All Posts in Office Politics

|In: Leadership|Last Updated:

I heard, through a back channel, that a Very Important CEO (VICEO) was giving an award to a project manager who had just led a difficult undertaking to success. In a large gathering, the VICEO invited the project manager to the podium. She stepped up in an outfit that revealed her midriff, replete with ornamented navel.

How should the VICEO have responded? He could have given her the award without comment. He could have announced that this is how all project managers should dress, and that from here on in he would dress this way, too.

Instead, he instituted a business-formal dress code for the entire company, probably because (follow closely now):

1. A high-performing employee,

2. Dressed inappropriately for an occasion, so

3. He’d better institute a rigid dress code, to prevent

4. The poor performance that comes from inappropriate dress, as evidenced by

5. The high-performing employee who dressed inappropriately.

Or maybe he just figured, “This woman’s attire is disrespectful (to me), so I’d better do something about it.”

Abraham Lincoln faced a similar circumstance. To the woman who informed him, disapprovingly, that Ulysses S. Grant had been known to (ohmigawd!) drink he famously responded that he wanted to know the brand of bourbon so he could give it to his other generals.

The past two columns on dress codes generated quite a bit of mail. One letter described the “eyebrow test” suggested by A. J. (“Flip”) Filipowski, president of Platinum Technology back in the good old days: If co-workers raise their eyebrows when they look at you, you might want to reconsider your fashion choice. Filipowski also, on one memorable occasion, broadcast a voicemail describing the company’s new dress code policy: If any manager tried to establish a dress code at Platinum Technology, he’d immediately fire that manager. (But eventually, Platinum sold out to Computer Associates. Draw your own conclusions.)

Ron Watson recounted his experience. In the 1970’s he managed a small data entry group. The ‘uniform’ of the day was, for the women, a skirt and blouse. Most looked a bit frumpy. Ron figured they didn’t make a lot of money and had families to take care of, so he told them they could wear casual and more comfortable clothes if they wanted. They all started wearing pants, and looked much better. They were unwilling to spend much on clothes worn only to work. They spent more when it came to clothes they could wear in private life as well. And, there was a distinct improvement in morale.

Dr. Ronny Richardson, professor of management at Southern Polytechnic State University, has both military and corporate experience. He suspects the preference for business formal originated in the military, where who must defer to whom is evident at a glance.

In the Fortune 100 companies he’s worked with and in, the price and fit of the suit correlates well with rank: Shirtsleeves and tie at low levels; a sport jacket at the next; then a JC Penny suit, and so on. Rank is immediately apparent as well.

Another military anecdote described a base in Texas where the dress was fatigues and morale was poor. The cause? Nobody expected the commies to invade Texas. Which made their duty rather pointless. The solution? The base commander instituted formal dress on Fridays, and morale and discipline immediately improved.

Which leads to speculation regarding the impact on morale had the base commander tried to establish a sense of importance regarding the actual mission of the base. And if dress attire improves morale so much, why not require it during combat?

Instead of worrying about how employees dress, consider this policy: “We hire responsible adults. Our success depends on our employing responsible adults. We treat the men and women who work here as adults, and expect them to be adults, act like adults, and show mature, adult judgment. If, in the judgment of your manager, you aren’t acting like a responsible adult, your manager has a responsibility to work with you to determine whether you’re capable of doing so in the future or whether you’d be better off working elsewhere.” It’s the policy we’d institute at IT Catalysts, Inc. if we had a policy manual.

Which leads to a comment made by several correspondents: that two (now three) columns about dress codes is a lot of time and effort expended on an unimportant issue.

That’s my point exactly. I’m glad you agree.

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|In: Career Management|Last Updated:

Crankiness is a sure-fire motivator for writing a punchy, sarcastic column. The downside: It doesn’t always lead to the most tactful recommendations.

David Carlson wrote to suggest, gently, that my final recommendation for responding to someone who tells you to face reality wasn’t particularly useful.

He’s right, too. While not as sarcastic as “Here on earth,” my suggested, “We have to decide whether to face reality or face facts, because so far as I know the evidence suggests otherwise,” is hardly a model of businesslike comportment.

Fun, though.

Before exploring other alternatives, there’s a larger point to make, so important that I’ve coined an acronym for it: ROT. That stands for Relationships Outlive Transactions. If you want to succeed as a business executive, make ROT a way of life.

It isn’t uncommon for IT staffers, who otherwise care passionately about the quality of engineering in their work products, to get the capitalization wrong. Faced with a design compromise insisted on by management that’s clearly second-rate engineering, some systems analysts will complain to their colleagues about politics intruding on IT design decisions. “What a bunch of rot!” they’ll exclaim, when they should comment, more understandingly, “What a bunch of ROT.”

Relationships are defined by mutual knowledge of each others’ subtleties of motivation, definitions of integrity, congruence of goals, and overall chemistry. Relationships create trust and an ability to cooperate. They lubricate the conduct of day-to-day business. Relationships outlive transactions — the individual decisions and compromises that go into the won and lost columns of life.

It’s rare that winning a single transaction is worth causing a good working relationship to decay, although it can happen. That’s why an ability to compromise is so important in the executive suite: Without it, an executive will, in winning one battle, use tactics that alienate peers to the extent they’ll be on the other side of all subsequent battles.

At IT Catalysts our business change management consulting methodology starts with a stakeholder analysis — an attempt to determine who is likely to resist whatever change is being planned, why, and what to do about it. Among the more common strategies for dealing with change resisters are firing them, marginalizing them, and co-opting them. Of these three, co-option is, when possible, the superior alternative, for two reasons. The first is that apostasy is powerfully persuasive for everyone else. For those who also have opposed whatever it is, a public apostate makes it okay for them to change their minds as well if they’re at all tempted to do so. It helps mold opinion as you want it shaped.

The other reason, relevant to the subject of reality and who owns it, is that when you co-opt a resister you build or strengthen a working relationship, turning an opponent on one issue into a likely ally on the next issue.

How does this fit the subject? Imagine you’re on the receiving end of another executive saying you have to face reality. If you respond as I’d suggested in the last column, you might win your point, but you’ll do so by publicly embarrassing your opponent. That fosters resentment, which can fester, coming back to haunt you next time the two of you are at odds.

That isn’t always a bad thing. If the individual in question already has you in the cross-hairs and has decided you’re going to be an opponent, your only two choices are to win or to lose. As a general rule, winning is better.

But if the other person is also a ROTter (or can be turned into one), you’re far better off choosing a course of action designed to win everyone over, including Mr. or Ms. Reality.

Which might mean nothing more than ignoring the offending phrase entirely, responding, “I just don’t see it that way. Here’s why.”

Or, you can play the apostasy card yourself: “I used to think that myself. Then I read a book by Bob Lewis, and I became convinced that this other way of looking at the situation works better.” (Your having helped me sell more books is just a fringe benefit.)

The apostasy gambit is just as persuasive when you’re the apostate as when you co-opt an opponent. Even better, it promotes your goal of making the whole ROTten company work better.

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