Dan Erwin

Are the Rich Getting Richer? Does Charlie Daniels Play a Mean Fiddle?

Two policy-related issues over the last decade have gotten a lot of press: climate-change, and more recently, economic inequality. Taking these issues seriously requires governmental policy and tax changes. Publicly, congress' head is in the sand, but privately, many Republicans and Democrats take the problems seriously.

What's intriguing to me is how vociferous the anti-climate change and anti-inequality forces have become.  If you read closely, you'll note that the issues are tied closely to the anti-tax movement.  Still, to paraphrase Artemus Ward, the 19th century humorist: It ain't so much the things (we) don't know that get (us) into trouble.  It's the things (we) know that just ain't so.

For example, we now know that more than 95% of scientists agree that humanity has impacted climate to the point where unless we make changes in industry and life-style, long term this planet is in trouble--that includes our children and grandchildren. The scientific issue is actually settled.  The question is whether congress and the public will want to do anything constructive about it.

The more recent hullabaloo has been over whether or not the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.  Government programs can and do reduce inequality.  Indeed, there's a great deal that can be done to reduce inequality.

However, there's a noisy band of American inequality deniers who are trying to convince us that the rich aren't getting richer, nor are the poor getting poorer.  In a spirited rejoinder to the issue, Jay Coggins, an applied economist at the University of Minnesota wrote commentary on the issue in today's Star Tribune.

Coggins' thesis is clear and direct: 

Economists, a famously contentious bunch, disagree about many things. On the question of economic inequality, though, they disagree hardly at all: American inequality is high and rising.

Economists, Coggins relates, use three main tools to study inequality: measurement of poverty, compute the Gini coefficient (which measures inequality for all of us), and compare the income or wealth of the rich and very rich to the rest of us. On all three measures, the stats are grim, shockingly so.

For a Gen-Yer looking to the future, the potential can be grim: one person out of 30 can expect to move from anywhere in the bottom 40% to anywhere into the top 20% in the next 10 years.

One of my coffee cronies, a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, retired vice-president from Deluxe Check Corp, the multi-billion dollar firm, called my attention to the article.  Even he thought the consequences and future for the younger generations are grim unless government and his tribe of Republicans make some significant policy changes.

Hope you'll read the article.  It's scary.  Coggins also explains how the inequality deniers come up with their ideas.   And, oh yeah, Coggins' stats are correct and so is his conclusion. The rich are definitely getting richer, and the poor (and the middle class) are definitely getting poorer.

Should you send that e-mail, textmail or tweet? Try Prairie-Dogging!

I was shocked to learn that my recent blog on company monitoring of its employees got more than 3,000 visits in its first few hours.  In the blog I commented on the necessity of being very careful in your use of electronic communication in the work setting, and laid out some rather nasty statistics. 

As a result, I had an intriguing conversation and did a podcast for Phil Bowerman, the strategy and marketing guy for Transparency Revolution.  As part of our conversation, not on the podcast, we talked about the problems and dangers some face in using electronic media in the work setting.  He'd read my blog and had a great recommendation for what you should and what you shouldn't publish, whether e-mail or any of the electronic media.  Since Phil lives in the glorious state of Colorado (where we spent 10 wonderful years), he calls the process "prairie dogging."  (Visualize prairie dogs standing on their hind legs.) With Phil's permission, I'm publishing the test here.

Prairie-dogging:  Don't publish anything you wouldn't be comfortable standing up in your cubicle and shouting out to everyone.

Phil agreed that the better approach is face-to-face or phone, recognizing that Gen-Yers are resistant to phone use.  Still, this is all about street smarts.  Anything and everything in print can come back to haunt you.

Do You Really Think Your Company Is NOT Monitoring You?

From e-mail monitoring and website blocking to phone tapping and GPS tracking, employers increasingly use monitoring and surveillance to "manage productivity and minimize litigation, security, and other risks."

On numerous occasions over the past few years I've instructed my Gen-Y friends on the use of their firm's communication technology.  At bottom my comment is this: You're probably being monitored.  Limit your surfing to bare minimum or nothing.  And never, never write an email longer than 4 or 5 sentences.  Textmail? Absolute minimum.  If what you need to say takes more than that, walk to the other person's cubicle or--get on the phone (phoning, I realize is more and more a tough sell, but. . . .).

