A fascinating study of successful women brings to light some interesting and unexpected facts about women who know when and how to turn off “masculine” traits, i.e., aggressive, assertive and confident.

They received 1.5 times more promotions than masculine men, and about two times as many promotions as feminine men, regardless of whether the men were high or low self-monitors. They also received 3 times as many promotions as masculine women who were low self-monitors, affirming that masculine behavior alone does not garner success. … The study also showed that self–monitoring masculine women received 1.5 times as many promotions as feminine women, regardless of whether those women were high or low self-monitors.

This is researched proof of my own attitude of “work for an ideal, but you have to function in the real world” and the real world requires flexibility.

I’m guessing that these women were smart enough to apply whatever was needed to a given situation, instead of approaching them all the same way.

This seems to be the “why” to the results of a previous study by the same people.

“…learned behavior patterns — not biological sex — may be the greatest determinant of workplace success as measured by salary and promotion.”

If you are a woman, accepting the accuracy of the research does much to put career control directly in your hands. And that’s a good thing.

Of course, along with personal control comes personal responsibility when you can no longer blame external forces.

You need to take a hard look at your own actions; request input from those you trust to tell you the truth (not just what you want to hear or what fits their world view), then assess where you are, where you want to be and how best to get there.

Start your voyage immediately.

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Shakespeare wrote in his description of Feste, the jester in Twelfth Night that one should never underestimate a man who is “wise enough to play the fool.”

I’ve given that advice to executives, managers, workers and friends and it always works, especially if you broaden your concept of “fool.”

Being a fool doesn’t mean being foolish; it is more acting innocent or ignorant instead of showing off your knowledge or expertise.

Playing the fool draws out the other person; it gives you the opportunity to learn what they know and get a far better understanding of where they are coming from, where they are going and how they plan to get there.

Playing the fool is sort of like Undercover Boss where the CEO learns far more about her organization by pretending to be a candidate than she ever could in her normal persona.

However, I find fewer people willing to play the fool in these days of social media no matter how successful the technique.

They worry that playing the fool might be misconstrued in 140 characters and that is more important than the beneficial outcome that can result from playing the fool.

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Think about all the information that comes your way, especially if you are an executive.

It’s usually shared at peer level and (maybe) one or two levels down.

But full sharing of that information should be embedded deeply in your company’s culture.

In fact, when information, particularly competitive and market intelligence, is widely disseminated throughout the organization it juices innovation and boosts productivity.

Why?

Because increasing the number of people with access to the information increases the odds for breakthrough thinking and reduces the risk of wheel-spinning.

• An article on a competitor’s product can spark an engineer’s original design idea;
• gossip about changing industry dynamics can prevent a stumble in marketing;
• an investment report on a new service offering can suggest an innovative sales approach to a desirable customer.

Highly visible industry developments circulate swiftly and prompt immediate strategy meetings and fast responses, but the rest of the information often languishes; instead, it needs to be easily accessible by everyone.

Think about it, everybody in your company picks up valuable industry intelligence along with potentially valuable gossip.

• CEOs receive strategy reports by investment firms, management consulting companies, along with high level information and gossip from the Board.
• Managers receive reports from hired industry experts and publications.
• Marcom and others interact with the media.
• Salespeople gain information from customers.
• Engineers and others observe competitive equipment at trade shows.
• Admin and other support people hear and overhear stuff, often because they are ignored by those at higher levels.

People talk—at tradeshows, networking events, industry conferences and seminars, as well as at social events, bars, restaurants, etc. Most people spend at least part of that time talking about business-related topics.

Unfortunately, some managers derive their power through information control.

Smart managers make sure that the information is shared, up, down, and horizontally, by using internal blogs, intranets, wikis, etc. Further, they actively work to encourage everybody to read and discuss it.

Since the goal is to encourage everybody to share everything, no matter the source, all posts should include attribution; a public thank you to the person who took the time to share it.

Whether formal (reports, white papers, news) or informal (conversations, hearsay, gossip) the content needs to be accurately assessed and valued.

There is no way to predict what bit of knowledge will spark the creative process, so be sure that your people have full access everything available in an easily searchable format.

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I have to laugh every time I see a reference to Management-By-Walking-Around (MBWA) that creates the impression that it’s a hot new management tool.

Hot, yes; new, no.

MBWA dates to 1940 and is a management technique instituted by Dave Packard at the founding of HP; it’s “marked by personal involvement, good listening skills and the recognition that “everyone in an organization wants to do a good job.”"

I’ve written about it before and when I looked at that post I found little that needed changing, go here it is again.

Remember Management-By-Walking-Around? It’s an oldie, but a goodie.

Great managers work to spend at least 25% of their time wandering around chatting and building trust with their people.

