Robert I. Sutton's Blog, page 15

I am blogging only intermittently as I am pretty focused on reading, talking to people, and generally fretting, worrying, and trying to structure the book on scaling constructive action that Huggy Rao and I are trying to write. I have been reading everything from psychological experiments on how different metaphors affect our perceptions and action, to studies of the mathematical and administrative challenges of scaling computer systems, to research on cities of different sizes (especially some interesting stuff that suggests bigger is better). But the area where scaling has been studied perhaps most directly is in  education, including studies of how to replicate great charter schools and how to substitute effective practices for ineffective practices in large school systems.  

This weekend, I read an old (1993) but excellent study commissioned by the Casey foundation on what it takes comprehensive school reform in large school systems.  I was taken with its counter-intuitive title "The Path of Most Resistance"  (see the PDF here), in part, because it ran counter to some of the (evidence-based) assumptions that we have developed about scaling, including the notion that scaling depends on finding ways to simplify things and reduce cognitive load on people, and the notion that changes that are consistent with local cultures and traditions are easier to implement than those that run counter to embedded beliefs. 

As I read the report, however, I realized that the authors agreed with some of these points, as they weren't arguing that leaders should TRY to make things harder on themselves, but rather, to do large scale change right, there argument was that a lot of very hard things need to get done.  They argued that taking the easy way out -- expecting instant results; not taking the time to engage with parents, students, administrators, local politicians and other key crucial actors; doing it on the cheap; expecting everything to go smoothly--  and a host other "easy solutions  -- simply weren't realistic or wise for would-be change agents. The examples of successful large scale change they examined all took pretty much the opposite approach -- there was a lot of patience and a long term perspective, time was taken to involve major constituencies, lots of resources were devoted to the effort, and a host of other tactics that entailed doing things the hard way rather than the easy way. 

More broadly, I think it is intriguing to use their title to flip assumptions about change.  Sometimes the tougher road is the better road, as people go in with a more realistic mindset, they are ready for setbacks,  and expect to spend the time and money necessary.  And, as an added bonus, any social psychologist will tell you that the more effort and sacrifice people make toward something, the more committed they will be to it.   Indeed, as I watch successful innovators -- ranging from the teams we teach at Stanford's design school to Pixar's amazing journey -- the most successful tend to have this "it is going to be tough, but I can and will do it" mindset.

On the other hand, I think there is an important caveat, one the Jeff Pfeffer and I have written about in Hard Facts. One of the impediments to successful change is that people use the belief that "it is difficult and takes a long time" to avoid trying to make necessary changes at all.  Or, worse yet, they  propose a long-term change process, but only start working on it just before the "due date" -- perhaps proposing a two-year project, but doing all the work in the final months (much like my students who, even though I assign a paper months in advance, don't start it until the night before).  In addition, there are many constructive changes that are not difficult and do not take a long time -- such as changing small rules or procedures, experimenting with a new and delimited program, and so on.   Unfortunately, all too often, large scale change is slowed or stopped because people delay or fail to complete the array of small and easy steps required to accomplish any large change (In other words, they fail to focus on the daily small wins).

Finally, there is an old but interesting lesson in creative thinking here, one consistent with the notion of "having strong opinions, weakly held."  The challenges of doing successful change look a lot different when you assume that "taking the path of least resistance" is best versus assuming that "taking the path of most resistance" is best.  Indeed, although they are pretty much exact opposites, you can learn a lot about change when you look for conditions under which each statement is true and false.  More generally, a good way to spark creativity is to take your most dearly held assumptions and ask "suppose the opposite were true?"

 

I can't believe that I missed this study reported by BPS research last January.  Way cool.  It compared the performance of men working in pairs to women working pairs.  The researchers placed them under performance pressure, and varied whether they drank caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee.   The "caffeinated" men performed worse, while the women performed better.  Here is the opening paragraph from BPS, which suggested that the stimulant has these varying effects because, when cranked-up physiologically, people tend towered their most natural and well-rehearsed behavior -- which means that men get more aggressive and women become more collaborative:

If a meeting becomes stressful, does it help, or make things worse, if team members drink lots of coffee? A study by Lindsay St. Claire and colleagues that set out to answer this question has uncovered an unexpected sex difference. For two men collaborating or negotiating under stressful circumstances, caffeine consumption was bad news, undermining their performance and confidence. By contrast, for pairs of women, drinking caffeine often had a beneficial effect on these same factors. The researchers can't be sure, but they think the differential effect of caffeine on men and women may have to do with the fact that women tend to respond to stress in a collaborative, mutually protective style (known as 'tend and befriend') whereas men usually exhibit a fight or flight response.

