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.

Comments

[dblwyo]

Bob - this post and it's sibling (and the vid) on HuffPost point to a real challenge/opportunity for strategic advantage. Not sure I've cracked the code on how to make it happen - will likely take more ruminations :). And, ahem, stumbling from tactical expedient to tactical expedient seems to be working pretty well for you even if you're not strategic.

But....the reactions to "No Asshole" indicate you've touched a real nerve. One of the things the book, discussions, etc. did for me was to cause me to seriously consider HR as truly strategic - mindshift of monumental proportions. But it lies at the strategic corp of the chord you're finding - HR is not just about pay, grade levels, benefits & review processes. Those are the admin to which it's both allowed itself to be relegated and pushed by lack of executive support. Strategic HR is about developing the human capital of the organization and getting the best performance out of it.

The vid and the projects managers - the whole exchange on authenticity - is about executives being honest with the troops and themselves, not operating for their own advantage but leading for the overall benefit of the organization and having the moral courage and leadership to adapt to new requirements (rather than continue to play self-aggrandizing politics).

Human development is as important, therefore, to organizational sucess as the capital or development efforts and shares many of their characteristics.

No Assholes touches that emotional point in many where they'd like to do a good job and be treated with respect and dignity for doing it AND is also a major strategic indictment of any organization that tolerates that sort of behavior.

The questioin then becomes what executive attitudes and skills are required, what HR practices and what institutional design are Respectful (btw respect for the individual should include a willingness to tell them when they've screwed up or when they're not qualified for a position) and Authentic.

Let me leave the ranting there but you're on something important here that further development of is potentially extremely powerful and valuable. And in case anyone doubts the importance of authentic leadership today's WSJ has a superb article on the gap between jr. leaders and the sr. and the impact it's having in Iraq. Highly recommended. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118306191403551931.html?mod=hps_us_pageone

[Wally Bock]

The discussion of "management philosophies" reminds me of the distinction Chris Argyris makes between the "Theory Espoused" and the "Theory in Use." Whether you call them philosophies or theories or values there is often a big disconnect between saying and doing.

[Lee]

I watched in horror as a local engineering company, Humongous Steel Stuff, Inc. (Those who know, know.), laid off top project management people.

Senior management had taken as their mantra, "Perception is reality." That mostly had to do with perceptions of their worth. Things were going well, it must be because of their superior management. Those project managers were expensive overhead.

It was only a few months before the company was hit with the first of multiple lawsuits over projects that were not being finished. Go figure.

Several project managers returned as consultants to finish projects. None were ever rehired as that would violate the iron perception that they were not needed.