Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Managing People

No Boss Likes a Surprise—Good or Bad

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Never surprise the boss, particularly on potentially volatile issues that could affect your project’s timeline, budget, or performance.

Even good surprises can backfire. Many an example exists of employees bringing the boss what they believe were good news, only to realize later that that the surprises weren’t so good after all.

Consider the following example of a Boeing test pilot pulling off a shocking stunt on a prototype aircraft, much to the exasperation of his company’s leadership.

A Reckless Stunt That Created a Buzz

The Boeing 707 was America’s first passenger jet aircraft. Prior to the 707, which entered service in 1958, air travel was mostly limited to the affluent—and even they were hesitant about air travel’s safety. The 707’s in-service safety record and its economic characteristics quickly made travel more accessible and dependable. The 707 ushered in the Jet Age.

But for Boeing, today’s leading aircraft manufacturer, developing the 707 was a big gamble. The 707 had no orders, and Boeing embarked on its development entirely on the wager of its prospective commercial success. When the aircraft’s design commenced in 1951, Boeing’s estimated development costs were $16 million. That was roughly 20% of the company’s value, and more than twice its yearly profits—nearly all of which originated from military contracts.

The Demonstration That Was Far from What the Boss Had Authorized

Boeing built its first and only 707 prototype aircraft in 1955. The company’s leadership decided to show off the aircraft at Seattle’s Seafare Hydroplane races on August 7, 1955.

The display plan was to have Boeing’s Chief Test Pilot, Alvin “Tex” Johnston, do one low pass over the racecourse so that the airline executives, industry pundits, and government officials who attended the high-profile event could witness Boeing’s new undertaking.

Johnston had other plans. In his mind, the audience needed to be sold on the plane’s performance and safety. Seized by the impulse to flaunt the agility of the 707, Johnston had a little more in mind than just an unpretentious flyby.

During the in-air demonstration (see YouTube video,) with the aircraft soaring over Seattle’s Lake Washington, Johnston suddenly pulled back on the controls, and the plane started to climb at a speed of 400 miles per hour. Then, he did a complete 360-degree roll and flew the plane upside down for a moment. As the crowd watched in shock and amazement, Johnston did a second barrel role.

Overconfident Employee, Furious Boss

In the startled crowd was Boeing’s legendary president William “Bill” Allen. Allen, who had authorized no more than a simple flyby, thought that Johnston’s first barrel role was a mistake. When Allen witnessed the second barrel roll, he feared that either Johnston had lost his mind, or the aircraft was in grave trouble.

According to Robert J. Sterling’s Legend & Legacy: The Story of Boeing and Its People (1991,) Allen summoned Johnston into his office the next day. Allen demanded an explanation and inquired why Johnston had foolishly risked the company’s only prototype.

Pleased with his successful accomplishment, Johnston offered a simple explanation, “I was selling airplanes.” Johnston explained that he had previously tested barrel rolls on the prototype, and it was a safe maneuver. He hadn’t risked the aircraft at all.

Allen reproached Johnston and told him that he appreciated the efforts, but Johnston was never to do anything that had not been approved previously.

Never Let Your Boss Be Surprised by Bad News

If there is only one thing worse than delivering bad news, it’s not delivering bad news as soon as you know that some trouble is brewing.

No boss wants to hear about any looming issue from some third party—especially if it could be worrying—and put her on the spot with her peers and superiors.

When you fail to report any bad news, you are leaving your boss exposed to being blindsided with a potential problem, and the perception that your boss doesn’t have control of her organization.

Idea for Impact: A Good Employee is Predictably Excellent

The surest way to delight your boss is by setting the right expectations, discussing and coordinating on a plan of action, and delivering on her expectations of your performance.

When the status of important any project changes, make it a priority to bring your boss and other affected constituents up to date. If, right from the beginning, you’ve made the true picture clear, your boss may be less surprised with the bad and the good.

Never surprise your boss—just keep her clued-in on a regular basis.

