Dan Erwin

Alexandra Levit: If Something is Needed, Create It

 During this past year my colleague Alexandra Levit served on a national comittee to improve the competitiveness of American employees.  The result is a great new, interactive course for college grads. The course just launched on the web.  I've gone through part of it and know it will be exceptionally useful.  Here's Alexandra. 

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Those of you who have been reading my blog (AlexandraLevit.com) for a while may recall that I was a complete dud in my first corporate PR job.  My boss despised me and my colleagues thought I was overeager, and it took me two years to get a promotion that people with half my work ethic achieved in six months.

The second company that employed me kindly spent a few thousand dollars sending me to a professional development course that changed my career and my life.  I’d like to think that everything the course taught me about developing a strong reputation at work, being diplomatic with colleagues, and driving my career forward was a good investment since I was much more effective after that. 

The truth is, though, that not every college graduate has access to training like I had, and some really gifted people spend their post-college careers floundering because they aren’t given the chance to learn the skills and strategies that will meet with success.

I got tired of waiting for someone else to fix this problem, so I worked with the Business Roundtable, and Accenture to create JobSTART 101, a free online course that prepares college students to meet and exceed employer expectations when they enter the workforce.  It includes video and workbook components covering topics like how to establish your e-brand and how to problem-solve on the job – basically, all of the information I wish I’d had in my back pocket when I was just starting out.

If you’re a student or recent grad, I hope you’ll check it out for some decent advice, but more importantly, I hope each of you goes into work today and thinks about what’s sorely needed in your company and industry. And then if you can create it, go for it.  The world – and your career – will thank you for it.

Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take This Any Longer!

By now you're probably aware of the Jet Blue flight attendant, Steven Slater, who gave the term "exit interview" a different meaning.  Angered at the behavior of passengers, he picked up the intercom, submitted his resignation, grabbed two beers and slid down the escape chute.  He's gained a certain kind of notariety and almost cult-like support from some of the public. 

I have no doubt that the demands of employment have become very stressful for many employees.  In his Newsweek article Daniel Gross writes that Slater's meltdown came just a few hours before a government news release signaled that employers have pushed workers as far as they can go.  Many employees are experiencing demands to produce more, serve more without much assistance, get less, or put off the raise.  Indeed, some highly profitable firms are muscling wages of their employees down rather than up. 

Yeah, there are plenty reasons for many employees to be very, very angry.   But I'd suggest to you that in terms of a career future of nearly any kind, Steven Slater has none.  His career options are nada.  Zip.  Gone.  Permanently.  And he did it to himself.

Because I've had success with angry managers and employees, this is a good time to revisit the experience of anger and offer some simple suggestions that can make a significant difference for you when you find yourself in difficult, frustrating situations.

Anger is a very discrete and particular thought. 

It's the arrival at the conclusion that you're being trespassed against, taken advantage of, or being frustrated in your desires.  But never forget that most any experience can provide a number of different conclusions.  Anger is merely one conclusion or inference that can be drawn from a given experience.  "My boss is really an asshole.  Look what he just did to poor Jim."  But actually, it's quite possible to develop any number of thoughts toward that boss for what he did.  Decide you need to get flaming angry and blow your top, view it as an incident with little potential for resolution, problem solve with your boss, cover your own ass so it doesn't happen to you, decide to look for another job, etc., etc.  Again, anger is just one conclusion you can draw about the actions of that asshole boss or colleague. 

If you're tracking your thoughts, and admittedly, plenty aren't, anger situations are a good time to think through your potential behavior and its implications.  Martin Seligman, the eminent Penn psychologist and author of Learned Optimism, has shown that ultimately our thoughts determine our behavior, not our feelings.  Our thoughts are interpretations of our feelings.  Three people can essentially have the same feeling about an asshole boss, but draw three different conclusions about that situation.  Taking charge of your thoughts makes it possible to take charge of your behavior.

Anger is also a bodily reaction. 

