Dan Erwin

What's Your Story?

Those who do not have power over the stories that dominate their lives, power to retell them, rethink, deconstruct them, joke about them, and change them as times change, truly are powerless because they cannot think new thoughts. –Salman Rushdie 

A good story is a key success factor for making a role, job or career change. What truly moves us as human beings, what prompts us into action is the emotion of a good story. Even overly rational, fact-oriented, data driven magazines and journals like Harvard Business Review, journals that think of business as a matter of pure rational calculation, emphasize the same point. Michael Hattersley wrote in an HBR article, “truth to tell, few talents are more important to managerial success than knowing how to tell a good story.”

Sure, people have used all kinds of means for developing and negotiating identities. When I started in the coaching business back in the early 1980s, one of my first jobs was awarded to me by the CIO of Pillsbury. He was an astute guy, exceptionally capable of identifying talent and helping his folk build an identity. That job--and I still laugh about it--was to take a young manager and teach him to dress for success. The CIO recommended laundered cotton shirts, new ties, better suits and polished shoes. “So you’re going to pay me that much to coach him in his dress?” That young manager has since had three superb CIO jobs at well-known corporations. Obviously, his identity worked. And, we’re still intimate buddies. 

Although people have paid attention to dress, humor, personal style and even office décor to signal who they are, the most useful approach is through the development of a personal narrative. As Hermina Ibarra notes, a self-narrative is a story that makes a point about the person. Self-narratives not only express who we are, but they also create who we are. 

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook beginnings in his dorm room, Bill Gates’ dropout from Harvard, Hewlett and Packard’s and Steve Jobs’ garage beginnings, as well as Obama’s childhood stories are examples of self-narratives—personal stories—that are carefully crafted for public consumption. 

As a consultant, I learned early on that my personal narrative was exceptionally valuable, not only in the approach I took to my profession, but also as a tool to sell and manage to clients. I had to explain how I’d gone from a career as a minister, to that of a teacher and to that of a business consultant. My ability to relate that emotional story often was the determining factor in whether or not I got a consulting gig. 

In today’s world of free-lance, and “at will” employment, a personal narrative is especially valuable for everyone. At the heart of a new stream of research are the practice and strategy of crafting and negotiating work identities with stories. No one has completed a more fascinating study of identity stories than Ibarra’s work, dating from 2010. In her research, she ticks off some of the situations where your personal story will be of utmost value. 

• Career change
• Job change
• Team leadership
• New job
• High job stakes
• Interacting with high-status, powerful people
• Interactions with unfamiliar contacts
• Job interviews 

Having multiple personal identity stories is valuable in all kinds of situations. Even in questionable situations. In her research, Ibarra quotes an investment banker seeking to move into international development: 

With the nonprofits, the first hour of any interview was “Why the heck would somebody with your background and your pay scale be doing this?” It took an hour’s worth of credibility building; they weren’t wondering “What is your background and what can you offer” but “Are you insane?”

People not only construct identities by telling their story, they also reinvent themselves by telling new stories about what’s happening to them. They reinterpret past events and weave the past and the present into a repertoire. A repertoire that allows them to communicate their identity and negotiate it with others. 

Well, what’s your story?

Herminia Ibarra, Identity as Narrative. Academy of Management Review, 2010, Vol 35, No.1, 135-154.

Flickr photo: CTJ online

7 Behaviors That Keep Women From Getting Ahead

Over the past two years, this blog (published in April, 2010) has been number one in readership, reaping well over 25,000 unique visits. Numerous bloggers have referred to the blog, even plagiarizing the hell out of it (that’s fine with me). It’s also the most commented upon blog with extremely negative and even more extremely positive comments. The commenters engaged in several heated discussions with each other, positioning themselves within their own ideology.

Initially, I responded to some of the comments, but as time went on I realized that the discussion didn’t need my input.

So, I’m recycling it because of its popularity. . . and because of its obvious relevance to the workforce.

It strikes me that I need to explain why a male would write for females so directly. One of the reasons is that more than a quarter of my clients were women, many of whom stated that they wanted to work with a man who understood gender differences. The fact that our three daughters are also professionals plays into my personal interests. Still, as a scholar in the field of organizational and interpersonal communication, gender differences have been a hot topic for years, a topic that has always intrigued me.

You’ll notice that the blog is supported by a significant amount of research. Indeed, many of the topics have been systematically studied by many scholars. Second, I have tried to be as practical as possible, making the recommendations immediately useful.

_______________________

On numerous occasions over the years, I've coached women managers and execs. Recently, while going through my file on influence management, I stumbled on an old article by Mary Ellen Drummond entitled, Seven Things We Do That Keep Us From Getting Ahead, from a now defunct (?) magazine called Women Managers. Although these recommendations don't apply to a few female execs that I've worked with, they certainly apply to a large number. Drummond doesn't mention the basis for her conclusions, but because of my studies in nonverbal research I'm well aware that a number of the recommendations have a research basis. This information seems to go in cycles in business circles, but I've seen a number of recent articles on personal presentation. I'm also aware that the top business schools, including Booth, Kellogg, Harvard and Stanford give time in their program for personal presentation, usually in leadership development programs that focus on interpersonal communication.

I've found that typically, because of their socialization, women are not aware of these issues. The issues surface out of the assumption that business is a man's world, and that if a woman wants to succeed, she'll need to mimic some of the male behaviors. (Although I've seen and read all kinds of responses to that assumption, I recommend a great deal of flexibility in these issues. FYI: I've noticed more than a few men that need help with their business behaviors.)

Since what you don't know can hurt you, here are some things to think about and perhaps get some feedback on.

1. Women do not take up enough physical space. This is not a matter of size, but how you hold yourself when standing. If you expect to be perceived as a powerful person, stand with your feet apart, and perhaps your hands on your hips. Drummond recommends the steeple gesture, placing your hands so that just your fingertips are touching. This forces the palms apart and makes your arms take up more space whether standing or sitting. This is a classic negotiating posture, so watch for it when observing others.

