Bob Sutton

Switch: The Heath Brothers Have Another Awesome Cover

Bobsutton — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:33:36 -0800

I just started reading an advanced copy of the Chip and Dan Heath's new book Switch: How to change things when change is hard. So far, it is at least as good as their last book, Made to Stick ,which was a bestseller and has rapidly become the standard handbook for anyone who wants to design an idea that will spread and endure -- people in almost every field I know now use it, marketing, public health, political campaigns, organizational change efforts, and on and on. I will write a more detailed post on the content of the new book as the publication date of February 15th approaches, but I wanted to devote this post to the cover of Switch, which I think is magnificent and perhaps even as good as the amazing Made to Stick --which even included textured and realistic feeling duct tape on the cover. I include it below, followed by the Made to Stick cover. What do you think? Do you agree with me that the Heath brothers have perhaps the best pair of book covers ever on two business books? Or am I being overly biased because I like these two guys so much?

Drive: Daniel Pink's Definitive and Fun Guide to Motivation

Bobsutton — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:19:47 -0800

I just spent a couple hours reading Daniel Pink's new book, DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Dan's publisher sent me an advanced copy of the book and I became very interested in it after seeing his splendid TED talk, which I blogged about some weeks back. The book is even better than the talk, as Dan does a masterful job of boiling down the results of a huge body of behavioral science research, presenting in way that is extremely engaging, and showing how it has profound implications for managers, teachers, parents or anyone else who wants to motivate others (and themselves) to be as effective as possible. It will be for sale in about two weeks.

He does a masterful job of showing the limits and drawbacks of widely accepted assumptions about motivation -- showing the limits of carrots and sticks, and then showing the power of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In addition to his compelling use of stories and examples (you want to miss his "Tom Sawyer" effect and explanations of why so many lawyers dislike their jobs so much), I especially liked his toolkit at the end of the book, which offers fantastic evidence-based advice. Check out the idea for peer-to-peer bonuses, illustrated by a civil engineering firm where at any time anyone can award a $50 bonus to one of his her colleagues. I also like the steps he offers managers for giving-up control, which is also based on piles of evidence about what really motivates people -- consider his argument that the best bosses are careful to avoid not controlling language when possible. Using words like "must" or "should" can undermine the perception of autonomy and control that is so motivating to people. And we all like his advice that employers should pay above the industry average --- which is based on research showing that the motivational gain is so high that doing so REDUCES company costs.

Drive provides a splendid summary of the best research on motivation, but never seems like a textbook, it carries you along as Dan adds his little creative twists to show why we as parents and managers are doing so many things wrong that seem so right -- and how the best solutions to motivating people are usually so simple and so inexpensive. Millions of people take introduction to psychology courses each year and nearly as many take introduction to organizational behavior classes: If you teach one of these classes, you might consider using Dan's book in place of or as a supplement your text for part of the course -- your students will love it. And anyone who wants to motivate others -- which is pretty much all of us -- can learn a lot from this book.

The Good Cop, Bad Cop Technique

Bobsutton — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:30:40 -0800

Perhaps my last post on assholes and policing got me thinking about the word cop, but in any case, I don't think I've talked much about a stream of research that I did years ago -- about 20 -- with my colleague Anat Rafaeli on "the expression of emotion in organizational life." We studied various settings in which people were expected to express certain emotions and suppress others, or used emotions strategically as part of their jobs. We studied occupations including grocery store clerks, telephone bill collectors, and cops. In particular, Anat and I published a paper that combined qualitative data that she collected on Israeli police interrogators (to be clear, these were Israeli cops trying to get confessions from Israeli citizens, as we wanted to avoid the entire Arab/Israeli and terrorist thing) and data that I gathered during a three-month ethnography of U.S. telephone bill collectors who collected overdue Visa and MasterCard payments for a large bank.

Our research, building on prior work on influence (especially Robert Cialdini's masterpiece), suggested that the reason that encountering both a nice and a nasty person was more effective than just a nice person or a nasty person was because of the "psychological contrast effect." In essence, the impact is to make the "carrots" offered by the good cop seem even sweeter and the "sticks" offered by the bad cop even harsher. Both the cops and the bill collectors used this method routinely, although as the cops worked mostly face-to-face and the bill collectors did this over the phone, there were different variations used, and of course different stakes. But the contrast effect seemed to be evident in both settings. For example, Anat's fieldnotes of an interrogation she observed indicated:

There were two interrogators in the room. There was an extreme difference in their style. One (the manager) was a real source of stress to the suspect, while the other was much less threatening, even friendly. The second one was also physically less threatening. He was slim, less muscular, more dressed up, and more delicate in his appearance. During the interrogation he also drifted along with the suspect, while the other used a much harsher tone.

