Mike Lehr's Blog

In a previous post, I briefly mentioned the work of Michael Tomasello of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology as reported by Elizabeth Kolbert in her article, “Sleeping With The Enemy,” which appeared in the August 15/22, 2011 issue of the The New Yorker. At the time, I cited Tomasello’s work to emphasize the natural orientation humans have toward cooperation. In this post, I am suggesting that cooperation is a higher form of intelligent behavior than self-interest.

Here are two quotes from the article indirectly suggesting this:

1. Apes seem to lack the impulse toward collective problem-solving that’s so central to human society.
2. If you were at the zoo today, you would never have seen two chimps carry something heavy together. They don’t have this kind of collaborative project.

Only thinking and working towards your self-interest without consideration for others is definitely easier to accomplish than cooperation is. Additionally, when you add the importance of context, empathy and intrinsic rewards – all ingredients we’ve discussed earlier – to encourage natural cooperative tendencies, the achievement of cooperation is difficult, demanding and warrants a higher form of talent, aptitude and skill.

Furthermore, we can even take cooperation to a higher level when it comes to encouraging it within a diverse workforce. Such a workforce is more likely to be creative, innovative and adaptable. It’s much easier to gain cooperation within an homogeneous workforce than a diverse one. Moreover, creating the context, empathy and intrinsic rewards to appeal to such diversity requires special talents.

Again, all of this is to suggest that the desire and ability to cooperate belongs in the realm of a higher life form, humans rather than apes. Seen more simply, whereas self-interest puts our behavior more in line with those of apes, cooperation elevates us above them.

Other links in this series:

• Cooperation vs. Competition on the Business-to-Business Level
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest: Which Reigns Supreme?
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 2): Context – The Great Influencer
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 3): Empathy
• Cooperation vs. Self-interest (Pt 4): Intrinsic Rewards

If you have a son and a daughter both under college age, odds are greater that she will become CEO of a Fortune 500 company. As I was writing my book, The Feminine Influence in Business (more), in 2003 and 2004, I made this prediction to friends:

Within the next generation or two, more women will be Fortune 500 CEO’s than men.

After eight years, I’m only concerned that I was too conservative. The recent appointment of Virginia Rometty as new CEO of IBM has prompted me to revisit this prediction. However, despite what articles such as “The End of Men” and “The Rise of Women in the Creative Class” say, I believe deeper, more fundamental forces are at work:

The nature of work that is remaining for humans to do falls more within the talents, attributes and skills of women than of men.

That is because technological advancements more easily replace the logical, rational functions of humans than the intuitive, relational ones. Since men tend to be more dominant in the former and women the latter, computers will more easily replace men than women.

In this blog, we already explored the need for more relational skills to manage a more creative, innovative and adaptive workforce. Moreover, as much as we try to systematize and quantify creativity and innovation, that only takes us so far. Many times we need intuition to fill in the gaps. There is a reason why we say, “woman’s intuition” rather than “man’s intuition.”

Yes, many other forces are at work such as more women receiving advanced degrees, more diverse family options and more women in the workforce. But, underneath it all is this current: technology is producing a workplace more favorable to women than to men.

In the November 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review Jeff Weiss, Aram Donigian, Jonathan Huges discuss in their article “Extreme Negotiations” the importance of affecting process not just outcomes in negotiations. The same holds true in problem solving since negotiations are only problems of bringing two sides to agreement. Thus, you can get different solutions by changing your problem-solving process.

In one simple situation, Manager A took the initiative of drafting a plan for review. Manager B did not like it. Thus, they decided to collaborate on the next rendition. As another example, two hiring managers couldn’t agree on a candidate, so they changed the process by requiring the candidate to write a business plan for his hire.

Here are some techniques I use to alter the problem-solving process. I change the:

• Process by having another person or group create it
• Point at which people work independently and then come together
• Definition of the problem to include more lower-tier variables
• Makeup of the people or teams involved in the process
• Documentation required even to the point of using different forms and templates
• Timetable of when a solution is needed
• Any screening and filtering steps to allow more or fewer options
• Stakeholders involved in the process usually by adding new ones
• Objective of the process such as focusing on options not the solution
• Facilitator of the process
• Location of any meetings such as from office to offsite
• Forum for any meetings such as in person versus video conferences
• Initial parameters of what constitutes a viable option for processing

Of course, each problem-solving situation presents its own additional aspects that could effect change in process. So, if you’re not getting the solutions you want, change the process.

As people’s careers progress, they tend to become more risk adverse, less willing to accept challenges. Much is because they feel they have too much to lose if wrong. Enough of these people in a company can retard its growth and our own too. Awareness of their existence will help to protect us.