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  4. Don’t Be Friends with Your Boss
  5. You Can’t Serve Two Masters

Seven Easy Ways to Motivate Employees and Increase Productivity

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If you’re a manager, you can become a motivator by inspiring your employees to high performance—and produce beyond the ordinary.

  1. Purpose. Even the mundane can become meaningful in a larger context. Howard Schultz, the founder and CEO of Starbucks once said about providing propose, “People want to be part of something larger than themselves. They want to be part of something they’re really proud of, that they’ll fight for, sacrifice for, that they trust.” Sometimes that’s all people need to get their skates on—because nothing is worse than feeling that they’re are stuck doing a meaningless task.
  2. Autonomy. Empower people to innovate and make decisions. Be clear about performance expectations. Reduce your direct supervision of their work. Don’t micromanage.
  3. Appreciation. Reward your employees’ small as well as big successes. Recognition is easy and need not be expensive and time-consuming.
  4. Involvement. Interact directly with frontline employees, observe their work, solicit their opinions, seek ideas for improvement, and work directly with the frontline to identify and resolve problems. Encourage employees to talk about the “undiscussable,” even if others don’t want to hear it.
  5. Challenge. Put people in situations where they can grow, learn new skills, and gain new knowledge.
  6. Urgency. Disregard command-and-control and, instead, become an expediter and facilitate your employees getting their job done. The pioneering management guru Peter Drucker encouraged managers to frequently ask of employees the one question that can initiate more improvement than any other: “What do I do that wastes your time without contributing to your effectiveness?”
  7. Empathy. Care about your employees’ success and give them hope about their performance. Be sincere. Demonstrate you value differing opinions.

Idea for Impact: The bottom line on motivation is this: People know what motivates them. Ask them. You may not have any idea what they want.

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  3. Seven Real Reasons Employees Disengage and Leave
  4. To Inspire, Pay Attention to People: The Hawthorne Effect
  5. Four Telltale Signs of an Unhappy Employee

A Sense of Urgency

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The most successful managers I know are highly attentive of their colleagues’ sense of urgency and incessantly adapt to them.

In his excellent Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson evokes Apple CEO (and operations wizard) Tim Cook’s responsiveness and a sense of urgency:

At a meeting early in his tenure, Cook was told of a problem with one of Apple’s Chinese suppliers. “This is really bad,” he said. “Someone should be in China driving this.” Thirty minutes later he looked at an operations executive sitting at the table and unemotionally asked, “Why are you still here?” The executive stood up, drove directly to the San Francisco airport, and bought a ticket to China. He became one of Cook’s top deputies.

Idea for Impact: Bosses and customers often respond more positively to your focus on creating a sense of urgency before emerging problems erupt in a crisis.

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  4. No Boss Likes a Surprise—Good or Bad
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Don’t Lead a Dysfunctional Team

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The difference between functional and dysfunctional teams often boils down to effective team leadership. If you’ve been asked to lead a team, you’ll get more from your team members if you know what’s expected of the team, and manage your roles and responsibilities.

  1. Define the charter. Find out what your customers want. Find out how much latitude your team has—decision-making, reporting procedure, access to resources and information. Make sure there’s organizational support for these matters.
  2. Build on strengths. If team members are selected for you, determine what each person can contribute to the team’s effort. Ask members to identify their strengths.
  3. Set ground rules. Discuss how the team will operate. Be clear about performance expectations. If necessary, write down the rules agreed upon by team members.
  4. Develop a mission and goals. Get your team talking about what needs to get done, by whom, and when.
  5. “Herd the sheep.” Part of your job is to be a sheepdog. Keep people together and herd them toward goals.
  6. Break up conflicts. Disagreements are fine, even healthy, but outright hostility or anger is counterproductive. Stop the discussion, clarify positions, and try to find areas of agreement.
  7. Avoid groupthink. Don’t compromise too much for the sake of consensus, harmony, and “esprit de corps.” Don’t settle on the lowest-common-denominator decision upon which everybody agrees.
  8. Build bridges. Keep your sponsor, your manager, and each team member’s boss informed of the progress of the team’s assignment.
  9. Be visible. Any crisis calls for constant, candid communication. Knowing how to step up your communications efforts to the right levels during confusion is a powerful tool in managing a crisis.
  10. Captain the ship. You’re responsible for your team’s every outcome—good or bad. You are wholly accountable for everything that happens under your authority. Never pass the blame should things go wrong.
  11. Make the work fun. Give your team lots of recognition. Celebrate the team’s accomplishments.
  12. Establish freedom and autonomy. Empower team members to innovate and make decisions. Encourage all ideas and make sure that they are respected, no matter how strange they may sound. Micromanage only when you must.
  13. Assess performance. Periodically, ask the team to rate its performance. Resolve any problems as quickly as possible.
  14. Get stuff done. Don’t lose sight of your goals and your mission. The only thing that matters is the relevant results.