It also seemed to be effective. For example, one "good cop" bill collector told me how when his friendly style isn't working, he sometimes has a "bad cop" co-worker do the call:

Then, usually, they pay pretty quick. Especially if it is Tom who does it. He has had a couple of managers tell him to cool down, where he has just pissed this person off and this person hangs up in a huff. But the next thing you know they're on the phone to the nice collector going, "What do you want, what do you want? Don't you ever have him call, I don't ever want to talk to him again, he was so rude."

We also identified some interesting variations of the good cop. bad cop method. Looking back, they sound to me like we could have used simpler language, but I was a young academic then, and was probably rewarded by the peer review process for doing so... and wasn't quite at the career stage where I was concerned about writing for human-beings. The variants include:

1. Sequential good cop, bad cop: This is the classic approach, as we saw with the above bill collector, where you start with the good cop and go back and forth between encounters with the two until your "target" complies -- in this case wither paying the bill or confessing to the crime. Just like in the movies, the targets usually caved-in to the good cop, sometimes saying things like " I never want to see that guy again."

2. Simultaneous good cop, bad cop. That was they both work on you at once. The bill collectors didnt use this method, but the police did -- and would argue openly with each other to strike fear in the heart of the suspect (Anat has notes of a bad cop saying "He looks like dirt to me" and the good cop saying "He looks like a good guy to me."

3. One person plays both bad and good cop. The idea here is to create contrast, as one interrogator explained "I speak in a very low, relaxed tone. So that way, when I yell, it really makes them jump."

4. Good cop in contrast to hypothetical bad cop. The bill collectors used this a lot, they would be customer service oriented but warn that if the debtor didn't pay now, they would be turned over to a collection agency, where not only would the people be nastier, they would be taking more aggressive action to take away their house or car.

Please note I am not endorsing these methods, especially by the police, but the fact is that good cop, bad cop is an effective tool for compliance because using it -- often in very subtle ways -- does apparently enhance the impact both the carrots and the sticks. In fact, this qualitative study is bolstered by experiments on negotiation teams by researchers Susan Brodt and Marla Tuchinsky showing that -- under most situations -- having both a good cop and a bad cop on a negotiation team is a winning strategy.

BUT there was also a twist we did not address in our research, and in fact, would have been tough to do as we were studying people in "the wilds" of organizational life. Their research shows that starting with a good cop and then using a bad cop was not effective, that the method only was effective for negotiating teams when the bad cop went first and the good cop followed. So, this may mean it really should be called "The Bad Cop, Good Cop Technique." In thinking about this finding, and looking at our old data, I notice that -- in just about all the cases we looked at -- although the cops or bill collectors started out nice at times, they would switch back and forth between good and bad cop, so there would be many times when the good cop followed a bad cop -- as the example of the nice and nasty bill collector above shows. One exception is the "hypothetical" bad cop technique, where the good cop warns that if you don't pay now, things are going to get a lot nastier -- which in the case of debts, everyone knows is not a hollow threat.

As I wrote in The No Asshole Rule, although I generally am opposed to workplace assholes, there are times when they do seem to be effective -- after all, fear and intimidation do change human behavior, despite the dangerous side-effects. The implication of this theory and research is if you are an asshole, and want to be a more effective one, you would be wise to team-up with a good cop. This isbecause doing so will make your nastiness sting even more and because good cops also often play the role of toxic handler, cleaning up the mess that asshole bosses and other nasty people leave behind.

I wonder, do other people use variations of good cop, bad cop? Or have you had it used on you?

Here are the citations to the articles:

Brodt, S.E. and Tuchinsky, M. (2000) Working together but in opposition: An examination of the “good cop/bad cop” negotiating team tactic. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81, 155-177.

Rafaeli, A., and Sutton, R., (1991). Emotional contrast strategies as means of social influence: Lessons
from criminal interrogators and bill collectors. Academy of Management Journal, 34, 749–775.

