Asshole Management

The last night into my Easter break, I realize that I had a book – “The No Asshole Rule” by Robert Sutton due for return to the library. Not wanting to return yet another book unread to the library, I put in two hours of effort to read this delightfully easy to read book.

Bob Sutton deserves all credit in propping up a word confined to the dark unspoken business world, in fine professorial scientific finery. This book and Bob’s earlier article in HBR with the same title is path breaking in bringing into the common business lexicon – ASSHOLE. After being driven to the state of numbness by the repeated usage of the word, I, despite my catholic upbringing, see the power of the word that the author brings out of the closet.

Bob lists a “dirty dozen” list of common actions that Assholes use, including personal insults, sarcastic jokes, dirty looks and treating people as invisible. It is important to realize that all of us can be temporary assholes so the key is to identify the certified Assholes. They more often than not, stand out in their ability to consistently make their “targets” feeling belittled, put down, humiliated, disrespected, oppressed, de-energized and generally worse about themselves. The cost of such individuals to an organization is evaluated through the calculation of the Total Cost of Asshole (TCA). TCA includes the attrition costs, legal lawsuits, counseling time, loss of productivity, stress levels, etc. Many assholes succeed in remaining in an organization as they also sometimes are high achievers. In one instance, the TCA was computed and discussed with one such individual and a percentage of these costs was threatened to be taken from the bonus of the individual.

Hiring and Firing policies of companies has an impact on the prevalence of Assholes in organizations. Harvard professor, Rosabeth Moss Kanter calls the process of hiring similar personalities as “homosocial reproduction”. So left to themselves, Assholes hire assholes. The opposite of this is not to hire spineless wimps. Instead, as Cisco practices, Constructive confrontation teaches people how to fight and when to fight. Robert Cialdini’s research on paper pilfering advances a “One Asshole rule”. Under this rule, it is necessary to have one asshole for the rest to know how not to behave. Such an individual tends to have a more positive impact on the rest of the group. It is important under this rule that the Asshole is not seen to receive any benefits by being an asshole. Of course, this will be a nightmare for HR to be able to find the right Asshole for a team. Instead Bob suggests that it is not necessary to look for an asshole – looking for perfect individuals will anyways result in one or two assholes slipping in through the cracks – and they should be just fine. Before we go trigger happy and start branding people as Assholes, pipe down and be slow in branding people as assholes.

So, how does one avoid being the Asshole? Apply the same test for an asshole upon yourself (target feeling belittled… etc). The crux of this test is not what you think about yourself but what others think. As successful assholes tend to have strong influence, you need to avoid “Asshole poisoning”. If you know that you are entering into the presence of assholes, it is more prudent to avoid. As Leonardo Da Vinci said, “it is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end”
Of course there are virtues in being an asshole. More often than not, Type A people are characterized as Assholes. They tend to gain personal power and stature, intimidate and vanquish rivals, motivate fear driven performance and perfectionism, bring unfair, clueless and lazy people to their senses.

So will there be a new definition for “A” in MBAs?

TIme to stop to check

This is the first real break we have had since we started the MBA program - 4 days for the Easter, including the Monday. THis will provide the time for a reflection on the days past.

The MBA program started on 14th Jan. On the 16 and 17th, we went on a two day outdoor trip for team building at the Schloss Kröchlendorff ( http://www.schlosskroechlendorff.de/ ) - 29 of us. There was still a suspense whether Elka and Aysenur would join our class and they did, a week later after sorting out their Visa issues. This was sheer fun - 29 individuals assembled together to be moulded into a team. Circumspection gave way to trust as we crossed the "river" with 7 logs, hiked our way across fields using maps made by someone else and then climbed rope obstacles.

Some did it the hard way and the others found fun ways to do the tasks. These two pictures reminded me of how software is developed in different parts of the world. The picture on the left is the one, where I would imagine is done in, say, IBM US - following processes and doing it the right way, the one on the right is the Indian way of doing this - fewer resources but more man power - one on top of the other - eventually the tasks gets done and these guys also have the most fun - See the smiles :)

Felix, Adrian and Stefano are seen looking at the map - a perfectly done map - but incorrectly read and I wonder what they are doing on the watch tower looking out with head lamps into the darkness, maybe they should have used the walkie talkie and called the rest of the group who were already in the pub having beer. Trust a man to never stop and say that he is lost- and when you get a few men together - guess what!!!!

The classes started in right earnest - all the group work taught us more than what we learnt in class. Decision Analysis was a revelation - Francis was in his elements and taught us a trick or two and we are smarter for that. Konstantin was his usual business self - aced through the class and opened a new way to look at Organizational Behavior. The course I found the most satisfying was Economics - I proved to myself that I had it in me to understand Economics and I am grateful to Michal for that. Eric can never be faulted for not trying hard in Marketing. I do not know if I will ever be a marketing guy but the whole Marketing Case was a revelation of Team work. Accounting with Zimmermann laid the foundation for hopefully a future for me with numbers. By the time the module was over, we were tired, yet happy.