Your nervous system and muscles mobilize for physical assault.  Muscles tense.  Blood pressure and heart rate skyrocket.  Digestive processes stop.  Brain centers are triggered and brain chemistry goes into an attack mode.  All of this is accompanied by subjective thoughts and feelings of anger.  However, many simply don't think until they've trained themselves to do that.  They merely feel, their body goes into action and they're in trouble. 

So what can you do about bodily reactions?  Pay attention to them.  Most people initially feel from one specific part of their body: their stomach, their chest, their neck muscles or their face.  Nearly always, feelings of anger first surface in my gut, not my chest or neck.  Pay attention to yourself and figure out what the hell's going on.  Once you begin to catch those feelings, you can go to work on your thinking and resolve some of the issues with gray matter rather than just building them, holding on to them and making yourself sick over a situation.  Identifying what's happening to your body early on makes preventive action possible. 

Treat bodily reactions the same way you would any other physical problem.  Whenever possible, take preventive action when you sense the sickness coming on.  When one of my daughters was a teenager, she had horrible headaches, tried many medications and was largely unsuccessful.  Until, that is, she talked with a specialist who taught her to identify the trigger mechanisms and recognize the early symptoms of a headache.  At that point, she was told to take an over-the-counter analgesic, rather than wait for it to get worse.  She has become highly successful in managing her body and rarely has a headache today.  Preventive action resolved the problem.  I'm not playing down the meaning of anger in the workplace or any other setting.  Besides, in the next few paragraphs, I'm going to recommend the wise use of anger.  Don't misunderstand.  I have no middle-class allergy toward the use of anger in some settings.  But if nothing will change a situation, I'm sure as hell not going to waste my energy and my anger on it.  I'll just channel my anger in other directions.

Anger can also become attack. 

Anger attacks, like Slater's, are usually directed toward the offender(s).  Slater made his attack rather clear.  He really said to his bosses and clients, "take this job and shove it."  However, if you are well socialized, you'll usually control the attack--at least somewhat.  Mute it.  Suppress it.  Or save it for a more opportune time.  Highly socialized people don't usually attack.  If you do attack or decide to attack make certain that you've got some follow up plans in place. 

Recently I've taught some clients who are in a difficult organizational setting how to become a strategic asshole.  They attack.  However, they reserve that attack for very rare situations, have it planned out, have some definite back-up plans, and go after a very specific objective.  One of my clients told me that she had gotten fed up with one internal client, always bitching and complaining and making impossible demands.  She was really angry with the S.O.B.  So she planned out her attack, waited for a relevant opportunity, attacked and was highly successful.  The client backed down fast and changed his ways of talking and relating to her--long term.  She achieved her objectives in a very difficult culture.  He also treats her with much more respect.  But be very, very careful in deciding to make a strategic attack.  I don't use them more than once every six months or year, and sometimes not that often.  The fall-out, if not thought through, can be very damaging.

So what happens when you control or "stuff" your anger?  There's a lot of disagreement on that subject.  Some psychologists view our emotional system as hydraulic.  If anger is dammed up or pushed down in one place, it will inevitably surface in some other, more unwelcome place.  If you don't vent your anger when you are angry, it will increase your blood pressure or eat an ulcer in your stomach, or cause self-hate or be set aside until you come to a less dangerous victim.  Still others think that anger unexpressed simply dissipates.  It dilutes and dissolves.  If you count to one-hundred or turn the other cheek, before you know it the anger is gone.  Well, who's right?  Actually neither is quite right.  The most effective means of dealing with anger is resolution.  And neither of those ways can be considered resolution.

My recommendation?  The next time you're tempted to do a "Jet Blue" or tell the boss to shove it, think very carefully about what you're about to do.  Manage that anger very carefully.

Reflections on "Knowing When Someone is BSing"

Yesterday Steve Tobak, a really smart guy who has a regular blog on BNET, wrote the article on BSing.  Tobak is a marketing and strategy consultant in Silicon Valley.  Some of his marketing recommendations work out of solid theory, research that he’s obviously gained both by education and experience.  He’s a very good marketing guy.  He really, for example, knows how to market a blog.

So, here’s a quick rundown on the 10 ways to know when someone’s bullshitting you, taken from his latest blog.

