The Business Sensei

Reverse the Polarity of the Neutron Flow: The Magic of Neuroscience

I was recently quoted in an article called “Brain Training.” The article is on applying neuroscience to the workplace, and all the great benefits this would bring about.

I was skeptical. My comment was this:

“While it’s certainly possible to gain some improvement in decision making abilities by better understanding how our brains work, I question how significant the improvement will be “in the field.” It strikes me as rather like trying to learn jujitsu or tennis through a detailed study of body mechanics. Will it help? To some degree, but ultimately, if you want to become skilled in those sports you have to get out and practice under the supervision of a good coach.

To the extend that brain sciences can help us develop better training programs, they are a big plus. But they cannot replace practice.”

The author didn’t quite use all of this, but he kept the general point.

Today, I read about a study out of Harvard that found that simply referring to neuroscience as the explanation for a phenomenon increases the likelihood that people will believe the explanation, even when the explanation has no inherent meaning: “the effect is due to frontal lobe circuitry.”

In its own way, it is no more meaningful than the famous line from Doctor Who: “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!” which Jon Pertwee famously made up after he forgot his technobabble.

And yet, it works. Businesses are spending tons of money using neuroscience to explain employee behavior instead of looking at what’s happening in front of their eyes!

Why are they so convinced that neuroscience will find the answer, and that the answer will then be easy to apply in the office? Must be due to frontal lobe circuitry.

Chutes and Ladders (Airplane edition)

For some reason, I’m having trouble getting out of my head the image of a game of Chutes and Ladders played with pictures of airplanes and flight attendants.

I was asked to comment recently on whether stress  might have played a part in the story of Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who slid down the emergency chute, beer in hand. The beer part might not be a good addition to the kid’s game, even if mild alcohol consumption is supposed to reduce stress. Here’s what I wrote:

There is no question but that the current economic situation has increased the stress level for everyone. Unfortunately, one of the places where showing this is considered socially acceptable in on an airplane, where flight attendants are often not viewed as the professionals that they are. Furthermore, the struggle over overhead bin space seems to have only increased as more and more airlines charge to check bags; this, of course, increases the stress level of the passengers.

Why is this story getting such play? As Americans, we appreciate noble gestures: there is a huge difference between going postal with a gun and doing something dramatic to make a point. Slater’s actions hurt no one (which is not to say they were without risk; at the superficial level, though, it appeals on a very visceral level), which puts it into the second category. When we see someone act in such a dramatic fashion, we are reminded of our own stress and frustration at work, and admire someone who is willing to stand up to authority.

However, that doesn’t mean that Slater’s actions were a good long-term career move! It really depends on how JetBlue and other airlines might react. The standard, stodgy, reaction is to refuse to give him his job back. A more daring airline might choose to play up the adventure/daring angle of his actions and build a marketing campaign around it: “At XYZ Airlines you won’t need to do this!”

Of course, if you want to avoid situations like this, it’s important to pay attention to what’s going on in your company. Are employees excited about working there or just showing up because they have nowhere else to go? Is the CEO out in front of the employees demonstrating her excitement over the future of the company, or is he sitting in an office somewhere issuing vague directives? Do employees look for reasons to not come to work? What is the company doing to help manage stress: providing sufficient time off? Exercise facilities? Quiet space? Opportunities to have fun on the job?

At a very broad level, I’d also have to wonder how this fits with JetBlue’s image, or brand, as a fun airline? When you think about JetBlue’s advertisements, they try to present an image of flying, sorry, jetting, being a fun activity. In an odd sort of way, this incident can either reinforce that image or damage it, depending on how JetBlue handles things going forward. No, it’s not entirely rational: after all, when flying we want to get safely to our destination; at the same time, the idea of the trip being fun is appealing.

If this story fades out, then probably nothing happens to JetBlue’s image. But if the story hangs around, the focus can potentially make or break JetBlue’s brand: pressure cooker work environment or fun place to be. The answer will affect how travelers view the airline, and that influence, subtle though it may be, will affect whether or not people fly JetBlue.

