Dan Erwin

When the Going Gets Tough, Will the Tough Really Get Going?

You know the old proverb about toughness. And if you went to Sunday School, it took the form of "tribulation is good for you," and you will not "suffer more than you are able to handle." This powerful, religious and cultural strain of our Western belief system holds that high performance requires tribulation. It argues that "dissatisfaction, discomfort and distress" actually galvanize performance. And indeed, some research, such as that of George and Jhou from 2007, demonstrates that negative moods signal a problem to be solved, driving the person onward into performance.

But an equally strong thread of conventional wisdom stresses that success comes from enjoying the work. As recently as 2008, Michael Riketta of Aston University in the U.K. found that higher job satisfaction, the enjoyment of your work, predicts better performance.

So how do you make sense of these two conflicting threads? Is either true? or both? Leave it to Teresa Amabile and her husband Steven Kramer, the real experts in the fields of performance and creativity, to answer this question. Harvard's Amabile has researched in this field for years, reporting regularly in the Harvard Business Review, and now in the fine new book, The Progress Principle. What they found is that there's a bit of truth in both threads, but that there's a far better way to go at work and life than either of the two principles actually offers.  

In a fabulous piece of comprehensive research, Amabile and Kramer collected diaries from a broad sampling of workers and managers over ten years. Their conclusions were built on the diaries of 238 professionals from 26 project teams over the duration of their projects. Nearly 12,000 entries later, they discovered the dynamics of the "inner work life" of professionals and especially its impact on their performance and the entire organization. They've found that performance is driven by a constant interplay between how a worker sees things happening, his/her emotions and the resulting motivation.

Take, for example, my architectural clients, who find themselves two weeks behind on a major elementary school project. The senior associates have added staff to the project, the members are working side by side, seven days a week, some as much as a 12 to 14 hours straight, all understanding the importance of their success to their own reputation, their jobs and the firm. The boss walks in and to their delight calls a halt for a lunch break. Outside there are stacks of pizza, the grills are going with brats and burgers. Beer and pop are available, and the warmth and support for all the team is on display. A seemingly trivial event causes the project members to perceive their work and themselves as important and valued, adding to their stash of very positive emotions. At the end of the day the team is happy and excited about the project, having leaped to the task and put great effort behind it. It is, as one of the members said, one of the "best days of the month." What got done on that good day? As Amabile and Kramer point out, people perform best when their workday experiences include more positive emotions, passion for their work and the supportive, favorable messages of their leaders. Put simply, employees are "working under the influence" of their inner work lives.

So how can you have a lot more of those great performance experiences? 

The key is simple: progress through "small wins." More than two years ago, I wrote about the personal satisfaction, delight and success of small wins in my blog on motivation and small wins. I learned years ago that small wins works because success breeds success. To have success, it's important to make it possible for yourself and your team. Small wins is a calculated, smart effort to break down, to chunk your work and your projects into pieces small enough to achieve on a regular, sometimes even on a daily basis. Chunking makes for a win and motivation, all at the same time. It's serendipity!

When you dig deeper into the process of small wins, what you find is that when people's best days are compared to their worst, the most important difference is being able to make progress in their work. Managers can learn an awful lot from that well-researched principle. Although many of you are fortunate in your managers, that's not always the case. Let's be honest. There are a lot of demeaning creeps out there. Men and women who aren't interested in the work life of their employees. One Gen-Yer said to me that he walked into a session with his boss in a good mood, but always left depressed. She made him hate his job. So rather than go into a funk, he learned the power of small wins for himself, his job, and even his relationship with that asshole boss. The strategy enhanced his feelings of control, made things a little better, and actually chipped away at the power of that dysfunctional culture. He looked out for small but sweet victories that he could win--a tactic that gave him staying power until he was able to successfully transfer out of that sicko group.

Amabile and Kramer have also found that small wins is the secret sauce of high performance. It doesn't make work easier or eliminate frustrations and struggles because most work today is not trivial. But the more small wins, the better able we are to hurdle those really difficult projects.

The Progress Principle spells out the issues in superb fashion for us all.

See my: Motivation and small wins.  Why small changes work and big changes don't.

See also: Amabile and Kramer: Harvard Business Review, Inner Work Life and The Power of Small Wins.

