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6 Books to Read in 2017
My students know that I am a voracious reader and in years past, some of them would often ask me to recommend some good readings that would keep their scholarly juices flowing after graduation. I would verbally give them recommendations from books I had read in the past year. As I begin the first blog of the New Year, I thought I’d go over the books I read in 2016 and list the 6 books that I recommend for 2017. Here’s my list (in random order).
- Shoe Dog by Phil Knight (Founder of Nike). Shoe Dog is an outstanding book that describes the founding and establishment of Nike. The book, written as a memoir by Knight, describes how he took a simple class project at Stanford and transformed it into one of the iconic corporations of our time. The story is fascinating in itself, but what makes the book especially impactful are the detailed insights about the key decisions, risks and the hard choices that had to be made in bringing Nike to the stature it has today. These insights are riveting and instructional and describe a company very different from the flashy image conjured up by the “Just Do It” campaign.
- Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace. Ed Catmull is the co-founder of Pixar, and he teams with Amy Wallace to provide a fascinating story of how Pixar was founded and grew up to be the movie making machine that has given us animation hits such as Toy Story, UP, Finding Nemo and the like. As opposed to Shoe Dog, where the primary focus of the book is on key decisions involved in the nurturing of Nike, Creativity does a phenomenal job focusing on how the company developed a culture that allowed creativity and innovation to thrive. And for followers of Steve Jobs (and especially those who have read Isaacsons’s biography of Jobs), the chapter where Catmull describes how Steve Jobs, a co-founder of Pixar, worked with Pixar’s management team is a revelation.
3. Mastery by Robert Greene. Mastery was published in 2012 but I was late to the party and read it a few months ago. This is an incredibly amazing book that profiles living and dead ‘masters’ who reached the pinnacle of their fields. Using archived material from the ancient masters such as Mozart and Henry Ford, and with interviews of current masters, Greene distills the factors that made these individuals successful and identifies commonalities across them. Like the preceding two books, Mastery provides many lessons to those seeking to excel in a sphere of their life. For me one of the key reminders was that when focusing on the success of masters and successful leaders such as Ed Catmull and Phil Knight (not talked about in this book, but Masters nevertheless), we often focus on their ultimate success and forget the pain and suffering and hours of endless toil that took them to the pinnacle. That while they were building their careers or companies, they had numerous setbacks and were often a day away from bankruptcy. Time and Time again it gets emphasized that success is a result of multiple factors but the one common one is endurance, the ability to deal with hardship and the ability to put in long hours of work.
- The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. A couple of years ago I was introduced to the concept of neuroplasticity, when my good friend, Anne O’Leary-Kelly suggested that I read Norman Doidge’s book. Since then I have read many other books on neuroplasticity, but am definitely partial to this one and re-read it a few months ago. Drawing on significant research in neuroscience, including that which led to Nobel Prizes, Doidge focuses on how the neurons in our brain alter to address disabilities individuals may have and how this knowledge can be used to help victims of stroke, blindness and other conditions. An important track within the books focuses on how our brain alters as we acquire skills, and how we can work to keep it more receptive to learn even at an old age. The book opened up several new avenues for self-development not taught in traditional classes. The concepts of neuroplasticity have the potential to be incredibly powerful self-help aids for all individuals. Some exposure to these concepts will, at the very least, create optimism among individuals that skills they believed were beyond them can indeed be conquered.
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The Little Prince was first published in 1943. It is a children’s book … and it is not. Very short – just 50 pages or so, the book (and the movie that recently came out) chronicles the travels of the Little Prince to various asteroids in Space where he meets a variety of individuals. And he asks questions. The questions, the answers, and his reflections are incredibly revealing. I first read this book in 1980 as part of my readings in my French class. I have subsequently read it multiple times at various stages in my life and each time I’ve come away with a different takeaway – I credit this book with leading me to my current profession and strongly believe that every individual should read this book at least once in their lifetime.
- Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. By Jack Thorne with JK Rowling. Ah well. Certainly different from the above books and not as good, in my opinion, as any of the Harry Potter Books. But I firmly believe that everyone should have read every Harry Potter Book. So there it is.
Happy 2017 all. I hope to keep coming through periodically with thoughts and welcome feedback, suggestions, bouquets and even brickbats (my target is once in three weeks but I hold the right to be more or less J).
P.S. Before I started this blog, I had set a limit of 6 books to highlight. That would discipline me to keep the list short, brief and the very top books that I wanted to highlight for 2017. I was sorely tempted to increase the list to 8 and add two books that I think are phenomenal: Matchmakers (by Evans and Schmalensee) and The Idea Factory (by Jon Gertner).
India’s Demonetization Moves and a Note on Office Gossip
This was an extraordinary week – Trump’s surprise victory over Clinton clearly dominated all news. In this context, there are two non-election stories that I recommend.
India’s demonetization moves.
In an extraordinarily surprising move, the Indian government announced that all existing 500 and 1000 Rupee currency notes would cease to be legal tender almost with immediate effect. The step is aimed at reducing corruption, bringing back India’s black money into the official economy and also strike a blow against terrorism who have developed huge caches of currency using counterfeiting and other moves. Some estimates place India’s parallel economy at 110% of its normal economy. The objectives are laudable but the execution of this extreme step is challenging and painful. Yet it has the potential for extraordinary impact in the medium and long term. Regardless of the outcome, a host of emerging countries will be watching how things unfold for lessons that can be learnt. The following are two articles that I liked that provide good information on this topic.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37906742
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-09/india-gets-rid-of-cash-too-soon
When this post was originally posted, my good friend Adriana Hofer shared this video about the chaos in India….and its certainly worth viewing.
