Looking at Apple and its famous CEO, Guy Kawasaki, Apple's former chief evangelist, admits "Steve proves that it's OK to be an asshole." The Wired Magazine April 2008 cover story is about none other than Steve Jobs, Silicon Valley legend, charismatic genius, and ... corporate tyrant ? Maybe so. But GSB Professor Bob Sutton in his bestseller The No Asshole Rule, while noting the man's legendary offensiveness, exempts Jobs from the excoriation he gives many other, uhh, you-know-whats. Typically, an insider told Sutton that Jobs could demean his staff to the point of tears, yet "be almost always right." Sutton was even shocked, shocked to find himself defending Jobs on national TV recently; he feels that most horror stories about Jobs apply to his reckless youth. In addition to Jobs, author Leander Kahney points to the Apple legacy of opacity and secrecy that has helped the company stymie competition while flying in the face of conventional Silicon Valley culture. Read how Apple and its CEO repeatedly break the Valley's rules -- and succeed.
GSB Professor Bob Sutton writes in his blog about the 'rollicking interview' he and colleague Professor Hayagreeva "Huggy" Rao did at Pixar recently with Oscar winning director (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) Brad Bird. Apparently Bird was brought in to Pixar, among other things, to mix it up -- to keep the firm from resting on its laurels. Sutton promises more about the interview later, but notes that Bird explicitly told the company "Give me your black sheep". In addition to seeking out those employees who had been dissatisfied with the direction of the firm, Bird threw in other radical ideas to keep the pot bubbling, ideas found in Sutton's book Weird Ideas That Work. Apropos, one piece of advice from the book: 'Forget the past, especially your company's successes'.
Ran across the Fall 2007 issue of Leader to Leader magazine in the Library. For those interested in cultivating leadership skills, it offers an array of interesting articles and tips. This issue, for example, includes "The Higher Plane of Leadership" by Ken (One Minute Manager) Blanchard and corporate executive Mark Miller, "No Excuses Leadership", an excerpt from GSB Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer's recent book What Were They Thinking?, "10 Questions to Stellar Communication" by consultant Dianna Booher, "The Influential Leader' by Jack Stahl, former President of Coca-Cola and CEO of Revlon, and more.
Corporate governance is a topic of intense interest here at the Graduate School of Business. Michelle Gutman, Program Manager of the Global Center and Corporate Governance Research Program, recently reminded us of the corporate governance page of the GSB's Center for Leadership Development and Research, a showcase for the rich Stanford research in this area in the form of books and papers. Among other resources, note the cases developed by Prof David Larcker and case writer (and GSB Alum) Brian Tayan. Recent examples include Corporate Governance Ratings: Got the Grade ... What was the Test? and Sovereign Bancorp and Relational Investors: The Role of the Activist Hedge Fund. Got your interest? Read more.
Into each life some rain must fall. Likewise for corporations. So what do you do when your firm faces a downturn? Get creative. That's what legendary executives Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard did, as described by GSB Professor Bob Sutton on his blog. Sutton advises a company to preserve its employees, when possible, during the occasional downturn, avoiding laying them off and thereby incurring even higher potential costs training new staff. He commends Michael Malone's book Bill & Dave to the reader as a window into the distinctive Hewlett Packard management style. Sutton also cites approvingly a quote by Bill Hewlett from Bill & Dave's Memos, a collection from the HP archives (edited by Albert Yuen): " When times are difficult, we don't take it out on the lowest man on the totem pole". It is the business acumen behind such statements that made Hewlett and Packard Silicon Valley giants, and their wisdom can be as timely today as ever. So when the going gets rough ... take it easy on the totem pole.
