Dan Erwin

What An Overseas Experience Can Do For You

Few work experiences offer more immediate, personal insight than an overseas internship or international job.

Once a month, for more than a year, my first international job meant a quick flight from Minneapolis to Sao Paulo to work with a client at 3Ms main Brazil plant. Although my senior client was an Italian-American New Yorker, my first experience in the cross-cultural, organizational politics of Brazil was never-to-be forgotten. Having grown up in the Eastern and Southern European diversity of Detroit in the 1940s and ‘50s, we made certain our three daughters got out of Minnesota homogeneity and took to Europe for part of their college experience. My youngest worked in Greece for nearly a year after graduating. They, too, found those experiences to be of great, pragmatic benefit.

Phyllis Korkki, in Sunday’s Times, recommends overseas internships for those able to able to float the airfare and expenses, in spite of fact that they are often “all work and no pay.” Korkki emphasizes the importance of finding host companies that will provide a great deal of value to the student. They’ll gain the opportunity to improve language skills and what may be more important, understanding a different culture. Her caution makes a lot of sense: “People have internships on the brain,” but it’s important to choose the right time and place for them. 

Korkki doesn’t deal with my own reasoning for encouraging international experience for every student who can possibly dig up the change for six months or a year. Yeah, I’m well aware that parents are liable to have to continue paying the same American college or university for their kids’ international experience. But if you’re a part of the class that’s willing and able to dig up the shekels for it, it’s an experience that will bring a lot of value to the younger generation whether or not they are planning for an international job.

Similar values and rewards also come from managerial tenures in international settings. Though most corporations recognize international experience as a plus, the more backward organizations may penalize the employee, in one way or another, for outside the US (OUS) experience. As a result managers may need to weigh the career pluses and minuses at his current organization. But the experience may be richly rewarded in another organization. Whether or not the organization rewards you for your experience, the values you can receive from that experience are significant.

Much of the international learning applies directly to the US organizational experience.
Cultural boundaries define us because they stable systems of behaviors and cognition. When a person is placed in another stable system, he or she is forced to learn behavioral and thinking ways that differ markedly from their original system. This gives them inherently different ways of perceiving their own American organization. They are far better at conceptualizing present and potential differences.

People of one culture immersed in another gain a highly useful understanding of different “realities.” Our own culture teaches us what to see and what to ignore. Experience in another culture teaches us that another culture sees and ignores different things. Opportunities in Greece, for example, are closely tied to family relationships. An outsider may be shocked by the direct question of “how much do you make?” Or, “how much did that cost?” If the foreigner is reluctant to answer that question, he may be foregoing unwittingly the proffered acceptance as a friend. Effective product and process designers can use the experience of different realities to focus on design questions from many different angles, often providing significant innovations to their American company.

Adjusting to different beliefs about the workplace.
International experience can make it far more easy for a person to adjust and manage today’s endless reorganizations and restructuring. The classic intercultural experience deals with many of the various workplace questions today’s organizations are focusing upon. How much planning should precede action? How are incentives, rewards and control best managed? How much conformity and initiative are expected? What does an effective work setting look like? And how do diverse ethnicities and religions affect expectations?

Putting important experiences into appropriate perspective.
Managers inevitably draw an infinite number of conclusions from important, conflicted or questionable experiences. What did my boss mean by that? Is he suggesting that I’m going to get laid off? Does he expect me to be at this meeting? Was his anger directed at me? What kind of changes does he expect of me?

But international experience puts that analysis in front of our noses. We’re forced to resolve questions about the meaning of language and gesture. We learn quickly that different cultures organize and process information very different than our American way. Objective facts don’t mean much in many cultures and social values can pose much difficulty. Business practices like making appointments and contacts differ. Negotiating with some cultures can force us to completely rethink how we normally go about the process. Etc., etc.

Emphasizing the role and value of street smarts.
Although a lot of less experienced employees don’t understand the value of street smarts, that ability to deal effectively with all kinds of people and levels of hierarchy, an intercultural experience brings all kinds of issues to the fore. Sometimes the issues are shockingly immediate and embarrassing. It may be a misunderstood gesture, failure to understand how time is used, or even the American penchant for getting to business without taking the time to exercise a different culture’s social protocols and relationship behaviors.

The struggles for business success are now international, not merely local. The reality is that each of us comes from a long line of ancestors who were raised in many different cultures, even though we’ve been Americanized to the hilt. Success in today’s business world will require more and more intercultural moxie. An international experience will be key for many of us.

