Dan Erwin

The Death of the Lone Genius

Slowly, very slowly, the research and some journalists are killing off the notion of the lone genius. You know, that American mythology of individual superiority applied to creativity. Like John Wayne’s rescue before the barbarians get to you, the lone genius is all nonsense. But the myth of the lone genius will require a cruel death of many cuts. It’s one of our most deeply held and cherished beliefs--even though dead wrong.

The latest cut is delivered by William Deresiewicz in The Atlantic. He writes rather bluntly that the “truth is that the geniuses weren’t really quite as solitary as advertised. They also often came together—think of the Bloomsbury Group—in situations of intense sustained creative ferment.”

Does it really matter?
That’s the question. And the answer is a clear-cut affirmative.

Organizations succeed—or fail—based on...

Text, Tweet or--Email? Try Prairie Dogging.

It’s become a recurring storyline for newspapers, magazines, tv and the web. Joe, for example, was a leading candidate for a good position in a hot firm. Before the final recommendation the recruiting firm checked out his use of social media. There was no badmouthing of his current firm. But a 20-something, Joe had sent one “harmless” picture of sexting while in college and the picture was still there. No recommendation for Joe! Even though he was now embarrassed by his college prank, there’s practically no disposal. And the recruiter found it.

Surveillance monitoring is nothing new. At the least, it dates back to the beginning of Henry Ford’s assembly line in the early 20^th century. (I suspect the Egyptians were monitoring their slaves’ production of granite block for the pyramids.) Ford’s systems were set up ...

Do You Have An Immunity to Change?

Humans differ significantly in their ability to make change.  As a personal coach to executives for more than thirty years, it’s obvious that these differences are the status quo. Desire and motivation aren’t enough—even when it’s literally a matter of life or death.

Some, it seems, have a profound immunity to change.  Often, they understand the need for change and they may even understand what the change might look like. But for some reason they seem stymied, and unable ...

You Know a Lot More Than You Can Tell

Or, it's not only who you know in the organization, but also what you know about how the organization works.

The ability to speak a language, use algebra, design and use complex processes or work with complex equipment requires all sorts of knowledge that is rarely known explicitly, even by expert practitioners. The same is true of the knowledge of "how" an organization works, it's real priorities and deeply held impressions. This "tacit knowledge" in the form of "rules" and "mental models" has far-reaching consequences and impacts our career futures.

I've always liked to pride myself in the fact that as a consultant I only lost three gigs over the past thirty years, often staying with clients for a couple decades. But in all three instances my failure was tied to the fact that I was simply unaware of the organizations' unique, tacit mental models--its "rules"--by which people worked.

In a previous post, I commented that knowing the organizations' gossip often held keys to figuring out the "rules" or "mental models." I learned that one way to get at these "rules" was to finish interviews with the question "how do you get in trouble in your organization?"

Some essential mental models
As a result of an in-depth study of two major organizations and an analysis of a dozen or so other organizations, I've learned that there are nearly a dozen issues providing potential for organizational rules or out-of-awareness mental models. Typically, however, a division or group won't hold tightly to more than 3 or 4 mental models built on these issues. But knowledge of those mental models can ...

How to Get Smarter

"You're Telling Me I Can Develop My Intelligence?  Like a Muscle?  I Don't Believe It."  

I'd have thought by now that most people would understand that you can grow your intelligence.  But no, the notion is still a shock to the system.  As one acquaintance put it succinctly:  "That can't possibly be true." He got riled up about it, but I suspect that's merely a bit stronger than what 99% of the adult population believes.  In fact, check it out (or check yourself out).  Most people still believe that a person is born smart, average or dumb--and stays that way for life.

Research over the past twenty years has shown beyond a doubt that the brain is more like a muscle.  It gets stronger, a lot stronger, when you learn--and keep learning.  Use it or lose it. 

David Brooks pulled all this together in a fascinating column on human nature in which he summarizes the developmental issues, pushing back on over-zealous evolutionary psychology and innate beliefs.  I quote the article:

The first problem is that far from being preprogrammed with a series of hardwired mental modules, as the E.P. types assert, our brains are fluid and plastic. We’re learning that evolution can be a more rapid process than we thought. It doesn’t take hundreds of thousands of years to produce genetic alterations...

Nothing Really Works All the Time

Ten years ago the Wharton School of Business named Andy Grove the most influential CEO of the previous 25 years. Yale’s Jeffrey Garten called him a “superb model for future generations of CEOs.” Beyond his obvious success at Intel, why the accolades? Harvard’s Richard Tedlow answered the question best: “Grove has escaped natural selection by doing the evolving himself. Forcibly adapting himself to a succession of new realities, he has left a trail of discarded assumptions in his wake. “

Discarding assumptions can be very wise. Business proverbs, those single phrase assumptions, often need to be dumped too. Although I occasionally hear it today, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was a mantra in most exec suites 20 years ago. The execs who didn’t break a significant number of their ideas and processes are on the streets today. “Keep it simple stupid (KISS)” is another one that still floats around. It’s being challenged by a chaotic, highly complex global economy.  