The Third Opinion author Saj-nicole Joni identifies the attributes of a rising star in an organization by going to the sources:
Rising superstars are hungry and have big appetites
"If you don't have dreams so big that you want them with your whole being, dreams so big that nothing will stand in your way, then as a leader, you are dead." -- Tommy Johnson of AFLAC
They are voracious learners
"I surrounded myself with people better than me, and I absorbed everything like a tremendous sponge. You have to be a great listener and use every scrap, big and small, to drive forward and stand out from the pack. Listening is active and strategic, there's nothing passive about it." -- Justin Bennett of Guardian Life
They don't see things the way you do, and they connect the dots differently
"My first instinct is to not just do what I'm told. I do what I think is right for the business. … It's my job to educate upward, so that my bosses know what I'm doing and why. It's also my job to get them to educate me so that they'll give me the broadest view and context in which I am accountable for my decisions and results." -- Alex Kinnier of Google
They love high-capacity people with spark and loathe plodders
"Don't put me around people who just ask, 'Why?' Give me colleagues and bosses who just as often ask 'Why not?' This unleashes my capacity to go for extraordinary outcomes in an environment that is constantly changing, and therefore constantly challenging." -- Karyn Polak of Citigroup
They are not defined by their job titles
"Having the biggest thinkers in the room, regardless of title, is critical, or you invite the likelihood that the essence of big ideas will get lost in the shuffle. Rising superstars and the best top leaders know and act on this." -- Paige Arnof-Fenn of Mavens & Moguls
Reported at Forbes.com
Forbes has come out with a list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women At the top a former physicist and the new Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel. The article also takes an overall view of women in business and leadership. It states that the New York research group Catalyst which tracks women in management positions has seen numbers stay the same since 2003.
Do your eyes glaze over when you hear the phrase Sarbanes-Oxley? Sarbanes-Oxley -- or 'SOX' as the Congressional act is called -- impacts all levels of management. Understanding the different components is critical to compliance. The Essentials of Sarbanes-Oxley by Sanjay Anand provides a practical and realistic approach to the implementation of SOX. The author is a leading corporate governance, risk management and regulatory compliance expert, and currently chairman of the SOX Institute. This book explains Sarbanes Oxley in a straightforward manner with out a lot of economic jargon. Board members and executives should consider it as an addition to their bookshelf. Or check out Jackson Library's copy.
In keeping with business trends toward performance management and accountability, much leadership theory today still promulgates vision-led, top-down control by CEOs—a mindset whose basic assumptions and orientation are remnants of the Industrial Era. But according to organization science scholars Mary Uhl-Bien, Russ Marion, and Bill McKelvey, the knowledge economy of the 21st century is reshaping the way we think about leadership, innovation, and the fitness of firms.
Preluding their proposal for a heterogeneously “adaptive” and “enabling” leadership model, these authors claim that leadership theory has focused extensively on the actions of individual leaders as opposed to examining the dynamically interactive and interdependent processes comprising leadership. “The vast majority of leadership research has studied leadership in formal, most often managerial, roles and has not adequately addressed leadership that occurs throughout the organization.” “Much of leadership thinking has failed to recognize that leadership is not merely the influential act of an individual or individuals but rather is embedded in a complex interplay of numerous interacting forces.” Although researchers have studied the potential of “shared leadership”, “distributed leadership” and “flexible forms”, “None,” the authors say, “have developed a model that addresses the nature of leadership for enabling network dynamics ..." None until now, that is. Learn more about this engaging, enabling leadership model (called “Complexity Leadership Theory”) and of the new era forces behind it in the August issue of The Leadership Quarterly, available at Jackson Library [Stanford users may read the issue online].
August issue of HFM (Healthcare Financial Management) features an interview with Jim Collins, former GSB professor and the author and co-author of five books including Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t. Jim Collins lately turned his attention to the social sector and applied the concept of Good-to-Great to the not-for-profit organizations, including the healthcare. His research is concluded in the monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors where he shows that building a great organization includes four basic stages: Disciplined People, Disciplined Thought, Disciplined Action, and Building Greatness to Last. For more details, read the article online or in print copy in Jackson Library’s Periodicals Display area.