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

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

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.

"Blindspots: The 10 Business Myths You Can't Afford to Believe."

I wish I had written this book. It’s desperately needed, has a built-in audience, and is written by a Gen-Yer for business Gen-Yers on the make for business success. My friend, Alexandra Levit, challenges the big ideas that so many believe, but are so damned wrong. She does it in a gracious, thoughtful, reasonable fashion, with illustrations that are eye-popping, leading-edge research, and a great deal of fun. Her delicious writing just sneaks up on you. Furthermore, she focuses on what will make you successful in today’s world, not yesterday’s. 

I think it was Lindsey Pollak, the well-known career blogger, who’s written that Gen-Yers lack street smarts. Well. . . in this book, Levit goes a long way toward resolving that problem. And before I sign off on this paragraph, I need to emphasize that though she’s written to her youthful audience, her ideas are just as needful and just as relevant to all the generations. And yeah . . . all the professions. I’ll allude to that in a few paragraphs. 

As the title reveals, she deals with those silly ideas that some, perhaps most believe are gospel truth. Let’s look briefly at a few of them without spilling the beans. Hopefully, it’ll entice you to run to Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com before the sun sets. 

Alexandra begins with the historically monstrous, American myth that “overnight success is possible.” She went right for the illustrative jugular by demythologizing Susan Boyle’s first round performance on television and YouTube that pumped the “overnight success” of a singer who supposedly had never sung in public before. Sounds fascinating, says Alexandra. But that wasn’t exactly the way it happened. Susan attended the Edinburgh Acting School and sang at churches and karaoke bars, and trained with a professional voice coach before auditioning for musicals. But Alexandra’s recommendations for achieving success flow right out of the same research of the more academic works of Jeff Pfeffer’s reality stuff on power and Teresa Amabile on small wins. But Levit is immediately practicable, providing some very concrete recommendations for setting goals, coping with setbacks and keeping your goals from getting the best of you. 

In another chapter she completely discredits that nauseating Midwestern and Geek belief that if you work hard at your job and are good at it, it’ll be the key to success. There are a number of reasons for success, but the reality is that there’s a very weak link between job performance and career outcome. Among the sub-topics for that chapter are, Why knowledge isn’t power, The popularity factor, Getting on the executive radar, and Promoting yourself without bragging.  Here Alexandra recommends, among other things, that one way to establish that needed public persona is by becoming the go-to person on a particular subject. Be a perpetual learner and showcase your knowledge by serving as an organization spokesperson and creating a convincing online brand. 

In today’s economy, her debunking of the myth that really essential people don’t get laid off is exceptionally valuable. The driver for job security isn’t necessarily that of taking on the role of essential employee. It’s rather easy to confuse the good work you’re doing with the organization’s bigger picture. Those two don’t inevitably overlap. It’s not just essential businesspeople that get laid off. If you’ve been around medical clinics and law firms, you should know that both essential physicians and lawyers have gotten laid off. And essential teachers? Well, ‘nuff said. You hope that lay-offs just happen to poor performers, but the truth is that even top performer get laid off. Especially useful in this chapter is a long set of clues that your demise is imminent. 

I was curious to find out whether Alexandra would deal with the “passion” myth. Yep. There it was in the place of honor. Last on the list, the most prominent place to put an important chapter. Do what you love and the money will follow is a swell way for a title to get at the real issue. It’s a set-up for both debunking passion and reframing strengths into more useful recommendations, and Alexandra succeeds at both. I had to chuckle at her comment that passion is not a panacea. The cliché, “starving artist,” she writes, came about because the dream of millions to become an artist results in only a lucky few being able to make a living off their job. Their passion got them nowhere. 

While reading Blindspots, I couldn’t help but think of that study at Google that demonstrates the fallacy of deeply held beliefs—and the power of accepting and acting on evidence, even when that evidence clashes with ingrained beliefs. Like most tech companies, Google believed that the most important quality for managers is deep technical expertise. They believed the best bosses left people alone and mainly, when needed, helped people with technical problems. That’s not what the research showed at all. When Google examined what employees valued most in a manager, technical expertise ranked last of eight attributes they examined. What did employees value most in a manager? Google found that the keys were asking good questions, taking time to meet with people, and caring about those employees lives and careers. They’d been hiring on the basis of their beliefs, but their beliefs were dead wrong. And the employees suffered as a result. 