The other day I stumbled on the statistics from the American Management Association's 2007 Electronic Monitoring and Surveillance Survey.  File these away:

• 28%  of organizations have fired employees for misuse of the internet
• 28% have fired employees for misuse of e-mail
• 76% monitor employees' web connections
• 43% store and review workers' data files (spreadsheets, word processing documents, etc.)
• 66% review employees' e-mail messages

I assume the technology buffs are aware that companies monitor keystrokes, the length of phone calls, time away from a desk, time between phone calls, and sending and receiving data through network connections.

Why do companies monitor employees in these ways?  As a rule companies put three reasons forward.  They own the technology, so it's their right. The technology also allows for quality control.  And third, technology enables companies to increase productivity by decreasing instances of "theft of resources."

What does this mean for the average worker?  Toss your idealistic, just-world notions.  The path to success is grounded in the realpolitik of organizations. 

Quotation of the Week: Hamish McLennan

The Etc. section of Bloomberg Businessweek had five paragraphs on the CEO of Young and Rubicam, and his recent decision to leave his post.  Worklife balance is important to a lot of people, and here's an unusual CEO for whom family was the deciding factor. 

My daughter is 13, and my son is 11. . . .  I don't want them to leave home and say, "Well, you had a great career, but we don't know you."  At 44, I'd rather be known as a good father than a good CEO.

--Hamish McLennan, CEO

Boundaries between work and home used to be fairly clear.  Today, however, work typically invades personal life.  As a consequence, maintaining work/life balance is no simple task.

It's very tempting to rack up hours at work, especially if a promotion or a raise are are in the offing.  According to the Mayo Clinic, the consequences are numerous.  

Fatigue. When you're tired, your ability to work productively and think clearly may suffer — which could take a toll on your professional reputation or lead to dangerous or costly mistakes.

Lost time with friends and loved ones. If you're working too much, you may miss important family events or milestones. This can leave you feeling left out and may harm relationships with your loved ones. It's also difficult to nurture friendships if you're always working.

Increased expectations. If you regularly work extra hours, you may be given more responsibility. This may lead to only more concerns and challenges.

In all my years of consulting around the country, I've only heard of one other very senior officer giving up his job for his family.  Executive positions can be all-consuming, but you can't have global roles and spend much time with your kids.  I'm finding more and more managers and execs taking time out for the kids.  Few get this kind of public attention.  McLennan sets an example that more could mimic. 

How Women Can Use Anger to Their Advantage

Over the years women and their emotions have taken a beating in the workplace.  You know the accusations: women are shrill, emotional and teary.  Having worked with some very tough females over the years, I've never been willing to believe all the malarkey about women and emotions.  I've also noticed a lot of those emotions to be typical of men.  However, whatever your experience or beliefs about women and emotions, current research indicates fairly clearly that women can often benefit from the use of anger.

Most of us are familiar with the anger antics of Rahm Emmanuel, former Illinois legislator, former Chief of Staff for Obama, and now the mayor Chicago.   I kept a copy of Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article on the theatrics of the colorful, obscene Emmanuel just for the sake of some needy clients.  In the article, Lizza points out that Emmanuel seems to employ his volcanic moments for effect.  One of Emmanuel's old friends, Stanley Greenberg, argues that the new mayor's antics from the past have always been helpful. 

Sending the fish to the pollster that he thought had failed sent a message about how public he can be about his displeasure, and showed that he’s willing to step beyond the normal bounds, that he’s willing to be outrageous and he doesn’t suffer fools. He doesn’t mind bad publicity. It’s part of his cachet, it’s part of why he’s able to be effective.

The research by Stanford's Larissa Tiedens shows quite clearly that people like Emmanuel who express anger are seen as dominant, strong, competent, and smart.  Tiedens found that not only do you receive more status and power, and appear more competent, but others are reluctant to cross you.  The question, however, is whether this research also applies to women.

It would seem that when applied to women, the research is a mixed bag.  Women who acted angry received less status and power than men.  Another study suggested that since women are presumed to be more affiliative than men, men get more out of their anger than women. 