GSB Professor Bob Sutton ( The No Asshole Rule ) on his blog describes downsizing at Harvard Business Online. After a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bob was inspired to go back and review old and new research on organizational decline, a personally poignant topic for him (the subject of his doctoral dissertation.) Tying the topic in with his book The Knowing-Doing Gap (co-authored with Professor Jeff Pfeffer), Sutton highlights four key principles for implementing organizational change -- prediction, understanding, control and compassion.
On his blog, GSB Alum Ed Batista of the Stanford Center for Leadership Development and Research weaves observations by Seth Godin and the late Peter Drucker into a short meditation on strategic quitting. There is quitting, and there is quitting. Quoting Godin's book The Dip, Batista writes, "Strategic quitting is a conscious decision you make based on the choices available to you. If you realize you're at a dead end compared with what you could be investing in, quitting is not only a reasonable choice, it's a smart one... " Batista goes on to note that 'only excellence matters', and why one must be realistic about where improvements can be made, and where they are too costly.
Guy Kawasaki presents another in his series of "10 Questions", this time with Scott Berkun of the University of Washington, author of the newly released The Myths of Innovation. In this book Berkun explores the reality of innovation vs. popularized notions, and Kawasaki's questions revolve around this. For example: How long does it take an 'epiphany' to occur in the real world, Are innovators born or made, and What are the primary determinants of the speed of the adoption of innovation? Read more on Kawasaki's blog.
Check out the list of Top 100 CIOs compiled by the editorial staff of eWeek magazine. The basis for selection included such criteria as tangible record in IT industry, person’s scope of influence outside his or her firm, the individual’s ability to effect change and more. The list is lead by Patricia Hewlett of Exxonmobil, followed by Rick Dalzell of Amazon.com. Check the June issue of eWeek in the Periodicals section of Jackson Library to view the complete list and to read the description of each individual’s contribution and interviews with some of the CIOs.
"If you had told me that a company could succeed by running weekly t-shirt design contests and then selling the winning designs, I would have told you that you’re nuts." So says Guy Kawasaki about the firm Threadless. On his blog he recently asked ten questions of Jeffrey Kalmikoff, Chief Creative Officer of skinnyCorp / Threadless, probing him about his business model, how he views his company, who was their venture capital investor, who his business heroes are, and more. Take away quote? "We have this ethos at skinnyCorp: 'Your project is not good enough.' We’re constantly striving to make all our projects as great as they can be ... "
Ed Batista on his blog recounts the accomplishment of legendary librarian / mathematician S.R. Ranganathan, who in 1931 penned his famous 'Five Laws of Library Science', which Batista cites as gems of brilliance and brevity. Batista asks: "Could you condense your organization's entire purpose into five basic statements?" And he replies: "At the very least, this list is worth revisiting every time I'm working on a mission statement or a team charter or a set of ground rules. " As latter-day colleagues of Ranganathan, we couldn't agree more.
In the article from March issue of Business 2.0 magazine, GSB Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer asserts that the textbook image of a CEO doesn’t necessarily correspond to the real-life management styles of some very successful leaders. Not defending the “junkyard dog” style of management, the author argues that the emphasis in selecting the CEOs and the top management should be placed on the strengths of individuals which would benefit the certain business environments and where the persons’ flaws wouldn’t be damaging.
Corporate bigshots out of touch? In his blog, Tom Peters denounces unhealthy elitist impulses in corporations such as Home Depot under former CEO Bob Nardelli, where Management purposely segregated itself from the company's 'worker bees' -- avoiding, for example, the company cafeteria. Peters lauds Frank Blake, new CEO at Home Depot, for trying to reshape the culture. For example, executives will now join lower echelon workers at lunch. Quoth Peters: "If we would only bother to ask, the answers are on the front lines." He goes on to argue the crucial importance of allowing a healthy interface between Talent and the Top in any corporation.