The Secret Sauce For Acing That Job Interview

Periodically Gen-Yers and -Xers corner me for job interviewing suggestions. By the time they get around to talking, they've sent off their resume and are being invited to interview. So naturally, they're a bit tense. Knowing that a great deal of my consulting business is about interviewing for gigs and selling my services, they want to know whether these skills transfer to job interviewing. The answer to that question is a big YES.

Sure, I comment, you want to have a lot of knowledge about the company and the job for which you're interviewing. You want to have some smart questions to ask, questions that show you've done your homework on the job--and the organization. You also want to be able to talk about your strengths and vulnerabilities in very constructive ways. Most of all you want to create an identity in the recruiting manager's mind that you're the best person to resolve his or her needs.

So, they ask, what's the best way, the best format for creating that identity, for explaining and selling yourself? The answer is easy. Be able to tell some fascinating, intriguing tales about yourself and your value.

Quite a few years ago I was interviewing for a consulting gig with the Executive Vice-President of Marketing at Ralston Purina. After about twenty minutes, filled with getting-to-know-you small talk, he put the issue on the table. "Tell me some stories about your consulting experiences," he said. I was surprised and amused that a sophisticated power player would put his request in plain language. I got the job--a gig that lasted more than six years, working with vice-presidents and directors at the firm.

Like most business people, Stephen Denning, a former exec at the World Bank, scoffed at such touch-feely stuff as stories, believing that analytical was good, and anecdotal was bad. Failing in his use of power-point and analysis to gain the support for his efforts, he created a number of tales to envision the future of the organization. It worked, and he reports on it in an HBR article on the power of Telling Tales.

Stories are the most primitive and consistently the most highly successful means for communicating. Analysis and statistics drive business thinking. They cut through myth, gossip and speculation and excite the mind. Their strength is their objectivity. But that's also their weakness. They never offer a path to the heart. And that's where you need to go to motivate a recruiter or a manager to hire you. Stories are the most attention-grabbing and best-remembered communication tool. They are the secret sauce of communicating and the one and only most powerful tool for job interviewing.

A few years ago one of my daughters got a superb management job at a hot, new pharmaceutical firm in Massachusetts. After being hired, she made the rounds of the firm's eight interviewers, mostly Harvard and MIT scientists, to check in and find out why she got the position. The responses were unanimous: she had a "superb education, unusual depth of experience," and "great stories." That's a not-too-shabby recommendation for the persuasive power of telling tales.

What to remember

Make sure your story matches the situation. When you're interviewing for a job, the stories should help the recruiter to understand who you are, what you've done and what you bring to the job. Ideally, he'll not only end up liking you, but respecting and needing you. Stories for this purpose are usually based on personal work events that show what you did and what you took from those experiences. You also ought to have one or two stories in your toolkit that highlight some vulnerability and details how you corrected it.

For an interview, you should be able to encapsulate a story in six to eight sentences. It should describe one or two of your important characteristics, explain the context, detail the action including the problem and its resolution. If you can depict the problem as a conflicted process or relationship, all the better. A few colorful, descriptive words go a long way with recruiters. Pay close attention to the recipient as you talk and emphasize the important words or idea.

Although the story form that I've identified is just a start, I hope it'll inspire you to add stories to your interviewing toolkit. The ability to tell the right story for your interview is the secret sauce of successful interviewing.

Why NOT To Follow The Herd

One of my favorite cartoons first appeared in the New Yorker back in 2003. It depicted two sheep staring at each other, one talking. "Sure, I follow the herd--not out of brainless obedience, mind you, but out of a deep and abiding respect for the concept of community."

Although we think of ourselves as a nation of individuals, able to make many, even most of our own decisions, the truth of the matter is often very different. And it can be very dangerous.

One of the refrains that my daughters occasionally brought home in their early years was, "But Dad, everybody's doing it." Children, however, are not the only ones who pattern their behavior after others. Indeed, Bob Cialdini, the social psychologist, has shown decisively that much of adult behavior is based on what he terms social proof. The tendency to see an act as more appropriate when others are doing it can work quite well. We make fewer mistakes by acting like the group. It's a shortcut for deciding what to do. But at the same time it also makes us vulnerable to the attacks of profiteers and extremists of all sort who lie in wait.