Module 2 relatively seems to be a walk in the park. We are done with HR by Jean-Marie Hiltrop and Intro to Finance with Jeorg Rochell will be done with early next week. We will still have Marketing with Luc Wathieu and two new new courses starting next week - Operations and Advanced Accounting. The tide may shift and we may have to spend more hours in the study rooms but let me enjoy when I am able to...

Rich man's game

Yesterday, the gloomy dark weather in Berlin cleared up and we got to go outside and do something for a change. 12 Degree is not a great deal to an Indian but it is, if we had snow fall just a few days back.

Anke and her partner put together a nice golf schedule and a few of us from our class managed to go and get our baptism in Golf. Life was a made a little complicated by the U- Bahn strike and we had a little legging to do to go to Alexanderplatz to take a S-Bahn to Blankenburg. Myself and Aditya went together and Anke was there at the station to pick us up and drive us to the golf links. Arti and Yury also managed to get there on time regardless of their skills at being able to read signs at a station (they get the drift :)) and was joined by Adrian in his "original" mini

Golf Resort Berlin Pankow (http://www.golf-resort-berlin-pankow.de/) is a nice place, with a cute club house and being not so crowded. The deal was not expensive, managable on student's budget - of course you cannot do this every weekend.

Anke had arranged for a 1 hour training session and the basics of the irons and the swings were taught. After this, we knocked the balls around and I think I had got a hang of "this thing". Of course, having come from a background of playing cricket, it will take some time before I learn how not to "put the weight behind the drive" or "move the foot to the pitch of the ball" or the "follow through". For those who are not familiar with cricket, you can imagine the player as if he were walking through while playing a putt. Of course, this is not an easy imagination but who said Cricket was easy (Was that Ambar who tried to explain cricket to Casey?) For those familiar with cricket, it is like Dhoni pulling the ball from outside the off stump and hitting it over long on without moving his feet.

If the above made no sense to you, let me summarize - I have some way to go before I can think of challenging Tiger Woods.

After about 3 hours and various muscles aching, we decided to return back and relax for the evening. Adrian had more spirit and continued. We got to Hachescher Markt and stopped to have a very late Lunch at the "Sixties" - Wonderful Enchilidas!!!

I was poofed by the time I reached home and hit the bed immediately.

I am ready for the next week.

Note: The pictures: Aditya taking a swing... Myself, Arti and Yury with the course in the background

"Convince Me"

“Convince Me” – the stentorian voice rang out through the class. Everyone, by now knows the originator of the voice.

James Rdderstrale and Kjell Nordstrom in their wonderful book, “Funky Business” writes

“To be successful in a world of improvisational theater, you have to ask yourself questions. You have to know yourself and your objectives. It is Management By Objectives for individuals. Defining yourself is the only means of creating a good life. This gives Leaders, anywhere in organizations, a new job. They must produce uncertainty. Real leaders challenge people. They do not control them. True leaders set people free”

When Casey says “Convince Me”, some respond by rolling eyes, some by smirking, some laugh off the challenge and a few indeed make an effort to convince. The ones who make an effort to convince come away knowing that they were right or they learn something better.

A river flows down the path of least resistance. It makes a decisive turn only when it is challenged. It is the same with people. Left to ourselves, we tend to seek our comfort zone. We find refuge in mediocrity and continue to wallow in what we are most comfortable in. We do not stretch the envelope.

In today’s world, if we do not stretch the limits and discover new skills and knowledge, we will be challenged by the future – the upstarts. We did this to the people before us. We had no time for them. We are now either ready for the new upstarts or be willing to fall by the way side. Our success will be decided by how we will respond to the challenge.

While we learn how to respond to a challenge, we also need know what the likely challenges are. It will be too late to wait for the challenge to be posed to you. It rather needs to originate from within- from within the person. Is what I am saying logical? Is it right? Can it be better? What are the downsides? At the core of these questions is the need to be coherent. A person expecting to lead an organization tomorrow needs to develop these skills to question onself.

Casey is a Canadian born in New Zealand. He has decided to take the middle path and has settled in Germany. He says that he has some Russian roots, but I do not want to go there. He is yet another member of Group Florence. He is just a few months older than I am, has more white hair than my father at 65 and talks more measured than my grandfather at 85. Having worked in Japan for over 10 years, I think it is understandable that he has aged. I got most of my white hair during the 2 years when I was managing Nissan Japan account sitting in India. This “85 year old” man, is a loving father of two kids, with the second being born just a few weeks back. He has a gift of drawing a story board for any presentation – knows what sells and what does not and most importantly, he will question you if you bullshit.

He transformed his “no smile, all work” persona by playing along with the “election” for the class manager. His “Casey on Fabian” video that brought his family into our class, was simply superb.

It was a wonderful 1.5 months being in the same team as Casey. He has set himself personal goals and has achieved some of that in our group but he still has 29 more to work on. Tomorrow, we split and move into different groups – I move from Group Florence to Group Eindhoven. Group Florence was excellent – Flavius, I had written about him earlier, Stefanie and Ambar besides Casey. We had some real fun, especially the last minute ILE presentation and the Marketing Plan (“Trust Me, I have it covered!!!”). These are fabulous MBA experiences.