Office Gossip:
Office Gossip can be a real killer to a work environment. Yet it isn’t just the employees who gossip who can be blamed for the situation. Organizational leaders for a penchant for excessive secrecy are also contributors to this. This article from Harvard Business Review is a good read on this topic.
When Seeking Input from Others may just be an Illusion
It is commonly held wisdom that we could improve our decisions by gathering information and advice from others. Yet, much research on decision making and group processes shows that we sometimes approach the advice seeking process in a flawed way – one that makes us think we are seeking good advice, when we, in fact, are not. This was driven home to me last month, when I was chatting with a manager who was in the process of making a very important decision for his organization. As he described the situation and described the steps he had taken to get input from others I couldn’t help wondering if he was falling into a trap which only gave him the illusion of gathering information and input from others. So this weekend, out of curiosity I went back to my notes and re-read a few papers and identified a few things we could be conscious about when seeking advice.
Who do we gather information from?
We usually seek advice from those we consider close to us. This seems sensible as we can discuss sensitive issues with some level of confidence with those close to us. They are likely to respect the confidentiality of the situation. Yet, demographics research has shown that we are close to people who are similar to us and think like us. These individuals probably see the world in the same way as us, often have similar experiences and are very likely to confirm what we already think. This is the paradox of advice seeking – it is easiest to seek information from those who are close to us, but they are the ones who are least likely to give us differing viewpoints. There is also a disturbing corollary to this implicit bias – a variety of studies have shown that our prejudices come into play in many ways during advice seeking. In a recent study subjects were charged with performing a task and during the task, a person they did not know offered them helpful advice. While the stranger always offered the same advice, participants were more likely to take the advice when it was given by a man. Other studies have shown that other demographic prejudices (Race, age, etc.) come into play too.
What gets shared during a discussion?
In 1989, Garold Stasser, Laurie Taylor, and Coleen Hanna of Miami University published a very interesting study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. They created groups of six students who were all given information about a potential candidate to be evaluated for the student body president. Some information items about this person were provided to ALL the group members, while some information items were only provided to individual members (and were thus unshared). When these groups discussed the candidate, it was found that close to 60% of the items that were known to all group members were mentioned and considered but less than 20% of the items that were known to only one individual were discussed. Stasser (and many others) has subsequently conducted follow-up studies that consistently indicate that people tend to primarily share information that is known to others in the group. This is rather puzzling because the very idea of using groups is to ensure that different perspectives and information get considered during the decision process. So we run the very real risk of another paradoxical situation where groups may actually consider less information than the individual members themselves would have. Something that group leaders and group members need to be consciously aware of.
How do we gather information?
Have you ever been driven to distraction by that manager or co-worker who insists on using email for every communication? Or, in the reverse, who picks up the phone and calls you for any question he/she may have? You may be justified in your frustration. Way back in 1987, Richard Daft (then at Texas A&M University) and his co-researchers examined how managers in a large petrochemical company communicated and shared information. They drew on a theoretical stream called media richness and their results have been corroborated over the years – effective managers judicially choose the medium through which they share and obtain information. Some communication media (for instance email) are considered lean media – they are efficient, quick and great for transmitting simple information but not the best for sharing complex ideas. On the other hand, trying to learn from another person in a face to face meeting is less efficient, takes time but can be great for brain storming and discussing complex problems. This is an example of a ‘rich’ communication medium. The use of a mismatched medium is inefficient, and often doesn’t get us the best information or advice that we need. And as pointed out by several friends who have senior positions in organizations, the use of a mismatched media can be downright annoying — just recently I had lunch with a former student, who now leads a team in a Fortune 100 company and he expressed some choice words about a coworker who visited him a dozen times a day to get information that he could have easily emailed about!
Larks, Owls, and After-Hour Emails
This blog-post comes after a rather lengthy gap. Changes in roles and vacations tend to do that….but the good news is that there are a bunch of topics that I have stored for the next few months. This blog is spurred by a coffee conversation I had with Samantha Conroy, an outstanding former PhD student who is now a rising research scholar at Colorado State. She described some of her research which transported me back two years to a time when I was dining at a friend’s house. It was a Saturday evening and I should have been having fun. Yet, my focus was on my IPhone – I kept checking it for emails. A lot went on in my job but surely almost anything that came up could have waited till Monday? Yet I felt compelled to repeatedly check my email. I knew for sure then, that something was wrong in the way I was approaching my work. I have since changed my habits but seeing more and more people becoming increasingly powerless under the non-stop barrage of 24 hour emails, I want to start this blog-post by talking about the research that Samamtha and her co-authors (Liuba Beklin at LeHigh University, and William Becker at Virginia Tech) recently completed.
A fundamental question lies in why we feel obliged to look at work related emails after hours? Often times such expectations are not directly spelt out, or even expected, but social norms can create tremendous pressure. We feel obliged to be on email when someone in the hierarchy sends emails after hours and some of the recipients immediately respond. Do we want to be that one person who doesn’t respond till we get back to work? Or an expectation can be created by the sheer volume of emails that are sent after hours or on holidays. Especially when individuals up the ladder in a hierarchy do this, people lower down feel pressurized to respond…and as more individuals fall into this pattern, it becomes harder for others to avoid emails after hours and during holidays. (Truth be told, I am extremely guilty of sending emails after hours personally….though I make it a point to tell people around me that I don’t expect them to respond).