As Above, So Below

(just in time for this article, I’ve even managed to get comments working properly (maximum spam blockage/minimal hassle) on my blog!)

While it is well known that rolling stones gather no moss, it appears that they are pretty rough on McChrystals. Recently, the news has been filled with headlines about General Stanley McChrystal and the story about him in Rolling Stone. Agree or disagree with how the situation was eventually resolved, it offers some important lessons for businesses.

While everyone has days when they aren’t happy with their boss, their job, their clients or just about anything else, what you say and how you say it makes a big difference. In General McChrystal’s case, perhaps the most striking elements of the article was not what he said, but what his staff said. Occasionally expressing frustration is normal. Open disrespect in the general’s staff is not, and says more about his opinions than anything he said. This attitude sets the tone for how the general and his staff will interact with others, people who, in a business environment, might be viewed as internal or external customers.

Read the rest at Corp! Magazine

No Escaping That For Me

“Destiny! Destiny! No escaping that for me!”
– Gene Wilder in “Young Frankenstein”

As fans of Mel Brook’s classic comedy Young Frankenstein know, Gene Wilder’s destiny as Dr. Frederick Frankenstein is to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and create the monster. This being a comedy, things do work out somewhat better than they did in the original story. Destiny, it appears, can be changed with sufficient effort. Indeed, precisely because Frederick Frankenstein realizes that he’s following in Victor Frankenstein’s footsteps, he is able to turn things around at the last minute and bring about a happy ending.

In my consulting projects and in conducting leadership training with various groups, from college students through executives, I’ve frequently observed destiny in action. People play out the roles that they believe they are supposed to play out. Organizationally, we act as we’ve been taught to act in our various roles: CEOs are expected to behave in one way, managers another, engineers yet another. For example, in some companies it’s perfectly normal for engineers to show up to work in jeans and T-shirts, but totally inappropriate for a manager to do the same.

Read the rest at Corp! Magazine

Decider’s Remorse

Recently, I was attending a board meeting for a certain organization. They were contemplating some significant changes to several long-standing policies, which naturally generated quite a bit of discussion. The various options were carefully laid out and analyzed. There was a great deal of discussion over how well the different changes would address the identified problems. The president very carefully checked to make sure each member had had their say, that each member felt heard, and that each member was comfortable making a decision and accepting whichever decision was reached.

The vote happened, and a decision was made. No problem!

The problem came up at the next board meeting, when the president said, “I’m not comfortable with our decision. I think we should revisit it.”

Read the rest at Corp! Magazine

Too Many Chiefs

Recently, someone told me that, “We don’t need leadership training. We’re all leaders.” When I asked how well they worked together and actually got things done, she then said, “Well, you know, leaders all have good ideas. We have some strong personalities. It can take a while.”

Overall, she was half right. Just because someone is a leader, that doesn’t mean they automatically have good ideas. In fact, only poor leaders think that they only have good ideas. However, she was correct in that they didn’t need leadership training. Rather, what they needed was membership training.

Read the rest at Corp! Magazine

Demonstration please!

A couple of weeks ago, I was in Omaha giving a talk on leadership. The room was packed (in fact, the best attended talk at the conference!), and the response was enthusiastic. The one slightly odd comment that I got afterward was that the talk should have included group exercises.

This was an hour talk and there were at least 100 people in the room. A group exercise? I figured it was a joke. Then I found out that some of the other speakers had received similar comments, quite possibly from the same person. I’m wondering now if the commenter actually listened to any of the talks.  One of my points was that a good leader takes the time to understand what can reasonably done in a certain amount of time, and that trying to cram too much in is a recipe for disaster. At least one other speaker made similar points.

Apparently this unknown commenter was either not listening, didn’t believe it, or simply has no concept of what he (or she) is asking for. That, in turn, makes me wonder about how this person does as a manager. I have to wonder if they’re busy pushing their team to attempt more and more in less and less time with no sense of whether or not it makes sense to do that amount of work in that amount of time.