One of my early frustrations in team development was the difficulty of getting people to speak up and present their own perspective, not just following the herd. It's no surprise that plenty of people won't pull their own weight in a team setting. They're social loafers. The other characteristic that initially drove me nuts was that plenty of team members would agree to things that they would never do alone. Being in a team seemed to cause people to become less aware of themselves and also less concerned with how others will evaluate them.

All of this pointed to some disastrous effects, effects that are especially dangerous. Since it's true that people can get lost in groups and do things they would never do by themselves, the same is true in making decisions.

To illustrate, think about the following example. Imagine that you're the parent of a daughter with a terrible heart condition that limits her activities. Your doctor, however tells you about some new surgery that just might make her completely healthy. The catch is that there is a 1% chance that the child will die from the surgery. What will you do? Suppose the odds are different. Instead of a 1% chance, there's a 50% chance your child would die? Or worse yet, what if the chances of death were 80 or 90%?

There's a long history of research on these risk issues. What the research shows is that individuals consistently make riskier decisions when they're in a group than when they're alone. The second, even more intriguing consequence, is that as the options become more clear, the group becomes polarized. If you are predisposed to making slightly riskier decisions, being in a group will cause you to make still more risky decisions. And if you are predisposed to a less risky decision making approach, you will become even less risky in your decision making.

As you can expect, as decisions become more extreme, whether risky or not, they also become far, far less accurate. And because everyone in the group tends to do this, groups become polarized. I'm certain that you can think of many business decisions by executive teams in which this effect took place, resulting in disaster for the business. More than twenty years ago, 3M found itself in the place in which it needed to rework their finances with some cutting. The executive team decided that they would simply offer early retirement to a large number of staff on a first-come, first-serve basis. The tendency to conform and go-along took hold. It was an extreme group decision, a piece of group-think that failed utterly because it failed to consider the consequences. Because the offer was made to all, many of their best research scientists took it. One of my clients told me that it took years to recoup from that disaster.

Watching the Murdoch, News of the World hacking reports has been especially revealing. It's pretty clear that there was an easy group consensus of the reporters regarding their free-wheeling, a decision that has gotten the entire group into serious, probably criminal difficulties. As their competitive approach to news gathering took hold, they became more extreme in their actions, and it has resulted in disaster for Murdoch and his ilk.

The same kind of thoughtless extremism is also liable to put our nation in serious difficulty. We have group members urged to sign all kinds of pledges: Pledges to appoint anti-abortion cabinet officers, to cut off funding of Planned Parenthood, and the "particularly bizarre Marriage Vow in which candidates agree to oppose same-sex marriage."

It strikes me,however, that the most bizarre, thoughtless pledge is that of Grover Norquist's anti-tax. Bill Clinton's comment was apropos, when he said that Norquist is the unofficial enforcer of pledging that has a "chilling" hold on the nation's lawmaking. Norquist was "quoted in the paper the other day saying he gave Republican senators PERMISSION--on getting rid of the ethanol subsidies. I thought, 'My God,what has this country come to when one person has to give you permission to do what's best for the country.' It was chilling."

But the analysis of David Brooks, the articulate Republican, writing in his NYTimes column, served up an even stronger message. Commenting on the failure of astute Republicans to take advantage of the recent offer of the President regarding entitlements, Brooks writes,

American conservatism now has a rich network of Washington interest groups adept at arousing elderly donors and attracting rich lobbying contracts. For example, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform has been instrumental in every recent G.O.P. setback. He was a Newt Gingrich strategist in the 1990s, a major Jack Abramoff companion in the 2000s and he enforced the no-compromise orthodoxy that binds the party today.

Norquist is the Zelig of Republican catastrophe. His method is always the same. He enforces rigid ultimatums that make governance, or even thinking, impossible.

The only possible conclusion? Republicans have signed away the right to govern.

It's refreshing to note that one candidate, Jon Huntsman, Jr., has refused to conform to group-think and the extremism of his own party. He owes allegiance, he says to his flag and his wife, nothing more.

The moral? Be very careful in following the decisions of the herd. Like Thelma and Louise, their actions can spiral out of control driving you right over the cliff.

The Gutsy Candidate: Jon Huntsman

At least one Republican candidate is wise. Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, refuses to sign anything--with a couple exceptions. . . .

I don't sign pledges--other than the Pledge of Allegiance and a pledge to my wife.