The research by Conroy and her colleagues, builds on a mountain of emerging evidence that attending to emails after hours has the potential to cause long term damage to individuals and to organizations alike. And it is not the amount of time spent answering emails – it is the anticipation that there will be emails that will ‘need’ us to respond. This anticipation and perceived pressure create distractions from quality time that ultimately leads to lower productivity and a host of undesirable effects (lower motivation, increase conflict in personal relationships, absenteeism, and the like). These research results are interesting but do come with several ‘caveats’.
One of these key caveats lies in what exactly do we mean by non-work time? For most people it would mean time spent outside of traditionally specified working hours. That would be OK for a large number people but there is now very strong evidence that we differ from each other in terms of our body’s biorhythms. While a majority of people are at their best in the morning (so called larks) there is a substantially large minority of individuals who are ‘owls’ in that they do their best work at night. If an organization is trying to adjust to these aspects of individuals, and allowing employees to work when they think best, then of course, there will be emails that will arrive at non-work times for some individuals. It would seem that organizations are caught in cross-currents here – one person’s work hours may be another person’s off work hours. Perhaps the solution is in making individuals comfortable responding to email within a reasonable amount of time as opposed to the moment an email is received? Clearly, both individuals and organizations have to work to ensure that the work habits of one group of individuals do not become a compelling pressure for another group of individuals.
And of course, as we try to solve one set of problems, we often create another set. For instance, as organizations recognized that individuals have different biorhythms that make them larks and owls, and offered them flexible schedules it seems to have some unanticipated consequences. For instance, research published in the Journal of Applied Psychology shows that an individual who uses flex time may make the choice to manage personal and family issues rather than to match her body’s bio rhythms (not necessarily wrong, but it does not obviously match an individual’s biorhythm to the time when they do their most critical work). And even when individuals use flex time to match their body rhythms, there is research that shows that employees who start work later in the day tend to be rated lower on performance evaluations – this is especially true if the supervisor herself is a morning person. Well, no one said it is a simple world out there.
5 Indications Whether You let Creativity Flourish around You
Let’s ask a question in a slightly different way – do you as a manager, a team member, as a parent, or as a friend, allow creativity and innovation to thrive AROUND you? It’s not a simple question. It’s not about you being creative – it’s about you enabling people around you to be creative. Evaluate yourself against the five factors listed below and see how you score on them.
- Informal Emphasis on Hierarchy: Let’s say that you supervise people or are in a position of some power. How much do you informally emphasize hierarchy? Do you sit at the center of a table? In meetings, are all conversations directed at you? Do people look up to you for approval of any idea that comes to the table? Do you avoid going for coffee or lunch with people at lower levels in the organization? If so, knowingly or unknowingly you are emphasizing hierarchy. While in some situations hierarchy is important, in complex decision situations it can be very detrimental to creative decision making. It is a natural tendency among employees to stay on the right side of bosses (job security is a huge issue, after all) and hierarchy naturally inhibits those lower in the hierarchy from speaking out. No one wants to appear foolish in front of their boss. Ed Catmull, President of Pixar and Disney Animation recently wrote a fantastic book (Creativity Inc.) that describes the rise of Pixar and how it keeps the creative juices flowing. He begins the book with a vivid description about how a long table that was used to hold meetings was a huge impediment in Pixar’s way of working. During critical meetings name cards would often be placed on the table and the closer you were to the middle, the more senior you were. And in his words, ‘…the farther away, the less likely you were to speak up…your participation felt intrusive.’ He had the table removed. Leaders who foster creativity around themselves recognize that good ideas can come from anywhere and go out of the way to break down barriers of hierarchy. And if their presence will reinforce hierarchy they even remove themselves from those meetings.
- Nurturing the Creative Idea: Have you been in a meeting to discuss a strategic issue when a seemingly crazy solution was proposed? Did you derisively laugh? Did you pose a barrage of questions that highlighted why the idea was operationally unfeasible or why it wouldn’t work? Then, despite any good intentions, you killed creativity around you. Not only was the idea shot down, a message was sent that ‘out of the box’ ideas would be shot on sight in the future. Individuals who foster creativity around them, know that all creative ideas need nurturing…that they are imperfect when first articulated, that they have not had a chance to be developed and that even the best ideas will not survive if they are subjected to the third degree very early in their lives. Almost always the best creative ideas need massaging, they have to get input from people around them but in a way that does not dampen enthusiasm. At inception creative ideas are rarely well thought out – and it may be hard to defend them. In his book, The Idea Factory, Jon Gertner recounts an interesting story about Bell Labs. Almost 60 years ago, when Bell Labs was struggling to increase phone calling capacity between America’s East and West Coast, a key scientist idly wished that they could have a series of hot air balloons floating high up which could be used to bounce phone signals across the continent. The seemingly crazy idea found its champions, was implemented and led to the development of technologies that subsequently led to satellite communication.