Realistically, part of being a successful leader is recognizing what people can and cannot do in the time available. The goal is not to drive people harder and faster, but to use the time well. Complex projects take time to complete; driving people too hard at the beginning makes it much less likely that you’ll get to the end. Rather, what actually works is to start slowly and pick up speed; to choose your targets and focus your energies; and not to throw in something if it would detract from the overall experience rather than adding to it.

Communicating With Retention In Mind

Some years ago, I was working at a high tech company during a recession. Granted, it wasn’t a Great Recession, but it was bad enough. There came a certain point where an employee who had not had a raise in two years, went to the CEO and asked for a raise. The CEO’s response: “I agree that you’re one of our top performers. But, in this economy, you have nowhere to go, so I’m not giving you a raise.”

The CEO had forgotten one little point: when we least expect it, economies get better. It’s exactly when things are looking worst that the opportunities start to appear. In this case, the employee left and had a new job with a 50% raise within a couple of weeks. He told me later that if he’d received almost any raise, he’d have stayed. It wasn’t about the money.

Now, when I tell this story in training exercises or when I’m giving a talk, someone always says that if the CEO and the employee had only communicated then the situation would never have come up. That’s a nice sentiment, but not one that quite makes sense. The two people in this little dance were communicating. Unfortunately, the content of their communication led them down a path that did not benefit the CEO or the company at all; in fact, the loss of that employee at that time set product development back six months.

Read the rest in the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership

Deja vu All Over Again

“This is like déjà vu all over again.”

–          Yogi Berra

In the classic British science fiction series Doctor Who, there is a scene in which the Doctor is trapped in a time loop: the same events keep taking place over and over with no end in sight. Naturally, this being fiction, the Doctor quickly recognizes what’s going on and figures out a way to break out of the loop. In real life, it’s not quite so easy. Granted, actual time loops tend to be pretty rare; not so the feeling of being stuck in one.

Read the rest in the CEO Refresher

Of steaks and lions

There’s an old saying about throwing steaks to lions in the hopes that they’ll become vegetarians. Apparently, if you do it long enough, the lion eventually grows old, loses his teeth, and gums the steak to death. But they’ll at least consider vegetables at that point.

The current political dance in the Senate is a rather interesting example of lions and steaks. We have a minority party that has found that the best way to succeed is to do everything possible to prevent the majority from accomplishing anything. The majority keeps throwing them steaks and hopes that they’ll become vegetarians. Why? Well, let’s look at this as if it were a corporate boardroom and see what lessons can be learned.

Now, to be fair, most businesses don’t have 100 vice-presidents. However, they have enough. I regularly hear tales of businesses (sorry, I can’t name names) with small coalitions competing with or refusing to cooperate with the majority. In each case, the minority players are working to make the majority look bad. Why? To gain the favor of the CEO, and hence to accrue more personal power to themselves. It seems more than a little silly, since it doesn’t do the company any good: even if the minority is right in their ideas, the cost of the infighting does more to hurt the company than any benefit that the minority’s policies would have brought. And when the minority’s policies are wrong, the damage is even greater.

Unfortunately, what has happened is that the minority coalition has lost track of the goals of the company: they are focused on their own goals, which usually involve succession to the CEO position, a larger scope of authority, bigger pay packages, and so forth. The reasons are as varied as the companies. Sometimes the minority coalition fails and is fired by the CEO or the Board. Sometimes they succeed, and the majority is fired.

What determines the result of the struggle is how the majority handles the competition. If they try to be nice and refuse to compete back, the minority is only encouraged. If they are so afraid of looking bad that they refuse to compete, they just end up looking bad.  It’s only when the  majority demonstrates that they are willing to play the same game, and compete as viciously as the minority that the game changes. Quite simply, in every group in which competition arises, the only way to end that competition is for the majority to demonstrate that the cost of competition is greater than the cost of cooperation and the rewards of cooperation are greater than the rewards for competition.

It doesn’t much matter if we’re talking about IBM or the US Senate. So long as we’re dealing with people, the dynamics are the same. Only the scenery changes.