Don’t have time? Maybe that’s because you never really thought abut the benefits. Getting to know your people this way helps you to

• spot high-potential workers;
• raise your trust quotient with employees;
• improve retention;
• attract talent;
• discover molehills before they’re mountains, and, most importantly, it’s the best, if not only, way to
• know what’s really going on.

But to work it must be the norm—that means it needs to be done constantly, not just when there’s a problem.

Consistent, casual visits make people feel comfortable and encourages them to chat—saying what they are thinking without editing it. To pass on information, rumors, and the like without wondering or worrying that it will boomerang and hurt them.

While wandering, you’ll hear enough to validate or repudiate what you heard from somewhere else. It lets you protect your sources—which means they’ll continue to pass on information—and it helps you avoid acting on erroneous information.

The higher you rise in the organization the more important this intelligence becomes.

One of the greatest dangers for any manager is getting isolated and hearing only a sanitized or slanted version of what’s going on within the group, department or company. This is especially true for the CEO and senior staff.

Bottom-line—get off your duff, out of your office, wander around, say hi, listen, be a sponge and soak it all up.

Invest the time—that’s what managers do—and it will pay off handsomely!

MBWA works best when it is embedded in your MAP, as well as part of your organization’s cultural DNA.

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Last fall I wrote that the prevalence of bullying, especially in the workplace, was giving rise to an anti bullying industry and I’ve seen nothing to change my mind about that.

I recently learned that my post was taken by at lease one person to mean that I didn’t believe workplace bullying was real and I want to state categorically that it is very real and way too prevalent.

I’ve seen abusive managers and cultures in action up close all my working life, especially since I returned to headhunting in the late Seventies.

Whether you call it abuse or bullying, it’s out of the closet and getting more and more media attention, which is good.

I learned about the misinterpretation last week when I received a call from a senior manager I’ll call “Lisa.”

Lisa was looking for expert witnesses because an employee has gone to HR with claims that he is being bullied.

I immediately told her that I don’t believe I would qualify as an expert, but offered to listen to the story. (I was very curious.)

Long story short, Lisa explained that her job was very difficult because the department she had recently taken over had a number of very stupid people who insisted on doing things differently from the way she knew they should be done.

She had found the only way to make them listen was to scream and constantly point out what they were doing wrong.

However, one of them was so wimpy he had filed a complaint with HR and the investigation was impeding her work, hence her desire to find experts on her side.

I asked what made her think I would side with her and she mentioned the article.

I then explained in words of on syllable that she had completely misunderstood what I wrote, that her she was bullying her people and that actions such as screaming and public belittling were not only abusive, but created a toxic culture for everybody.

As you might guess, her reaction to what I said was less than positive.

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Are you already a devotee of insanely smart hiring, in the process of changing after reading insanely stupid hiring or somewhere in-between?

Wherever your MAP is on the subject there is one thing about hiring that you need to wrap your head around if you want your career to flourish.

You can not hire stars, but you can create and maintain them.

This is as true of executives and management as it is of workers at all levels.

Think of hiring in terms of planting a garden—only these plants have feet.

You’re at the nursery and find a magnificent rose. It’s large, because it’s several years old, has dozens of blooms and buds and is exactly what you wanted for a particular space in your yard.

The directions say that the rose needs full sun to thrive, while the space in your yard only gets four to five hours of morning sun. But the rose is so gorgeous you can’t resist, convincing yourself that those hours from sunrise to 11 will be enough, so you take it home and plant it.

It seems to do OK at first, but as time goes by it gets more straggly and has fewer and fewer blooms.

Finally, you give it to your friend who plants it in a place that gets sun from early morning to sunset.

By the end of the next summer the rose is enormous, covered in blooms and has sprouted three new canes.

One of the things that insanely smart hiring does is ensure that people are planted where they will flourish, whether they are already thriving or are leaving an inhospitable environment.

I said earlier that people are like plants with feet. Abuse a plant, whether intentionally or through neglect, and it will wither and eventually die; abuse your people and sooner or later they will walk.

Insanely smart hiring also gives you a giant edge whether the people market is hot or cold.

By knowing exactly what you need, your culture, management style and the environment you have to offer you are in a position to find hidden and unpolished jewels, as well as those that have lost their luster by being in the wrong place. (Pardon the mixed metaphors. Ed)

These are often candidates that other managers pass on, but who will become your stars—stars with no interest in seeking out something else.

They recognize insanely smart opportunities when they see them.

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Yesterday we looked at insanely stupid hiring and I said we would explore the alternatives today.

Every time a manager tells me that staffing gets in the way of their “real work” it makes me crazy. For decades I’ve heard this same stupid statement from various managers, from CEO to team leaders, and none of them was stupid.