- Keeping Hold of the problem In the 1970s a model of decision making called the garbage can model was introduced. In a very interesting way, the authors suggested that we view an organization as a garbage can where problems are rustling around looking for solutions, and solutions are searching for problems. I see this all the time. Organizations develop champions of certain software, technology or processes. I remember a manager at the time computer databases were gaining traction – he was enamored by them –and wanted them applied to every possible situation. Some of the problems made sense (inventory management) and some made no sense – writing letters in response to unique customer queries (this was back in the late ‘80s and most queries could be answered in a couple of lines). Lots of chaos was caused by his insistence that all letters be automatically generated through a database management software. Perhaps he was ahead of his time, but an individual who fosters innovation constantly keeps an eye on the problem…what is the problem that is being solved by the innovative solution. A creative solution may be initiated in response to a problem, but it is important to guard against continuing to polish and develop an idea without losing hold of the problem it was trying to solve. And of course if you as a practice informally meet with diverse people around the organization it is just a matter of time before you encounter someone with a problem that can be solved by the solution you are carrying around.
- Fostering divergent thinking: So you have a team that you trust (or are part of one). You’ve been together for a while and are comfortable bouncing ideas off each other? That’s wonderful. It’s also dangerous. We tend to like people who think like us and have similar views and those are the people we will naturally trust. But those who nurture creativity make sure to get honest opinions as a creative idea evolves. They are not scared of criticism and different opinions. They get divergent views by involving people who are NOT part of their core group and think differently. Rather than using the same set of people to critique every idea, they vary the composition of their brain-trust for different ideas. They involve people who may be opposed to the idea. I have learnt that doing so has so many benefits – it lets you gets perspectives you would not normally get from people close to you, it allows you to identify the opposition you will face when you roll out the idea, and it just leads to a lot of personal learning. And yet, many otherwise excellent managers get tons of feedback without realizing that they are getting feedback only from like-minded individuals.
- Letting Go: So you supported a new idea, it was implemented and it did not work. Well, many creative ideas don’t and we have to accept that and be tolerant of mistakes. But it is also important that we identify in advance the minimum conditions that must be met in a given time for continued support of a creative idea. Many times, individuals are great at championing an idea but then get married to it. Failure of the idea is seen as a personal failure, and rather than admit that a creative idea did not work, they pour more effort and resources into it. This phenomenon, referred to as non-rational escalation of commitment, is well documented. AT&T was convinced it had a unique idea of using hollow tubes to transmit phone signals in the early years of telecommunications. It poured vast resources into developing it, well after it was apparent that alternate technologies such as fiber optics could be more beneficial (Ironically fiber-optics was a technology that AT&T already possessed). By hanging on to creative ideas even when they are not working, we significantly increase the losses from those ideas. And it has a double whammy because the next time we champion a creative idea the huge losses from a previous failure dominate everyone’s thinking making them that bit less enthusiastic to support the new idea.
Today’s world is hypercompeititve and complex. The rules are ever-changing and being creative in addressing these situations is one of the best ways to thrive. While there are definitely situations where creativity can be harmful, it is hard to get ahead without fostering some levels of creativity. Some of us may be less creative than others but all of us have the ability to ensure that there is creativity around us. And while the above five factors are definitely not a complete set, they are likely to make a huge difference.
Musings: The Poor. And the Bottom of the Pyramid
About a decade ago, the concept of ‘bottom of the pyramid’ gained traction in the business literature. It focused on how corporations could find significant business opportunities by focusing on the poorest customers. These ultra-poor represented one of the last untapped markets in the world. I embraced the concept and started teaching it in my strategic management class. I even experienced a sense of smug self-satisfaction – after all, I had grown up in India which was then (and even today) one of the poorest countries in the world. I had seen poverty all around me. Surely I was a perfect fit for the topic because I understood poverty. Alas, over the years I’ve come to realize how little I understood poverty.
My realization that I didn’t really understand poverty occurred because of guidance from dozens of accidental teachers. For the last eight years I have been taking a group of students to India. And their questions have constantly forced me to focus on images that I would rather ignore, to question assumptions and rationalizations that I didn’t know existed. As a result, I slowly started gaining a slightly better understanding of poverty. I am writing this note on my way back from India where I had travelled with 25 students. Very young students. They saw things that perhaps Americans never see. Of course, they saw the wonders of India – the Taj Mahal and amazing forts, the Himalayas, the IT Hub in Bangalore, ultra-professional corporations – and many of the other things that are exciting investors about India. But the students also saw an orphanage/home for young girls where abandoned and destitute girls are raised. They met young girls whose families were too poor to raise them so handed them to an ashram. They played games with these girls who may never see their parents again. They went to an impoverished district in rural India – where some of them visited a colony of former untouchables, they met with people who did not have adequate water – a village where there was one tap in a common area that had running water for two hours a day. And they saw 3 year old children sifting through trash heaps to find something salvageable to sell — a pattern that would define the rest of these children’s lives. And my students then talked to me. They had seen things that I seemed not to notice. They had felt touched by situations that I thought were normal. They asked me questions that unfroze other images that I had seen as a child. They made me discard coping strategies that had helped me normalize and not be affected by those images. They learnt a lot – but like the students before them, they taught me even more.
