Overreliance on our Willpower

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How can we break a bad habit at work or in our personal lives?  Well, we just have to muster enough willpower.  That's what many of us tell ourselves.  The old cliche is clear:  When there's a will, there's a way.  Of course, an alternative strategy exists.  We could employ commitment strategies, or put another way, some external form of assistance.  For example, we might team up with a friend who helps us be accountable for achieving certain results (such as going to the gym on a regular basis). Or, we might commit to a negative repercussion if we fall back into a bad habit (such as forcing ourselves to refrain from watching our favorite Netflix show).

New research by Ariella Kristal and Julian Zlatev suggests that many people may be relying far too much on willpower rather than employing an effective commitment strategy.  HBS Working Knowledge recently published a feature story about their research and identified three main conclusions that may explain why we rely far too heavily on willpower when we try to break a bad habit:

1. "People trust others who use willpower more than commitment strategies. "

2. "People question the integrity of those who choose commitment strategies."

3. "People worry that using a commitment strategy makes them look bad."

In short, our worries about others' perceptions and judgments cause us to rely too heavily on our own willpower when trying to break a bad habit.  We think that we are signaling virtue, but in so doing, we are choosing a far less effective strategy.  Consider that finding the next time you think that willpower alone will help you avoid unproductive patterns of behavior. 

New Apple CEO John Ternus on Confidence & Humility

Source: NBC News

Fortune's Emma Burleigh has a short feature on new Apple CEO John Ternus. This week, he takes over as chief executive at Apple, succeeding long-time leader Tim Cook. Burleigh writes,

“Always assume you’re as smart as anyone else in the room, but never assume that you know as much as they do,” Ternus told University of Pennsylvania’s engineering graduates in 2024. “With this mindset, you’ll find the confidence you need to push forward, but more importantly, the humility to ask questions and learn.”

“I’ll always be grateful that I wasn’t afraid to ask for help when I needed it,” Ternus said. “Because being around people that care that deeply, it won’t just make you want to stretch your limits and see how far you can go, but they’re also the best people to help you understand how to get there."

I love the distinction that Ternus has made here.  He's arguing that we should be confident in our abilities - our intelligence and our potential.  At the same time, he's advocating for humility.  He's arguing that we should recognize that, in any given situation, there are others who know things that we do not know.  We need to acknowledge the limits of our knowledge, be curious, and ask questions.  By seeking to uncover what others know, we can make better decisions.  In short, we should be confident in our capacity to solve problems and make good choices, but humble about the knowledge that we possess before we have begun to engage with, and learn from, others around us.   

Overcoming Success Theater at Meetings

Source: CNBC

Do you focus only on success at your team’s weekly meetings?  When Larry Culp took over at GE, the company was in big trouble.  Some thought the company could not be rescued. Yet, Culp noticed that meetings often devolved into “success theater.”  They only talked about what was going well.  Culp notes, “In the old GE, messengers got shot.  I wanted to create a market for problems.”  Larry Arduini, President and CEO of GE Healthcare explains, “Larry made airing problems not something to be feared, but a goal.  He called it ‘Embracing Red’.”  You can read more about the GE turnaround under Culp in Fortune this week. 

The description of success theater reminds me of the culture at Ford Motor Company when Alan Mulally took over two decades ago.  He too tried to make it ok to identify the projects and initiatives that were blinking red.  Famously, he noticed that “all the charts were green” in his first few months at Ford, despite billions in operating losses.  When a brave executive first presented a red chart, he applauded vigorously and then asked, “Is there anything we can do to help you?” As the culture of these meetings changed, the charts became a rainbow of green, yellow, and red. 

Success theater afflicts many companies. People use staff meetings to talk about what’s going well. By the time people finish bragging about the key performance indicators that are green, there’s very little time left to surface and discuss the problems and concerns within the organization. Therefore, I suggest that leaders not only “embrace the red” but rethink their meeting agendas as well. They need to make space for open discussion of new problems, challenges, and obstacles. Otherwise, all the talk of success crowds out any opportunity to surface concerns. Make it a regular practice to put “surfacing the reds” on the agenda for each key meeting. Then, take great care regarding how you react when people share bad news. Be curious and open-minded, and don’t punish the messenger. Ask questions, listen attentively, and don’t jump to conclusions.