Eventually pledge signers will realize that they've backed themselves into a corner. I doubt that any pledge is eternally true or eternally applicable. Inevitably there will be situations in which the pledge is a detriment to wisdom. Trip Gabriel of the Times points out the weakness of pledges in his analysis of the "year of the pledge."

Had Congressional Republicans been willing to make small concessions on raising some taxes, they might have already gotten many of the spending cuts they wanted from the White House by now. 

Surprising Insights from Rule-Breakers Murdoch and Brooks

Two recent analyses of the Murdoch Watergate have piqued my interest. One about Rupert and the other about his protege, Rebekah Brooks. In contrast to almost everything else I've read on the hacking scandal, these two analyses take a different perspective. Rather than simply demonizing the two of them, their analysis is far more balanced . . . insightful and useful.

In today's world, ad hominem arguments regarding such characters as Murdoch and Brooks rule the roost--wrongly. Let me explain. Ad hominem arguments are belittling and insulting statements about a person, usually about real (or unreal) character flaws, for the purpose of attacking that person's claims and refuting his arguments. Rather than deal with the argument or evidence presented by an individual, we attack the person instead, making him out as a jerk or criminal or an immoral character. What typically happens in the popular culture is that once the person is demonized (that's how ad hominem works), then there is nothing of value that that person has ever said or done. There's no reason to consider any of his or her ideas because immoral idiots can't possibly make a trusted, valid contribution of any sort. But the result of such thinking is that many options, ideas, and even genuine contributions are never considered. Ideas that may ultimately have real value for the resolution of problems or contributing to the betterment of business, family, an individual or even society.

Rather than demonize, the authors, Jeff Pfeffer of Stanford Business School, and Carl Bernstein of the original watergate and Deep Throat, speak to the contributions as well as the rule-breeaking and potential criminality of Brooks' and Murdoch's behaviors.

In a Newsweek article Bernstein argues strongly that Murdoch's approach to business has spread through journalism like a disease virus, undermining the influence he covets. Over 17 paragraphs Bernstein points out the scope of the hacking, Murdoch's commanding and often frightening political influence and king-making powers, the unfair and imbalanced politicized "news" of the Fox News Channel, the "industrial scale" of the hacking at News of the World and the lawbreaking on his behalf among the police and even Scotland Yard.

But don't miss the single, glowing paragraph in which Bernstein points out the contributions made by Murdoch to the newspaper business. Contributions desperately needed in the news business which has been under siege for years, and searching, often fruitlessly, for a way to make news profitable once again. Bernstein's analysis is important enough to quote in full:

None of this is to deny Murdoch’s competitive genius, his superior understanding of the modern media marketplace, or his dead-on reading of popular culture. He has made occasionally dull newspapers fun to read and TV news broadcasts fun to watch, and few of us would deny there are days when we love it. He’s been at his best when he’s come in from the outside: starting Sky News, which shook up a complacent British broadcasting establishment; contradicting conventional American media wisdom that a fourth TV network (Fox) could never get off the ground; reducing the power of Britain’s printing trade unions that were exercising a stranglehold on the U.K. press.

It needs to be said that without Murdoch, his insights and his reading of popular culture, the media and especially the news business would be in far worse shape than it is now. So in Murdoch's case, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. There are still a lot of important things the news business can learn from his expertise.

Jeff Pfeffer, a scholar in the field of personal power, draws numerous insights from the experience and activities of Rebekah Brooks. In an astute blog on both power and rule-breaking Pfeffer points out that in just eleven years Brooks rose from secretary to editor of the now-closed News of the World. She understood from an early age that people like people who are similar to themselves, taking up the sports that would enable her to be close to the powerful. She got a short-cut to power because of her willingness to succeed on different terms than the establishment, managing to win out as an underdog. She, like the brilliant Tina Brown of the Daily Beast, understands that you have to be audacious to get noticed.

But, here's the important insight. Rules are good only so far, then they become destructive. Pfeffer explains:

But as demands mount in Britain for Rebekah Brooks' resignation, it is another principle of power-seeking that her experience may end up proving best — and it's the one that makes teaching power strategies so hard. So often my students arrive hoping for rules that are foolproof and linear: when I tell them something works, they want to believe that if a little of it is good, more must be better. Power, like many things in the world, doesn't work that way. With salt and other minerals in the human body, a little is required to live; an excess will poison a person. The secret to power is not figuring out what to do and doing it more than anyone. It is figuring out what to do and then doing it just enough.