When American students visit India on our Study Abroad Trip, it can be an emotional roller coaster. Our trip is hard and we move from locations and activities at breakneck speed. A student can go from an emotional high to a low and then back again all in a matter of an hour. I constantly debrief the students to help them process what they are observing and learning. A surprisingly large number of them seek out additional one on one meetings with me to talk through their thoughts and emotions. We had all of that happen on this trip too. But there is one incident that stands out to me. We were in Jaipur – a city at the edge of the desert. India was going through a major heat wave and on that day the area experienced the highest temperature ever recorded in India (51.6 C or 125 F). All of us had stopped for lunch at a restaurant and we were walking out to our bus. Just outside the restaurant there was a man with a small 5-6 year old girl with him. Both were dressed in the finery of the region – thick embroidered clothes which would have made the heat unbearable. The moment he saw the obviously American students, the man started playing music on an Indian flute and the girl started dancing – in the thick clothes, at 2.00 p.m. on the hottest day ever recorded. All in the hope of a tip. And my immediate thought was, here we go again – another person looking for ways to receive money. All I wanted to do was to hurry the students to the ‘luxury’ of their air conditioned coach and away from the man and his daughter. One of my colleagues asked me a simple question – How can they wear that many clothes in this heat and dance for the possibility of a few rupees? Without a single moment of reflection, I replied – ‘Poverty and desperation for the next meal can make people do all sorts of things.’ She was silent and I thought no more of it. Two days later she spoke to me again – that she had no idea that kind of poverty could exist and how much that statement had hit her. She shared that with other students…and two of them met me privately to talk about it. One of them was in tears himself.
The incident hit me profoundly. It was obviously heartbreaking to see what we saw. While I would still say that it does not make sense to give money in such situations, I can’t figure out how I responded so automatically without empathy or a kind thought for the father and daughter. And as I thought about it, I realized that I’d seen worse things that did not register. A small naked child fighting a dog for a piece of bread; a starving child in Addis Ababa desperately trying to find the energy to pick up coins thrown to him. Yet over the years I grew numb and the images stopped bothering me. I suspect I am not alone in this – growing up in India in the ‘70s, and then travelling in Africa for work, there was so much poverty that it was a natural defense reaction to ignore it. After all life still had to go on – we had jobs to do, exams to prepare for and obligations to fulfil. And it’s not just the developing world. There is poverty in America – but we avoid seeing it by creating the poor parts of town – and then we avoid going there. This numbing and consequent rationalization allows us to not be affected by poverty and sometimes to not even register it. This does have an upside — It allows us to move on and do what we have to. But I wonder if carried to an extreme it can lead to unforgiveable apathy and insensitivity. Poverty affects us all through its consequences. In Jaipur, the consequences of poverty were downright sad but benign – a Father/daughter sweltering in the heat and dancing in the hope for a few pennies. But the consequences are not always so benign.
Over the last few years, I had stopped teaching “Bottom of the Pyramid” topics in class. As we worked on cases and business models we estimated market size based on how much of a daily wage worker’s low income could be used for buying single use toiletries. We statistically discussed operating margins and inventory at retail outlets that serviced the poor. We talked about microlending practices that allowed the poorest of the poor to buy small refrigerators. My discomfort stemmed from the fact that those cold statistics of market size and profits and income growth among the poor looked sterile on paper. Somehow they did not square with what I had seen when I had been with the poor people. But after the introspection that occurred on this trip, I feel comfortable teaching it in the future – it is a valid business approach. I’ll teach market size estimation, operating margins and the other statistics that depersonalize poverty but allow for rational business decisions to be made. But I’ll also talk about that father/daughter duo performing in the sweltering sun. And I’ll talk about the old woman who broke down in tears last year when 3 of our students visited her hut. She broke down because she could not offer traditional Indian hospitality to these visitors – she was poor and didn’t have food to offer, and she had not been to the communal tap to bring water in that morning – she could not even offer a glass of water. I’ll talk about these incidents so that as we look at sterile statistics when making decisions to cater to the poor people, we don’t forget the human being who forms the bottom of the pyramid. And so that in all the decision making processes that these future business leaders use they don’t ignore a key component: their heart.
PS: I reached back home in time for Father’s Day. To a warm welcome. A movie and a good and special meal in the offing. It’s shaping to be a good day. Happy Father’s day to all the Father’s out there. But let’s spare a thought – that somewhere in the world, there are some fathers who are struggling to feed their kids. Perhaps dancing in the heat to earn their next meal? These Fathers won’t be wished a Happy Father’s Day or provided with a great dinner. But in their own way they are doing the best they can for their kids – the same as all of us.
Characteristics of College Students Highly Likely to Succeed
Three weeks ago, an applicant for the Walton MBA program asked me if I could describe the characteristics of students who had been very successful after graduation. I couldn’t answer him very well. I hadn’t really thought about it that much –I had focused more on characteristics of students who succeeded during the program (including starting jobs) as opposed to success a few years out. The question was intriguing enough and because past students stay in touch with me and I have information about many of them, I went through my past class rosters and pulled out a list of about 20 students (MBAs and senior undergraduates) who have been extremely successful (I call them superstars). I then started thinking about them (and even pulled out a few of their class projects from years ago)…what were their key characteristics as students? Which of those characteristics were commonly shared by all of them? I went into this without significant preconceived notions and was surprised at how many traits were commonly shared by the superstars. So here is my list that I think predicts subsequent success. It’s obviously unscientific, and may include a variety of biases. But after having wrestled with the content of this blog for several weeks, I feel comfortable going out on a limb in presenting this list – note that this is based on my personal experiences and does not represent anyone else’s viewpoint.