Eliminating Friction at OpenAI

Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications, recently said, “Companies rarely become bureaucratic all of a sudden. It happens one unnecessary meeting, one extra approval, one small frustration at a time. Each makes it only 1 or 2% harder to do your job, which is why they’re easy to ignore, but those frictions compound.” She offered this quote in the context of an article about OpenAI's process for identifying "friction" within the company and cutting through the bureaucracy to eliminate these pain points. Fortune's Emily Forlini explains:

At OpenAI, a special process—and a magic word—helps employees instantly cut through layers of bureaucracy and clear bottlenecks slowing things down.  It’s called “friction.” And it has the power to supersede just about anything a team is doing, often carrying the force of CEO Sam Altman or President Greg Brockman with it.  The process starts when someone emails a special friction@ address to report an internal bottleneck. The issues range from a technical system that isn’t working, a process that’s not having the intended result, or office-related frustrations, such as there not being enough IT vending machines. OpenAI’s leadership team triages the emails sent to friction@, moving forward with ones they deem worthy. To help alleviate full parking lots, for example, the company started a pilot to prioritize spots for those with long commutes. Another time, employees asked for a better process to grant API credits reliably and at scale. If the matter is considered important enough, Altman or Brockman will get involved to ensure it’s resolved.

A former OpenAI employee who spoke to Fortune praised the friction system as an effective way for leadership to get ground-level feedback. The process helps teams keep moving forward, tackling issues before they can fester, the person said. That’s especially important as OpenAI’s headcount grows to more than 8,000 employees expected by the end of this year, with offices across the U.S. and the globe. “It’s a good thing—literally anybody can complain about big company bullsh*t directly to Sam and they can act on it,” the former employee said. “If you want to ruthlessly cut through bureaucracy, you have to be ruthless about it.”

The process reminded me of the fantastic book, The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder, by Stanford Professors Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao.  Perhaps Altman and Simo read the book and built this process in light of those insights about eliminating friction.  One word of caution though - Forlini writes in the article that some employees have complained about the tremendous burden and pressure it puts on people to drop everything and address an issue that has suddenly been escalated to Altman and Simo.  As always, balance and moderation is critical.  You want a process for cutting through bureaucracy, but you don't want it to become abused by those annoyed at small inconveniences, or by those trying to reallocate resources to their pet projects or ideas.  

Career Advice: Run to the Mess

Several years ago, former Market Leader and Likewise CEO Ian Morris spoke to my students at Bryant University (where Ian graduated with a Bachelor's degree in the early 1990s before completing his MBA at HBS).  Ian offered a few wonderful pieces of career advice.  First, he always told the students to "leave well" when changing jobs.  Give extra notice, help train your successor, and preserve relationships.  You never know when you will cross paths with those people again. Second, Ian suggested that they "run to the mess" if they want to build new skills and accelerate their career progression. Ian mentioned that many people avoid difficult situations because they fear failure. Yet, he described these tough circumstances as the best opportunities to truly shine, to make your mark.

A recent Stanford interview with Jane Fraser, CEO of Citibank, reminded me of Ian's advice. Fraser also commented on the value of taking on the tough jobs during her career, even if they were not the ones that others found attractive and interesting. Fraser said,

Interviewer:  Why did you pick these tough jobs?

Jane Fraser: Yeah. I mean, because someone once asked, “Is it because none of the men wanted to take them?” There might be a bit of truth in some of that. I think one of the things, I’m not a tweaker so I never wanted a job where you’d just be tweaking things to make it better. I think I’d be awful at it. I think a lot of people in this room would be awful at tweaking jobs too. It’s more fun to be bold in making changes. And then if something’s not in great shape, it’s amazing how you get left alone to fix it. Whereas if something is actually going well, you have everybody giving you helpful advice and opinions on what you can be doing better. So one of the fun things about turnarounds or changing things more radically, quite often you’re left a little bit more on your own.