Clearly, this is a "more research is needed" situation.  But, if it generalizes to real life, the implication is that, if you are running a meeting and it is attended by all women, give them caffeinated drinks, but if it is all men, or perhaps a blend of men and women, given them the decaf if you want cooperation and better performance.  

Here is the reference:

St. Claire, L., Hayward, R., and Rogers, P. (2010). Interactive Effects of Caffeine Consumption and Stressful Circumstances on Components of Stress: Caffeine Makes Men Less, But Women More Effective as Partners Under Stress. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 40 (12), 3106-3129 DOI:

  
My old buddy from graduate school, Larry Ford, sent me an email this morning and told me to check out Doonesbury.  To my amazement, it features The No Asshole Rule, or as they call it "The No A------- Rule."  Here is where you can go to see the complete cartoon. The cartoon does a great job of summarizing the main points of the book (see two frames above)  and then it goes on to use the ideas in the book to rip Donald Trump a new asshole (see below).

In my book, Trump really does qualify as a certified asshole, as having achieved the lowest level a human can short of committing horrific crimes or something.  His narcissism is something to behold. Listen to how often he uses the word "I" when he speaks about the buildings built by his company. He says things like "I built the Trump International Hotel and Tower."  It sounds as if no one helped at all, it was all him, designing the building, putting it up, and so on.

Trump also loves to sue people, as that is what a rich bully does.  And, as one lawyer I know well explained to me, there are an interesting group of people out there who sue others as a replacement for psychotherapy -- The Donald appears to be of this twisted ilk.  In this vein, I was talking to a former editor of a rather famous publication a few months back and I asked him who was the biggest asshole he ever dealt with -- it took less than a second for him to name Trump.  The editor then went on to tell me that, after his magazine published a piece on Trump, Trump called him and started screaming at him and told him that the lawsuit against the magazine was already being prepared. The former editor then asked Donald an interesting question: " Have you read the story?"  The Donald said "No."  After reading it, Trump decided not to sue. 

A lovely human being, huh?

Well, I never thought The No Asshole Rule would make Doonesbury. And given my intense dislike of The Donald, I am delighted with how it appeared.  Now, let's see if Trump already has his lawyers going after Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau because -- after all, that is what rich certified asshole would do!

I wrote a short essay for the June Harvard Business Review on why it is so important for leaders to step down gracefully, whether they are leaving voluntarily or not.  It was inspired by some leaders I know who have not stepped down gracefully, and in the process, have done moderate damage to their organizations and severe damage to their careers.  Here is how it opens:

Some CEOs of long tenure must have gotten a slightly queasy feeling as they watched the recent events in the Arab world. Even if they bear no resemblance at all to Hosni Mubarak or Muammar Gadhafi—even if they are the most competent and benevolent of leaders—they may well feel horror at how rapidly the fortunes of a comfortable autocrat can disintegrate. They may wonder at the frightening human tendency, when the writing is on the wall, to resort to the denial, delusions, anger, and antics we've seen from despots in Africa and the Middle East.

If you would like a free PDF of this little essay, you can find get it here: https://archive.harvardbusiness.org/cla/web/pl/product.seam?c=11746&i=11748&cs=1e30763be64402b7a624de281722f66b.  They only give 100 free ones so, when they are gone, they are gone. 

P.S. Please forgive my lack of new posts lately, I am focused on trying to get a new book started and have not been in the blogging mood!  I am hoping to start blogging a bit more soon, but can't predict my mood or motivation very well. 

 

I wrote a short essay for the June Harvard Business Review on why it is so important for leaders to step down gracefully, whether they are leaving voluntarily or not.  It was inspired by some leaders I know who have not stepped down gracefully, and in the process, have done moderate damage to their organizations and severe damage to their careers.  Here is how it opens:

Some CEOs of long tenure must have gotten a slightly queasy feeling as they watched the recent events in the Arab world. Even if they bear no resemblance at all to Hosni Mubarak or Muammar Gadhafi—even if they are the most competent and benevolent of leaders—they may well feel horror at how rapidly the fortunes of a comfortable autocrat can disintegrate. They may wonder at the frightening human tendency, when the writing is on the wall, to resort to the denial, delusions, anger, and antics we've seen from despots in Africa and the Middle East.

If you would like a free PDF of this little essay, you can find get it here: https://archive.harvardbusiness.org/cla/web/pl/product.seam?c=11746&i=11748&cs=1e30763be64402b7a624de281722f66b.  They only give 100 free ones so, when they are gone, they are gone. 