In his new book, Power, Jeff Pfeffers asked Larissa Tiedens about the issue.  Tiedens found no gender differences in any of the studies she and her colleagues have run.  Tellingly, she suggested that women often show their anger in more "submissive" ways--folding their arms on their chest, raising the pitch of their voice or even crying.  Those displays don't work so well.  Instead, Tiedens maintains that forceful displays of anger that put others on the defensive are "effective for both men and women."  That's been my experience and also the reputation of numerous women managers and execs with whom I've interacted over the years.

So how can women use anger to their advantage? 

In my blog on authentic versus masked leadership, I argued along with Warren Bennis that there are numerous occasions in which acting and theatrics are a part of the business of leadership.  Indeed, building upon social psych research we are all a collection of different masks, tied to different social settings.  In still another blog I pointed out that leadership always requires a bit of theatricality.  There are numerous situations where acting the part is most appropriate. 

What this means is that the wise ones align their masks with personal and organizational objectives.  And for women, I recommend very strongly that they add anger drama to their toolkit.  Obviously some of you are going to have to make some adjustments in your attitudes toward yourself and toward your roles.  But more and more successful people understand that organizational communication requires an understanding of what we call Organizational Realpolitik.  Realpolitik is political science terminology for achieving personal objectives through the use of power and practical matters.  It has some indebtedness to Machiavellian philosophy, and contrary to the overweening emphasis on authenticity, it's an absolute necessity in the real world. 

Secondly, you need to add some acting skills to your toolkit.  Try them, practice anger in front of a mirror, get feedback from your significant others, but do it.

Theatrics is a given in the toolkit of successful professionals.  That includes lawyers, physicians, businesspeople, and yes, ministers, priests, rabbis and imams. 

Do You Have a Magical Network?

Rob Cross often reminds us that it's not what we know, but whom we know.  The fact is that those of us with top-drawer networks are dealing with a lot of magic.  As Cross writes in an HBR Blog, there's a great deal of difference in networks. 

Work since the 1970s shows that people who maintain certain kinds of networks do better: They are promoted more rapidly than their peers, make more money, are more likely to find a job if they lose their own, and are more likely to be considered high performers.

The secret, or the magic of networks has never been about size.  Indeed, building mammoth Rolodexes or Facebook accounts can be harmful to your health and your performance. 

The people who do best tend to have ties with those people who are not connected to each other.  If you've got a network like that, you're more likely to hear about unique ideas--ideas that don't echo around in others' networks.  Those are the ideas that will enable you to piece together really fruitful opportunities.  I detailed this stuff in a blog on social networking back in 2008, but thankfully Rob Cross is pushing the same buttons again.  

In his recent post, Cross and colleagues studied networks and innovation in social media.  Just like face-to-face networking, they found that innovativeness has nothing to do with the number of bookmarks accessed or even the number of people collected from social media.  Instead, the more innovative employees had what Cross labels as bridging ties--ties that connected them to other employees who were themselves not connected.     

So we want to focus our electronic links not on people we have known forever, or on those who are all spending time in the same interactions.  Bigger is not better.

The magic of new ideas will come from connections into different networks.

Google Wants to Build a Better Boss

In today's NYTimes, Adam Bryant reports on Google's quest to build a better boss.  A high priority for the firm, Google understood that outstanding bosses are key to the future of the organization. 

Actually, there were no surprises except that the Bryant and the Google team made a very big deal out of the fact that technological expertise ranked last in the survey of employee's desires for a better boss.  Why is that such a big deal?  The transition that practically every person who becomes a manager has to make is to learn that technical expertise does not make for effective management.  It's a tough transition for many, but news?  Hardly.  I've worked one-on-one with technology managers for more than 25 years and I have yet to meet a manager at director, VP or CIO level who thinks that technology expertise is a high priority.  Those who think technology expertise is fundamental for managing technology people really don't understand people.

To figure out what a better manager will look like, Google poured over performance reviews, feedback surveys and award nominations, correlating words and phrases "as only a data-driven company can do."

According to the Times writer, here's the list of Google's Rules--in order of importance--as well as a few management pitfalls it found. 