Arts Reach magazine's latest lead story, 'What Can the Arts Learn from Sports?', highlights key lessons that art funding undertakings can draw from sports organizations. While noting the differences between these areas, the author points out key lessons for art organizations, such as capitalizing on community pride, how information creates accessibility, and knowing where the real money is. Arts Reach was founded and is published by GSB alum John Zorn. Read more in Jackson Library.
I watched the PBS documentary featuring Jim Collins talking about how his book Good to Great came to be after 5 years of research last week. It was a very interesting PBS documentary. It featured some of the 11 companies that his research deemed the "good to great" such as Walgreens, Southwest Airlines and Starbucks. So if you have a chance to see it on your local PBS station, please do!
For more about Jim Collins, go to www.jimcollins.com.
How much pay should an executive expect to receive?
Is it better to work for a public or private firm in terms of compensation?
How will the stock options backdating scandal affect the way executive compensation is calculated?
To explore these issues, check out the articles, books, and Websites on our new Hot Topics page: Executive Compensation.
'The Very Model of a Modern Senior Manager' -- just one of the articles in the January 2007 special issue of the Harvard Business Review. Titled 'The Tests of a Leader', the issue includes other pieces such as 'Becoming the Boss', 'The CEO's Second Act', and 'How Leaders Create and Use Networks'. Read the latest in Jackson Library. Stanford users can read the issue online via EBSCO's Business Source Complete. (Off-campus access available via the proxy server or WebApps)
Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop (now owned by L'Oreal), talks about women in management and business. During her interview, she also speaks to wealth in business and what makes an entrepreneur successful.
Ka-BOOM ! Or so says BusinessWeek, which highlights the 'Blowup at Home Depot' (January 15.) The article by Brian Grow describes the tumultuous tenure and final fall of controversial Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli. After some last-minute turbulence with stockholders, Nardelli topped things off with a galactic $210 million retirement package. Even with inflation, that should be enough to pay the rent for the next few years -- and keep the current debate about CEO compensation flaming hot.
No fixed schedules. No mandatory meetings. Heaven? No, Best Buy, whose new model is the cover story of the December 11 BusinessWeek. In a radical makeover of the work environment, Best Buy is experimenting with a 'results-only work environment' (ROWE). Performance is measured on output, not hours. You don't even have to physically get out of bed. "The official policy of this post-face-time, location-agnostic way of working is that people are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done." And ROWE worker productivity is impressive. Doubters are waiting in the shadows to see if it all flies -- but if it does, a new workplace model may be coming to the company near you.
The new book Dynasties : fortunes and misfortunes of the world's great family businesses by the economic historian Davis S. Landes tracks some of the world's most famous family businesses. The book makes a good argument for the prominence of family firms. Read BYU Professor Brayden King's blog entry on orgtheory.net. He also points out an interesting NY Times review of this book.
The library has ordered a copy of this book. · read more reviews
Rodney Dangerfield? No, Stanford University's Professor Robert Sutton. Sutton speaks to the issue of dignity at the office on his personal blog. He showcases Randy Hodson's 2001 book Dignity at Work, and cites approvingly Hodson's definition: "Dignity is the ability to establish a sense of self-worth and self-respect and to appreciate the respect of others." Sutton goes on to opine, "Dignity at Work is written for academics, not managers, but it is far more accessible than most academic books and still impressively rigorous in terms of theory and evidence. If you are serious about digging into the struggle for workplace dignity ... this splendid and well-crafted book is well-worth reading." By way of counterpoint, Sutton, author of the upcoming new book The No-Asshole Rule, draws on some material of his own --- his list of 'things assholes do' --- to describe situations where respect is notably lacking. (Find the dirty-dozen list with a review of Sutton's book at Gary Kawasaki's blog.)
You may find a copy of Dignity at Work at Jackson Library. Call number: HD4904 .H62 2001
The No-Asshole Rule will be published in February 2007.