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Rewards and Incentives Can Backfire

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Rewards and Incentives are Gateways to Behavior-Change

One of the great struggles of life is to get others to do the things they should, but don’t want to—getting your daughter to cleanup her bedroom or do homework in her least favorite subject, convincing your employee to do a task in the manner that your company expects, and so forth.

One tried-and-true technique to get reluctant people to do what they should is to hold back an incentive. For example, parents who want children to eat vegetables at dinner could stipulate that they eat their vegetables (the non-preferred behavior) before they can eat their desserts (the preferred behavior.)

Preferred Behaviors Can Be Used to Reinforce Unpreferred Behaviors

This motivational rule was formally studied by the American psychologist David Premack. The Premack Principle, or the “relativity theory of reinforcement,” makes it easier to do an unpleasant activity by putting a pleasant activity right after it. In this manner, a reinforcer could observe what an individual chooses to do voluntarily and offer that favored task as an incentive to gain compliance or to increase the likelihood of another less-favored behavior occurring.

As expected, although an academic, Premack enjoyed a very successful vocation as a highly paid “productivity expert” dispensing age-old techniques. He traveled around the country and advised thousands of corporate executives to manipulate themselves into becoming more motivated and more productive by organizing their day such that they schedule first anything that’s unpleasant and important and then reward themselves with something they really like doing.

Grandma’s Rule: “Johny, Finish Your Homework Before You Watch TV”

That a high probability behavior could be used to reinforce participation in a low probability behavior is the unassuming “Grandma’s Rule”—arguably the most universally recognized principle in the field of behavior change. Workplaces use the grandma’s rule by offering future “plum” assignments for employees who “pay their dues” by doing “dull and dirty” work in the present.

The grandma’s rule anchors in the fact that people, including children, are willing to do something they don’t really want to do if that’s the only way they can do something that they really want to do. Absent this established reinforcement, people left to their own devices tend to do what they like doing instead of doing things they don’t like doing even though latter are more beneficial.

The Hidden Costs of Rewards and Incentives

Rewards and incentives can guide and modify behavior. The goal of offering rewards for positive reinforcement is to have the unpleasant tasks become less and less unpleasant. Therefore, the true measure of the effectiveness of any reward is how well the preferred behaviors become internalized. For example, offering rewards to children for reading books is not merely to get them to read books inside the classroom, but to internalize the reading behavior with the goal that they read even during the summer when they don’t have to read for school.

Offering rewards for motivating people to do unlikable tasks could sometimes become counterproductive. In what psychologists call “the overjustification effect,” a reward, instead of motivating, could fortify a person’s revulsion for the task. In other words, the reward could reinforce the belief that the task can’t be worth doing for itself.

Rewards Can Backfire

Overjustification effect is controversial because it disputes the general principles of motivational psychology and behavioral reinforcement—especially in the contexts of parenting, education, and the workplace.

Idea for Impact: Locating the pleasure in the future, when the reward will be imparted, could turn the present-moment doing of an unpleasant task into tedium. For example, insisting that your child eat broccoli for being rewarded with dessert could make her hate broccoli even more.