Studies show that we see what we believe.  In other words, believing is seeing and not the opposite. Alexandra Levit’s book challenges many, perhaps most, of our beliefs with great research, enticing illustrations and a great deal of reasonable sense. This is a book that’s chock full of great ideas and practicable recommendations. It’s an ambitious career work containing a striking series of vignettes illuminating how to become a successful businessperson today’s world. It provides the kind of intelligence and street smarts needed for careers in the New Economy. It shrugs off the irrelevant, the obvious and the trite, landing us squarely in reality. Michael Port’s comment is right on: “Hard-hitting, honest, and course correcting . . . What it really takes to be successful in business.”

See my list of "Good Books" on the left margin

A Critical Look at Organizational Ethics

In Alexandra Levit’s glorious new book, Blind Spots: 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe on Your New Path to Success, she states her rationale for writing in clear, uncompromising terms. Blindspots is a book written by a Gen-Yer for Gen-Yers basically because she was tired of reading silly theories and platitudes by business and career authors who sell their work by giving these myths credibility and by telling readers what they want to hear.

What’s clear is that we have a new page in business authenticity. She shrugs off the irrelevant, the obvious and the trite, landing us squarely in reality. In that same spirit, I want to think and talk critically about business ethics. Firms can say an awful lot about organizational ethics, and they have good reason to talk about the issue. The Ethics Resource Center released, in 2009, a survey which indicated that unethical behavior is prevalent in the workplace. Some of the relevant findings include:

• 22% observed abusive or intimidating behavior toward employees
• 16% observed a situation that places employee interests over organizational interests
• 11% observed violations of safety regulations
• 10% observed misreporting of actual time worked
• 14% observed discrimination on the basis of race, colord, gender, age, etc.
• 9% observed stealing or theft
• 7% observed sexual harassment
• 19% observed lying to employees, customers, vendors, or the public

These statistics demonstrate that unethical behavior does not seem to be rare in organizational life. The consequence is that organizations have attempted to establish ethics programs. About 70% of employees indicate that their organizations had implemented ethics training. And, the results also indicate that ethics training seems to have a positive effect on organizations.

In the spirit of Blindspots, not least because many have asked about ethics in organizations, I want to look at the realities of organizational ethics. I believe firmly that the more we understand the organizational setting, the more potential we have for work security and career success. And yeah, organizational ethics is one area where we need to get our head straight.

Organizational ethics is a very mixed bag. As a consequence, it’s important to stop thinking that the world is a just place. One of the first reactions many employees have is that the organization is going to be loyal to them. After all, ethical codes socialize an organization’s members into a culture of acceptable behavior, and announce that the organization is a worthy partner. That’s just not always true. Another reaction is that employees can be counted on to be honest in their dealings with the organization. That’s not true, either. So where is ethical reality in the typical organization?

Specialists in organizational communication have been looking at this question for some time. I’m especially indebted to the work of Modaff, Butler and Dewine in the growing field of organizational communication. They find that the answers are nuanced. So keep the fact that organizational ethics is a mixed bag in your front lobes. It’ll help you learn from all situations and all people, even those you don’t like or respect. Furthermore, it’ll keep you from naivete, and make it possible for you to deal with ethical and political reality.

1. Never forget that sometimes an organization’s code of ethics could be a public relations gimmick, designed to lure stakeholders into a false sense of security. And, of course, serve as a recruiting means for highly prized recruits.
2. An organizational code of ethics could be a means of imposing values upon employees upon employees that are not truly accepted by those employees. My own experience with that very issue created tensions impacting my productivity and personal life.
3. The code of ethics could be a way of regulating the behavior of employees in the interests of management.
4. Even though a code of ethics may encourage whistle-blowing, it’s clear from data that the worker who does so may face organizational retaliation.

As I write this, what crosses my mind is that the very people who educated me on the organization’s ethical realities were not low level employees or managers. They were senior execs, people who’d achieved at the highest rungs of organizational life. Once they became clients and friends they regularly urged me to deal with the inherent negative conflicts of corporate reality. These same execs who might reinforce the ethical codes were also telling me that I needed to recognize the implications of these rules. To recognize them meant that I was able to be more vigilant and proactive to ensure my own success. Those execs were very good at the process. Understanding these issues can also serve your interests.

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.