Although Drummond doesn't mention this, it's a well-researched fact that when men and women all sit down at a large table, women take up far less room. Men put papers and books over as much as twice the space as women. I recommend that women spread out on the business table just like the men. Take ownership of a huge area of space. The difference often has a powerful impact on the discussion.

2. Women nod their heads when listening. A man nods his head only to show agreement, while women nod to show they're listening. Plenty of women in executive suites have been schooled to avoid this. Present yourself as a powerful person, not a nice lady. Just last week, I took my wife to see an endocrinologist at the university clinic. Prior to seeing the physician, the nurse took information and was nodding her head, encouraging my wife and me to talk. Then the physician, a nationally known woman walked into the room. The difference was shocking. Though smiling and warm, she was totally in charge from the time the door opened. She asked questions, but didn't nod. She interrupted me a couple times, probing for information. Once I acceded to her authority, the conversation became much more familiar. It was a hilarious experience for this communication scholar, but also a very powerful way for the physician to assert her authority. I had nothing but kudos and trust of her insights by the end of the session. Well done!

3. Women tilt their heads when they talk. Check this out and notice that women tilt their heads when listening and talking, without even knowing it. It is not a power position from which to speak. So keep your head up, chin forward and untilted, and relax your shoulders backward, not hunched tightly forward, when you want to speak. You want others to listen to you.

4. Women introduce themselves too soon. Research shows that no one listens to what's being said in the first 5 to 7 seconds of meeting new people. They're too busy visually checking you out, and they pay little to no attention to what's being said. That's why we forget the names of people we've just met. We weren't listening. So, when first meeting someone, explain what you do, the company you work for, and then, finally your name.

5. Women's voices rise at the ends of sentences. It makes a woman sound like she's asking a question and asking for assent instead of making a statement. There is a geographical component to this. Women from the Upper Midwest are terrible at this. Sometimes I just want to yell at the phone to get them to stop it. My wife, who's from Detroit, has never done that. My daughters? Not in a thousand years. I've seen them roll their eyes at a woman doing this. My middle daughter, in a playful mood, will mock someone doing it. When we moved to Minnesota and she was in the fourth grade, someone asked why she talked like she did--mouth open, and no questioning at the end of sentences. Her response? "Why would I want to talk like you?" Ummmm. Just to set you straight, she has a terrific number of friends, including a large number of Harvard, MIT researchers who think that when it comes to research protocols and animals, she's god.

6. Women fidget. Although I think this is somewhat dated, the research shows that when men enter a conference room, they make 12 major movements. Women make 27. Many of these involve pulling out a chair and sitting down, but then women start adjusting their clothes and jewelry. The more movements you make in business settings, the less powerful you seem to your colleagues. Beware what you do when you enter a room, and keep your movements to a minimum.

7. Women let men finish sentences for them. Fading out at the end of a sentence is more common for women than men, so is being interrupted. You need to complete your sentences and your ideas. So, keep talking, a bit louder and hold up your finger to signal you're not finished. Never, never, never let men get away with interrupting you. On occasion, you can also interrupt right back to make your point. And keep talking. As Drummond says, stick to your guns and your sentences.

These bad habits are all learned. They're not natural. The good habits can also be learned. So women, don't let the men take advantage of you. Frankly, I lose my respect for a woman who lets a man take advantage of her. I raised my daughters to know better! FYI: I was never interested in raising "nice girls." Our objective was to raise intelligent, achieving females who could make some serious contributions to this world. Abrasive candor is a given. I've always taken the comment that my daughters or my wife could be difficult to be a compliment. It was expected.

Photo fm Flickr.com

The Authenticity and Effectiveness of Flattery

To a shocking degree, mentors and the training folk fail to develop the exceptionally important practice of ingratiation, pejoratively known as “brown-nosing,” for their trainees. A surprising number of people believe you should keep your head down, your nose clean and take what life throws at you. Yet the truth of the matter is that the world is sometimes not a very nice or fair place, and you’ll pay for that naiveté.

In a recent blog on managing up, How to "wow' your boss, I noted that ingratiation was one of the key strategies for managing up. Because of a number of emails regarding my post, I’ve decided to enlarge on the subject of ingratiation.

Indeed, studies show the unwillingness to engage in ingratiation, the term researchers use for flattery, sucking-up, brown-nosing and a host of other expletives as a motivational inducement, often results in career and life failure. Acting like everyone gets what he deserves is liable to mean that you’ll miss out on an awful lot: work satisfaction, gaining more favorable evaluations, better leadership opportunities, personal motivation, and even more tips if you’re a hair stylist or waiter. Of course, there are a number of possible reasons for this failure, the most obvious being sheer ignorance and forgetfulness. The traditional adage has a lot of believers: “He gets paid for this. Why should I compliment him?” Even more look down their nose at ingratiation, viewing it as inappropriate and beneath their dignity, questioning its ethical foundation.

Ingratiation, the ultimate art of emotional intelligence, is to become more attractive and favorable to another by deliberate communication strategies. Surprisingly, the psychological findings are that if you fail to use this interpersonal tool, you are not only limiting your own power base and overall career and life success, but also inhibiting the achievements of its recipients. So brown-nosing is not only good for you, it’s also extremely good for its targets.

Why does ingratiation work?
Research, dating back as far as 1963, has found three explanations for the effectiveness of ingratiation. Ingratiation tends to increase liking. As my readers know, the joint powers of liking and competency are the single most important characteristics in the persuasion toolkit. Likable people who are also competent have a lock on the rewards of career and life.

Ingratiation can also create a strong sense of similarity. Studies show that perceived similarity between people, what rhetoricians call mutual identity, is a door-opener for effective communication and persuasion. Most any effective salesperson, walking into a client’s office, searches immediately for similar interests to grease the conversation. Similarities are not only ice-breakers, but also relationship-builders.

Research reveals that positive labeling of a person, otherwise known as stereotyping, can result in significantly positive consequences. We know that negative stereotypes, like thief, sex deviant, card shark, or cheat, affect the self-concept and behavior of a person. But a study at Yale, by Robert Kraut, was designed to test whether ingratiating with (positive) stereotypes or labels can also lead to a change in self-concept. Specifically, Kraut wanted to find out whether labeling a person as charitable and generous had a stronger impact than negative labeling as a “noncontributory.” He found that positive stereotyping caused more powerful results, even, than the negative. So flattery produces changes in the target’s self-concept that, in turn, lead to changes in the target’s behavior. In short, flatter a person regarding a positive behavior, and the person will not only live up to the flattery, but give you more.