• The story changes
• They act dumb but they’re not
• They try too hard
• They appear nervous when they shouldn’t be
• They look scared when they shouldn’t be
• They repeat the question
• They’re something it for them
• They’re fanatical
• They only present one side.

Interesting stuff, guaranteed to get a lot of hits, but when it comes to lying, Tobak is out of his league.  What he writes here simply won’t stand up to research scrutiny.

Communication and psychology scholars have studied lying for years.  Paul Ekman, for example, has spent more than 40 years researching deception.  From his professorial perch at UCSF, he’s written more than a dozen books, including, “Telling Lies.”  The American Psychological Association named him as one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century.  His firm runs seminars for people like policemen and airport staffers who really need to study deception.

Spotting lies and liars

Here’s the kicker about spotting lies and liars.  You can’t.  Really, you can’t.

This is what Paul Ekman said about lying, just last year.  “His firm has tested about 15,000 people in many professions, including the CIA, judges, lawyers and policemen.  MOST PEOPLE ARE ONLY AT ABOUT THE LEVEL OF FLIPPING A COIN.  MOST LIARS CAN FOOL MOST OF THE PEOPLE MOST OF THE TIME.” 

For example, one of the most common things people do in hiding emotions and the truth is smiling.  Note that that’s the opposite of three of Tobak’s statements.

Why do I bother writing this?  I work out of a fundamental rule, not merely because I’m a scholar, but because research works and raises my batting average.  Whenever possible, I believe it’s very important to make decisions on the basis of good information, researched information.

Over the the last 20 years social scientists have developed a huge battery of researched-based information.  Why should we go with charismatic guys and intuition, when there’s so much really useful data out there about so many important matters in business and relationships?

In short, Mr Tobak’s blog on BSing is, well. . . BS.

On Assholes, Jerks, Bullshitters and other Frustrating Human Characters

Although some may think that Bob Sutton of Stanford fame started this discussion with his recent book, The No Asshole Rule, Harry Frankfurt, a Princeton philosophy prof, beat him to the punch in 2005.  Frankfurt’s tome, though scholarly, is little more than a brief essay entitled, On Bullshit.  Still, his work provides a useful analysis of the subject.

Let’s frame the issue this way.  I’m approaching these personalities as a serious attempt to build your vocabulary and your street smarts. In fact, the haphazard or spontaneous labeling of someone as an asshole or bullshitter provides little in the way of realistic cues for effectively managing such a person.  And as most will admit, it’s very important to learn how to manage these difficult people.

Yeah!  What I’m suggesting is that if you’re pissed enough with somebody’s behaviors to label that person with a hostile pejorative, do it accurately.

What’s actually driving my blog, though, is a comment that one reader made on a previous blog , Five questions for testing relationship behaviors.  She began with a compliment and ended with a consciousness-raising insight: 

It's possible that you've misconstrued the situation based on your own experience and assumptions but from what I read here, you are pretty smart and well educated and there are a lot of jerks out there. Sometimes you have to go with your hunch (that the guy is a jerk) unless he starts to show otherwise.

So in the interest of workplace relationships and rhetorical accuracy, I intend to deal with four frustrating personalities, including assholes and bullshitters.  In a later blog I’ll make some suggestions for dealing with them in the workplace.

Sutton defines assholes as employees who are insensitive to their colleagues: corporate bullies, bosses who just don’t get it.  He writes that they are flat out rude, selfish, uncivil, mean-spirited, and don’t really seem to care about whom they step on.  He goes on to distinguish the asshole as a person whose language and relationships leave people feeling threatened and demeaned.  I believe that assholes are planful and intentional which makes them very painful.

 

Frankfurt makes it clear that bullshitters are in a different category.  He compares bullshit to humbug.  Bullshit, he writes, is short of lying and those who perpetrate it misrepresent themselves in a certain way.  The bullshitter is always trying to get away with something, and has no interest in the truth of what he or she says.  These folks, when trading their wares, seem to be intense, even passionate when telling stuff that they want you to think is significant.  But it’s not “for real.”  Like assholes, their behaviors, too, are quite intentional.