So how can you put these learning processes to work for yourself? Here's a practical model.

Whenever there's an issue that seems unresolvable, questionable, needs political support or even further insights, be sure to access possible insights from those with which you disagree, including the jerks and screw-ups.

In organizations it's especially valuable to access intelligence from a diverse a set of people--including those you don't trust and who don't trust you. Follow an issue-oriented approach, not a person-oriented approach to developing insight and understanding.

For example, take any problem on which you've made a tentative conclusion, say a change in business process. Normally, the wise person would check out its validity with others. The people who trust you and agree with your conclusion are usually your closest advisors. These are your allies. However, they are the least valuable in terms of gaining needed insights. They think the way you do, they trust you and so they're at the same place as you.

The most valuable people are those who might be labelled opponents. These are people who have high trust in you, but disagree with your conclusion. They've worked through the issue, coming out at a different place than you. They'll have significantly different insights, use different evidence and reasoning to build their conclusion. They are exceedingly valuable. You'll want to question and listen until you understand their thinking in spades. Typically, the result will be some fine tuning of your conclusion, making it better. On occasion, your opponents may even make you change your mind. That can only be for the good.

The third group, your adversaries, have little to no trust of you and also disagree with you. And you return the favor. But you'll want to get close to them to understand their thinking, both its strengths and its weaknesses. You know the proverb, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Consistently, as you dig into their thinking, you'll gain important stuff for fine tuning your thinking. There's a lot to learn from the Brooks and Murdochs of the world. When you go to adversaries for input, you may find it difficult to get information out of them at first, but they too can be personally valuable.

Learn to ignore the ad hominem talking and thinking that fills the airwaves and popular culture. It has little use is just downright childish. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are prolific users of ad hominem. You'll also find the liberal Rachel Maddow doing it--and she knows a lot better.

If you take the issues surrounding national health care, put Obama on one side and Ryan on the other, you'll notice a huge amount of rejection and demonizing from the political tribes. But if you want see a really smart guy make some sense out of both sides, google David Gergen on CNN and work through a few of his articles. He'll clarify what I'm saying about getting good stuff out of opponents and adversaries. In this instance, it's Republicans and Democrats, Obama and Boehner, Ryan and the Democrats. But notice, especially, that Gergen refuses to demonize. He goes for the important stuff and can teach us all a good lesson. You can really learn a lot from difficult, disagreeable, even criminal characters.

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.

Research Confirms It: Nice Guys Really Do Finish Last

A long line of research showing that leaders who pay attention to their people, treat them with dignity and base decisions on accurate information are among the most effective--at least at mid-manager levels. Their people celebrate their fairness as a leader. They love working for managers like that.

But an absolutely intriguing piece of research by Wiesenfeld, Rothman and Galinsky finds that these leaders typically fall behind in their own careers. The research report in the July-August HBR included lab studies as well as responses from hundreds of corporate decision makers and employees began with the old question, "Should leaders be loved or feared?" But it went on asking, "Can you have both respect and power?"

The studies showed that when it comes time for promotion, the candidates who get the job typically demonstrate a "toughness" about them. And the research found that to be the case in a wide variety of industries. That set of behaviors did not benefit managers who are especially fair with their employees. The obvious conclusion is that you can't have both respect and power, so choose your poison. (Actually, you've probably long-since chosen your poison. It was shaped over time by your life experiences.)

The researchers did find in follow-up studies that those beloved managers can gain power, although that may be a difficult path upward. Of course, promoting the tough guy may not necessarily be the right move for the organization. So organizations need to look closely at the issue of whom they're promoting.

This is the kind of research you may not like to see or admit. Still, reflecting on their conclusion and my own consulting experiences, I was drawn to the findings of David McClelland and his learned needs theory, emphasizing achievement, affiliation or power. McClelland's research supports the study of fair bosses falling behind.

My experience reveals that the really fair guys, whom people love to work for, tend to be highly affiliative in their orientation. That is, they need harmonious relationships with other people and need to be accepted by others. They also tend to conform to the norms of their work group. As I thought through nearly 500 executive clients that I've worked with over the years on a long-term basis, few of them are especially affiliative. Indeed, I can point to only eight or ten that achieved at senior-vice president and the C-Office. Clearly this is anecdotal evidence and should be treated as such, but it supports the findings of the studies on fair bosses.