Then when it starts getting successful, then everyone jumps onto the train and heads that way. But I’ve always quite enjoyed transforming things a bit more and then you learn a playbook of what you need to do and you can repeat a lot of it in different situations like get the team in place that you need as a first step because otherwise you’re going to be doing everybody else’s job and be really lousy at the one you’ve actually been put in to do. So there’s just different steps that I put in place each time now and they’ve been helpful so far.

Why We Love It When Customer Service Professionals Remember Us & What We Like

This summer, my wife and I have traveled quite a bit.  We have had the privilege of some amazing customer service experiences.  One thing, in particular, has stood out.  Some customer service professionals got to know us, remembered our names and our preferences, and anticipated our needs and desires before we articulated them.  Sometimes, they remembered our favorite drink order.  In other cases, they asked us how we enjoyed our previous day's adventure.  We loved it.  Why?  Well, of course, humans love to feel valued.  We enjoy being seen and heard.  These professionals clearly had listened to us, gotten to know us, and had made the effort to make a connection with us.  In turn, we learned their names, and we got to know them.  When our breakfast waiter at the hotel had a day off, we asked him about the day when he returned.  He appreciated the chance to share what he had done.  These professionals were not in a hurry to simply fulfill our order.  They took that extra time to interact with us.  They made a human connection.   

Sometimes, these professionals made mistakes. Honestly, we didn't care much at all. We were very forgiving because we felt valued, and they were clearly trying to help us.  They apologized. We let it go.  Companies cannot prevent all mistakes.  However, they can create a customer experience in which most people will be quite forgiving.  

The lesson for companies is clear: Don't just value efficiency in customer service.  Make sure that you emphasize the value of building human connection.  Encourage your people to listen actively, learn customers' names, and get to know them.  Don't penalize them for taking an extra minute to fulfill an order.  Weigh the long run benefits against that tiny drop in "productivity" that you might experience.  Moreover, companies should consider helping their employees build their active listening and empathy skills.  Some people are naturals at making human connections. Others will need some training.  Invest in building those capabilities; the payoff will be great. 

Interpersonal Coordination on High Performance Teams

What's the key ingredient to high performance when teams function in demanding, high-stress environments? Mary Waller and her co-authors have studied this question in the context of airplane cockpit crews. They published a paper recently titled "More than a feeling: rapport and complex task performance in teams."  They examined three elements of rapport within these teams while they worked in flight simulators:

1. Interpersonal liking: how positively did the individuals engage with one another
2. Emotional positivity: how optimistic and positive was the emotional tone of their conversations
3. Interpersonal coordination:  How well synchronized was their verbal communication and action

Sally Blount summarized their key finding: “Positivity and liking are great. But unless you can translate that positivity and liking into improved collaboration, it doesn’t have a significant impact on team performance.”  After analyzing video recordings of the teams in the simulator, the researchers observed how the coordination among the high-performing teams tended to be more complex, nuanced, and synergistic.  Kellogg Insight summarized the findings:

Overall, the researchers found that, on average, the teams with the highest levels of interpersonal coordination communicated more often, especially with commands, observations, suggestions, and laughter. The interactions between these pilots also were “significantly more complex” than the interactions between pilots with lower interpersonal coordination.

“In the low-interpersonal-coordination groups, you had less communication and also less encouragement and building off of each other,” Blount says. “So, if things aren’t going well, you might be saying, ‘This guy isn’t helping me, so I’m going to hunker down,’ versus ‘Okay, we got this,’ and ‘I see that. What do you see?’”

Not surprisingly, the pilots themselves did not always perceive the link between rapport and performance correctly.  

Interestingly, when liking and positivity were high, the pilots themselves thought they performed better, but that perception did not always translate into better expert evaluations. The tendency to associate more-positive interactions with better performance is common within teams, but it can be misleading and is a well-known contributor to groupthink, Blount says.