The Asshole: John Van Maanen's Classic Article on Police Officers

Bobsutton — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:19:02 -0800

This the opening page of MIT Professor John Van Maanen's delightful and insightful article. It is about the meaning and power of the word "asshole" among the police officers he studied during his now classic ethnography of police officers, which he did for his dissertation research in the 1970s. John didn't just talk to cops, he went through the police academy, rode along with them on patrols (and got involved in all sorts of crazy things like chases), and was otherwise embedded with them for a year or so. He has since gone on to become among the most renowned organizational researchers. John had a huge impact on my generation of organizational researchers because, when we first started graduate school, qualitative methods were generally treated as unscientific, obsolete, and so biased as to be enticing but not anything that should ever be published in a top academic journal. Due in large part to John's example and leadership, by the time many of us had graduated with our PhD's, there were many corners where qualitative studies had become acceptable and encouraged. And even once exclusively quantitative researchers were starting to do qualitative studies. There is still controversy about them in my field, but also a fairly widespread acceptance now that such methods are useful for describing organizational life in rich detail and for generating theories and hypotheses that can be tested with quantitative methods. This is an oversimplification as academics get very emotional and anal about little differences, but I think it is as close to the truth as I can get without delving into a very dull and very long rant.

To return to John's article, the thing that strikes me is how compelling the opening and the language are -- it is impossible for me to read this, although I have many times before, without getting excited about reading the rest. That opening sentence still cracks me up, "The asshole -- creep, bigmouth, bastard, animal, mope, rough, jerkoff, clown, scumbag, wiseguy, phony, idiot, shithead, bum ,fool, or any a number of anatomical, oral, or incestuous terms -- is part of every policeman's world." He then goes onto to turn the corner (with the help of that great opening quote) and show the reader that this language reflects sense-making and guides action in a police officers world. I discuss this article in The No Asshole Rule, and, no doubt, it was one factor that encouraged me to write the book and have the courage to use the title.

John's other work is equally fascinating (and even sometimes uses cleaner language). He has had a big positive effect on my field, and I appreciate it. I also love the opening line of his bio at MIT "John Van Maanen studies groups of people the old-fashioned way: by living with them."

The Happiness Project: I Hate Self-Help Books But Love This One

Bobsutton — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:58:47 -0800

I wondered out to look at the mail, and there it was, the result of Gretchen's Rubin's year long quest to make herself happier. "The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun." Frankly, perhaps because I was a psychology major for ten years (through my PhD in Organizational Psychology), most self-help books make me want to vomit. But once I started reading Gretchen's book, I couldn't stop because -- unlike all those books that seem to tell fake stories about others or promise too much or are too sappy -- Gretchen's compelling voice, great stories, and first person-perspective (and brutal self-assessments at times, few of us are as aware or as open about our imperfections) make the book simply irresistible.

I cheated and read the first and last chapters and have now worked through most of the rest of the book (I am supposed to be writing several letters of recommendation right now and doing some work on my book, but this is making me much happier). This is the rare book that is remarkably conceptually and empirically sound (she really knows research on happiness well), linked to great literature and other writings, but somehow at every stage is tied to her experience in a way that made me introspective, but I thought in a constructive rather than selfish way.

I don't want to give away too much, as really, you deserve to give yourself the gift of reading the book. I first put in a few quotes from the book in this post, and then decided to take them out, as I think that presenting them out of context undermines the flow of emotion and logic that hit me as I read paragraph upon paragraph. I would also add that her voice is similar to her blog, but in reading her book, you can see why the daily rhythms of writing a blog can never replace a great book (even one based partly on a blog)-- it comes across as a complete and emotionally satisfying story, and ends with a set of lessons (and a lovely twist about the effect of the project on her husband) that both sides of my brain believe will make me -- and those I care about -- happier as we travel through life.

As I suggest in the title of this post, The Happiness Project might be the perfect self-help book for people like me who hate self-help books.

P.S. The book comes out December 29th. Reading it strikes me as a great way to start the year.

Jeff Pfeffer on "Perverse Norms" About Good Management

Bobsutton — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:43:50 -0800

I was reading through an old but still spot-on book by my friend and co-author Jeff Pfeffer, The Human Equation, which provides an evidence-based case about why companies that put people first enjoy superior financial performance over the long-run. Jeff makes an argument that is a variation of something one of my college friends used to say, "eat shit, 10 billion flies can't be wrong." But he adds prestige and status as an added twist in a section he labels "Perverse Norms about What Constitutes Good Management," and how such norms often emerge even though they conflict with the evidence. He uses the example of layoffs -- which are no doubt sometimes necessary. But executives often seem to act in ways that clash with evidence showing that companies that do layoffs last and least tend to perform best over time:

" If the world believes that laying-off employees by the carload is good management and confers status on those that do it with the most vigor, it will be difficult for executives to resist the temptation to conform to the normative definition of "good management" and thereby achieve approval."

As usual, Jeff is smart and blunt.