P.S. Please forgive my lack of new posts lately, I am focused on trying to get a new book started and have not been in the blogging mood!  I am hoping to start blogging a bit more soon, but can't predict my mood or motivation very well. 

 

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a huge fan of the power of small wins, and following Karl Weick's classic article, have argued in Good Boss, Bad Boss and here at HBR that big hairy goals cause people to freak-out and freeze-up if they aren't broken down into smaller stepping stones. Small wins are also a big theme in Peter Sims great book Little Bets, which I wrote about last week. Well, today I learned about a cool article in CIO about a book by Shawn Achor called The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology that Fuel Success and Performance at Work.

Check-out the article. I liked it a lot, notably the 20 Second Rule "To break a bad habit, add 20 seconds to the time it takes to engage in that bad habit." But my favorite part was his neurological explanation for the power of small wins and dangers of big hairy goals alone:

Goals that are too big paralyze you. They literally shut off your brain, says Achor. Here's what happens to your brain when faced with a daunting goal or project:

The amygdala, the part of the brain that responds to fear and threats, hijacks the "thinker" part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, says Achor. The amygdala steals resources from the prefrontal cortex, the creative part of the brain that makes decisions and sees possibilities.

"We watch this on a brain scan," he says. "The more the amygdala lights up, the less the prefrontal cortex does."Breaking a big goal into smaller, more achievable goals prevents the fear part of your brain from hijacking your thinking cap and gives you victories.

Pretty cool, huh?  I have not read Shawn's book, but it sounds cool. Bosses beware, setting those big goals without breaking them into bite-sized people (or allowing and encouraging your followers to do so) will make you and your people dumb and uncreative -- at least if Shawn is right. 

 

 

Earlier this week, I happend to be on the same plane with Chip Heath of Made to Stick and Switch fame, a friend I have known for years, long before either of us were writing books and we were focused only on writing academic articles. There was a long flight delay (apparently due to red tape at American Airlines, at least that was what the pilot complained about repeatedly.. I guess communication is a problem at AA as he said "we are always the last know" several times.. and in fact the AA website posted the correct departure time before he was informed of it). 

So we had a lot of time to talk.  We talked a lot about the new books we are each trying to write and traded ideas about studies and stories that might help one another develop our ideas. 

At one point, Chip told me about an intriguing study that his brother (and co-author) Dan had written about in Fast Company in 2009, one that I found fascinating.  The upshot is that people who were instructed to to rely on their "gut feelings" were far more ethical than those who were instructed to be "rational" and disregard their emotions.

This is Dan's lovely summary -- go here for the rest of the story:

Consider a provocative series of experiments conducted by Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto. He put test subjects into interactions with an anonymous partner where they had two options: to treat their partners fairly or to lie to them. If they decided to lie, they would gain at the expense of their partners.

Before making the decision to cheat or be fair, the test subjects were given some guidance. Some were encouraged to think rationally about the situation and to ignore their emotions. Equipped with this advice, the great majority (69%) analyzed the situation and concluded that they should screw their partners. Others were primed to "make decisions based on gut feelings." Their guts were pretty trustworthy: Only 27% lied.

There's a twist: Even though the study shows that we would be treated better by people who trust their feelings, we're leery of them. When people were given a choice to interact with a rational decision-making partner or a gut-trusting one, 75% chose the rational partner.

Zhong concluded that "deliberative processes can license morally questionable behaviors by focusing on tangible monetary outcomes and reducing emotional influence."'

Now, as Dan suggests, think of bias in business against "feelings" and for "rationality," a bias implied in the "twist" that he reports.  It is pretty scary.  It is also scary to see how many people lied... even 27% in the "feeling" condition and 69%, over two-thirds, in the "rational" condition. This study is also consistent with other research that shows, when people are focused on money, they turn individualistic and selfish, so there is other evidence that a narrow focus can lead to all sorts of destructive behavior.

The implications here for practice are, however, quite interesting.  As Chip explained as we chatted on that delayed flight, this little study suggests that when you are trying to promote ethical behavior, you should say things to others (and yourself) like "Don't just focus on winning and on how much money you are going to make, also think about how you are going to feel about yourself afterwards -- will you be proud or ashamed?"   I like that advice, and indeed, as I watch some of the dreadful behavior by both politicians and executives, perhaps it might help them (and the rest of us) if they chanted this little mantra often.

Perhaps a more simple way to put it is, "How will you feel about yourself later?"  Not a bad mantra for all of us.