Eight Good Behaviors

1. Be a good coach.
2. Empower your team and don't micromanage.
3. Express interest in team members's success and personal well-being.
4. Don't be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented.
5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team.
6. Help your employees with career development.
7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team.
8. Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team.

Three Pitfalls of Managers

1. Have trouble making a transition to teh team.
2. Lack a consistent approach to performance management and career development.
3. Spend too little time managing and communicating.

[Note: Follow above links to NYTimes article and rules.]

Based on my experience, I'd say the Google employees nailed the issues spot-on.  What do you think? 

 

You Are What You Blog

I'm quite familiar with "you are what you eat."  Now we have "you are what you blog."  That's spooky.

Research completed at the University of Colorado by Tal Yarkoni reveals a number of intriguing conclusions.  Contrary to popular wisdom, the study finds that we bloggers do not present ourselves in an overly idealistic way online--no differently online than offline.  Rather, our online selves reflect the way we see ourselves and how we are viewed by others offline.  

On numerous occasions I've had clients tell me they were different people at home than at work.  I regularly pooh-poohed that notion.  A number of times the spouse came in for the feedback conversation, and inevitably confirmed my conclusion.  We're the same person at home as at work. 

One thing is certain: Our words convey meaning, but our choice of words also conveys details about our personality.   

Several previous studies have identified a connection between language usage and personality.  But that research relied on limited writing or speech samples and focused on general personality traits.  In contrast, Yarkoni studied almost 700 bloggers who wrote a total of more than 115,000 words.  Significantly, bloggers provide a large sample because they write a lot, often over very long periods of time.  And so in contrast to the previous research, the blogging samples not only made identification of really large effects of personality upon language, but also the more subtle and nuanced relationships between personality and a person's rhetoric. 

The study also found a number of unexpected correlations.  For example, agreeable people often used sexual words that reflected affection or sex, such as love, loving, hugs, etc., but not terms like gay or porn.  He found that sports-related words from the school category like football, basketball or team correlated with excitement-seeking.  In contrast, words relating to the studious aspects of school like books, desk, etc., were not chosen by thrill seekers.  No consideration was given to the underlying meaning of the text--a significant limitation. 

Yarkoni's conclusion is enlightening: If you're sociable and like to seek out people offline, you're probably going to do the same thing online.  If you complain a lot when you're around your offline friends, you may very well complain about similar things in your online blog.  Our personalities don't dramatically change just because we've turned on our computers.

So in the future, add these insights to your blog reading, and recognize that there's a lot more going on in a blog than what a writer is blogging about.  Those of us in the field of rhetorical analysis have known this for at least 100 years.  Perhaps, the psychologists are beginning to catch up.  You can be sure about two things: when you read those happy blogs, you've got a happy person writing them, and when you read those whiny, complaining blogs, you also know what that person is like.  So choose poison or . . .  well, life.

Guess Who, What's Causing the Obesity Epidemic? Wal-Mart!

Research by scholars in New Jersey and North Carolina reports that one additional Wal-Mart Supercenter per 100,000 residents increases individual's probability of being obese by 2.3 percentage points.

Harvard Business Review blogs chose to highlight the report from the Journal of Urban Economics.  Interesting that a capitalist tool like HBR would document the report. 

The study implies that proliferation of food at highly discounted prices, explains 10.5% of the U.S. rise in obesity since the late 1980s. 

In looking at the research data I noticed a couple other intriguing conclusions.  The research found that the progress in retail logistics translated to substantial reductions in the prices of food and other consumer goods.  (I assume my readers are aware that Wal-Mart is the logistics god of the universe, and that the firm first developed logistics as a fundamental competitive advantage.)  The authors used data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which tracked rates of obesity in various states.  They matched the data with Walmart Supercenter entry dates and locations, and examined the effect of Supercenters on body mass index (BMI). 

Another of the more intriguing conclusions is that the resulting increase in medical expenditures offsets only a small portion of consumers' savings from shopping at Supercenters.   

4 Reasons Why Misunderstandings Are Good for You

(Part 1 of 2)

Misunderstandings happen all the time in organizations and in the best of relationships.  Actually, misunderstanding is more prevalent than understanding.  The reality is that consistently successful communication is especially abnormal in organizational settings.  And the resulting emotions of embarrassment, threat, fear or anger often hinder us from being proactive and growing from our experience. 