Eight Signs You Are Boring: Wisdom from Gretchen

Bobsutton — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:07:40 -0800

Gretchen over at The Happiness Project has a great list of eight signs that you are boring another person. They are all wonderful, but I especially like the last one:

8. Audience posture. Back in 1885, Sir Francis Galton wrote a paper called “The Measurement of Fidget.” He determined that people slouch and lean when bored, so a speaker can measure the boredom of an audience by seeing how far from vertically upright they are. Also, attentive people fidget less; bored people fidget more. An audience that’s sitting still and upright is interested, while an audience that’s horizontal and squirmy is bored.

As usual, I find Gretchen to be insightful, funny, and remarkably helpful -- alas, I see a bit of myself in a number of her tips and it makes me squirm. It also reminds me, however, that I have a weird obsession with the virtues of being boring. I touch on it in this post, in more detail, in Weird Ideas That Work.

There are just certain times in life that you don't want to attract attention, don't want people to listen to you very carefully, and don't want to get their emotions cranked-up --- and boredom is a perfect solution in such cases. A former Stanford administrator I knew was the master of strategic boredom. He could fairly charismatic and entertaining when he believed it was constructive. But the more controversial and heated that things became, the more dull and mind-numbing his delivery became.... I saw him defuse tense meetings on at least two occasions by lulling angry people into a listless state. It was tiring to experience, but fascinating too.

Guys List of the Top Ten Candidates to Run GM

Bobsutton — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:28:16 -0800

Guy Kawasaki has applied his usual charm and delightfully twisted sense of humor to develop a list of 10 candidates to run GM. Here are Guy's top three, but don't miss the list:

1. Steve Jobs (Apple). GM would create the most beautiful cars, but you’d need to refill it once a day. You could only buy accessories from the GM store after Phil Schiller approved them. Gas pumps would need new nozzles because Steve mandated non-standard gas-tank fittings.

2. Steve Ballmer (Microsoft). GM cars would look similar to those of German and Italian marques, but it would be seven revisions into the car’s lifecycle before they ran decently.

3. Sarah Palin (Unemployed). Palin would introduce cars that you couldn’t brake or steer called Rogues. Shotgun racks would be a factory option on the Cheney model. However, before they ship, she would resign. When Katie Couric asked her which car magazines she read, she responded, “Most of ‘em.”

Also, I was thinking that a serious candidate might be Xerox's Anne Mulcahy, as she led one of the toughest turnarounds in recent U.S. history. Plus all the men have failed at this job, so perhaps it is time to try the other gender! Or, perhaps Carly Fiorina could do this instead of running for the Senate in California to demonstrate that she can keep and flourish in a job where she P& L responsibilities -- something she didn't demonstrate at HP. And if Carly failed, she could have the special distinction of having been thrown under the bus by both John McCain and Barack Obama!

Quote of the Day: Roaches and Assholes

Bobsutton — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:29:10 -0800

I want to thank everyone for the great comments on my last post, which raises the question: Is the only effective way to deal with an impossible boss to suffer in silence until you can escape?
Every comment so far is extremely thoughtful. I was especially taken taken with how John described how he had learned to deal with impossible bosses as he traveled through his career. My favorite line, however, comes from Jason, who comments:

"Since I read your book I've been watching at my firm and my observation is that asshole bosses are like roaches--there is never just one."

As I've written here many times, being an workplace asshole is often a malady that you catch from other people. But the roaches analogy is a lovely way to out it.

Working for an "Impossible Boss:" Is the Only Option to Suffer in Silence Until You Can Escape?

Bobsutton — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:22:09 -0800

I was just reading a compelling and heavily research based by psychologist Robert Hogan called Personality and the Fate of Organizations. In Hogan's chapter on "The Psychology of Managerial Incompetence," he cites an interesting study by by McCall and Lomdardo (see this book for a summary of much of it) where they had interviewed a large number of managers about "career defining events." Every manager reported that they had spent a long stretch "working for an impossible boss, not difficult, cranky, or abusive, but impossible." So their first conclusion is that just about every adult will have to work for an impossible boss at some point. The researchers reached a second conclusion that troubles me, "when working for an intolerable boss, if a person sticks up for him or herself and refuses to bullied, his or her career will be irreparably damaged. When working for an awful boss, a person's only option is to suffer in silence."

I was taken aback by this advice. It certainly isn't always wrong, as I suggest on my list of tips, there are times where the best option when working for a bad boss is to suck it up and take it -- and get out as fast as you can. But there are just too many examples -- and research too -- about how trampled underlings have successfully fought back against abusive and incompetent bosses. A couple famous cases come to mind right away --- Brad Bird now of Pixar fame and Robert Townsend, the author of the classic Up The Organization --- indeed, Bird's case, he was hired by Pixar in part because he had no tolerance for incompetent authority figures; indeed, his past firing from Disney was career enhancing move.