Three categories of ingratiation
The original studies of ingratiation by Edward Jones (1963) identified three basic types or categories of flattery. They are reflected by the psychological research on ingratiation. The first and most obvious category is paying compliments. “I have a lot of admiration for your leadership skills. You really get the job done.” A derivative of this category is having a third party deliver the compliment. “Dan thinks your leadership skills are just what this firm needs.”

The second form of flattery is opinion conformity. This involves agreeing with the target’s statement, ideas, and views. A variation of this technique is to initially disagree, then yield, creating the impression that the target has changed your mind. “You know, although at first I rejected your solution to that problem, I’ve decided you’re really correct.”

The third category involves good, old-fashioned bragging, talking about one’s own expertise or experience to influence another’s evaluation of oneself. The first two categories focus the flattery on the target directly, for the purpose of gaining power with that target. In contrast, the third category increases liking and respect by focusing on oneself. One of my best friends, a well-placed clergyman, commented to me last summer that he didn’t mean to be name-dropping. Ha! But while on vacation in London last Spring, he “spent three hours in a private conversation with Prince Charles.” Now that’s how to push the envelope on gaining personal favor by name-dropping. Though most would not view bragging or name-dropping as a form of brown-nosing, it’s clearly a means of gaining favorable acceptance from the other, the very heart of ingratiation.

So you don’t like to use flattery?
Is ingratiation an unethical influence strategy? Only if the ingratiator believes the flattery or positive social labels used are false. If the ingratiator believes in the praise he is offering, there’s no ethical problem in focusing on the positive side of things. Ingratiation is a highly sophisticated form of street smarts. Yeah, I know. Everyone claims to hate brownnosers--unless the brownnosing is directed at them.

But, a lot more than ordinary business skills are necessary to get ahead in today’s highly competitive workplace. Indeed, it’s often necessary to bend the rules of fair play or ignore them completely if you want to succeed. Complain all you want about the lack of justice, but it’s inevitable that you’re going to have to be vigilant and proactive to ensure your own success.

Indeed, contrary to conventional wisdom, hard work and high performance won’t guarantee a promotion or even career success. In his latest book, Power, Jeff Pfeffer warns of the weak link between job performance and career outcomes. Indeed, systematic research reveals that job performance doesn’t guarantee you a promotion. High performance may actually hurt you because your boss wants to keep you in your high-performing role. Furthermore, high performance may not even be that important for keeping your job. In sum, high performance doesn’t do much for your career or for job security. You’re going to have to do something else. And that something else is to make your bosses feel better about themselves by apple-polishing.

So, ingratiation is an important skill in the toolkit for career success. Although it takes time and practice to become astute in its use, ingratiation is a means of persuasion, a motivational inducement that can significantly modify a person’s feelings, moods and emotions. It can be a highly successful tool for jump starting your boss’ drive to support you and your career. It is performance, coupled with the political skill of ingratiation, which will help you rise through the ranks.

Flickr photo: lyk3 On3 tym3

When Death Takes You By Surprise

Marilyn, my beloved wife of more than 50 years, died on December 29 of complications associated with Alzheimer’s. It was a fortunate death, though not, in the usual sense, a good death. She had lost 95% or more of her mental capacities, and had no obvious sense of who I was or of what was happening to her.

She was a wonderful woman, the love of my life, and I miss her dearly. When the kids and grandchildren came in from the Coasts to see her in Memory Care, she always had a big smile on her face. I don’t know whether she recognized them, but I prefer to believe that her wiring was so strong that she knew, unconsciously, who they were. Even in the last stages of her Alzheimer’s-destroyed-life, what a smile broke out on her face every time I walked into her apartment. We have a family photo of her reading to her three-year-old grandson in her lap, a paradigm of who she was and the simple happiness we enjoyed. I have always found a deep sense of satisfaction in the love we were able to give and receive, an experience depicted by that picture from a dozen years ago.

Initially, I decided not to write this very personal blog, but I decided otherwise because of its therapeutic value as well as a medical experience in the early ‘90s. As a result of a bout with serious prostate cancer and its inevitable surgery, I was surprised by the number of young men—and a few women--who wanted to talk with me about the experience. At the time, I had a number of projects at Ralston Purina, so had done a great deal of interviewing and had become a familiar face at headquarters. The questions, especially from the youngest generation, were about how I handled the news of cancer, my prognosis, the degree of success, the sexual implications and the potential for incontinence. I’m experiencing a similar number of the younger generation asking questions about Alzheimer’s and my wife’s death. It’s not often that people can talk about their own concerns and fears with someone they trust who’s had some success in dealing with those fears.

Death, of course, is a more traumatic and final experience for all of us. But having dealt with what can only be considered an “ambiguous loss” for more than two years, I had come to believe that with my extensive background in psychology and counseling and a phenomenal number of resources I’d be able to manage the finality of her death very well. But still, I was surprised that the experience of death took me by some surprise.

When it came to resources, probably no one on earth had more than I. My eldest daughter, Director of Fundraising for the research foundation, CureAlzheimers, has the ability to access resources from Harvard’s Alzheimer’s research center. Her husband is a research physician with an awareness of the physical and psychological implications of Alzheimer’s. My middle daughter was involved in Alzheimer’s research at UMass Lowell. One of my very best friends, Libby Bellinger, is a gerontologist with counseling background who also works for a long-term care organization and coincidentally, dealt with the personal issues of her own mother’s Alzheimer’s disease for 18 years. I have access to top physicians at the UMN medical clinic. And to top it all off, my wife was involved in research at Mayo Clinic with a physician who was inevitably and always available to me personally, or by email. With all that, it was improbable that I’d be surprised by death.

Furthermore, lacking financial worries, I was able to carry off all the right things for the management of emotions and life. I treated myself with care, putting off as many decisions as possible, and made certain to access the friendship of colleagues and neighbors. I was scrupulous about my routines, careful about food selections and kept up most of my exercise program.