I’ve never seen an analysis of jerks.  However, jerks exist in a still different category.  Contrary to Sutton, I think it’s a miscalculation to confuse assholes with jerks.  In my mind, assholes have a pretty strong sense of what they’re doing and they delight in it.  Jerk behavior, like muscle spasms, is involuntary and not usually intentional.  Jerks, in contrast to assholes or bullshitters, are socially dumb and dumbly unaware.  They merely blunder on in their ways and can’t read the body language that they get from other people.

Though many think of these characters as male, that’s merely because in the corporate world male managers outnumber managers of the other sex.  Anyone who’s ever been in retailing will have stories about plenty of females who fit these categories.   

I don’t have a colorful name for the fourth category, but I can spot them from a mile away or within seconds of a conversation.  I’m troubled because they are showing up more and more in the workplace, made visible because of the growth of religious fundamentalism.  I think of them as the “professionally religious.” 

When I was in the parish ministry, which, by the way, was loads of fun and a glorious experience, I stayed away from these people as much as humanly possible.  I often held a quiet little party when they left the church.  They were religious in the worst sense of the word.  Always sincere, and, oh god, were they humble (at least they wanted everyone to think that of them), often inept, except that they wanted everyone to believe that they were paragons of virtue, goodness and religion.  Although there are more and more men fitting this category, women seem to have a lock on the personality structure.

A few years ago, I was bitching to a seminary faculty member about a certain church organist, complaining about her uninspiring performance and lack of organ color (I’m a nut about great organs and great organists).  He suggested that she might not last.  I commented, to his laughter, that she was “very sincere, extremely religious and terribly humble, all of which meant she’d keep the church organist position forever.”  In my mind, that personality is a form of well-practiced bullshit that many parishioners think goes with the territory and which some seem to believe to be appropriate.  It is not involuntary, like the jerk, but quite intentional.

Stay tuned for part 2 on the subject which will focus on some suggestions for dealing with these characters.

How to Raise Kids to Achieve

The holidays are book times in our home.  I've promised to review two new books, Alexandra Levit's intriguing book, New Job, New You, and a different take on change by Jean Latting and Jean Ramsey, entitled Reframing Change.  I also picked up Atul Gwande's just published, Checklist Manifest: How to Get Things Right, an exploration of the nature of complexity in our lives.

My eldest sent me Ted Kennedy's autobiography, True Compass, a revelation of the Kennedy family.  I've  read 75 of the 500 pages thus far, but what's most fascinating is a major subtext: how the parents, Joseph and Rose, set out and succeeded in raising kids to achieve.

Whatever your perspective on the Kennedy family, and they have plenty of detractors, there are a few timeless lessons for all of us.  Boston, these Irish Catholics decided, with its old Yankee stock would never completely accept the Kennedys.   The family move to Hyannis Port was an attempt to circumvent some of those prejudices.  Geographical change can become a necessity. 

But it's the family values that Ted Kennedy surfaces that drive the kids' achievement.  Since there's no question that we've identified with some of the same values, I want to do a personal sidebar of disclosure on our own values first.  On a few occasions I've commented that I was a Christian minister for elven years in the college towns of Boulder, Colorado (a glorious experience), and Flagstaff, Arizona (not nearly as interesting).  After those experiences, and with graduate degrees in tow, I taught in a theological seminary of the Scandinavian piety, here in Minnesota.  Many of you know that parts of the Twin Cities are heavily Lutheran and that St. Paul area has been heavily infused with the Catholic piety.  There isn't a Scandinavian bone in my body.  So that culture with its strong piety was,initially, a strange bird to us.  We love the emphasis on education, the arts, cleanliness and order.  But, the central place of conflict between the Scandinavian piety and myself is the hierarchy of values that determine a person's spiritual worth. 