How to Get Information Out of Your Boss When He Doesn't Want to Give It

One frustration most employees meet very early in their work experience is that they can't get info out of their boss. Their boss stonewalls them.

Glenn Roberts, an engineer at his firm's national headquarters in Indianapolis, had been working on a project for the firm's Los Angeles plant. He'd been very successful with his projects in LA. So when he took his proposal to his boss, he expected an immediate OK. But the boss turned him down flat, telling him to do the proposal differently. When he reminded the boss that he knew the client and that he'd had success with him in the past, his boss stopped him and said, "Do it the way I told you."

Thinking the conversation was over, Glenn, frustrated and angry, went back to his desk to make the necessary changes. The LA client, as Glenn anticipated, was unhappy with the new proposal. When Glenn reported back to his boss, he simply responded, "Too bad," and turned away, ending the conversation.

These kind of experiences are not all that unusual. Even though you might not get your way, the truth of the matter is that if you understood what the hell was going on in such situations, you'd be a lot better off. You'd be able to make still better decisions in the future.

How do you get information out of your boss when he doesn't want to give it to you?

Although this kind of experience is happening less in today's workplace,  Glenn's interaction is still not unusual. First and foremost, cool off and put on your analytical hat.

Based on all the potential players, there are at least four different ways to think through Glenn's experience: issues with himself, his boss, upper management or the client. Although you may not be able to figure out the exact problem for some time, you can usually up the ante on your knowledge base and come up with a way to get some information for future use.

FYI: As a general rule, think management first--both your boss and upper management. Not the client or yourself.

But don't waste your time ascribing your boss's response to defensiveness. You want to know what's going on. So forget the psych crap and go for the facts. This is not Oprah stuff. I had to write a PhD dissertation to understand that, but it can be learned on the first week of anyone's career.

Understanding the situation

To understand your boss's response you should have a general understanding of his business and your division, the client's business (Los Angeles) and the company's business. So keep up-to-date on the company's important fiscal and competitive issues. Is the company losing business or under an unusual amount of financial pressure? That will quickly lead you into what's going on in that LA plant. Is that plant doing well or not, and why? If the company is under pressure or the LA group is in trouble, those difficulties may be impacting Glenn's proposal and his client. And often, because of organizational politics or concerns about competitive intelligence, the boss is not free to comment on issues like that. For a better understanding of such issues, go to my blog on strategic ambiguity.

Then, what do you know about your client's relation to headquarters and the company? If there've been recent problems or he's having difficulties of any sort that might possibly affect your proposal, you've got another potential explanation for your boss's resistance. For personal and professional reasons many bosses aren't going to comment on another's difficulties. You'll have to look to your internal network to get that information. Perhaps from a trusted colleague. If that client is having personal issues such as productivity, relationships, etc., that might explain the situation. Never forget that all business issues always have a people side to them--they're always political as hell and that's reality.

What about your boss? Is he under pressure? Are there some new players he's having to deal with? Or has he failed to manage power inside the organization? Furthermore, studies show that bosses have vastly different perceptions of their relationship with their subordinates and they're very consistent in their use of the chosen relationship. At one extreme are bosses who see clearly defined roles and contracts for themselves (very hierarchical). They will keep information close to the chest. At the other end of the continuum are bosses who whose relationships are built on trust, support, liking and a lot of interaction (participative). Dealing with the differences requires flexibility on your part. Companies tend to be moving to rewarding bosses who are far less hierarchical, engage in a lot of coaching and readily offer both power and responsibility to their people. Obviously, the participative boss is easier to deal with. (BTW: Under pressure, over the long term bosses can change and move from one extreme to another. When a culture changes its management expectations, most managers will adapt. Painful, but they'll do it.)

Finally, look at yourself. Has your boss been consistently giving you information and solid feedback, occasionally intervening and making suggestions? Is there a great deal of liking and respect between you and him? Are you getting the cold shoulder and is the relationship getting difficult? Don't just pay attention to your own insights. Ask a few trusted colleagues to weigh in with you on what they see happening.

Steps to take

If your boss's comment is frustrating and/or out of character, you should be ready with some smart talk to check out his comment. He's not liable to answer directly, so calculate your conversation. Use an affirming, knowledgeable statement--a paraphrase--rather than a question.