Finally, my children and I decided months ago not to have a funeral, but instead to have a celebration of her life, inviting friends, neighbors and colleagues for drinks and appetizers. Indeed, the invitation was clear: “No liturgy, no ceremony, no rituals, no homily . . . just mingling, conversation, and even laughter.” And even though we’re not having the party until the end of February, I’ve been delighted by the overwhelming positive responses we’ve received toward that celebration.

How did the grief surface?

But in spite of all the decisions and care, her death has been difficult. There were tears at the strangest times of the day. I finally realized that they flowed when I noticed an especially sensuous gesture either between two others or in a TV show. Marilyn never walked into my study without her hand on my shoulder and usually a smile. I also noticed that though most of the time I was careful in the food I selected, I utterly failed to manage portions, gaining 40 pounds over the past 3 ½ years. But what really frustrated me was my inability to focus on tasks, especially on creative writing. I just couldn’t force my brain to engage. I’ve always prided myself on my ability to set worries aside, put them in a box, and go on with the task at hand. That didn’t work, especially the last two months as it became clear that Marilyn was dying. It was as though my creative juices had been wrung out of my body. But most significantly, in spite of keeping to my sleep routines, I found myself tired out—almost daily for the first two or three weeks after her death. I still have to take naps three or four times a week.

So what have I learned about grief?

Thus far, I’ve learned several things to help me process my grief more successfully. I don’t anticipate that the grief will ever be fully resolved and I’m not certain that I want that. But I do want to go back to life, giving myself wholeheartedly to my work.

First, I can’t stress how important it is to take care of yourself. My objective was to make certain that I kept involvements to the minimum and always do the things that are important to me. My children, as well as many friends, emphasized the necessity of that self-management. My children made it very clear to me, reminding me of their support, that I was to limit my visits to the home to just once or twice a week and get on with my life. Knowing Marilyn’s ever-Germanic orientation to task and work, I’m certain she would have approved and insisted. After all, Marilyn would not know that I’d been there two minutes after I walked out the door. I have a great awareness that my resources were unique. Still, to the degree possible, in whatever your situation, if you are to find hope and optimism, you must put yourself first. This is not a time to make sacrificial decisions for others or give others a lot of time.

Second, it’s important to access your support system regularly, and if you don’t have one, to seek one out. Most resident homes have group meetings and systems that you can tap into. Identify the friends who’ll do things with you, let you talk, and are simply willing to listen. They may not be the friends you expected, but they’re out there and they’ll do some caring for you. On occasion, I found it important to simply ask whether a person had time to talk with me. I learned to read the sign language fairly accurately so as not to overstay my welcome. When a person inquired regarding my wife, I usually shared two or three sentences. If they were desirous of further information or open to listening, they would inevitably make that clear to me after I’d shared just a bit.

Finally, it’s important to recognize that you’re not going to be able to predict or control your own responses to death. Give up the notion that the control mechanisms you’ve used to succeed in your professional career will work when facing a death in the family. Thinking you’re in complete control of your memories and emotions sets you up for failure and even more grief.

I have long been an optimist and practitioner of a “sanctified nonchalance.” In other words, I don’t hold tightly to life, but view it as a gift to be used for myself and others. And I gather people around me who hold similar views. Rather than focus on what I’ve lost, I face the future grateful for what I had. So I’m certain that makes the surprises of death easier for me than others. But still, as my friend Libby Bellinger said, when talking about my inability to control my emotions, “it kind of slips up on you, doesn’t it?”

It's Not "An Eye for an Eye," but "Two Eyes for an Eye."

Don’t take “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” too literally.

Most of us are familiar with the deeply held notion of an eye for an eye. In an intriguing study of interpersonal relations, Boas Keysar and his colleagues at the University of Chicago found that reciprocity, what he calls “giving and taking,” is asymmetric. People reciprocate generosity fairly equally the first time around, less so as time goes on. But selfish acts are treated quite differently. If you screw somebody, they’re going to screw you back twice as much—or more.

Overall, conflicts (taking) between people escalate rapidly, while generosity and compassion (giving) sputter out pretty easily.

We like to think that reciprocity is a simple give and take, “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” But the sentiments of that well-worn aphorism don’t square with reality. The research found that relationship (social) exchanges, in contrast to dollar-based exchange of goods and services, simply don’t work on a fair market basis. The study revealed that social exchange is based upon the meaning and interpretation of the social actions rather than on the objective value of those actions. That includes positive versus negative behaviors, compliments versus insults, rewards versus punishments, and helping a colleague versus hurting a colleague.

Keysar said, for example, that if you’re kind and let someone go in front of you, that driver may be considerate in response. But if you cut someone off, guess what? That person “may react very aggressively, and this could escalate to road rage.” The same rules operate in work settings.

Another experiment, using money as the exchange in a game, showed that taking quickly escalated as players became increasingly greedy over repeated exchanges. In a companion money experiment, the study confirmed that the act of taking inevitably has a far bigger impact on people’s responses than the act of sharing.

In sum,

1. Generosity is rewarded, but there is a tendency on the part of the recipient for it to weaken and sputter out.
2. Acts of taking have a far bigger impact on people’s responses than acts of sharing.
3. Taking escalates negative actions quickly--proportionately faster and larger than giving.
4. Relationship exchanges and responses, both positive and negative, are based largely on the personal interpretation of the actions, rather than the objective value of those actions.

Some work implications:

1. Rewarding generosity.

--Overtime work to achieve boss’s goals will be rewarded (however, continual overtime can be taken for granted, and lose its impact).

--Donating resources and time (occasionally) to colleagues will ingratiate you to them, making reciprocal rewards available.

--If you want support for your good deeds, you’ll need to interpret the deed to the relevant persons and self-advocate.

--Significantly effective and “useful” hierarchical and peer relations require a personal reputation of liking and respect.

2. Acts of taking.

--Refusing to support a colleague’s project can result in lack of support for your project, even when the person sees your project positively.

--Critical and negative feedback may do more harm to your relationship than good. Be very cautious, contract to give critical feedback, and match the negative feedback with the positive.