In contrast, by far the bulk of the senior execs tend to be oriented to power, not affiliation or achievement. Following McClelland's theory, the power may be personal, oriented to directing others. The kind that can be quite undesirable and manifest itself in the manager you don't want to work for. But the bulk of execs at senior levels in the better companies demonstrate a high need for institutional power. They want to organizative the efforts of their people to enhance the goals of the organization.

One client, newly promoted to VP in a major consumer products company, left me with a fascinating comment. The CEO, she said, was "utterly ruthless." But, she went on, "that gives me a lot of comfort because I know our company will always do well in competition with other organizations." I knew the CEO personally. A nice guy with a velvet covered fist. I had a lot of respect for him and agreed with her assessment. I had watched him fire a couple of his close friends who weren't delivering up-to-snuff. It was a wise move for the company.

You can only conclude that if you're a fair manager or boss, you're probably shooting yourself in the foot. There's a ceiling over you that's liable to be pretty impenetrable. Respect and liking can get you a long way, but probably not into the C-Office suites.

The study, however, did give hope to those "fair bosses" who want to learn the intricacies of power management. Power, like negotiation, leadership, and communication is a learnable skill. It takes time, but it's doable. However, it'll inevitably result in a different balance of relationships with your subordinates.

4 Tips for Dealing with an Urgent Request

The business world is an urgent world. At least that's what managers want you to believe. Take a deep breath, lean back, and get real.

Here's the skinny: managers are paid to get results. The consequence is that they talk urgent, like a speeded up newscaster. So don't get spooked. It is exceedingly rare for any manager to move as fast as he or she talks. One of the few, really frustrating truths I've learned in nearly 30 years of consulting is that my understanding of urgent is different than my client's understanding of urgent. I've always got more time to respond than I initially thought. In the back of my mind is an important footnote: Bosses, even CEO's don't push McKinsey consultants and other powerful people with "urgent requests." McKinsey, in very measured and articulate fashion, will push back on corporate people so that they can do the job in the form they want and make the money they expect.

Here are four tips on how to respond to an urgent request, borrowed and freely adjusted from Ron Ashkenas.

1. Don't think that urgent means right now. Talk to your boss or your client about what he wants accomplished. And in the conversation, move beyond the specific, concrete task to his objective. He'll want to talk task, you want objective. What will this task achieve for him? Be smart about the question. Respond like, "so what you want from me is blah, blah, blah. Right?" If he says yes, then ask how doing that fits into his overall objective. If he tells you to "just do it," respond with, "I can do a lot better job for you if I understand how this fits into . . . ."
2. Listen for the politics. Here's my rule: All tasks have a political component. Who besides your client or your boss is making this an urgent matter? That information will help you make a timeline decision. If it's the CEO or board chairman, get your ass in gear. If it's several of your boss's colleagues, you can usually slow down.
3. Respond, but don't be in a hurry to act. Get real. Ninety-five percent of the time when you finish the task for your boss or your client, it'll sit on his desk for a week or more before he does anything with it. Think about it. Your boss probably needs to clear out his in-basket. Since he'd like to get it done today, that's his rationale for making the task urgent. You might say, "OK. I have number of high priority tasks, but I can get it done by the end of next week. Will that be OK with you?" Don't forget that one of the reasons that your boss is a manager is that he's learned how to juggle priorities. You can be certain that he knows how to put off projects for other priorities, so your request will be a familiar issue.
4. Be prepared to say no. Once you've figured out whether it's a real crisis or your boss (or client) is crying wolf, then you're ready to say yes or no. If your client or your boss thinks he needs something right now, it's quite OK to decline the request.  A second way of saying no to your boss is to force him to reprioritize your tasks.  Say something like, "I understand that this task is urgent, but you've given me a number of priorities . . . A, B, and C. How would you suggest that I repriortize?"

There is a very important, and "urgent" assumption under all of this. And that is that you have an effective and open relationship with your boss. In today's economic climate, success with your boss is your highest priority. Don't skim over that. Your boss is your highest priority, not your other tasks. That means that you manage him. If he trusts that you manage him and his needs well, you can probably get away with murder. You're too valuable to him, personally, to ignore. Check out my posts on managing up. In one especially potent blog, I reveal the real secret to managing your boss. 