In “The Paradox of Excellence,” an article in the June 2011 of the Harvard Business Review, Thomas DeLong and Sara DeLong write “high performers often let anxiety about their performance compromise their progress” even to the point that they “would rather do the wrong thing well than do the right thing poorly.” As a result, they tend to prefer options that worked well in the past to those that are best.

Early in their careers, things might have come more easily to them. As they progress and tackle more difficult assignments, they begin to function more and more on the outskirts of their attributes and skills. Rather than expand those limits they consolidate their gains, preferring consensus over what is right. As the Delongs attest, their careers flatten.

However, enough of this excellence in the right positions will flatten the company’s growth too. This conservatism will affect budget decisions, product development and talent acquisition. Expense control supersedes investing; existing products supersede new ones; the proven candidate supersedes the game changer. It helps to explain how the best and the brightest can bring about demise.

If we work for such people, the expansion of our limits could slow too. The challenges we seek will be thwarted by the conventional. It’s important to realize their existence and to avoid being blinded by their excellence and allowing our talents to rot under their light.

People often marvel that more managers don’t use inexpensive morale builders. Of course, many of the same also wonder, “How did that person become a manager in the first place?” It’s that we tend to feel negative power is more powerful than positive power is; thus, we will tend to feel the former would be a more powerful leader.

An article in the July-August 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review titled, “Why Fair Bosses Fall Behind” by  Batia M. Wiesenfeld, Naomi B. Rothman, Sara L. Wheeler-Smith, and Adam D. Galinsky provides research supporting this. In terms of powerfulness, they found that rude managers consistently scored higher than respectful managers did.

To illustrate this, I sometimes ask: Which dog would you prefer as a pet, a collie or a pit bull? Frequently, people select the collie. I then ask: If you lived in a high-murder neighborhood, which would you choose? People frequently switch to the pit bull. While the workplace isn’t that dangerous, evolution and the days of uncivilized life long ago still affect us. Then, we required leaders unencumbered by sensitivities to protect us. It’s why some of the world’s most ruthless, modern dictators (i.e. Stalin) are still admired today by significant portions of their native populations.

In everyday business life, we often experience this bias when people disqualify others as leaders because they “aren’t tough enough.” Negative power is very overt, easy to see. Contrast this to the positive, subtle power inherent in the inexpensive morale builders. That’s why we often see Darth Vader as a very powerful Star Wars figure even though he was the slave of the Emperor.

Thus, when we promote the rude, the Dark Side has successfully seduced us by triggering our insecurities and fears.

Business drastically discounts the interpersonal interaction in favor of group ones. Saying the same thing to ten people simultaneously is more efficient than saying it ten different times to each person. However, this efficiency overlooks two important qualitative, interpersonal aspects:

1. People prefer to interact with their leaders one-on-one.
2. People enjoy talking about their leaders to others.

In a business setting, presidents, executives and managers, can influence the company’s internal grapevine through dynamic, interpersonal interactions with their employees. The right-hand figure illustrates the reverberation these interactions can create. A leader (blue sphere) interacts with an employee (red sphere) causing him to share his experience (red rings) with the leader with others (green spheres). The challenge is making the reverberation a positive one. Leaders accomplish this by taking advantage of opportunities to employ their personalities.

For example, in a thousand-person, five-floor regional office, a sales representative sold the largest single order for a particular type of product in the fifteen-year history of the office. The Regional President sent the sales representative a congratulatory note.

While a satisfactory response, it demonstrates the dynamic, grapevine opportunity he missed. He could have gone done to the sales representative’s floor and congratulated her personally. Even if she weren’t there, the mere sight of him on the floor would have created positive reverberations. Moreover, while he was there, he would have had the opportunity to interact with other employees creating other reverberations.

Every day, business leaders miss these kinds of opportunities to seize control of the grapevine, to make dynamic gestures. The effort is very similar to a public relations campaign except it’s internal. Instead, business leaders moan and complain about gossip, believing it’s beyond their control, when in actuality they actively make the grapevine work for them.

Related post: Tapping the Power of Personality for Executives and Senior Managers 1.0

High-end retailers are expecting us to spend more money on our kitchens even though we are spending less time in them. Why? Cooking is slowly transforming from a necessary activity to a leisure one (see the article “The Joy of Not Cooking” by Megan McArdle in the May 2011 edition of The Atlantic). People are not cooking out of necessity but out of desire. There are many alternatives to cooking such as dining out and prepared foods.

So, here is the lesson in problem solving:

We can alter a problem simply by altering how people feel about it; thus, we create additional potential solutions.

Marketers, advertisers and merchandisers know that if they can alter our preferences through education or branding, new markets for existing products and existing markets for new products open.

If this holds true in these disciplines, why can’t this be true:

If we can change how employees feel about their employers and work, we can create additional potential solutions to our business problems.