Here are some evaluative paraphrases I've found to be very useful. When your boss shuts down, look at him directly, and with a smile, say:

• Sounds to me like that was a decision made above our grade level. (Not my or your. You want to know whether upper management made the decisision. Furthermore, no boss will easily admit to a decision made above his grade level.)
• Sounds like somebody else has his finger in that pie.
• I wasn't ready for that response. Guess you know more about my client and his plant than I do. 

Enunciate clearly so there's no question about what you're saying. If you're a fast talker like me, slow down your speed and hit the consonants with a punch. You want to make certain there's no question about what you're saying.

There's a less than 50% chance when your boss is stonewalling that he'll comment. That's to be expected--and OK. Watch his nonverbals with a laser focus. A smile, wink, knowing grin, etc. mean that your guess was correct. This also assumes that you've got a baseline sense of what your boss's nonverbals mean and how he uses them. (If you can't read your boss's nonverbals, get with the program. Nonverbal failure will land you in la-la land or on the streets looking for a new job.) I've also found that a deadpan response and no discussion more often than not means my paraphrase was correct. No information is information. Using a paraphrase for information gathering is liable to earn your boss's respect rather than his rejection.

Once you've gathered your info, you can check it out elsewhere. It is especially important to adapt to that new information. With the changes in place, you'll be back in your boss's good graces--or working your network to look for other job prospects. Both options are a lot better than fuming about the information you didn't get from your boss. This is just a job, not life or death.

It would be stupid of me to promise that you can always get information out of your boss. But I'm after raising your batting average. And these processes will significantly raise most workers' batting average--as much as 25%. Any baseball player would be thrilled with such an improvement.

So You Think Your Boss Should Give You the Straight Skinny? Fat Chance.

Openness and clarity are the keys to effective communication.  Or at least, that is what is taught and encouraged by most educators, especially in business schools and HR departments.  You ask a clear question, you should be able to get a clear answer.  And so when you go to a management meeting, you expect to find out what's really going on in the company.  Well, that ain't necessarily gonna happen.

Before I  explain why you won't get the straight skinny, I need to clear out some of the underbrush.  I'm not talking mostly about deception or outright lying.  Sure, that takes place, but most managers understand that if they deceive often they're going to earn a reputation for it.  That'll make it especially difficult for them to communicate a straight message when they need to.  Also, they know that the trust of people is a key incentive for organizational productivity and team motivation. Besides, it takes a lot of energy to keep your lies consistent which means that you'll eventually get tired of it--and be found out. Deception is not an effective path to work and team success.

But if you critically examine the communication of most managers, execs and government officials, you'll notice that the usual definition of (effective) communication as clarity and openness is sometimes, well . . . just bullshit.  So beware of the leadership literature and the HR department.  As a matter of fact, recent research in organizational communication finds that intentional miscommunication is often as prevalent as intentionally clear communication.  I'd argue that often "effective communication" is intentionally ambiguous.

Why is this?  

On many, many occasions, managers and leaders are caught in multiple, conflicting constraints.  Rather than maximize the achievement of any one goal in particular, the leader winds up in a catch 22.  He's caught in numerous conflicting situations, but has no real control over the final outcome.

Although any senior business manager can recite numerous examples of ambiguity, a great example comes from Tom Friedman's article in which he opines on President Obama's ambiguous statements explaining the intervention of America and its allies in Libya. These were the conflicts Obama faced, detailed by Friedman.

In Libya, we have to figure out whether to help rebels we do not know topple a terrible dictator we do not like, while at the same time we turn a blind eye to a monarch whom we do like in Bahrain, who has violently suppressed people we also like -- Bahraini democrats -- because these people we like have in their ranks people we don't like: pro-Iranian Shiite hard-liners. All the while in Saudi Arabia, leaders we like are telling us we never should have let go of the leader who was so disliked by his own people -- Hosni Mubarak -- and, while we would like to tell the Saudi leaders to take a hike on this subject, we can't because they have so much oil and money that we like. And this is a lot like our dilemma in Syria where a regime we don't like -- and which probably killed the prime minister of Lebanon whom it disliked -- could be toppled by people who say what we like, but we're not sure they all really believe what we like because among them could be Sunni fundamentalists, who, if they seize power, could suppress all those minorities in Syria whom they don't like.

Sometimes, as Friedman coments, the truth is too hot to handle.  It's too displeasing, too frustrating, too messy, too tentative, too incomplete, and so on.  In those situations, inconsistency can't be avoided.  Still, inconsistency is not necessarily a bad thing.  Making a hopeless impasse clear may be unwise and likely to make things worse.  Inherently, many readily succumb to personal, often destructive biases such as the drive for immediate decisionmaking, either-or decisionmaking, or even that the most colorful, vivid option is best.  