Thus far, no one seems to be challenging “Work smarter, not harder.” It, too, is filled with a significant amount of baloney.  

In 2014, it’s only half right—at best!
I first encountered the proverb ...

An Intriguing Use of Evidence-Based Management

Recently one of my long-term clients, a C-Suite exec who’s into evidence-based management competencies, was asking about the whole business of research. He was curious about some examples of really practical research. So we talked about Disney’s attention to what they call “dissonant details” that can undermine guests’ good cheer in their parks. From there, of course, the conversation went to the conclusion of more than 200 studies that makes it very clear that “bad is stronger than good.” A little bit of bad inevitably undermines a whole lot of good.

Then he asked about other examples of systematic research. I suggested the “nice-guy” studies, work that hasn’t been quite as front and center recently, but remains just as informative and practical. He was especially intrigued by their usefulness in identity formation for younger managers. The underlying question the research addresses is whether it really pays to be a nice guy.

Since I haven’t written about the subject for several years, here’s my original posting from 2009.   

DOES IT PAY TO BE A NICE GUY?

Although research has been dealing with this question for nearly 50 years, it has only been in the last seven or eight years that the answer has become firmly established. Nice guys of both sexes, the kind of warm, friendly people you like to be around, have some of the stuff that makes for relationship success...

Does Building a Network Make You Feel Dirty?

Although most of us believe that networking is a necessity for both our personal life and our careers, it sometimes has negative connotations. It “conjures up images of back-slapping, forced smiles, awkward conversations or brown-nosing.” Because of that, many people shy away from the process. Often to their loss.

In a spot-on and desperately needed study, Casciaro, Gino and Kouchaki examine the psychological consequences of building a network. 

As I worked my way through their research, I was reminded of related research by Stanford’s Jeff Pfeffer. Pfeffer found exactly what my own coaching has revealed: Though people have lots of job-related talent and interpersonal skills, they sometimes wind up in a position with little power and opportunity. Why? They are unwilling or unable to play the power game. As the study above shows, they view it as a dirty, moral issue that they don’t want to deal with. 

It’s not all dirty
In an illuminating analysis, the study distinguished between what I’ll call “clean” and dirty networking. Clean networking is that which comes about as a result of the pursuit of friendship or emotional support and emerges spontaneously. You’re sitting in the ...

What Are You Reading? Here Are Five Especially on Career Development

What’s often frustrating about the plethora of web material on personal development is the difficulty of sorting the highly useful recommendations from the fluff or the just plain wrong-headed. A terrific amount of so-called career research suffers from the halo effect—the bias that because an attribute is productive in one occasion, then the other related attributes will also be productive—and in other situations. The halo effect is also at work in the distinction between cause and correlation. Still, there is far more empirical, social science and humanistic research in the field than most would imagine, so whenever that’s available, I recommend it to my clients. On other occasions, I recommend the work of well-known authorities. Here are a number of potentially useful recommendations.

Stanford’s Bob Sutton, on Five signs that your mentor is giving you bad advice, an expert in the field of career and behavior, supplies us with an unusual, even unique set of valuable insights. Sutton reminds us of the struggle to take something that works well in one place and replicate it in another (the halo effect). As Sutton points out to mentees, they “have to play an active role in judging the advice they get.” Sheryl Sandberg is among those who reveal that mentors have played a key role in her success, but that she’s learned . . .

What Are You Reading? Here Are Five for the Intellectually Curious

George Packer at the New Yorker on Black Friday and the Race to the Bottom. Why did Black Friday, beginning on Thanksgiving Thursday this year, and continuing into Shopaholic Saturday and Sunday poop out so badly? And why, with the usual brawls over towels and TVs reported on YouTube, did retailers like Walmart and Target take a total hit of more than $1.7 billion less than last year? Packer answers the question and wonders why, with too many Americans now working low-paying jobs stocking inventory and ringing up merchandise, those same stores don't understand that their workers are too poor to buy the products in the big-box stores. You'd think those same firms would be leading the protests for higher wages. Why, when moderate Southern businessmen spoke up for higher wages during the civil rights era, do you not hear that rhetoric today? It may be that America is still waiting for the first retail C.E.O. to see what’s in front of his nose.

Morten Hansen at HBR.org on How John F. Kennedy Changed Decision Making for Us All.  Many of us know that the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was a fiasco, probably the worst decision he ever made in . . .