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How People Defend Themselves in a Crisis

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How People Defend Themselves in a Crisis The desire to protect and enhance one’s self-image is among the strongest motives of human behavior. No wonder scientific literature is laden with discussions on the ways in which people invoke self-deception in the interest of maintaining a favorable sense of their selves.

People have a propensity to avoid conscious awareness of fear-triggering worries, conflicts, and uncertainties. They engage in thought patterns that distort the external realities as a way of coping with distress.

Psychologists use the term “ego defense mechanisms” to describe the pattern of thought and behavior that arises in response to the perception of psychical danger.

Defense Mechanisms Play an Important Role in Self-Preservation

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) wrote in The Ego and the Id (1923,) “We have come upon something in the ego itself which is also unconscious, which behaves exactly like the repressed—that is, which produces powerful effects without itself being conscious and which requires special work before it can be made conscious.” Freud’s daughter, Anna Freud (1895–1982,) and other psychologists identified twelve primary defense mechanisms:

  1. Denial: explicitly refusing to acknowledge the threatening reality even when presented with indisputable data (e.g. someone with a terminal illness rejecting the imminence of his death.) Denial may give the respondent some time to evaluate the meaning and seriousness of the threatening reality before reacting to it.
  2. Disavowal: acknowledging the threatening reality but downplaying its significance
  3. Suppression: intentionally engaging distractions to eliminate from consciousness any thoughts of the threatening reality
  4. Fixation: committing inflexibly to one specific mind-set or course of action
  5. Substitution: replacing an unattainable or unacceptable instinctual object or emotion with one that is more accessible or tolerable
  6. Displacement / Transference: redirecting emotions from their original object to a substitute object that is somehow associated with the original one.
  7. Compensation: making amends for a perceived deficiency that cannot be eliminated (e.g., a physical defect) by excelling in some other way.
  8. Grandiosity: exaggerated feeling of power or influence over the threatening reality
  9. Idealization: ascribing power or influence to an existent or imaginary “savior” (an individual or a organization)
  10. Intellectualization: thoroughly rationalizing a particular thought or action, by means of a misleading, but self-serving justification
  11. Projection: incorrectly attributing to others any objectionable thoughts or actions. According to Sigmund Freud, projection makes a person perceive his objectionable character traits in others as a means of avoiding seeing those very faults in himself. For example, a man who cannot accept his own anger may cope with his feelings by accusing others as angry.
  12. Splitting: fragmenting, isolating, and focusing on only certain elements of the threatening reality, instead of considering the complexity brought about by the crisis as a coherent whole

Idea for Impact: It pays to familiarize yourself with these twelve defense mechanisms and be able to identify them in how you (and others) react to emotionally charged situations, especially in close relationships. Defense mechanisms are natural forms of self-protection. However, used excessively, they can turn out to be pathological.

Reference: Cheryl Travers, “Handling the Stress” in Michael Bland (Ed.) Communicating out of a Crisis (1998)

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Think of a Customer’s Complaint as a Gift

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When managers become comfortable with the idea that complaints are gifts, they do not hesitate in responding to them.

'A Complaint Is a Gift' by Janelle Barlow (ISBN 1576755827) According to A Complaint Is a Gift: Recovering Customer Loyalty When Things Go Wrong, the idea of complaints as gifts must be reinforced at every staff meeting and training session. The company’s policies must be aligned to support this philosophy. A Complaint Is a Gift‘s authors, management consultants Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller, restate some fundamental techniques for handling complaints:

  1. Don’t get defensive. When managing complaints, managers can be their own worst enemies! Instead of taking complaints personally, managers should focus on the particulars of a problem. Then, complaints become less disruptive and constructive.
  2. Say “thank you” and explain why you appreciate the complaint. Say something about how hearing the complaint will allow you to better address the problem. You create a more powerful rapport with customers by saying “thank you” than apologizing.
  3. Apologize for the mistake and empathize when appropriate. Acknowledge the customers feelings You do not have to see eye to eye with the person to acknowledge how they are feeling. Saying “I can see you are upset,” or “I understand why this ordeal has been frustrating for you,” will go a long way toward diffusing any complainer’s anger.
  4. Listen for what the customer wants to happen next, because it’s often easy to accommodate requests, as long as they’re not totally unreasonable. Promise to do something about the problem immediately. Then do something to fix the situation.
  5. Ask for necessary information and correct the mistake promptly. Look at the problem from all perspectives and ask the customer to explain his or her expectations and the reality of what he/she experienced. Ask what it will take to meet their needs or to satisfy them. Rapid responses disclose you are serious about service recovery and customer service.
  6. Check customer satisfaction. Call your customers back to find out if they are satisfied with what you did for them.
  7. Initiate changes to prevent future mistakes, make the complaint known throughout the organization so this kind of problem can be prevented. Fix the system without rushing to blame staff or policies.

Idea for Impact: Managers who ask for complaints will find that customers express their concerns more openly and objectively. Inviting complaints reduces the likelihood a customer will be upset or emotional. It is a way to nip problems in the bud and solve problems before they can aggravate.

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Competency Modeling: How to Hire and Promote the Best

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Standardized tests, intelligence exams, and personality assessments have been in vogue for centuries for selecting job candidates and promoting employees. For instance,

  • In Plato’s Greece, civil service candidates were required to pass difficult physical and cognitive tests.
  • In China, the Han and Tang dynasties administered tests of literary style and the classics to hire the establishment bureaucrats. Aspirants were required to pass multiple three-day provincial exams and then take a final exam in the imperial capital.

Modern hiring practices have centered on the idea of competencies—specific behaviors, skills, knowledge, and pertinent experiences—identified for successful job performance.

Harvard psychologist David McClelland first proposed the idea of ‘competence’. In 1973, he introduced a then-revolutionary idea that transformed how companies hire and promote people. In his influential paper, titled “Testing for Competence Rather than for Intelligence,” McClelland made a case that a candidate’s GPA, IQ, or scores from intelligence or aptitude tests were not all as valid predictors of job success as was then imagined.

McClelland argued that another set of factors—“competences”—were better measures for explaining job success. To hire the best person for any job, McClelland recommended that organizations,

  • Begin by analyzing people who now have the job and people who held that job previously.
  • Classify the star performers—say the top 10%—by some logical and meaningful metric.
  • Compare the star performers to people who are merely average by a systematic method.
  • Identify the traits, characteristics, and behaviors in the star performers and not in the average performers.
  • Hire and promote people who have demonstrated the distinct traits and behaviors of the star performers.

Over the years, McClelland’s paper has evolved into “competency modeling,” a widespread methodology that is now at the heart of how many companies manage talent and achieve professional development for employees.

Not only are competencies often hard to define and understand, but testing for competencies through simulation or evidence is very difficult. Not to mention of how hard it is to assess employees quickly. Hence, at many “competency-driven” companies, human resources departments have dedicated teams to develop and implement competency models (see example from 3M, the Minnesota-based industrial and consumer products) to hire, train, evaluate, and promote employees.

Competency models form the baseline criteria for identifying high-potential employees, and succession management procedures.

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Office Chitchat Isn’t Necessarily a Time Waster

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When Employees are Happy, They Work Better

Managers who disapprove and clamp down on impromptu encounters that people have at their desks, in the hallways, by the elevators, in the lunchroom, or by the water coolers can create a work environment that’s unpleasant, even repressive.

If truth be told, what may seems like idle chitchat actually forges links between people and encourages a culture of openness that can help people work toward common goals.

Informal, spontaneous conversations between coworkers, especially between colleagues from different departments, will not only give people a chance to know each other better, but also create a feeling of collaboration. The camaraderie that grows from employees sharing a little fun can go a long way toward fostering a feeling that they’re part of a team.

Chitchat is About Building Relationships

During those inconsequential “idle moments” of office conversations, important information is being exchanged. You’re learning much about others and offering details about yourself.