Growing up in a family from the Mid-South, with English and Scotch-Irish in background, the Scandinavian emphasis on humility was utterly foreign to us.  We imbibed truth-telling from our ethnicity, and humility was far down the ladder.  In all my years of Detroit schooling and regular church attendance, I remember absolutely nothing about humility.  When we first moved here, it took me just a few months to learn that an open mouth is not to be rewarded.  Better to be quiet, put on no intellectual airs, and be humble.  People who speak up will not be rewarded.  A few weeks ago, I had a brief conversation with a former colleague who told me that in old age he had a developed a strong sense of humility about life.  I could see that he was visibly shaken by my response:  "That's a category that never crosses my mind." 

Of course, my cultural response to all the piety of humility was, "nonsense."  There is such a thing as genuine humility, but personal humility in my mind doesn't look like you Scandinavians want it to look.  Crassly, our style is much more like that of Penelope Trunk, the well known blogger.  She, of course, would have been tarred and feathered and run out of the church and society in this culture. 

So, as you can imagine, I ran up against plenty of barriers, especially with certain faculty and church-goers, in the early years of our Twin Cities experience.  But after awhile, I was able to look on the good side, celebrate the education and the arts, and go on about my business.  I've learned how to navigate the humble shibboleths, enjoy myself, build a good business and raise our three daughters.  I've also developed a few Scandinavian friends who can laugh with me about their piety and about mine as well.

From the birth of our first daughter, my wife and I both strategized about their lives.  We intended for them to achieve in school and in a profession, have a few significant friends, tell the truth most of the time, and develop a quality of street smarts that will enable them to achieve and have a meaningful existence in most any geographical setting.  Thus, in spite of the fact that I was a nationally known Christian minister, raising good kids who were "religious" was simply not an agenda of significance.  I believe that the Judeo-Christian ethos is the best support system for achievement in the modern world.  But in my ministry, I found that too many "good kids" were really boring nonachievers.

Now comes Ted Kennedy and his reminiscences about his father.  Kennedy writes that his father was never abusive, never wounding toward any of his children, but he let them know his expectations.  When he was 13 or 14, his father brought him in for a chat although the behavior that precipated the conversation was not recalled.  Here's what Joe Kennedy said: You can have a serious life or a nonserious life, Teddy.  I'll still love you whichever choice you make.  But if you decide to have a nonserious life, I won't have much time for you.  You make up your mind.  There are too many children here who are doing things that are interesting for me to do much with you.   

Obviously, it took Ted little time to make up his mind.

Two other values from Joe Kennedy take the form of simple proverbs:  There is to be no crying in this house.   It's very similar to a comment that one of my Scotch-Irish colleagues, Bill Bellinger, used to make occasionally to students who were complaining or dithering:  Just get on with it.  The "it" could be a paper, a project, or most anything else that needed completion.    

The other value is one that I made religiously acceptable by labeling it, "sanctified nonchalance."  Joe Kennedy would say, After you have done your best, then the hell with it. 

These few values go a long way toward raising achieving kids.  As the father of three successful professional daughters, I'm all for them. 

Carol Bartz: "Don't Let Things Get to You"

Carol Bartz of Yahoo is the exception.  I don't read autobiographies of the "great business leaders," Jack Welch, Lou Gerstner or anyone else.   The most basic reason is the halo effect:  the way our minds tend to create and maintain a coherent and consistent picture of ourselves in order to reduce cognitive dissonance.  That suggests that I'm also careful about how I think about myself, and quite able to laugh at myself.  My kids and wife will also have a good laugh and challenge my self-characterization.

However, the interview of Carol Bartz in the Times was surprisingly believable, not because of her well-known business history, but because of the coherent and consistent challenges to conventional wisdom.  She made a terrific amount of sense about a number of relevant subjects in a brief column.

One of the important leadership lessons she learned is to never really let things get to you.  She follows up that lesson with a story:

My favorite story is when we were on a farm in Wisconsin; I would have probably been 13.  There was a snake up in the rafter of the machine shed.  And we ran and said, "Grandma, there's snake."  And she came out and she knocked it down with a shovel, chopped its head off and said, "You could have done that."  And, you know, that's the tone she set.  Just get it done.  Just do it.  Pick yourself up.  Move on. Laugh.

