Taking the Frat House Out of Business Culture

"Our business school professors never mentioned that smoking, drinking, swearing, hunting, fishing, and visits to strip clubs might be keys to rising in the world of high tech. Indeed, were lessons about how to prosper in frat house companies like EMC Corp. included in the MBA curriculum, many women would have dropped out right then and there."

So begins a posting by Alice Eagly, the co-author with Linda Carli of Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders.

While these behaviors become less frequent in the US, they remain standard practice for entertainment in much of Asia. The question becomes whether it is necessary to ensure the sale, the deal, the guanxi. Or perhaps there are a growing number of men, companies, and cultural settings in which new practices are required.

If business relationships are changing, what can be done about changing the current culture? In an HBR podcast, Alice Eagly suggests that leadership should take a hard look at the practices to see whether they are aligned with the important strategic aspects of its customer and client relationships. Consider how wide-spread disclosure, like in EMC's case, might support or tarnish your company's image. What does this do to the employment brand? Are all of your employees (men and women) comfortable with this? Will you be able to attract the largest pool of talent to your company in a tight labor market? Will this enhance or diminish your ability to retain the top talent in your industry?

Should the Frat House be there in your business culture?

How Women Become Leaders

Is it a glass ceiling, a glass cliff or perhaps it’s a labyrinth. Alice Eagly and Linda L. Carli, in their book, Through the Labyrinth: The Truth About How Women Become Leaders, argue that the glass ceiling is no longer an apt metaphor. In the 70’s and 80’s, women were encouraged to seek higher positions, yet found their careers stalled just short of the top leadership positions. In some cases, women were allowed into leadership, but not too far. There was a glass ceiling.

In more recent years, as attention has shifted enabling all high potential employees, the glass cliff phenomena was identified – a situation where women are given high risk opportunities, and denied (whether consciously or unconsciously) the support and resources to succeed. (See Testing the Glass Cliff for more on this topic.)

In the 21^st century, women are achieving more and more positions of prominence, yet the numbers of women in leadership remain low. Eagly and Carli propose that the path to leadership for women is more akin to a labyrinth – a difficult and challenging maze with numerous obstructions and barriers, rather than a single glass ceiling.

Barriers identified include:

• Women tend to carry much of the family / child responsibility in the home.
• A hidden bias in the prevailing sense that leadership is a masculine endeavor. As a consequence, women tend to be evaluated lower even with same credentials.
• Discrimination found in the company cultures. For example, fast track careers may require intense hour commitments (referred to as extreme jobs by Sylvia Ann Hewlitt) or in the environments that continue to support socializing involving strip clubs, drinking, hunting, etc.
• Women placed in staff rather than line jobs.
• Women being passed over for the high-visibility challenging assignments, conversely being assigned to glass cliff jobs.

What can be done about this?

• As the definition of leadership changes to include more elements of emotional intelligence, women will be perceived as more suitable for leadership roles.
• Leadership can allow flexibility for parenting, particularly in the dinner hours (see Top Jobs and Maternal Guilt).
• Organizations can strive for more objective measures of performance and accomplishments.

What can women do for themself? Women can and do succeed in all kinds of environments. Recognize their personal strengths and limitations and then aligning those with the choice of company and the company culture will best position them to negotiate the labyrinth.

Managing Your Personal Brand

Coca-Cola, Google, Apple and Mercedes have brand identities. Do YOU?

Being the chief marketer of the brand called YOU is important to your career management. Branding can set you apart from other candidates in a competitive job market. According to William Arruda in Personal Branding - Gets You the Job, 11% of recruiters highlight personal branding as the best way for a candidate to get their attention.

So how do you develop a personal brand? First you need to start with a solid assessment of what makes you different from the rest. Tom Peters in the Fast Company article The Brand Called You, suggests that you give yourself 15 words or less to define what sets your personal product or service apart from others. Start by considering your greatest strengths. You may want to solicit input on this, since we dismiss our areas of greatest strength simply because it's easy to us. Looking back on your greatest achievements may give additional insights. Once you've identified these areas of note, look at them from the perspective of a client or an employer. What benefits do you provide, above and beyond others, because of who you are. Now define what makes you YOU.