  • Whom can you trust? Who possesses strong convictions? Who has a broad experience or in-depth knowledge?
  • Who is a stimulating brainstormer? Who has the wherewithal for workarounds to problems?
  • Who can open doors for you? Who can facilitate otherwise hard-to-get connections?
  • Who can influence the leadership decisions? Who can evangelize your project to the right people? Who can bend the leadership’s ear? Who can be your cheerleader?
  • Who can lend a consoling ear in moments of problems or crisis? Who sees the bright side of problems?
  • Who can help you with questions on software, help you decide health insurance plans, or fix the printer?

Casual Conversations are About Networking and Leaving Positive Impressions

Small talk and casual conversations are an important element of collegial workplaces. People like talking about themselves, so if you can remember a nugget of information from the last time you met (kids, pets, and travels are great topics) bring it up.

To be respectful of others’ time, remember this two-minute rule: unless you’re discussing a topic of some importance, try to wrap up your small talk and casual chats in two minutes. Pay attention to your listener’s non-verbal cues and adjust the extent of your conversation. You can always arrange to convene later, “I’d love to hear more, but I’m in a rush. Why don’t I call you afterhours? How about we meet up for coffee this weekend?”

Nevertheless, don’t let chatter go too far and negatively impact your productivity or those of others. If you’re considered as too chatty, others may to resent bumping into you. If you tend to talk too much about yourself, you’ll be judged self-absorbed and interpersonally clueless.

Likeability is Important in How You Will Be Perceived in Your Workplace

Cordiality is a significant persuasive technique because people are much more likely to feel warmly towards those they like. They’ll do things for you if you earnestly show interest in them, chat with them on a regular basis, and make them feel good about themselves.

Colleagues who don’t chat can come across as arrogant or abrupt. Highly competent but unpopular professionals don’t thrive as well as their moderately competent, but popular counterparts.

Small Talk is a Critical Tool for Creating a Personal Bond with Your Coworkers

Even though an office is primarily a place of business, chatting about non-work topics and establishing rapport with coworkers is important. People who know and like each other tend to have each other’s backs and help out when necessary.

Even if, eventually, you’ll be accepted or rejected based on the more tangible aspects of your work, the fact of the matter is that these interpersonal impressions matter a great deal along the way and can even shape how people judge your more actual work.

Idea for Impact: Balance your dedication to your workload with a cooperative nature, you will gain needed allies to get things done and to help your career progression in the company.

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No One Likes a Meddling Boss

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William R. Jones—“Old Captain Bill” as he was fondly called—was the General Superintendent at Andrew Carnegie’s Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the genesis of the Carnegie steel empire.

Captain Bill (1839–89) had little formal education. He certainly didn’t understand much of the science of the steel-making. Nonetheless, he was street-smart, outgoing, forthright, and ingenuous. His workers venerated his boundless energy. With their support, he not only broke many records in steel production, but also developed an array of inventions that touched many aspects of steel-making and rail-manufacturing.

Captain Bill’s boss, Charles M Schwab (1862–1939,) recalled an amusing interaction between Captain Bill and Andrew Carnegie in an essay titled “My 20,000 Partners” in the 19-Dec-1916 issue of The American Magazine:

The captain, I remember, used to characterize Mr. [Andrew] Carnegie as a wasp that came buzzing around to stir up everybody.

One hot day in early summer, Carnegie sought out Jones in the steel factory.

“Captain,” he said, “I’m awfully sorry to leave you in the midst of hot metals here, but I must go to Europe. I can’t stand the sultry summer in this country. You have no idea, Captain, when I get on the ship and get out of sight of land, what a relief it is to me.”

“No, Andy,” flashed the captain, “and you have no idea what a relief it is to me, either.”

Idea for Impact: Meddling is not managing. While “keeping your eye on the ball” (and management by walking around) is indispensable to managerial control, an overly-engaged boss can create self-induced commotion. Effective managers delegate results when they can and interfere only when they must. Learn to have faith in the ingenuity of your employees, and give much latitude in how they do things.

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