I talk about the same issue, but with my own language.  I believe life should be lived with a bit of sanctified nonchalance.  A bit of devil-may-care.  That way, nothing really gets to me.  Of course, to live life that way requires a bit of personal personal thinking and personal philosophizing. 

Bartz addresses that issue also when asked what business schools should teach more of.  I think there ought to be some classes for people to get more philosophical about who they are and what motivates them, and therefore why they act like they act.

Who Makes the First Offer When Haggling?

You want to get a good price on an item, say a used car.  You've explored all of your alternatives, including the Kelley Blue Book of used car prices.  You know the point to walk away, and you can identify a potential impasse.  You've assessed the best possible deal you might, and set up the stage for success.  Now comes the first offer.  Who should make it?  You or the salesperson?

On occasion, the salesperson may beat you to the punch and make the first offer.  The conventional wisdom is to let the salesperson make the first offer.  However, research into the "anchoring" of a negotiation reveals that how we perceive a particular offer's value is highly influenced by any relevant number that enters the negotiation environment.  Numerical values are considered "anchors."  Anchors affect the judgment of even those who think they are immune to them--and there is plenty of research backing that up.  Adam Galinsky, another expert in negotiation, has found that when a seller makes the first offer, the final settlement price tends to be higher than when the buyer makes the first offer. 

So if you've done your homework and have decided on a realistic range within the arena of possibility, the buyer will be better off to make the first offer.  All kinds of negotiation experts will rejct this, but the research is overwhelming.  Not only does making the first offer anchor the negotiation in your favor, but it also offers you a bargaining advantage when that offer is rejected.

However, when the seller has a lot more information about the item to be negotiated than you do, then the first offer will not be nearly as successful.  So always do your homework and do it thoroughly if you want to negotiate a price in your favor.  Last year, into the early months of the recession I bought a new car.  I followed through on my homework, checked out new car website and decided that I was after a $1500 discount off the current list.  I didn't make the first offer as I'd anticipated.  Instead, the salesman offered me a $2500 discount and I was so shocked that I forgot to stall, and accepted the price.  I've since realized that it would have been wise to stall since I didn't make the first offer.  I'm convinced I could have done still better.  Ahhhh, well.  Can't win them all.

You've made your offer and usually the seller needs space to think about it, so he/she will start talking.  Rather than responding to your offer, you're liable to get features and benefits, even though they've already been through the list.  Furthermore, experienced negotiators are aware that you will get nervous and perhaps make a better offer if they take their time responding to an offer.  Savvy hagglers wait out their counterpart's stalling tactics--because that's what's going on.  Malhotra and Bazerman say it's a serious mistake to make an "unreciprocated concession." 

If you get no concession from the salesperson, thank him for his time.  Often, the mere fact that you're going to walk away inspires the salesperson to come up with a counteroffer.

Remember:  If you've done your homework, you're usually ahead of the game if you, the buyer, make the first offer.

How to Set the Stage for Haggling Success

Effective hagglers carefully set the stage for their success.  Exploring your own alternatives for haggling success is inevitably followed, says Max Bazerman, by assessing the other party's alternatives.  Setting the stage is the third step in the art and science of haggling.   

Setting the stage is an old idiom very familiar to those of us with background in drama.  Because the stage for your negotiation is a key success factor, setting the stage needs elaboration.  You don't just walk in and start haggling over the price of a product.  My very successful "horse trading" father regularly talked me through stage setting  and its importance. 

If, for example, there was a purchase to be made from one of his ethnic buddies on "14th Street" in old Detroit, he talked to me about the best week of the month, the best day of the week, the best time of the day and who to engage.  He was very calculated in his assessment and I learned that it usually paid off big time.  (I doubt that this kind of experience takes place anymore.  That world is gone.  But if I was along, the sale occasionally concluded with coffee, donuts, candy and a lot of laughter from one of the store owners.  On those occasions when my dad did exceptionally well, he received the kudos, "Well Tom, you did it to me again."  And since my dad had priced the object in question at several other places, the owner was not just BSing.)  Studies over the past 10 to 20 years indicate that my dad's success is typical of trained negotiators.

How do you set the stage for successful haggling?