Once you defined what makes YOU unique; it's time to put your marketing hat on. Where can you network to make your uniqueness visible. Does your presence on the internet, through blogs, social networks, face books, etc. support (or undermind) your brand? Do your friends, colleagues, boss, and clients know your brand? How can they help you in furthering it? Keep in mind that according to Dan Schwabel in his article Successful Networking through Personal Branding (may require free registration), some 80% of available jobs are never advertised. By extending your reach beyond information on jobs to having "salespeople" who know why your brand is so appropriate, will let you rise above the crowd.

Finally, remember that Brand YOU should be authentic to who you are. With people able to "google" you, you can manage but not control information. Staying true to who you are will allow you to create and sustain a distinctive personal brand.

When is a problem a problem?

When is a problem a problem? Perhaps that depends on how you react to it.

Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe (HBR Jul-Aug 2007) says

"Hidden problems are the ones that become serious threats eventually. If problems are revealed for everybody to see, I will feel reassured. Because once problems have been visualized, even if our people didn't notice them earlier, they will rack their brains to find solutions to them."

In fact, legend has Toyota American management being taught that "No problem is problem!" It is by rooting out and highlighting the challenges that advancement can be made.

In stark contrast was my experience with a hotel in Suzhou this past weekend. The hotel was part of a "luxury" hotel chain where service should be exceptional, and has proven to be such over a number of extended visits in other countries. With no interest in bashing the chain (though I can not recommend this particular hotel) we'll leave it unnamed.

Front desk service was efficient but not welcoming. Room was pleasant. Complimentary fruit was one orange, one apple and one (sad looking) peach. Complimentary water was two small bottles - barely adequate for two people for 24 hours. Ashtrays by the elevators (on the nonsmoking floor) not cleaned for more than 12 hours. All of which could have been ignored had the dinner buffet come anywhere close to expectations.

Not feeling drawn into any of the nearby restaurants, we headed back to the dinner buffet expecting the usual superior (at least for buffets) experience normally found at this brand. Arriving at 8 PM, we found the sashimi tray emptied, but not removed. The limited hot western dishes had barely any food left in them, the roasted duck was dried bones, the roasted vegetables were parched from sitting under the heat lamps too long, empty salad bowls, empty fruit bowls, missing utensils, etc. When I discovered that the osso buco had been sitting there so long it was cold, a manager was demanded.

The response went through a series of apology for a poor experience and queries on whether the food we did eat was good. No attempts were made to rectify the disastrous appearance of the buffet line. When the dessert area was found to be equally pitiful and not maintained, the manager was again shown how the expected standards were falling flat. The response this time was to deliver to our table (after we'd finished dessert) a plate of sashimi and a roasted duck. Sending it away and refusing to pay for the dinner, we once again received apologies and an assurance that future evenings would be better.

Meeting with the Duty Manager, we, again, received apologies ... and no sense that the situation would be analyzed and resolved - that a solution would be found. The breakfast buffet line proved to be only marginally better organized than the dinner buffet with empty plates and bowls. Followed by a repeat of the apologies from the Food and Beverage manager and a wish that we could return for a better organized dinner. The problem still a problem.

It is perhaps culturally appropriate that the response is to mollify, to seek to set right our particular situation. Thus, the apologies delivered, food prepared and a compensatory box of chocolates. Some customers might find this satisfactory. I find it infinitely more satisfying when the problem is identified and clear efforts are underway to rectify the underlying cause.

As you look at your situation, are you welcoming problems as opportunities for improvement? Or just mollifying the customer? Which is the right approach for your organization?

Communicating with Clarity and Confidence

What you say is only as important as what is heard and understood by the listener. Too often, our messages are obscured by the structure of the communication. Even worse is when we are unaware of the gap between what is intended and the message received.

Communication and language are a function of the environment you are in – your organization’s culture. In order to deliver your intended message with clarity and confidence, the structure and word choice should be consistent with that organizational culture. This article provides some suggestions on building awareness of how word choice influences how the message is received. We will also look at how word choice influences perceptions, that is, whether the speaker is seen as credible and confident, or uncertain and evasive. By becoming aware of how language is used around you, you can begin to reduce the gap between your intent and the message received.