Passion on the ground: All superstars I reviewed were passionate. They were passionate about something of interest (not always business) – mergers and acquisitions, international experience, animal rights, women’s rights…a very wide range of topics. I use the term passion on the ground, because these superstars backed up their passion with demonstrated actions. They didn’t just say that they were passionate about something – in fact sometimes I discovered their passions long after I knew them well. But it was inside them and they acted on that passion. Jen, now a rising executive in a Fortune 100 company, felt strongly about women’s rights –when you spoke to her you could immediately discern the depth of her knowledge. She had clearly read about the topic, had explored its various facets, and had volunteered with nonprofits focused on women’s rights. Once you met her, you were unlikely to forget her – and if ever you needed information/some assistance with respect to women’s rights, she always came to mind. It’s not clear why this characteristic (being passionate) matters – perhaps people with passion tend to be remembered more? Perhaps they develop a certain depth that comes across during conversations? Perhaps people just respect individuals with passion. Regardless, it seems that those with passion about something in life, often showed passion at work – it was just who they were. And for whatever reason, it seemed to work wonders for them.
Positive Energy: One of the characteristics that I associated with the superstars was that of positivity. When they entered a room, you could feel an increase in the energy level of the room– their very presence increased confidence that things would get done and problems would get solved. This is a very intangible characteristic. What creates positivity in an individual? Hard for me to say…Not quitting at the first sign of a problem certainly seems to be one. Psychologists have studied a concept they call positive affectivity and hundreds of studies have looked at this attribute. Positive affectivity refers to an individual’s ability to hold positive emotions in most circumstances. When individuals look at every situation positively they are more likely to view those situations as opportunities, while others may see them as threats. And since being in a negative emotional state (anger, frustration, and sadness) is known to make us consider fewer alternatives and make poorer choices, individuals with positivity are likely to find superior solutions. When encountering a major setback, positive individuals are more likely to actively look for workarounds than to feel sorry for themselves. They exemplify the first half of Confucius’ time honored statement: He who says he can and he who says he can’t are both usually right.
Control of their Learning: It seems to me that superstars took control and ownership over their learning during their program of study and even afterwards. These were students who were not checking boxes to get a degree. They wanted to actively use their time in college to develop themselves. They did not ask advisors what courses to take and then take an easy path. Rather, they sought suggestions from advisors, thought about their own passion and future, talked to multiple people and then chose courses and paths that worked for them. One of the superstars, let’s call her Julie, decided to learn Chinese but not through a university course which she deemed as not giving her enough depth, but as an exchange for teaching a Chinese student English…and they both diligently worked at it for two years.
When superstars encountered a bad class or professor, they found alternative ways to learn the material. Julie, the person described above, decided that she was not going to get the knowledge she desired in one of the courses she was attending. So, in the following semester, she convinced another professor to sign her and 3 other students for an independent study to cover aspects related to that material. That group of students then engaged in intense self-study, meeting with the faculty periodically, and even created a project for themselves. She is doing extraordinarily well and continues to seek opportunities to learn. Interestingly, it appears that many of the superstars continued to focus on learning after graduation – Almost all that I am in touch with, are constantly sending and seeking book recommendations – they never really stop being students. And they never let someone else disrupt their learning – be it a group member, their text book or a bad professor.
Moving on after Adversity: One thing that strikes me about superstars is their ability to handle adversity. I remember a situation where a student was working on a project with me. Due to a mix up I did not take care of some key paperwork before leaving the country on a trip. The student had every right to be mad at me – due to my negligence, he was unable to participate in some activities in the summer and also missed out on a major funding opportunity. The student would have been perfectly justified in being mad at me. Had he done so, I would not have held it against him. But instead, he was extraordinarily gracious. He wrote me a note about how he had enjoyed working with me, and he has kept in touch with me since then. He showed extraordinary class and graciousness, and without knowing it he made me feel obligated … whenever I have had to do something for him (putting in a word for a job application, writing a letter, or even forwarding a career opportunity), I have done it with utmost zealousness. And this is something that I have heard from multiple executives and faculty. When someone acts with class while dealing with adversity, people notice. And it’s not just about letting one incident drag you down for a long time or create excessive negative emotion. It involves moving on and not dwelling on the failure or adversity — many of the superstar students showed an incredible ability to bounce back from adverse situations.
Work Management: Superstars appear to have a very good sense of their work responsibilities, and this sense is matched with an equally strong work ethic. From the work ethic point of view, superstars displayed an extraordinary commitment to get the work done…no matter how many hours it took they found a way to get the job done. They hated to ask for extensions or make excuses. They balanced work and play but not on a daily basis…they would have an extraordinarily busy week and then compensate by taking a few days off (a couple of them though did have the more traditional work day). But what I especially noticed was their awareness of their work load. They were forever looking at lists and schedules (interestingly almost all of the superstars I focused on used the old fashioned paper and pen schedules but that is probably a coincidence). They were aware of the time commitments they would have to make in the next few weeks and strategized accordingly. If there was a need to compromise on the quality of one project in order to find the time to excel on two others, they made that call early. If there was a need to negotiate a deadline, they did that early too. I think this habit served them very well as they moved into their jobs. In essence they were dependable and you could count on them to deliver high quality work in a timely manner.
There were more characteristics (appreciation for others’ efforts would have been my sixth) – but I set myself a limit of no more than five so that I could focus on those that were shared by most of the superstars. And does this mean that students who don’t possess some of these characteristics cannot succeed? No, in fact I know of a couple of students without several of the above characteristics who did succeed. But if I was a recruiter and had a way of accurately assessing students on these characteristics, I’d hire the ones who met the above criteria, because they would represent individuals with a higher probability of success.