3. Escalating negative acts.

--Never, never burn your bridges, it’ll always cost more and more.

--If you have an image problem and people don’t think well of you, better to demonstrate your positive qualities in a new setting where you don’t have to overcome so much baggage.

--Loss of trust may be difficult, even impossible to repair.

4. Exchanges tied to interpretations.

--Rewards won’t be granted solely on the basis of your deeds and generosity no matter what the actions. Personal interpretive and advocacy strategies are needed to “grease” the relationship.

--Interpret your repayment of generosity to the original giver. He or she may not otherwise understand.

--People trust their first impressions, whether of taking or giving. After the first impression, changes are difficult.

--Make self-advocacy the rule, not the exception.

There you have it: street smarts par excellence! Hope it helps.

Boaz Keysar, Converse, Wang and Epley, (2008) Reciprocity is not give and take. Psychological Science, V.19, N.12.

Photo: Flickr, by Manoj Trikila

Three Keys for Determining Whether to Trust a Co-Worker

 Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. – Ben Franklin

Today’s diverse and rapidly changing workforce has made trust a deep-seated, complicated issue. It comes up regularly in conversations with employees and managers.  Senior clients make questions about the trustworthiness of an employee part of my “assumed” contract. I’ve also received a number of thoughtful questions and comments on trust from blog readers, especially as a result of my blogs on narcissists and asshole bosses. One writer, for example, asked me to “throw the light on trust,” for the purpose of developing “life-time friendships,” including “both genders and also for divorced people.” And, this writer made it clear that his concern was for people in their 30’s and 40’s as well as for those of a younger generation. Still others have presented me with specific cases, asking for my analysis to help determine whether an individual could be trusted. 

Figuring out whether to trust someone can be a difficult task. About 15 years ago a senior client told me it took him six months to decide whether to trust an employee. He needed the time to observe a person’s behaviors so he could figure out his trustworthiness. It’s an exceptionally valid approach for that decision. But his question took a slightly different tack. “Is there a faster way to make a trust decision?” he asked.

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The experience of life-long, trusted relationships may well become a delicious experience that fewer and fewer of us find ourselves able to enjoy, largely because we’re a mobile society. Many of us rarely have the time or inclination to keep up relationships when we change geography. Time invested in relationships comes at a price and therefore must be prioritized. About ten years ago, I developed an intimate, trusting relationship with a high school friend, a relationship that provided many hours of delight until his passing last year. Although there were 250 kids in my Michigan high school class, it was the only long-term relationship from my teen-age years. We were merely acquaintances in high school, but our history, values and interests brought us together here in Minnesota, making it possible to receive the “blessings” of a relationship.  I touch base regularly with two college friends, but I have no intimate relationships with anyone else from that far back. Still, I have numerous trusted relationships dating from my thirties. I value all these trusted persons both as friends and resources.   

Another difficulty facing really long-term relationships is that many of us grow apart. The vast differences that can surface over time, including experiences, interests, values and even changing life-objectives put an end to what once may have been a very good and meaningful, trusting relationship. For many of us, life-time trusting relationships may be few. 

The wise and pragmatic psychologist, Abraham Maslow, says that we need at least four or five significant friendships. I’m fortunate to have more than that. However, the lack of family responsibilities at my stage of life makes it possible. 

3 keys to trust-building 

Trust is an ambiguous term needing clarity. The psychologist, Erik Erikson, believes that the first stage of human development centers around a child’s basic needs of comfort, food and dependable affection. If the child receives that, he begins life with a fundamental outlook of trust. Lacking that early experience, trust of himself and others becomes a more difficult task. Erikson viewed trust as confidence that life and the future are basically okay. I don’t believe that our first experience in life is destiny, but that experience certainly impacts us. Figuring out whether to trust another is often strongly related to the inherent level of confidence about people and the future that you bring to the party of life. Some may require a great deal of data before trusting, while others require less.

Trust is the degree of confidence you feel when you think about a relationship with another person. Trust makes it possible to share the important experiences, values and questions of our lives. These self-disclosures are not shared readily with people we do not trust. But it’s that mutual sharing that can make life interesting and full. I like the description of trust attributed (perhaps wrongly) to George Eliot: Friendship (trust) is the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring all right out just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful friendly hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of comfort, blow the rest away. I should say that many of the people with whom I’ve had that relationship are business clients, not only those outside my profession. 

Trust, according to a number of fine studies, is composed of three primary keys or perceptions between you and another. I’ve found that these keys are very helpful for making determinations about trusting another and that they work in any and all settings. They serve as a template for both identifying and developing relationships of trust. 

Predictability—the expectation that the other person will act consistently in positive ways toward you. Does he or she do what they say they’re going to do? Be wary of this. Give a person the opportunity to be consistent about his promises to you. But be realistic about that. No one keeps all his promises. All you need is a strong tendency to be predictably safe in the relationship. My little test is that if the person significantly fails to be consistently positive and protective of me in two or three settings, trust is broken.  It can be rebuilt, but it’ll take time. 

Dependability—means that I can rely on that person when it counts. Predictability overlaps with dependability. I had a conversation this morning with two long-term colleagues about a serious ethical problem related to my wife’s care. I knew that they would have insight on the matter and would also be comfortable disagreeing with me. Further, I was quite certain that disagreement would only add to my store of insight. 

Faith—refers to the belief that your friend (or partner) will continue to be responsive and caring in the future. Faith is not a permanent given. It has to be talked about and worked on between people. It is a covenanted relationship requiring mutual action. 

One of the reasons we see people disclosing highly personal information to strangers is that they realize there is minimal risk. But in the work setting, trusting enough to share highly personal information can make us vulnerable, giving others power over us. That’s why we try to get people to talk about themselves when we meet them: we’re trying to get to know where they stand, what they think so that we can have some control and predictability in the relationship. I think of disclosures as a dance. I’ll disclose this much, and then you disclose. If one doesn’t reciprocate, the dance quickly comes to an end. Most people are comfortable with cliché talk and personal history. But when it comes to important opinions and deep-seated attitudes, we’re cautious about revealing those matters--and rightly so. 