Build Awareness

Identify three or four business meetings or conference calls that you will be attending this week. Ideal meetings involve people you perceive as successful in the organization. Focus on meetings where your direct involvement is minimal, or limited to specific agenda items. Teleconferences, where you can readily take notes unobserved, are particularly suitable for this exercise.

Create a form that captures the following information about successful speakers:

• Does the speaker primarily use I, We, You, or They?
• Are statements normally positive (“yes, and ...”) or negative (“yes, but ...”)?
• What action words / verbs are being used to convey confidence?
• How are concerns or issues raised?

By comparison, monitor the language and word choice of someone whose communication you see as ineffective.

Analyze the Communication

At the end of the week, review your data and write out the answers to the following statements.

• Successful speakers in my company speak primarily from a [first-, second- or third-person] perspective.
• Successful speakers in my company speak about issues and challenges most frequently from a [positive or negative] position.
• Successful speakers in my company use verbs and action words such as ....
• Successful speakers in my company raise concerns or issues in the following ways:
• By contrast, ineffective speakers communicate by ...

In the second week, continue to monitor the language and word choices of people within your organization.

• Are you seeing additional patterns of speech that are effective and ineffective?
• In what ways do you see clear and strong messages delivered?

Monitor Your Speaking Patterns

In this second week, begin to evaluate your language and word choices after each important meetings, teleconference or one-on-one conversation. Consider the following questions.

• When did I believe my message was received as intended?
• In those cases, what did I do particularly well?
• In future situations, what patterns of language and word choice do I want to use more consistently?

Create an Action Plan

Once you have built an awareness of how messages are delivered with clarity and confidence in your organization, and become aware how you are delivering messages, it is time to create a personal action plan.

Complete the following sentences.

• The change I will make in my choice of words to portray clarity and confidence as a speaker is ....
• My messages will be clearer to the listener when I ....
• I can measure the change in how I am communicating by ....

Finally, define the impact you will believe the change will have on your results and the perceptions of your capabilities in the workplace.

Change comes through awareness – of your environment and your self, gap identification, commitment and practice. As you move through the steps above, you may notice an immediate change in how you structure your communications and the words you choose. Creating the action plan, a measurement system and a goal for the change, will enable you to turn your newfound awareness into a habit; a habit that enhances your credibility and confidence.

Learn more about how Read Solutions Group can help you find the solutions that enable you to be a successful and confident leader.

Gut Decision or Rational Analysis

The debate rages over whether gut reaction or rational analysis is the key to effective decision-making. Over on BrainBased Business, Dr Ellen Weber highlights various recent discussions on Why Gut Reactions Work Without Rational Support, specifically citing the work of Dr. Gigerenzer, director of the Max Planck Institute of Human Development in Berlin. In discussing the support for his perspective, he notes the role of intuition, of hunches, in scientific research.

On the flip side of the argument, we might want to give credence to the work of Harvard Business School professor Max H. Bazerman, author of Judgment in Managerial Decision Making. In an article in Harvard Management Update May 2007, he explains why intuition can be fallible in a high-stakes decision. Scientific test of intuition show a heavy influence of various cognitive biases - in particular, overconfidence, "anchoring" judgments to a piece of information that may or may not be relevant, and a tendency to overweight recent or "vivid" data.

Setting aside the question of whether the analysis themselves are being done objectively, perhaps the question is better presented as what are the relative roles of intuition and rational analysis in a decision? Does it depend on the "stakes" of the decision as suggested by Bazerman? In either case, when rational analysis and intuition disagree, then what? Using both rational analysis and intuition provide you with a tremendous amount of information. When the conclusions disagree, you have even more information at your disposal. Where are your biases? Are they pointing to incorrect assumptions in the analysis? Are they suggesting an inconsistency in your objectives? Rather than dismiss one over the other, a disagreement calls for serious reflection and perhaps the need for additional support.