These guys ultimately succeeded, in part, because they fought back against bosses they did not think were competent. I also have had several longstanding email exchanges with people who are now CEOs because they fought back against and ousted their incompetent and mean-spirited predecessors. In The No Asshole Rule, I do emphasize that if you have an asshole boss, sometimes the best thing to do it is become emotionally detached and not let it touch your soul. But I also argue that there are times you can fight back, and when underlings band together and fight back --- and practice some skilled politics --- they can win against a bad boss, and help rather than damage their careers too.

I should also add that, although the typical person stuck with an impossible boss might be better off riding out the storm in silence and turning the other cheek, if everyone followed this advice, bad bosses would never be punished, reformed, and fired and terrible decisions would never be stopped. If you haven't read Michael Lewis' story about AIG, this might be a good time to do it. He presents well-researched evidence that one reason that AIG messed up so badly was they had an "impossible" boss named Joe Cassano running their Financial Products unit, who was intolerant of dissent, and those who tried to stand-up to him learned it was better not to and left, leaving only people who didn't fight back, suffered his tirades in silence, and said things like "Joe, you are right." The article estimates this unit lost about 45 billion dollars, and suggests that the fear that Cassano instilled in his followers was a large contributing factor. I wonder, are those underlings who suffered in silence really better off now -- not to mention U.S. taxpayers who have loaned AIG nearly 200 billion bucks.

That's my reaction. What do you think?

1. Is this advice right? If you have an impossible boss, is it usually is a career-limiting move to fight back?

2. How do you know when to fight versus when to keep your head down and escape as fast as you can?

3. What is the best way to fight back?

Mintzberg in the WSJ: Get Rid of Executive Bonuses

Bobsutton — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:54:21 -0800

Today's Wall Street Journal has a simply brilliant argument by management theorist and guru Henry Minztberg titled "Get Rid of Executive Bonuses." I think it is brilliant because it marries the results of diverse and compelling research from many corners of academia with a concise and logical argument. It also is consistent with Dan Pink's argument I mentioned recently that many of the assumptions beneath the way we run organizations are based on little if any evidence --- but rather are articles of faith. As always, I also love Mintzberg's boldness. The heart of his argument, and you must read the nuances, is that three of the assumptions about the logic for executive bonuses clash with the weight of the evidence:

A company's health is represented by its financial measures alone—even better, by just the price of its stock.

Performance measures, whether short or long term, represent the true strength of the company.

The CEO, with a few other senior executives, is primarily responsible for the company's performance.

Mintzberg then digs into a topic that Jeff Pfeffer and I talk a lot about in our chapter in Hard Facts on "Do Financial Incentives Drive Company Performance? That is, what kind of people does your performance evaluation system attract and what kind does it drive away? Here is what Mintzberg, note how he turns the argument that "if we don't pay these people bonuses, we won't have enough good people." I quote:

Actually, bonuses can serve one purpose. It has been claimed that if you don't pay them, you don't get the right person in the CEO chair. I believe that if you do pay bonuses, you get the wrong person in that chair. At the worst, you get a self-centered narcissist. At the best, you get someone who is willing to be singled out from everyone else by virtue of the compensation plan. Is this any way to build community within an enterprise, even to foster the very sense of enterprise that is so fundamental to economic strength?

Accordingly, executive bonuses provide the perfect tool to screen candidates for the CEO job. Anyone who insists on them should be dismissed out of hand, because he or she has demonstrated an absence of the leadership attitude required for a sustainable enterprise.

Of course, this might thin the roster of candidates. Good. Most need to be thinned, in order to be refilled with people who don't allow their own needs to take precedence over those of the community they wish to lead.

I confess that some his arguments even make me squirm, and I also am concerned because he doesn't really spell out what system might replace bonuses. But his last argument (especially the part I have put in bold letters) really appeals to me, in part, because one of the best definitions I ever heard of an asshole executive is that he or she consistently puts his or her needs and wants ahead of the company and colleagues. Mintzberg is making a compelling argument that the current system seems largely designed to attract and create exactly that flavor of asshole!

Dan Pink on Why Financial Rewards Suck for Motivating Performance

Bobsutton — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:25:24 -0800

Dan Pink makes a compelling case in his Ted Talk that financial rewards undermine performance in tasks that require creativity and complex problem-solving. As he says in the talk, this strong evidence about the negative effects of financial rewards runs counter to the assumptions embedded in nearly all major economic theory. As other research by psychologists on confirmation or "my side" bias shows, we human-beings have a tough time hearing and believing evidence that runs counter to our beliefs.