The Oversimplification of Success
Danny Miller published a paper in 1993 (in the Academy of Management Review) entitled “The architecture of simplicity”. I read it when I was in the PhD program at Arizona State University, and it immediately struck a chord. Aspects of the paper resonated with my own experiences in the corporate world and have remained with me over the years. This write-up is inspired and driven by Miller’s paper, but incorporates insights from other readings and my own experiences.
A key argument made by Miller is that the seeds of failure for an organization are sown during that very period when it is most successful. Nothing mysterious about that – multiple authors and even parables make exactly that argument. What is unique, however, is his explanation of why and how those seeds are sown in that way. Miller points out that when an organization has enjoyed success for a period of time, its leaders come to hold an oversimplified version of what led to that success in the first place. He points out that while a complex set of actions/attributes leads to success, organizations tend to credit their success to a limited number of those attributes or actions – i.e. they oversimplify success. One paragraph in his paper excellently paraphrases his paper:
“Control Data, Polaroid, and Wang Labs, for example, which had succeeded by out-innovating their competitors, turned this policy into an obsession. They began to concentrate only on technological innovation— no matter what the costs or the needs of the customer. Marketing, production, and financial considerations fell by the wayside as the departments handling these activities became less influential and the power of the R&D elite mounted. Subsidiary goals of service and market penetration were driven out by an increasing obsession with scientific progress. And the organizational culture became more homogeneous as dissenting managers left. Even corporate systems and routines came to monitor and control mainly technical matters while ignoring issues of quality or profitability…”
In effect Miller argued that organizational leaders tend to pick a very restrictive set of factors as key drivers of a firm’s success. They then make those factors their prime focus of attention. Further compounding this problem is the fact that successful organizations receive media attention, and guided by the organizational leaders, the media further establishes the primacy of these simplistic set of factors. Once these few activities are established as the prime contributors towards success they tend to disproportionately consume resources and become the focus of solutions to all organizational problems. For instance in the examples above, the firms could have become more and more focused on developing their efforts at innovation and new product development while underinvesting in complimentary activities (such as marketing, flexible manufacturing). These ignored processes, while unheralded, were probably necessary for the innovation strategies to succeed and as effectiveness of these underappreciated processes deteriorated, the firm’s innovations became less successful.
The consequences of this simplicity can be debilitating. An organization begins to view the world through this simple lens and tout its selected ‘simple’ factors as solutions to all problems. Even when decisions based on this simplicity lead to poor outcomes, the simplistic mindset views failures as aberrations (or blames factors such as poor implementation) as opposed to a need for reassessment of the basic philosophy that led to the error. Moreover, talented employees in the unheralded areas begin to leave (because they don’t see great prospects in staying with the organization) and this further diminishes organizational capabilities in the unheralded areas. Additionally the departure of these executives damages the organization’s decision processes because these individuals, who were competent in and championed the unheralded activities, were the ones most likely to effectively challenge decisions based on simplicity — a critically needed diversity of thought within the organization is thus eliminated.
So what leads to the emergence of this simplicity? I suspect the very nature of leadership is an important culprit. One of the key roles of organizational leaders is to set a clear direction and vision for the organization. Leaders need to develop a message that is clear, precise, exciting and unambiguous. And that is almost always better achieved by relying on simplicity. After all a message that states that a firm’s foundation for success lies in primarily in its innovativeness and cutting edge products is vastly more appealing and communicable than one which also incorporates the role played by risk assessment and management, flexible manufacturing routines and other factors. Based on personal observations, my guess is that early on, when the firm is just beginning to experience success, leaders recognize the difference between the stated message and the reality – and are able to separate the message from the processes they use to make key decisions. But over time, as the message is repeated frequently, it begins to take on a reality of its own and simplicity sets in and dominates thoughts in key organizational decisions.
I would argue that this phenomena may also be prevalent at a personal level. After all when an individual is successful the pats on the back often involve expressions of what qualities ostensibly led to that success. The compliments can range from ‘you are innovative’, to ‘you are a fantastic risk taker’ to ‘you are great at approaching problems with a global perspective’. As success continues, and these compliments become more frequent and consistent, the individual may develop a self-image – and feel pressurized to act in ways that are consistent with that self-image. I know that I have often felt the need to live up to these images, and friends in organizations have shared similar experiences they have perceived at work. So at critical decision points, an individual may feel it is important to live up to that image of being a ‘global thinker’ and thus force an examination of a decision situation from that viewpoint even if it really wasn’t necessary. This certainly is not a recipe for sustained good decision making.
This is not meant to be an attack on simplicity. After all, when a situation is messy, one of the most effective approaches to addressing it involves stripping it to its basic elements and finding the simplest possible solution. Rather, this is a caution that there is a difference between a simple solution and a simple mindset. An effective simple solution will usually result from a mindset that can burrow through the complexity of modern day organizational decisions. And to play on Ashby’s famous law of requisite variety: Complexity and Variety in the mindset is the best way to neutralize complexity and variety in our decision environments.
On Social Intelligence
Being a faculty at a College like the Walton College is a privilege. I get an opportunity to work with a variety of individuals, the young and the not so young, those with extremely high ambitions and those with some amazing skills. Over the years I have had a chance to work with some amazing students many of whom have gone on to do wonderful things. Yet, in a few instances there has been pain…when someone with extraordinary skills and ability and fantastic work ethic failed to reach the levels that those skills should have led them to. I remembered an occasion from a while ago when one such person had stopped by – as a student he had been incredibly bright, was an excellent problem solver with an amazing intellect. Yet, he had lost his second job in four years, made it to several rounds of interviews that, for inexplicable reasons, did not lead to a job. Even while he held jobs, he had been passed over for coveted assignments. A few weeks ago, when reading Robert Green’s excellent book, “Mastery” I had been reminded of him and focused the blog this week on: “Social Intelligence”.