There is a lot to be said for my dad's focus on timing.  Consumer Reports advises negotiating early or late in the day when the stores are quiet.  But you'll need to know the customer cycle.  I've found that in some suburban stores the best time is between 10 am and about 11:15. 

In addition, Consumer Reports reminds us that we may need to work with a manager out of earshot of customers.  The mere presence of other customers might put an end to your negotiating before you ever got started.

Make certain you've done your homework on competitor's prices and expect the salesperson or manager to verify the prices.  Electronics stores will check prices on the web and will want to discredit prices such as Amazon where delivery times are an issue.  So be ready to push back on delivery times when time is not an issue for you. 

Finally, be polite, listen intently without any need to respond instantly to the salesperson's question of you.  Bazerman and colleagues also remind their readers that stores typically pay fees on credit-card purchases.  Keep in mind that cash may encourage further bargaining.  In major purchases, like autos, cash can work against you because installment loans are a major part of their price, but you don't have to tell them you're going to pay cash until you've already negotiated.  Be especially wary of the tacked on prices for warranties which many firms will attempt.  I recently bought a $60 item at an electronic store where they wanted me to buy an $18 three-year warranty.  I don't buy warranties, not even for a new auto.

One final note for those of you who are resistant to haggling.  Check out the web and you'll see that as a result of the recession, haggling is becoming a lot more common .  In the final analysis, it's street smarts, par excellance, and your buck.

"Yale Is Not a Trade School"

The conversation about liberal arts and business is more heated than ever and it's coming from many places.  Personally, it's a very important question, because I've long since decided that the better thinkers tend to be liberal arts grads.  I'd heard that message for years, but after extensive psych and interview evaluations of more than 400 corporate managers and execs in my consulting business, it's obvious.  It's also not politically correct to talk about it too much inside the corporation. 

Notice, I said "tend to be" the better thinkers.  Of course, that's not always true.  There are exceptions to every rule.  At least I'm consistent.  My wife, our three daughters and myself all have liberal arts degrees.  Matt Shaffer, a Yale senior, published an article in the Yale Daily News this past Tuesday which I've used for my blog title.  In a number of conversations at the Harvard Club and from Yale alumni, he kept hearing Ivy grads from some of the top consulting firms and banks mouth these words:  "I haven't used anything that I learned from my economics major."  Shaffer suspects economics is one of the most popular majors because it enables you to satisfy the recruiters for your first job.  And once you've had those three hiring interviews, supported by your economics major, you'll wish you'd studied Renaissance literature or philosophy.  That'll give you a far richer understanding of the world in which you work and live. 

Shaffer's conclusions are straightforward:  Taking 'Financial Theory' won't actually make us better bankers, but by familiarizing us with financial jargon and proving our genuine interest in the trade, it might give us an edge in the initial hiring.  In other words, it won't make any difference in how we perform in our jobs, but it might determine whether or not we get the jobs in the first place.

WSJ is publishing a series of articles by Stephen Yoder and son Isaac, who's starting his freshman year at a liberal arts college.  In the latest article, son Isaac is writing about registering for classes and wondering whether he should follow his father's advice to branch out and take courses from professors with the best reputation. 

He also writes that it doesn't set one up very well for a paying post-college career.  Furthermore, in somewhat frustrated tone he announces that his advisor hasn't said a word about the courses that would help him get a job later.  Having been a university teacher 25 years ago, I could tell him that most college teachers don't know beans about the business world.  That's not their job, but . . . . 

The comments, of course, are split down the middle.  On one side of the issue a commenter tells him that he should go ahead and get a philosophy major, that he can do whatever he wants with it.  (None of the writers seem to know the research showing that executives with undergrad philosophy majors are among the best paid in business.)  On the other side of the column are those who indicate that by the time Isaac's in college he should know exactly what career he'll be going into after college, and should take courses in preparation for that career.  (What planet are they living on?  Boomers have extended their kids' adolescence so long that even if the recommendation is correct, which I seriously doubt, few Gen-Yers will be concerned about their career until at least their senior year in college.)   No surprise to me that the argument is heated.  It's driven strongly by the economic climate.