Mark Knapp and Anita Vangelisti provide a very appropriate capstone to this discussion of trust in their book on interpersonal communication. We must make the person feel our appreciation for his or her trust in us and our acceptance and support for that person, and not necessarily for the behavior or feeling that is the focus of the disclosure.  

Hope this throws some light on the experience of trusting.  I’m very curious to get your comments and questions in response to this blog.

Photo: Flickr. Yourclimbing.com

How to Exploit Personal Vulnerability

You blush. Confused and discomposed. Embarrassed. You’re found out. You know the rule in business: don’t let anyone know what you don’t know. Keep up a good front. Don’t trap yourself and have to admit ignorance. Never, never open up and admit to personal vulnerability on any business subject. 

For nearly all of us, vulnerability is a very helpless feeling. Our guard is down and we believe we’re open to emotional attack and censure. Why is that? Surprisingly, the answer is that we’ve learned that’s the way we should respond when our ignorance and missteps are found out. We didn’t come by it naturally. You won’t experience embarrassment from a 3 year-old. We think that way, so that’s the way our gut responds. It’s NOT that our gut responds and then we think that way. And since feelings are most prevalent in vulnerable situations, we search for ways to deal with those horrible, unnerving feelings.

 

Quite a few years ago, before I became familiar with Martin Seligman’s orientation to learned helplessness and optimism, I wondered whether there wasn’t a non-psychological way of looking at embarrassment and vulnerability. I was unconvinced that therapy had anything to offer.  At the time, I’d been studying work from the Chicago Center for Decision Research and was especially intrigued by the studies on “framing. I’d had some success applying the process to business problems and wondered whether it could also be applied to personal, behavioral problems. Framing, I suspected, offered a different way of looking at feelings of vulnerability.

Framing

Business people intuitively know something about frames. They refer to them when they talk about “thinking outside the box,” “not being on the same page,” or “it’s all in how you look at it.” Frames simplify and guide our understanding of a complex reality. We experience frames when we meet people who just seem to immediately “click” with us. And we’re also dealing with frames when we try to talk with others who just don’t seem to “get it” no matter how much we try to explain. A frame is a mental window that both focuses and limits what we perceive.  Similar frames make it very easy to talk with clients. Different frames make it nearly impossible. Indeed, buried within every decision is a frame that circumscribes way we think about each. A new frame can move us beyond a debilitating perspective that only frustrates, providing us with more useful ways of thinking and deciding about important matters in both business and personal life.

Frames determine and limit problem resolution

The way we frame an issue determines the solution. Frames work like that. Our attachment to them is both emotional and cognitive. Furthermore, they’re usually out-of-our-awareness until we dig into our thinking and look at them. Good framing is both an art and a science. In both personal life and business, you’ll find that understanding, using and replacing frames will have a distinct advantage. And, as Russo and Schoemaker comment, if you can’t, you may wake up one morning to find yourself framed.

The key issue in my experience of vulnerability was the recognition that if I viewed the experience as solely an emotional experience, the only possible out was psychological. But the research on therapy, I knew, is not very encouraging. Half the time, counseling doesn’t work. So out the window went that approach.  Thus, I wondered whether the insights on framing couldn’t be applied to emotionally-laden experiences such as vulnerability. But how?

What causes the sense of embarrassment and vulnerability?

That brought me to the place where I began to analyze the causes of my feelings of vulnerability, wondering whether it wouldn’t respond to reframing. My undergrad background was in history, a background which caused me to first focus on my thinking about my thinking rather than on the experience of vulnerability, itself.

In attempting to reframe vulnerability—or any issue—I ask a number of questions:

• What are the most important objectives to aim for?
• What are the yardsticks, reference points and boundaries inherent in my old frame? How might someone else approach these measures?
• What biases might my old frame entail?
• How can I bring in other perspectives?
• What do I know about vulnerability and its typical resolution?

I played with the problem of vulnerability and framing for quite a few months, trying to understand how vulnerability affects us and answer those questions. What stuck in my craw was the key rule that business people “never let someone know what you don’t know” My gray matter eventually moved from that point to one specific conclusion: Inevitably, vulnerability is an announcement that there’s something I don’t know—and may need to learn.

And that was the new frame. Vulnerability in business is not about the emotions of fear, embarrassment, humiliation, or even disappointment. It is fundamentally about a lack of knowledge and that’s the problem that needs to be resolved—not my emotions. That insight took me out of trying to resolve my emotions to developing my knowledge of business process, managerial relations and just plain old street smarts. In short, I moved from being controlled by fearful emotions, to controlling the experience and making it a learning opportunity.

I’ve concluded that vulnerability (and embarrassment) is certainly nothing over which I need to get my shorts all tied in a knot. It’s merely an announcement of the need to learn something. Nothing more. So when I start feeling a blush creep up my neck, the question readily comes, sometimes out loud: “What is it that I don’t know?” Or, “Obviously, you guys are enjoying this. What’s so funny, and what am I blundering about?” I have completely and pragmatically reframed the issue as a matter of my business and relational knowledge that needs to grow.

BTW: If you believe I’m being too hard on the emotions, you might pick up Martin Seligman’s Learned Optimism. That’s exactly what he recommends.

What the 21st Century Career Looks Like

Twnety-five years ago if you had significant technical skills you could count on a good, well-paying job. That was especially true in manufacturing. But even in other vocations, little more than a well-developed technology was all that was required to rise in the organization and get a good-paying job. Of course the introduction of desk-top computing in the mid 1980s started to change that. Over the next ten years it became clear that everyone in business had to understand and be able to use the digital tools. The US economy was beginning to travel beyond the industrial age. 

The most significant changes were still to come. Working as a consultant at some of the leading edge American corporations, the changes were regularly called to my attention by 1990. And they were straightforward. Not only must you have a strong technical competency as part of your background, but you will need both analytic and social competencies. If you're a manager in IT at a firm like the old Pillsbury, you need to be able to manage and communicate with cross-functional team members. 

Although my clients at leading companies like 3M, Honeywell, Pillsbury and American Express made me very aware of those needs, 90% of US workers and managers were either unaware or found the demands frustrating or even terrifying. 