P.S. Sally, thanks for telling me about this research.

Parking Tickets for Assholes

Bobsutton — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 13:34:30 -0800

I have been digging through old emails, as I had fallen behind do the press of my book deadline and other craziness, and came upon one from Jim about youparklikelikeanasshole.com. It isn't exactly a wildly active blog, but I quite liked the "notices" or parking tickets you can download on the cite, they could come in handy. You can see the main one above, but better copies are available at the cite.

Jeff Pfeffer on the Misguided Lust for Outside CEOs as Saviors

Bobsutton — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:41:46 -0800

Jeff Pfeffer has an inspired post over at BNET in which he reviews the evidence -- and tells some evidence-based stories -- about how companies that become enamored with the magic of an outside CEO who can ride in on his or her white horse and save the day are deluding themselves. Jeff relies in part on Harvard Business School Professor's Rakesh Khurana's well-crafted Searching for the Corporate Savior. As Pfeffer notes, and as we discuss in our book Hard Facts, that --- although there are very vivid stories of outside saviors, notably Gerstner at IBM, the track record for outsiders is generally weak. As one example, Boris Groysberg's research on GE executives who became CEOs of other companies found that, on average, their new companies performed well-below the industry average. This effect was especially pronounced when their past experience did not fit those skills required for the new company (This finding was reversed when there was a good fit. Boris reports that a good fit was associated with performing about 15% above the expected industry average, something called "annualized abnormal returns;" while those companies that had a GE CEO who didn't fit performed about 40% below average).

The upshot, as Jeff and I suggested in The Knowing-Doing Gap, is that the best CEOs and other bosses have the experience and skill required to run their businesses -- and insiders have an upper-hand in the typical case. Compare Xerox's former CEO and now Chair Anne Mulchay to HP's fired Carly Fiorina. Anne had numerous different jobs at Xerox and had been there more that 20 years. And she is widely praised by insiders as a good listener. Note that Carly not only had a tendency to become bored with the details of running HP's business, Fortune reported that she had never had any P&L responsibility in prior jobs before becoming HP CEO. Moreover, Carly, although brilliant, was known to be a lousy listener when it came to talking to insiders, and instead preferred to rely on consultants. When Mark Hurd came in, one of the first things he did was to fire hundreds of them. During Carly's reign, I once was at Silicon Valley party where I was talking with a disgusted high-ranking HP insider who was complaining that Carly -- who is charismatic and inspiring -- was perfectly suited to politics because there are no real deliverables, which fit her skills perfectly! I guess Carly figured that out too, as she is now running for the U.S. Senate in California.

The Roar of Sports Car Engines: 100% of Women -- But Only 50% of Men --Respond to a Maserati With Increased Testosterone Levels

Bobsutton — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 12:49:49 -0800

I put up what I thought was an amusing and not especially original post on Wednesday afternoon that described a study showing that men who drove a new Porsche -- but not an old Camry -- responded with increased testosterone levels. It got picked up by something called Hacker News and was on the top of their list of hot items for hours (I don't really understand how this thing works). The result was that it drove 5000 or 6000 hits to my blog and generated 35 comments there. By now, after some four years of blogging, I have learned that it is impossible to know what will take off. And although it is fun when it happens, I have learned that when I stick to what feels interesting and authentic to me, I have the most fun and learn the most. But based on reactions to my two testosterone posts, this is clearly something people seem to be interested in and I confess the research on it intrigues and bewilders me.

So, to add to my posts here and here, I have one more study about cars and T levels to add to the mix. Following a link that appeared in one of the Hacker news comments, there was a related study described over Telegraph.com in the UK, headlined Sound of a sports care engine arouses women. Here is how the study is described "The 40 participants listened to the recordings of a Maserati, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari, along with a Volkswagon Polo, before having a saliva specimen collected." I have much less information about the nuances of this research than the other two studies, but on the face of it, the evidence seems to be that women respond more strongly than men to the sound of cars and to different cars. Note this excerpt:

The results found 100 per cent of female participants had a significant increase in testosterone secretion after listening to the Maserati, compared to only half for men.Men fared better at the sound of a Lamborghini, with 60 per cent showing a testosterone increase. Psychologist David Moxon, who conducted the study commissioned by motor insurer Hiscox, said: "We saw significant peaks, particularly in women."