 

 

 

About 11,000 business books a year are published. Most of them aren't worth reading, either because you've heard it all before, they are badly written, not especially useful, and -- perhaps the most common flaw -- they are just no fun to read.  But, even though they are business books, there are always a few gems that you owe it to yourself to read.  Peter Sims Little Bets is one of those rarities.  I was blown away when I was asked to write blurb for the book, as I wrote:

"Peter Sims buries the myth that big talkers with brains and big ideas move industry and science forward. This modern masterpiece demonstrates that the most powerful and profitable ideas are produced by persistent people who mess with lots of little ideas and keep muddling forward until they get it right. Little Bets is easily the most delightful and useful innovation book published in the last decade."

As the book is now out, I  took some time to visit with it again this morning --  I remain impressed.  Ye3s, Peter is a friend of mine, but most of my friends don't write books this compelling.  The first thing that struck me was the power of Peter's writing voice.  He exudes curiosity and optimism, which as I read the pages, provoked a feeling of joy that I've hardly ever experienced when reading a business book -- I guess for me, Orbiting the Giant Hairball and The Art of Innovation had this effect, but it does not happen often.

 The second thing that struck me was the range of examples and the deftness with which Peter applies them to make points about small bets and in his lovely chapters (I especially like "Problems are the New Solutions" and "Questions are the New Answers.")  He uses everything from Chris Rock, to architect Frank Geary, to Pixar's Ed Catmull, to a U.S. Army General in Iraq, and many others.  He does this with such skill that I occasionally had to stop and admire how he had written a sentence or paragraph -- I struggle to do this kind of thing day after day,it is a lot harder than it looks.

Third, although Small Bets has many twists and turns, perhaps the core idea is the power of small wins, Karl Weick's powerful concept.  This is a message that comes through in other business books (including Good Boss, Bad Boss -- see this post --  and in at least one other forthcoming business book I just read called The Progress Principle by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer).  The power of small wins is not only supported by strong empirical research, it provides an antidote, and at times a useful companion, to all the management theorists who spew out stories of big hairy goals, bold vision, exciting futures, and all that without providing resources or specifying just what people need to do day after day to achieve such magnificent ends.  Little Bets is so useful to read because it shows, on page after page, what you can do and how to think day after day about things like problems, solutions, failure, and fun to make great things happen. 

I could go on and on... but you would be better off using your time reading the book than reading more of my words about it!

P.S. You might also want to check out Peter's website.

 

Huh?  How did that happen?

I was just poking around the web, and to my amazement, I ran into a book that just came out on March 29, 2011 called (see the Amazon link if you want): Good Boss, Bad Boss: Lessons from Effective and Not-So-Effective Managers. It written  by a consultant named Dr. Doreen McGunagle, CEO of Global Strategic Management Solutions. Note the title is identical to my Good Boss, Bad Boss, and the subtitle is also very close to my "How to be the best... and learn from the worst."  I will buy the book and read it to make sure that none of the content is lifted ( I suspect it is not, I certainly hope it is not). 

I sent this information to my publisher and they may take some kind of action against her.  I am not a big believer in suing people in general, and honestly, in this case, I don't think this book will do any financial damage to me.   But my main reaction is just to be disgusted, to wonder how this could happen?  Did she see my title and then forget it existed -- but then later believe she had invented it herself?  We humans do things like this sometimes.  That is the most charitable explanation.  The others are much less charitable, that she is trying to get book sales and consulting work on the back of the the original Good Boss, Bad Boss as it was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller.   I am not angry with the author, rather, mostly dismayed that anyone would be sloppy or so brazen as to lift the title of another management book and to treat it as her own.  She ought to be embarrassed and ashamed, which is punishment enough.  If she isn't, and believes her actions are defensible, well, I think that reflects even more poorly on her. 

So, that was my little surprise today.  I was pretty shocked by the whole thing, and the more I think about, the harder it is for me to understand why and how this happened. What is the upside for her or her publisher?  Doesn't it just reflect badly on them? 

I would appreciate any thoughts that readers might have, as this whole thing has me quite befuddled.

I was delighted to get a copy of The No Asshole Rule translated into Slovenian this week.  It just tickles me the different ways that different cultures spin the cover and the language, from the crazy Polish cover to the beautiful red  Italian one.  Below is the cover of Slovenian version. I am wondering, is it called something like  "The No Pig Rule." What is the subtitle?  Do you think this is a good translation of the book's main message? 

If you speak Slovenian, or know someone who does, I would love to know the answer to the questions.  In any case, I like the clean design and that little pig os pretty cute.