The salary differential first surfaced in a thorough-going research report from the Dallas Fed as recent as 2003. They identified a talent hierarchy, ranking 6 competencies underlying careers in the following order, from the bottom up: muscle power, manual dexterity, formulaic intelligence, analytic reasoning, imagination/creativity and people skills.The greatest future needs were for people skills, even more than the creative and anlytic skills.

Recently Richard Florida reported on this very subject in the October Atlantic on essay, Where the skills are. Although the article ostensibly describes and locates America's smartest cities, tucked into his essay is an absolutely fascinating and illuminating salary report on careers driven by the analytic and social competencies. Here are the salary stats, based on his study of the US Bureau of Labor detailed information on more than 800 occupations:

• Breaking up each of the vocations by required skills, he found that those in the top quarter as measured by required analytic skill, pay $25,600 more than those in the lowest quarter.
• In shocking contrast, those vocations in the top quartile requiring social skill pay $34,600 more than those in the lowest quarter.

Jobs requiring analytic skills are heavily concentrated in the larger metro areas. And jobs requiring the highest level of social skill are the most concentrated in the very largest metro areas--where, combined with the high prevalence of anlytic skill, they underpin faster rates of innovation and growth. 

So, you ask what do social skills have to do with innovation and creativity? Great question. Innovation without social competencies never gets to the drawing board. In fact, it's quite appropriate to say that if you and your team can't sell your idea and your innovation, it'll never get funded or manufactured. 

Let's clarify one important issue. Social intelligence is more than emotional intelligence or mere sociability. Social intelligence includes persuasion, social perceptiveness, the capacity to bring the right people together on a project, the ability to help develop other people, and a keen sense of empathy.

Merely being a "good communicator" won't cut the mustard any longer. There are no naturals with the competencies of social intelligence. Florida pulls together his ideas this way: Cities can't work as inovative engines unless they are populated by people who can effectively promulgate, and marshall support for new ideas. 

What Used to Get You Up the Ladder Won't Work Today

It's been obvious in my consulting for nearly a dozen years, but it didn't make it to the Harvard Business Review until March of this year. And on Monday, this week, it got to the Wall Street Journal and the front page of the New York Times. What am I talking about? Here's the new news: The technical or functional expertise of the business person, the architect, the lawyer and today, the physician, just ain't enough. In short, what used to make you successful won't work today. It's just plain inadequate. Along with more business fundamentals, you're going to have to have a sophisticated set of interpersonal skills.

Example number one. Monday's New York Times put it on the front page, revealing the new requirement for getting into medical school: the people skills test.  At Virginia Tech's new medical school administrators decided against relying on grades, test scores and hour long interviews to decide who gets in. Instead the admissions office set up a form of speed-dating, forcing each candidate to go through nine interpersonal settings with mock patients and team members dealing with ethical conundrums. Each conundrum is different and every "interviewer" grades the candidate on interpersonal skills. This same process is now part of admissions at the medical schools of Stanford, UCLA, Cincinnatti--and 13 Canadian schools. In addition, many medical schools make communication theory and practice a fundamental part of the curriculum. There's no longer room for insufferable, know-it-all jerks.  The result? Today, a trip for me to UMN's Fairview University Hospital and Clinic is an absolute delight. You'll be communicated with every few minutes so you know what's going on, what to expect, told why, and asked about any questions you may have.

Example number two. The road to the top of corporate America is also shifting and the changes lying ahead are drastic. Boris Groysberg and colleagues' HBR article on The New Path To the C-Suite reports on hundreds of executive profiles from Heidrick & Struggles, and interviews numerous top managers about the requirements for senior leaders. They conclude that C-Level jobs are evolving--significantly. There's one consistent finding. A person's technical and functional expertise matters far less than a grasp of business fundamentals and leadership skills. Indeed, the last page of the article puts the issue in bold print at the top of the page, quoting from an executive recruiter: The critical functions for today's CEO are to listen, listen, listen . . . and communicate, communicate, communicate.

Example number three. Although law firms continue their obsession with prestige, law schools are beginning to recognize that the practical skills can make or break a lawyer. The Wall Street Journal article says that Indiana University's law school along with Harvard, NYU and others are adding practical classes to the curriculum. Indeed, some are using case-based business teaching, much like the Harvard business model, emphasizing the practical. That's tough for law firms, with individuals running their practice like fiefdoms, unwilling to talk to each other about practical needs such as networking, soliciting clients, working with staff or building a business plan(most don't have one). My consulting in the field says that too is just a matter of time. Instead, lawyers inside America's corporations and IT people within law firms tell me that corporate expectations are forcing the issue. No billable hours. Project fee demanded, please. You have new global competition for your practice.  

Example number four. My consulting experience shows that in addition to basic functional experience (IT, marketing, operations, etc.), corporate America wants people who are flexible and adaptable, speedy learners, can work in fast-paced environments, and have exceptional and sophisticated communication expertise. They're looking for communication skills for collaborating, negotiating, selling ideas, networking, disagreeing, managing conflicts, getting things done through people, and working with dislodging dysfunctional, aged mental models for long-term change.

Client A, a finance exec, walked out of her finance firm into an IT position at a law firm. Hired especially to make cultural change. With success under her belt, she went on to a huge East Coast firm, working in the same area. She admitted that she couldn't program her way through a paragraph, but she understood IT. She knew that she had to really, really upgrade and sophisticate her communication skills, and she did it.

Client B, with merely four years of career under his belt, and not the slightest business background, has consistently succeeded. Why? He can learn fast, problem solve and communicate at a level rare for his experience. He has an unrelenting, ruthless focus on constantly improving those three heavily people-oriented skills. And, he says, the IT and business fundamentals are far easier to learn and manage than the people and wise talk side of his career.

A warning: When people tell me that they or someone else is a "natural communicator" or a "good communicator," from my vantage point I view it as pure, unadulterated bullshit. What they're actually saying is that they or their colleague are able to communicate without embarrassing, threatening or offending anyone. Sorry, but that won't work. So I roll my eyes and check it off for ignorance. If it's really important, I'll undress the statement for them. I have yet to met a "natural" or "good" communicator with a set of competencies adequate for the demands of the 21st century. Those skills are too new, too complex, too demanding of personal change, requiring a great deal of commitment to learn. In some settings, their complexity is comparable to changing IT architecture from Honeywell to SAP, or, as one of my architect friends put, like developing a 40 story skyscraper instead of a three bedroom home. But once you begin to display them, your career is made.