BusinessWeek Online notes a growing trend: In the wake of Sarbanes-Oxley, firms are sending their corporate directors back to school. According to the article 'Sending the Board Back to School', directors are signing up for specialized exec ed courses in increasing numbers. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 to create more transparency in financial reporting, is creating a more complex environment where directors feel they need to be up to speed in order to avoid potential corporate disasters in the post-Enron era. As David Wittrock of California Micro Devices, who himself recently attended the Stanford Director's Forum, says, "It is time for directors to step up and voice their views on corporate decisions. The days of unanimous votes on every issue without any challenges to top management are over."
Social philosopher Charles Handy offers commentary on the roles and teaching of some of the reigning management gurus of the last few decades. Personalities covered by a series of radio addresses include Peter Drucker, Michael Porter, Tom Peters, Kenichi Ohmae, Warren Bennis, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, among others. And Handy himself. Whether you agree with their ideas or not, these figures have exercised a considerable influence on management styles and techniques over the last 30 years.
On October 19th Carly Fiorina came to the GSB dressed in Cardinal red and spoke on the topic of leadership to a packed auditorium. For those of you missed her talk, you can read a summary of the speech and watch the video (56:31 minutes).
In this hour long discussion Fiorina speaks about how workers in a company "watch the walk more than listen to the talk" of a leader. She also speaks to her motto of "being authentic" when working with people and how leadership is all about possibilities. Stick around for the Q&A segment; Fiorina is very candid and up front and recounts a fun anecdote at the end.
Guy Kawasaki on his blog interviews Polly LaBarre, co-author with Bill Taylor of the new book Mavericks at Work: Why the Most Original Minds in Business Win. Among the highlights: The difference between a maverick and a jerk? "Mavericks are so different, so edgy, and so independent of spirit that their personal style or message may not appeal to everyone. But that's precisely the point: mavericks are defined by the power and originality of their ideas," says LaBarre. "Don't confuse mavericks' unswerving commitment to a cause and their lack of patience for the status quo with the egotism, monomania, and power mongering modeled by too many celebrity CEOs and moguls. Mavericks, in fact, have a sense of humility." Are mavericks born or made? "It's probably a little bit nature, a little bit nurture," LaBarre suggests. "We wrote this book to nurture the maverick in all businesspeople. ... We all want to make a mark, forge our own path, and express ourselves in the world. It's just that some of us need more of a nudge down that path than others. Hopefully the maverick individuals and ideas we present are inspiring and instructive enough to move people."
Ed Batista's blog cites a recent article 'The Neuroscience of Leadership' from Booz Allen Hamilton, which builds on findings in brain research to explain why conventional wisdom in the organizational development field can be wrong.
Batista quotes : 'The implications of this new research are particularly relevant for organizational leaders. It is now clear that human behavior in the workplace doesn't work the way many executives think it does. That in turn helps explain why many leadership efforts and organizational change initiatives fall flat ... '
But he goes on to critique the article's "Humanism is overrated", a jab at psychological practices inspired by Rogers and Maslow. Says Batista: 'It's not an effective critique of humanism, although it is a highly effective critique of various misunderstandings and poorly implemented management practices.'
Professor Bob Sutton's blog points out a recent New York Times article Selling Soap and how it teaches us lessons in evidence-based management. The story focuses on an effort at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to get doctors to wash their hands. A number of incentive schemes were implemented. In the end, it took a disgusting image related to a lack of cleanliness to push up near 100% hand-hygiene compliance. "The administration then decided to harness the power of such a disgusting image. One photograph was made into a screen saver that haunted every computer in Cedars-Sinai. Whatever reasons the doctors may have had for not complying in the past, they vanished in the face of such vivid evidence." Professor Sutton tells what we could learn from this story.
Some insights on 'throttling' (actions to cause less profitable customers to change their behavior and become more profitable) from Ed Wesemann's Creating Dominance blog. He points to well-known examples of Netflix and banks, and then moves on to describe how 'throttling' can be applied to law firms.
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