Inevitably, therefore, the wise leader often chooses ambiguity. And rightly so.  He understands that the downside of ambiguity is a lot better than the downside of a very tentative set of strategies that may or may not succeed.

Effective communication as "strategic ambiguity."

Academics have a technical term for that form of presentation: "strategic ambiguity."  In a seminal piece of research, Eric Eisenberg argues that clarity and openness are not the only definition of effective communication.  Sometimes, he argues, the truly effective leader has to be strategically ambiguous.

• Ambiguity can provide the leader with a great deal of flexibility and creativity, not limiting that leader to a narrow resolution of a problem.  In politics, it's just good PR.  Ambiguity can promote a great diversity of ideas and actions.
• Ambiguity facilitates organizational change.  It gives the leader permission to make various moves that a single objective would not permit.  He can pilot numerous initiatives and not have to engage in full disclosure.
• Ambiguity also preserves privileged positions.  If there's no single objective that can be readily measured, you've limited the critical options of your public, whether subordinates, commentators or journalists.  The ongoing complaint, for example, that Obama hasn't revealed his strategy or endgame is reflective of a governmental or business leader's smart, purposeful use of ambiguity.  It limits the criticism that can be leveled at him.  "he won't tell us his strategy and endgame" is not much to critique or write about.

There are plenty of situations for which the dumb thing is for your boss to be candid.  Smart bosses refuse.  That's the nature of effective organizational communication.

Eric Eisenberg, Ambiguity as a strategy in organizational communication.

Does Paul Ryan's Budget Put Democrats at a Disadvantage?

Conventional wisdom says that whoever frames an issue first has the advantage over his opponents.  So, does Paul Ryan's first offer of the budget give him the advantage over Obama and the Democrats?  When it comes to negotiation, most business execs say that you should never make the first offer.  When the other party makes the first offer, it provides valuable information and tells you where they're coming from. But there is also a large school of execs who say that you should always make the first offer because that will establish an anchor.  When you make the first offer, the anchor gives you control of the dialogue and makes it far more possible to negotiate on your own terms.  

Pundits from the leading newspapers and cable channels tend to argue with the latter group of execs. They say that by waiting for the Republicans, Obama has lost leadership of the budget and given it over to the Republicans.  That, of course, sets up a conflict and makes for good press.

The right answer to my question is hardly surprising to those who know a trick question when they see it: It all depends.  Although the person who makes the first proposal focuses the other negotiators' attention and expectations, the most important issue is how much information you have about your opponents' interests, proposal, evidence and reasoning. Knowing your opponent's key values and the point at which an agreement is impossible is just one major issue.  On the flip side, negotiators also want as much information as possible about the other's interests and areas of possible agreement.  Top negotiators refer to that as ZOPA: the zone of possible agreement.  

Although the Republicans and pundits like to say that Obama has rolled over, if you've paid close attention to his speeches and info from the White House, his reasoning, evidence and proposal have been fairly opaque.  He's rejected the classic executive approach and let the Republicans frame the issue from their perspective.  Although the Republicans have been fairly open from the get-go, they've talked in as many generalities as Obama, until, that is, Ryan put the Republican proposal on the table. Bitch all they want, Obama has the bully pulpit and veto power.  Furthermore, the Republicans are largely in the dark regarding the President's real interests and perspectives.  Not an enviable position.  

So I disagree with Krugman, Dionne and a number of the Democrats about Obama's strategy.  On balance, and based on negotiating strategy, I believe that Obama has the upper hand.

I'd suggest that before the President's speech on Wednesday PM, you check over some of the best articles from a diverse perspective.  Here are the links for your perusal.

David Brooks:  The Ryan Journey.

Paul Krugman: Obama is Missing.

Tyler Cowen: Choice-Based Medicare Cost Controls.

Ross Douthat: Budgeting for Opportunity.

E. J. Dionne: Where's Obama's Resolve on the Budget Battle?

Fareed Zakaria: The Ryan Budget.

The Economist: The Real Fight Begins, and 70 or Bust!

Dan Balz: Can Obama cut the budget and keep Democrats happy?

Businessweek: The More You Make the Less You Pay.

If you want to bone up on negotiation, few can match Malhotra and Bazerman, Negotiation Genius.