The HBR article summarizes the qualifications all businesses and professions are dreaming about and looking for: "The C-level person today needs to be more team-oriented, capable of multitasking continuously and leading without rank, and able to resist stress and make sure that his subordinates do not burn out. And he needs to do all of this with a big smile in an open plan office. In other words, we're looking at a whole new breed of executive." Competencies in communication skills are the subtext for all that.

I'm O.K., But You're a @!%$## Narcissistic Arse

Studies show that only about 1 in 100 persons is a psychopath, but there is a higher proportion in prisons and corporate board-rooms. But a more relevant fact on the other end of the psychological spectrum is that studies show that narcissism is on the rise. That means a lot more narcissists in the board rooms and the workforce.

A study released by researchers from the National Institutes of Health, in a survey of 35,000 Americans, asked about narcissistic symptoms. It found that only 3% of people over 65 had ever experienced narcissistic symptoms,but that nearly 10% of people in their twenties had. A 2009 study by Jean Twenge of SDSU and Josh Foster of the University of South Alabama showed that narcissistic traits are increasing even faster than previously thought. From 2002 to 2007, college students' scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory rose twice as fast as in an earlier study covering changes between 1982 and 2006.

The traits that were studied included an unfounded sense of entitlement and overly high self-regard. In business, narcissism results in a serious lack of empathy for others and an exaggerated sense of the person's own importance and abilities. People with this trait believe themselves to be uniquely gifted and often show up as arrogant and egotistical. They tend to be very critical of other people. They'll also push for special benefits and status. In addition, most narcissist managers won't give credit where due and won't support their workers. Unless there is something in it for them, they won't work on behalf of their team and others' career development. I've found that in corporate America narcissists can't listen, aren't coachable, always think they're right, keep score and can't collaborate. You'll also find that many narcissists are masters at sucking up. As one exec said of a colleague narcissist, "He can play the CEO like a violin."

Sure, some of these people make great actors for the entertainment world (think Mel Gibson and Britney Spears). And many of them are able to perform at a high level for their organizations (I won't name those familiar names). But as many of you know, they're a terrible pain to work with. They are a category among the group of difficult people that Bob Sutton (Stanford Business) labels assholes.

So how do you best deal with a narcissistic manager?

I want to go at this from two perspectives: short term and long term.

Myra White, a psychologist and clinical prof at Harvard Med School, who also teaches in the field of organizational behavior, has four suggestions:

1. Since they like to be associated with high status people, keep your distance and demand the respect your position deserves. Get wired to other status people, and keep dropping their names in front of the narcissist.
2. Since they're not good team players, whenever possible make certain to get people on the team whom they admire and consider high status.
3. Since they're liable to push you for special favors and bend the rules for them, stick to the rules. Make sure you don't cave in to their demands.
4. Since they're liable to claim credit for other's contributions, protect yourself and others. Speak up for the colleague who's really made the contribution and don't let the narcissist get away with bullshit. When you're not comfortable speaking up to the narcissist, it's valuable to go around to team members and point out that your colleague made the contribution, not the narcissist. That'll be good for future relationships. But more significantly, it'll educate your team members to what's going on. Eventually, as a number of people become more aware of the narcissistic behaviors, that info filters up to higher levels. That strategy can result in a termination for the narcissist--at least in the better companies.

At a more profound and long-term level, Bob Sutton's very practical recommendations in The No Asshole Rule (listed on the left side of my blog site) are masterful. Sutton goes at the subject in his chapter When Assholes Reign with recommendations for all kinds of difficult situations--recommendations you'll want to memorize and act on.

A basic way to deal with narcissists is to reframe, to change how you see things. Psychologists have found that if you can't escape a stress creator, the first step is to change your mind-set about what's happening to you. Martin Seligman (Learned Optimism) has found that when people view difficulties as temporary, not their fault and as something that will not pervade and ruin the rest of their lives, that way of thinking, that frame, protects their mental and physical health. Reframing a narcissistic situation is a step in liberating you from that person's clutches, and will sustain your physical and mental health.

A second step is to hope for the best, but expect the worst. Unwavering hope that that narcissistic arse is going to someday be transformed into a nice person sets you up for one disappointment after another. Lowering your expectations, focusing on the few good things, and becoming optimistic about how it will all end can help you endure a horrible situation.

A third step is to develop indifference and emotional detachment. Sutton is one of the few to wisely point out that passion in organizational life is an overrated virtue, and indifference is an underrated virtue. Business books, all caught up in naive success and optimism ideas and illustrations, never say this. But it needs to be said. Even shouted from the rooftops. To quote Sutton: All this talk about passion, commitment, and identification with an organization is absolutely correct if you are in a good job and are treated with dignity and respect. But it is hypocritical nonsense to the millions of people who are trapped in jobs and companies where they feel oppressed and humiliated--where their goal is to survive with their health and self-esteem intact and provide for their families, not to do things for a company that treats them like dirt.

The ability to gain control over seemingly trivial things, to look for small wins, even trivial things, is the hallmark of people who survive horrible and uncontrollable things. Indeed, as I've noted elsewhere, Karl Weick has found that aiming for small wins is both more comforting and more effective than aiming for big wins. Feeling that you are in control, in even the smallest things can reduce the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that a narcissistic ass can engender.

Finally, it's important to build pockets of safety, sanity and support. Learn to hide from the jerk and hang out with decent people. That'll provide you with both a bit of control over your life and also reduce your exposure to jerks. Supportive colleagues and even thoughtful clients can buffet you from working with a slew of narcissists.

The point of all this is that you can manage even the flaming narcissists that you'll inevitably encounter in business. Learn how now, because it's obvious that the good old USA is becoming a nation of narcissistic assholes. During the depression of the 1930s, depression was the national disease. In the technological age, narcissism is going to become more and more the national disease.