A couple weeks ago, Drew Faust, president of Harvard, stepped into the fray, but from the perspective of university purpose, a macro perspective.  Her perspective, both historical and contemporary, adds needed insight.   

The economic downturn has had what is perhaps an even more worrisome impact. It has reinforced America’s deep-seated notion that a college degree serves largely instrumental purposes. 

Faust takes a perspective, that though historical and desperately needed, is rarely heard within the business context any longer.  It causes me to ask whether the liberal arts has become an elitist orientation.

In the era of economic constraint before us, the pressure toward vocational pursuits is likely only to intensify. As a nation, we need to ask more than this from our universities. Higher learning can offer individuals and societies a depth and breadth of vision absent from the inevitably myopic present. Human beings need meaning, understanding and perspective as well as jobs. The question should not be whether we can afford to believe in such purposes in these times, but whether we can afford not to.

My protege, Liam O'Dea, has taken a similar argument and placed it within his own successful work experience.  He argues that it is the power tool for success.

My bias is clear, and I think the facts are on this side of the discussion.  I "tend" to prefer my liberal arts friends.  Of course, you could say that's the old birds of a feather flock together rule.

Question:  What do you think about it?

Sucessful 21st Century Career: Understanding Who Gets Laid Off

Although a large percentage of the people to be laid off are already on the streets, it's important for your career future to understand who usually gets laid off.  Conventional wisdom says that low performers get the axe first.  However, that's not necessarily true.  Thus, the information I want to share will be especially useful for professionals in the first ten years of their career who take charge of their career and don't intend to be at the mercy of recessions, cut-backs, bankruptcies, buy-outs or mergers.  Think of this information as street smarts.

This sharp downturn has forced companies to take different steps to maintain profitability, specifically the unbundling of the corporation. Most companies have three "bundles" of business:  managing the infrastructure (IT, finance, logistics, etc.), product and commercialization (R&D, marketing, marketing research, etc .) and customer relations (sales, etc.).  This will make more sense if you ask yourself this:  what is your firm farming out?   Bits and pieces of these bundles are being dissected to achieve greater efficiency and profitability.  As a result, organizations are managing talent quite differently and will do so even more in the future.  I assume that global competition will force these changes to be long-term.

Although the lay-off process in the past was merely to fall back on across-the-board cost savings (cut 10% out of every division's budget, etc.) or tenure, today that's a gross over-simplification of what's going on.  Major and even smaller firms are thinking about lay-offs in different terms.  You should be able to respond knowledgeably to these issues and questions.  Your answers to these questions will help you make the decision to transfer, change career, change industry, search elsewhere, build up your bank account, or whatever.

1. What jobs or positions that provided coverage for business demand or growth have evaporated and will not come back? 
2. What competencies no longer fit the company's core competency, future direction or strategy?
3. To what extent is your position aligned with the organization's new requirements?
4. What parts of the workforce most need to develop new skills--and is the organization desirous and willing to support that development?
5. Are there parts of the workforce that could be redployed, perhaps to another organization, if retrained--and is the organization willing to support that?
6. Based on long-term competency appraisals or a survey of supervisors, what employees should be booted?

Caveats: 

As the business and its strategy changes, often people who were of high value no longer fit.  In spite of their contribution and visibility, these people may be let go.  On occasion, that will include senior executives.

Although some organizations assume they need topnotch talent in all roles, most organizations have "B" or "C" level players that fulfill a need of significance.  Though they may never be promoted, they will be kept because, to quote a client, they are "useful Grinds--and they don't cost a lot."

No matter how thoughtful the analysis, there are occasions when neither the managers nor the firm have control over terminations.  A new and successful competitor in the field or a business that is simply failing can result in mass exodus.  However, smart professionals stay on top of the relative opportunities for the business as well as its longer-term status to reduce unpredictability as much as possible.  Large, multi-national corporations in today's tumultuous markets can and should change frequently.  Understanding what's going on organizationally can help make the pain of 21st economy more open to creative self-management for all professionals.  Indeed, this is one backdrop for the 21st century "Take-Charge Career."