because I have been to loyal to HP for a long time and think it is a great company. And one of the reasons they have passed Dell, I am told, is that they have better customer service.  I would like an explanation from HP, and more than anything else, I would like them to fix it. I worked for years with former HP executive Corey Billington, who was a supply chain guru within HP, and at least if they still have the same level of talent and loyalty to HP, I am confident that they can figure out how to fix this problem -- if they want.

Michael, thanks for letting me post your email. Let's see if we can get an answer -- and better yet -- some changes from HP!.

Why "Industry Standard" is a Dumb Excuse

I ordered a PC online from HP last night, as I had bought one for my mother and was quite happy with it. Well, after I ordered it, I realized immediately that it would not ship until November 10th, and I did not want to wait that long. So I started a journey to cancel the order.

Here is what it entailed:

1. I spent about 30 minutes going through the emails from HP and their website and found no specific information about how to stop the order before it was shipped -- even though I had just ordered it minutes before. Note that after looking for another 20 minutes the next day I eventually figured that the website does address the problem -- it says that it is probably impossible to do it, but if a mistake was made, they will try.

2. I eventually found a number that seemed right and called, after about 15 minutes of going back and forth with the guy on the phone and being left on hold, I was told I would have to call back the next day because I was "8 minutes too late," although I am not sure what I missed.

3. I called this morning and was on hold 20 minutes or so. Then I was told that I would have to talk to the supervisor. I was put on hold. The person came back and offered me $100 to not cancel, I declined and said that I didn't want to order something from a company that made it so hard to cancel an order.  I was put on hold again, and then a supervisor told me that he would have to call the factory to cancel the order. I was put on hold and waited for the confirmation, which eventually came through.

4. I also complained to the supervisor about the fact it was impossible to cancel the order online, there was unclear information about how to cancel it or that it was impossible to do so online, and that it was an incredibly complex process to cancel. His answer was that what HP did was INDUSTRY STANDARD. I am not joking.

I am very loyal to HP, the current scandal pains me because I've known so many lovely and smart people who have worked there.  And as a faculty member in the Stanford School of Engineering, the generosity of Bill and Dave has made my life better in many ways -- Packard donated the funds for the building I work in, and they each donated two other buildings, and the Packard Children's Hospital was where my daughter Eve was born.  I have met many lovely and caring people from that hospital. I also am a big fan of Mark Hurd, who I think has done a great job of implementing the merger (who knows if it was the right strategy, but he did a great job with the cards he was dealt) and cleaning up Carly's mess in other ways.  It is my hope that they get past this scandal and return to making the company even greater

BUT this excuse and the practice itself are bad business and represent failed logic. It also possibly a dishonest claim, as it easier to cancel orders for computers that are bought online elsewhere.

1. The justification that everyone else does it, so it is right, is irrational: Just because everyone else in an industry does something stupid, does that mean you should do it as well? You may recall the famous 1994 testimony to congress when 7 CEOs of major tobacco companies each stood up and asserted that they did not believe that nicotine was addictive -- telling that lie was industry standard too!

2. As we've shown with both evidence and examples in The Knowing-Doing Gap and especially Hard Facts, mindless imitation of what has always been done in an industry or a company is one of the surest paths to destruction.  And even great companies -- and Dell and HP are still great companies in many ways -- often do many stupid things. Think of the most successful people you know -- many do unwise and destructive things, and they succeed despite themselves.

3. Breaking out of a dumb industry standard is how newcomers -- or reformed old-timers -- come to dominate an industry. Look at the iPod, Google (they were told that a technologically superior search engine wasn't worth it, it was all marketing), and the Men's Wearhouse.

4. This also reminds of AOL's PR fiasco a few months back where they got in enormous trouble for arguing with and refusing to cooperate with a person who wanted to cancel his subscription (See Bad Behavior at AOL). The people at HP were very polite and never argued with me, but like at AOL, are just trapped in a bad system and are apparently trained to say dumb things.  It also smells like one of those cases where, to hit short-term numbers, a company puts in place a system that can cause long-term damage to customer relationships -- like AOL.

5. Finally, the supervisor's claim that it was "industry standard" -- which I infer means making it impossible to cancel the order online, making it unclear how to cancel it at all, and to use a time consuming and friction-filled process for cancelling it -- turns out to be not quite the truth. At least if you define online sellers of computers as part of the same industry. It turns out that if I order an HP computer online from Amazon, and decide I want to cancel it before it is shipped, it is actually possible to do online, clearly explained, and easy to implement. Again, perhaps industry standard is a codeword for Dell. I would also add that this is yet another reason that I remain faithful to Amazon. They aren't perfect, but they do seem to value customers and put us first.

I usually try to avoid personal rants on this blog, but there are too many lessons in this one. There are general lessons about how imitation can become a substitute for thinking, about the damage done by copying misguided competitors, and how training people to say really dumb things can be bad PR. 

There are also specific lessons about things that HP needs to do:  I urge them to more clearly explain "How to cancel your order before we ship it" and even eventually put in a path for "Cancelling your order online."  Note the first change could be done in a day.