"The roar of a luxury car engine does cause a primeval physiological response." He added the sound of an average car engine actually led to a decreased level of testosterone.

I promise this is my last post on T levels for a long time. I just couldn't resist this one.

P.S. Check out Ellie's comment. She raises excellent points about the legitimacy of this research. I am trying to contact the David Moxon to see if he can share the original data and research report with us, l hope he answers. Once again, to be clear, the other two testosterone studies were published in a top peer-reviewed journal, and while they are imperfect, they are carefully done, the authors are careful not to overstate claims, and they acknowledge flaws and alternative explanations for their findings.

More on Testosterone Levels: Driving a Porsche vs. Toyota Camry

Bobsutton — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:03:58 -0800

A couple weeks back, I put up a post on Testosterone Levels, Top Dogs,and Collective Confidence, which described a study showing that groups enjoyed more collective confidence when the people with higher levels where at the top of the pecking order and those with lower levels are at the bottom (compared to "mismatched groups" where the top dogs had low levels and the underlings had high levels). There were some extremely thoughtful comments on that post, including a comment that "T" levels, as researchers call them, are heavily influenced by situational factors. Well, to that point, it turns out that -- as I learned from the always useful BPS Research Digest -- that this article was one of a set published in a special issue of Organizational Behavior and Decision Processes on "The Biological Basis of Business." I read through the table of contents for the issue, and came upon a study that just cracked me up on the effects of driving a Porsche vs. a Camry.

It is called "The Effects of Conspicuous Consumption on Men's Testosterone Levels" and was conducted by Gad Saad and John Vongas of Concordia University. Here is roughly what they did (I am focusing on the first of the two studies in the article). They had 39 young heterosexual men drive both "a 2006 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet estimated to be worth over $150,000" and a "a dilapidated 1990 Toyota Camry wagon having over 186,000 miles," each for an hour,split evenly between city and and highway driving. They randomly assigned subjects to driving either the Porsche or Camry first. They took a total of six "T" samples from each young man at various stages on the process. Most crucial for our purposes are the changes in "T" that occurred after driving the Porsche vs. the Camry, but also relevant are the two "baseline" samples taken before and after the experience.

The effect was that driving the Camry did not seem to lead in a significant change in T levels, but -- no doubt to the delight of many people and perhaps the disgust of many others -- the young guys who drove the Porsche experienced significant and substantial increases in T levels after driving the Porsche (in the final sample of 31 guys, 8 were excluded from the day analysis because their samples were tainted by excessive excessive blood in their mouths).

Here is the key table:

I am not sure if these results are completely obvious and trivial or completely shocking and crucial. I always had a sneaking suspicion that the "manly" feeling that comes from driving a sports car was nonsense promoted by car companies. But I guess it may have some truth. Also, I want to commend the researchers for demonstrating a lot of creativity and for -- despite the straight and serious academic writing -- producing one of the most entertaining academic studies I have read in a long time.

P.S. Here is the citation: G. Saad, J.G. Vongas / Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 110 (2009) 80–92

Your Lack of Planning is Not My Emergency

Bobsutton — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:09:00 -0800

I have no idea who first said this, but I've always liked it. I first heard it from my friend and co-author Jeff Pfeffer. Unfortunately, it reflects a hallmark of a certain of bad boss. They keep their people in a constant state of suspense and paranoia because they keep springing one vile surprise after another on them -- and then act like their followers are difficult or incompetent when they resist or protest such absurd last minute demands.

ARSE Passes 210,000 Completions: Have You Taken The Test Yet?

Bobsutton — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:58:04 -0800

The Asshole Rating Self-Exam (or ARSE) appears in The No Asshole Rule at the end of Chapter 4. It actually isn't called that in the book, it is just described as "Self-Test: Are You a Certified Asshole?" But Guy Kawasaki got a hold of it right after the book was published and the great people at Electric Pulp put in a format that works well on the web -- and Guy came up with the ARSE acronym (His capacity for fun language never ceases to me amaze me). So many people have taken the ARSE that several times a year, someone I never met will walk up to me and introduce themselves with a number ("Hi, I am Sandy, and I am a 1, I am really a very nice person" or .... "Hi, I am Phil and I am a 9, so I am a borderline certified asshole.")

The ARSE seems to be going strong. I just got an email from Emily at Electric Pulp who tells me that it has now passed 210,000 completions (213, 659, with an average score of 7.09 -- indicating the average test taker is a borderline certified asshole or has sued it to identify one). I still take it now and then for myself, and my score fluctuates between a 2 and 7, depending on my mood. And I confess that when I am dealing with an asshole, I will take it on his or her "behalf." I once completed it for a certain unnamed colleague, and I scored him a 17 on the test (indicating a "full-blown certified asshole.") No wonder I feel sick whenever I have to deal with him.