Insanely smart (or stupid) hiring starts with individual MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

Here is the basic attitude of insanely smart managers, voiced decades ago by Terry Dial, who eventually became vice chairman of Business Banking at Wells Fargo.

“People are 90% of our costs as well as the key to customer service and satisfaction. The only thing that should take priority over hiring a new employee is keeping a current one.”

Overview of insanely smart hiring

1. Hire people to be part of the team. In other words, people who share your values, will support your culture, are fascinated with your product and believe in your company.
2. Take time to define what you really need. In other words, the right person for the right job at the right time and for the right reasons.
3. What you see may not be what you get. In other words, commit the time needed to interview thoroughly.
4. Performance isn’t always portable. In other words, be sure you can supply the management and environment in which the candidate can flourish.

How to practice insanely smart hiring

• Insanely smart mangers know that no matter what else they have to do it is people, acquiring them, motivating them and retaining them, that is their “real work.”
• Insanely smart managers never lose sight of this basic law of managing—there is nothing a manager can do personally (to save their review) that will off-set the effect of their under or non-performing group.
• It is easier to be an insanely smart manager if you work for an insanely smart company, or at least manager, that understands there is no hiring gene and good staffing skills are learned, not born—but don’t count on it.
• Insanely smart hiring is real work that requires time, energy and commitment.
• Insanely smart mangers focus on ending up being the dumbest person in the group.
• Insanely smart managers never hire jerks, no matter how much pressure they are under.

Join me Monday when we consider how insanely smart hiring creates stars and boosts retention.

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An interesting article from Knowledge at Wharton cites several recent studies that help explain the difficulty corporations have tapping creative types for positional leadership roles.

Those individuals who expressed more creative ideas were viewed as having less, not more, leadership potential. The exception, they found, was when people were specifically told to focus on charismatic leaders. In that case, creative types fared better.

The article and associated studies should be required reading for every manager charged with hiring, whether for a so-called leadership position or team member.

Every manager wants to hire creative talent, that isn’t new, but understanding why you might pass on the very talent you need is knowledge worth having.

Creativity, also known as thinking outside the box, isn’t always a comfortable trait to have around; moreover, it requires much more effort to manage.

But make no mistake, while in today’s high stakes global markets those who color inside the lines can maintain the company for a time, it is the creatives who will take it to the next level.

It’s also worth noting that not all creative people are charismatic and those with charisma may not have a creative bone in their body.

Read the article and determine how much applies to you/your organization (team, department, company), and then decide if it’s worth changing.

As always, it’s your choice.

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Today is Valentine’s Day.

Along with showing love to the expected (romantic interest, kids, family, friends) why not show some love to those with whom you work as well as those who orbit the rest of your world.

One way to show love is to notice. As I said a couple of years ago,

“No one is expecting you to solve the problems, but you can reach out and touch just one life. If everyone over 21 did that we would be well on the way to change.”

All I can add is that we better start noticing before all the lights are turned off for good.

Now go see your friends and tell them; have a ‘noticing’ contest together with a ‘doing’ contest.

Before you can practice random acts of kindness you need to notice.

Why not give your whole world a Valentine by promising yourself to make noticing/doing a habit all year ’round?

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Ken Olsen, who, in 1986, Fortune magazine called “America’s most successful entrepreneur” has died.

That won’t mean much to many of you. In fact, many won’t recognize the name of his company, Digital Equipment Corporation, better known as DEC, or the minicomputer it built.

54 years ago Olsen used $70,000 seed money and built a company second only to IBM, with 120,000 employees working in 95 countries.

Ken Olsen may have been an autocratic manager, but his approach to people differed greatly from the norm of the time.

In Digital’s often confusing management structure, Mr. Olsen was the dominant figure who hired smart people, gave them responsibility and expected them “to perform as adults,” said Edgar Schein, who taught organizational behavior at M.I.T. and consulted with Mr. Olsen for 25 years. “Lo and behold,” he said, “they performed magnificently.”

What happened?

Olsen and DEC were brought down by the same attitude that almost killed IBM and is best summed up in Olsen’s own words.

“The personal computer will fall flat on its face in business.”

It is a lesson that entrepreneurs should learn: no matter how successful your company holding on to the present and ignoring or minimizing the changes in your markets can be a death sentence.

Olsen was ousted by his board because of that refusal to change after 35 years of success; six years later DEC was sold to Compaq (long before Compaq was acquired by HP).

There are many lessons to be learned from Olsen’s story, but one of the most important is found in his attitude towards people. Olsen always hired the smartest people possible, told them what he wanted and then got out of their way. He unequivocally believed that

“Our employees are our greatest asset.”

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