I had admired the above individual, but even when he was excelling as a student, I had wondered whether he would struggle because of his social skills. I’ve talked about Green’s book before: It talks about what leads individuals to become true masters of their professions – examining the profiles of individuals such as Mozart, Carl Jung, Michael Faraday and dozens of others to assess actions and choices that took these individuals into the realm of mastery. He devotes a full chapter to Social Intelligence – something that I believe is essential to a manager or a business person’s success. I build on what he notes in the chapter, what I’ve read elsewhere and some of my own experiences and observations on this issue. And truth be told, this is probably one aspect of my own skill sets that I have had to work on the most (and continue to do so).
There are some general aspects of social intelligence that should be fundamentally ingrained in all of us and yet we often disregard them. This aspect has received tremendous attention in recent years (Emotional intelligence for instance) and there is no way that they could all be listed and described in a single blog post. Yet, I do want to focus on three, two that are partly sparked by Green’s chapter (Picking your battles and letting go), and one that builds directly on something that Green describes in considerable detail (reading people).
Picking your Battles: Hearing descriptions of situations my former students have faced, as well as personal observations, it seems that some of the brightest individuals hate to lose an argument. And if you are sharp and experienced at arguing, marshalling thoughts and winning arguments is that much easier — this may seem an advantage but it has significant downsides. After all if we are brilliant in making logical arguments and winning those battles we develop a reputation for it. But every battle we win is one more co-worker’s ego bruised, one more individual who would be unwilling to challenge us when we are embarking on an unwise decision (our reputation for arguing successfully will be a huge deterrent) and perhaps one more individual secretly waiting to rejoice when we make a mistake. And sometimes we incur these costs while pushing an alternative that is only marginally superior (if that) to a competing one. It may be worth our while, in certain decision situations, to let others ‘win’ and to do it graciously. I’ve seen it build allies and lay the foundation for a future victory on an issue that may be much more critical. Crucially, every time a boss ‘loses’ an argument, the co-workers and her direct reports know that they have a voice, their opinion matters and are likely to speak up at critical moments.
Letting Go: So, you lost an argument even though you thought you were right? That’s going to happen to all of us…multiple times every year. How long are you going to sulk about it? Are you constantly going to find fault with the winning alternative (or person whose alternative was selected)? Speak bitterly to coworkers about the injustice done to us? As I look back on some of the more successful people I’ve met, they are the ones who can let go after losing pitched battles…who can get up, support the alternative that was selected and be a good team player. And almost always, this attitude is appreciated and many times converts adversaries into allies.
In his book, Green categorizes social intelligence into two: specific knowledge that relates to our ability to read people and general knowledge about common attributes of human behavior. I am focusing on the ability to read others — the ability to know why people are doing what they do, when they are uncomfortable with a situation, and when they are likely to change their mind. Two outstanding mangers that I have worked with are excellent at this. During a meeting, when a decision is made, they quickly go beyond the verbal assents – specifically going up to people and quietly checking in — “you said yes but you didn’t look very happy”. And sometimes the quiet conversations that followed led to critical rethinks of decisions. Reading people is critical because at the end of the day, in a complex decision making situation it is never about getting your own way, but about making the right choice – and many managers forget this critical difference (or arrogantly assume that their way is the best).
And how does one get to read people better? Part of it probably comes naturally. Psychologists have pointed out that there are those who are naturally more empathetic than others. That they will be more likely to understand how another person is feeling. True, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t develop our ability to improve on this attribute. In reality most of us engage in projection – assuming that the way we feel and the goals we aspire to are what the others also feel – that if we feel good about something so do others. Some of my favorite visuals over the years are the expressions on individuals faces when they belatedly realized that their assumptions about the behaviors and motives of others had been fundamentally flawed. Learning to read people is likely an ongoing process that probably begins with focusing on the other. Perhaps in our day to day conversations. Ask yourself, are you using most conversations with people to share what you know? Or to share what you have done? Or how you feel? How much of the conversation was focused on learning what the other person does and feel? Do you think about this from their perspective? Assuming we do this with genuine interest (and not ‘tune out’ when others talk about things that are important to them) we get some baseline ideas on other’s thought processes.
Were we to combine the above efforts with observation and reflection, I suspect we will begin to sow the seeds of learning to read others better. A long time ago I remember working with an individual who would enthusiastically agree with everything I said — I remember feeling very supported. And yet over a period of time, I noticed that this individual never really did most of the things she had professed to support… (“oops I forgot”, or “Well, I was trying to do this but discovered there was a huge issue and wanted to discuss with you first”…). Puzzled I started paying more attention to the individuals’ behavior and realized that that was a modus operandi with everyone she worked with. Enthusiastic verbal support to everything proposed by others but action only when the individual really wanted to do something (which wasn’t often). It was a great lesson and even more illuminating was the fact that that she was seen as a fantastic team player and one of the first individuals whose advice and cooperation was always sought in new projects – just another consequence of our focusing on what people say rather than what they do. Clearly paying heed to what people say and feel, and comparing it with their actions is probably one of the key endeavors in our ability to read people better.