P.S. Emily also reports that the ACHE -- the Asshole Client from Hell Exam -- is up to 12, 472 completions.

Treating Organizational Practices as Prototypes: A d.school course for Stanford Graduate Students

Bobsutton — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:12:27 -0800

Debra Dunn, Kris Woyzbun, and I are teaching our course on Organizational Practices as Prototypes (MS&E 287)for the third year in a row at the Stanford d.school. This is a small course -- just 12 students -- focused on applying the design process to organizational behavior issues. In past years, our students have worked on improving the experience of JetBlue customers who have delayed flights, improving the employee onboarding at IDEO, developed prototypes for improving employee performance feedback at Mozilla and Cooliris, and -- as you can see here in BusinessWeek -- helping to revamp the all hands meeting at Timbuk2.

This year, we have the first two projects planned and are in the process of lining-up the third and final one. The first project, led by d.school stalwart and design star Perry Klebahn, will be short one focused on how to recruit and design jobs for the new generation of knowledge workers. The aim of this project, in addition to getting the class to jump right into the challenge of designing organizational practices the first day, will be to teach students the design thinking process and involve students in an intense "get to know you" exercise.

The second project will be with JetBlue and we will be working with Sam Kilne for the third time. Sam is fantastic at setting-up things so that students have great access to JetBlue employees, is very responsive to students questions, and gives fantastic feedback. The topic this year is developing means so that JetBlue employees can provide timely and useful feedback and suggestions to management -- a project we are calling "reinventing the suggestion box."

As you can tell, this is a hands on class, where the emphasis in learning by doing, and in that vein, developing prototypes that organizations actually implement. Alas, it is only open to Stanford graduate students (although I promise occasional updates here). The details are here. Class meets 3:30 to 5:00 MW at the Stanford d.school. If you are interested in applying, please send a resume and an pitch about why you want to join the class to both Debra and me (our emails are found on the link).

P.S. The official name of the class this year is "Prototyping Change in Entrepreneurial Firms."

Asshole Boss of the Year?

Bobsutton — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:38:55 -0800

There is always a lot competition for this title. But (courtesy of Gawker and a tip from Scott), Vadim Ponorovsky, who owns the restaurant Paradou in Manhattan, appears to have won the prize. Here is the email he sent to his staff, which was forwarded to Gawker:

To All,

Please read this email carefully. This is the last time we will be discussing this.

This weekend, saturday and sunday we had 451 customers. Guess how many emails we collected? 60? 80? 40? No. None of those. We, or more acurately you, collected 2 emails. Thats less than half of one percent. 2 fucking emails.

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU ASSHOLES?!?!?! How many times do we have to tell you how important it is that you collect emails. Everytime we have a slow night and you make no money and you sit there bitching about how you make no money, remember its because youre fucking lazy motherfuckers. YOU SHOULD ALL BE FIRED IMMEDIATELY!!!!! ALL OF YOU, INCLUDING THE HOSTS!!!!

Let me guess, youre probably sitting there saying "Vadim is such a fucking asshole. How dare he speak to me like this. I dont need this." Youre right, you dont, so why dont you get the fuck out. Any and all of you.

Youre probably sitting there saying "How dare he speak to me like this. How dare he not have respect for me". Youre right there also. I have absolutely no respect for any of you. Why? Because every fucking day, all of you continue to show that you have absolutely no respect for me or Alex. So if you dont respect us enough to do the little that we ask you to do, then GET THE FUCK OUT YOU FUCKING LAZY DISRESPECTFUL ASSHOLES!!!!!

Effective immediately, any server or host who fails to collect at least 20 emails per week, will be fined $100. Anyone failing to collect at least 20 emails for two weeks in a month will be fired immediately. No matter what. No matter who you are.

You dont want to do your job, you dont want to do what we ask, you dont belong at Paradou. Go find another place to work.

How dare you disrespect Alex and me this way. How dare you completely ignore what we ask of you time after time after time.

I am sick of all this shit, you bunch of fucking children. This is what I have to deal with at 6AM?!?!? I wouldnt tolerate this from my 13 year old, and Im sure as shit not going to tolerate it from any of you assholes.

You give no respect, you get 10 times back.

If you can top that, let me know.

P.S. There are all sorts of subsequent actions here, from a defense by the owner (with more F words and a claim that he practicing Reagonomics) and apparently there are death threats against him. See here, here, and here.