So, posed as two questions we arrive at these:

1. If we could change how people feel in a way we would like, what potential solutions come into play?
2. What must we do to change their feelings?

In one post, we saw how we could change the interpretation of a message simply by changing feelings. In another, we saw how simple gestures by company executives change feelings and performance. Finally, we saw the problems that arise when employees have bad feelings for employers.

Thus, if people’s feelings for their kitchens can open up new opportunities even when traditional perspectives of the statistics indicate gloom, imagine the opportunities that would avail us if people’s feelings changed at our businesses.

In a comment about Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part III), the commenter described a situation in which she felt certain managers above her did not view her as a leader while her people did. This observation highlights three important aspects of the difference between leadership and management:

1. Leadership is more subjective than management
2. Tension can exist between leaders and managers
3. The difference between the two is more than academic

Point #1 combines the concepts from Part II and III of this series, by first saying that leaders can exist outside of the formal organizational structure and by second showing that the connection between leaders and group members is an emotional one. Contrastingly, managers exist within the formal organizational hierarchy. Their relationships to members are pragmatic via the authority organizations give them. Again, leaders don’t need endorsement by the organization.

Point #2 describes the byproduct of these differences as tension between the two. Managers might resent the influence of leaders because they often have more informal organizational power than managers do. Subconsciously, managers might wonder, “If it weren’t for the authority granted to me by the organization, would anyone listen to me?” For example, an older experienced employee who’s valued by her peers might intimidate a young manager on a deeper level.

Point #3 reminds us that when we discuss the difference between leadership and management, we must ask, “How is the difference displayed and felt in the workplace?” This roots our discussion in the real world. Our commenter’s experience reminds us that the difference is more than academic.

In summary, the difference between leadership and management can be a source of tension among individuals in any organization. The emotional and informal aspects of leadership create the potential for it.

Other links in this series:

• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference
• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part II)
• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part III)
• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part IV)
• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part VI)

I received two related questions in a comment about Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part III). They help us refine the difference further, so I decided to answer them in a post of this continuing series. They are:

1. How do you determine whether you are a manager or a leader?
2. Is there an objective way to determine this?

Objectively, it’s much easier to determine if you are a manager than a leader because the former is a designated position in an organizational hierarchy. A leader isn’t necessarily so defined; it’s more subjective. Leadership is not determined objectively. This becomes easier to see if we remember two perspectives:

1. A leader doesn’t have to be a manager.
2. A leader can take on many forms.

My post about informal organizational power, which is also a supplement to Part II of this series, clarifies these two perspectives by showing where a non-management leader could derive her influencing power (i.e. expertise, achievements, personality, intelligence, experience). As a result, she could exhibit leadership by initiating a new service, growing an existing one, developing new markets, receiving high service ratings or having great sales.

Now, it’s often true that we describe managers as leaders, but it doesn’t mean they are. Part I of this series discusses this. A manager who is not a leader will have severe problems getting his employees to change behaviors; when they do, their behavior will be more compliant than inspired.

Still, sometimes the only way to know you’re a leader is to turn around and see if someone is following. It’s not unusual to be one and not know it. However, an organization chart clearly states if you’re a manager. This is a vital difference between leadership and management.

Other links in this series:

• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference
• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part II)
• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part III)
• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part V)
• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part VI)

Related link:

• Informal Organizational Power: Your Personal Influence in Organizations

The power someone has as a leader in an organization is a function of 1) the authority it gives him and 2) his personal influence within the organization. The former is formal organizational power (FOP) and the latter informal organizational power (IOP). Figures 1 and 2 help us visualize their difference.

Figure 1: Formal Organizational Power

The importance of IOP becomes more apparent if we view leadership beyond a management context. For instance, one client expanded its definition from those in management to those who could initiate and develop new services, those who could grow existing services and those who could find and develop new customer channels.

The source of IOP varies by person. It could be his expertise, knowledge, experience, achievements, attractiveness, personality, education, intelligence, relationships, character, talents, skills, abilities, credibility, reliability, judgment, wisdom, seniority plus many other things. I knew one machinist who was a leader because he could run more of the machines in the plant better than anyone could.

Figure 2: Informal Organizational Power

FOP gets people to do things because they must; it’s the rule. IOP encourages people to do things because they want to; they like those with IOP or do so out of respect. Using a body as an analogy, FOP represents the bones and IOP the muscles. The most powerful leaders have a lot of both; organizations give them a lot of authority and people within the organization have a strong desire to help them.

Thus, when we try to understand and appreciate how organizations work, looking at the organization chart shows formal organizational power. Overlaying this chart is the influence of a multitude of relationships that vary by situation and by moments in time. In effect, we don’t really know an organization unless we have a feel for how informal organizational power influences it.

Related Link:

• Leadership vs. Management: The Difference (Part II)