Erwin rule: business never moves as fast as it would like the world to think. Plodding along, making slow, political decisions is the norm. If you think government moves slowly, check out business. It moves just as slowly and makes just as many mistakes. Maybe more. I have that info on good authority from leading execs. Business just has better PR.

Think Twice Before You Follow Your Passion

In a critical rejection of the widely accepted notion to follow your passion, Dorie Clark argues in a Harvard Business blog that the strategy can be wrongheaded. As Clark points out, doing what you love can inspire great dedication and a sense of meaning, but it can also blind you to real problems.

She suggests four straight-forward reasons why the strategy can be a serious blunder.

1. You may not have a knack for your objective. Remember, it's always hard to judge yourself, to know what your strengths and weaknesses might be. Indeed, I've learned as an executive coach that though many have a sense of their weaknesses, few have a real sense of their strengths. It's often the case that personal passion may not play to one's strengths.
2. You hate the work surrounding your passion. Though your passion might truly reflect your strengths, it's also true that some really can drop the ball when it comes to the work surrounding their passion, putting them in serious risk. I've known numerous would-be consultants who love the work, but find that the sales processes involved drive them nuts. As a result, their passion goes by the wayside. 
3. You're too emotionally attached. I see this regularly in many well-trained professionals. Writers hate feedback. CPA's despise someone suggesting their financial strategy is limited. Physicians hate being challenged in their diagnoses. And business people have difficulty objectifying their expertise enough to accept criticism. When you care too deeply about a project, it's very difficult to make a rational decision about whether it should live or die.
4. No one will pay for it. You can turn your passion, your hobby into a job--only if someone's willing to pay for it. I've had two careers for which I was passionate, but learned that that both placed serious limitations on my financial future. Neither were financially viable. With three daughters off to college, I needed a more lucrative profession. Thankfully, I was able to leverage my experiences. But if I'd stayed in them, I would have been up the financial creek and our children would have suffered for it. In short, what was once a viable career may go out of existence tomorrow. 

Although Dorie Clark's recommendations are very practical and make a lot of immediate sense, there are two more profound reason's why following your passion can be a clear dead-end.

First, you may not be aware either of your future interests or strengths. It usually takes a significant amount of experience and feedback to draw relevant conclusions about one's own career. What's interesting and inspiring today may be exceedingly dull and boring tomorrow. So rather than being concerned about your dreams and your passion, I'd work on the skills of adaptability and take the opportunities that come across your path. Indeed, the combination of globalized competition and technological development have made rapid change and adaptation an absolute necessity for career survival and success.

But the most important reason not to follow your passion is to understand that the entire midset of "following your passion," the theory, is built upon false premises about us as humans. It's built upon the notion that you and I have one true self and that our task in life is to identify that true self. But you and I do not have one true self or one single identity. Instead we are a lot of selves with a lot of identities. In a previous blog I wrote about the disbelief and suprise of a high school classmate when she finally figured out who I was at a fifty year reunion. For a good laugh, check out my blog, How to change your personality. My career passion never entered into the matter. It was ultimately about family need and the demand for financial survival and success.

The notion of a true self, though exceedingly popular, has been thoroughly dispelled by research. To appreciate this dynamic—that each of us is not one true self but many selves, a whole cast of characters that we might become, think we should become or even fear becoming in the future—consider a study by Stanford’s Hazel Markus. In this study 210 college students were asked to “tell us about what is possible for you.”  With that information, Markus and Paula Nurius created a questionnaire of 150 possibilities.  Broken out into six categories, the questionnaire included general descriptors such as creative and intelligent; life-style possibilities such as being health conscious or alcohol dependent; and occupational alternatives such as business executive, supreme court justice, taxi-driver or police officer.  The categories were then broken down into how they thought about themselves currently and whether they considered an alternative for themselves in the future.  

The study showed that when the context is changed, the possibilities a person faces spur them to find role models they’d like to become.  So think twice before you follow your passion. You're liable to find a lot more out there than you suspect.

 Hazel Markus and Paula Nurius.  Possible Selves. American Psychologist 41(9) (1986), 954-969.