The reasons for misunderstandings are numerous in the organizational setting: levels of hierarchy, larger work teams, cultural, age, sex, gender, religious and value differences, struggles for power, competition among peers for scarce resources, and the increased use of interpersonal communication media.  At its most basic, misunderstanding refers to instances in which people who are communicating attach a wrong meaning to what another person has said or done.  We draw the wrong inference or conclusion from another's behavior.  The good new is that there's a significant upside to misunderstandings.  Indeed, they can be very good for your and your career.

Misunderstandings help us consider alternative ways of acting.  Paradoxically, the more we get to know a colleague or a team member, the more we make overt, evaluative and wrongheaded judgments of them.  That can result in stereotyping their behaviors, making inaccurate predictions about them, assuming understanding or assent to our ideas, filtering needed information and offering critical feedback thoughtlessly.  In the work setting where productivity and efficiency are high priorities, these behaviors can quickly become breakdowns and challenges to our work identity.  As a result, once our behaviors are called into question, smart employees kick the gray matter into gear, analyze the behavior and strategize for necessary changes.  The constructive consequences can result in adopting needed communication processes and attitudes of mind: suspending judgment of right vs. wrong, assuming the legitimacy of others' views, defining terms, dealing with facts rather than interpertations or inferences, taking feeling and emotions into account as important facts and attending to feedback.  Most of all, misunderstandings can enable us to pay attention to how people respond to the information we give, and enhance our ability to collaborate--a needed competency in the New Economy.

Misunderstandings can lead to new ways of structuring our roles.  Misunderstandings and conflicts are often announcements of role disagreement.  When people work on related projects, responsibilities may be poorly defined and blur.  Egos get in the way, and the misunderstanding surfaces, sometimes in the form of conflict.  In those settings, those involved or higher ups can refocus, realign and redefine responsibilities, making for more efficiency and productivity.  The astute employee, with some very smart power plays, can work misunderstanding to their own personal and career advantage. 

Misunderstandings can help bridge hierarchy and functional differences.  Functional loyalties and objectives within the organization are rampant with misunderstanding.  When, for example, marketing and sales, IT and finance, or manufacturing and logistics have to work together, misunderstanding is inevitable.  In the management hierarchy bosses are privy to the "bigger picture."  They forget and sometimes ignore the fact that their subordinates do not have access to needed information for projects and other complex tasks.  Smart employees can step up to the plate and work to resolve misunderstandings.  Not only do those employees gain better understanding of how things work and add to their store of useful business knowledge, but they also earn a valuable reputation.

Interpersonal misunderstandings can surface organizationally useful growth opportunities.  When we think of work misunderstandings, interpersonal difficulties usually come to mind first.  Although too often ignored, when telephones, emails, fax machines and social networks are used for organizational communication, nonverbals such as emotional tone, eye movement, flesh color, facial expression and body gestures are muted or completely absent.  A tease may be interpreted as an insult.  A high prioritiy may be interpreted as something of no urgency.  And simple feedback may be interpreted as personal rejection.  Yet resolution of misunderstandings has been shown to provide a greater understanding of oneself, clarify similarities and and dissimilarities, reveal areas in which communication effort and adaption need to be strengthened, and assist in learning methods for coping with future misunderstanding and conflict. 

The simple practice of recognizing that misunderstanding is far more prevalent than mutual understanding can be of much value.  Misunderstanding proves one of the best opportunities for gaining a richer personal identity.  There's no real way of figuring out our identity, what psychologists refer to as our unique mixture of "selves," until we see how others respond to us in different work settings.  Of course, the more selves I have access to, the more strategies I have to extract and impose in any work situation, and the less reason I'll ever be surprised or astonished .  In today's highly competitive world, my access to a lot of "selves" is the key to work success.  Although many older workers fail to take advantage of these opportunities, I've found that Gen-Yers often move quickly to resolve a misunderstanding.  The consequence is that they can develop a better grasp of the attitudes, values and behaviors of others, and thus are more able to manage the relationship for their own personal and career ends.