The Problems with Email

GREAT piece in Forbes.

The Problem With E-mail

Chris Noon, 09.21.06, 1:30 PM ET

Leaving e-mails festering unanswered in your inbox and failing to return voice mails in a timely manner sound like minor workplace infractions, but committing them can damage team relationships and productivity in multi-location businesses.

According to a study commissioned by network-equipment maker Cisco Systems (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ) published Tuesday, a successful boss of a multinational company should draw up protocols on response times, establish rules for the selection of media and clarify the frequency of communications to build trust amongst colleagues scattered around the globe.

Cisco's report, "The Psychology of Effective Business Communications in Geographically Dispersed Teams," says that organizational effectiveness can suffer when e-mails and voice mails go unanswered for days, causing individuals to misattribute explanations for this black hole. This will lead a boss or employee to believe that the other is either shirking responsibility or work.

The report also emphasizes that e-mail is imperfect as a form of communication since it depends on respondents regularly checking and responding to their messages. E-mail also won't help you to discern what kind of a character you are working with, as no nonverbal, vocalic or verbal cues can be transmitted.

So forgive your employees if they sound a little square and strait-laced. It's fairly likely they vetted their e-mail for any signs of flippancy or frivolity before they hit the "send" button.

Cisco says that most traditional forms of monitoring and control are not feasible when managing a dispersed workforce of 50 or more employees. This "behavioral invisibility" makes it hard to build up trust. For example, you cannot observe the amount of cold calls your sales rep is making, nor can you overhear the guy from accounts bullying the interns. However, working thousands of miles away from your underlings is no longer an excuse not to talk to or see them.

Surely nobody wants an Orwellian scenario whereby you sew semiconductors under the skin of everybody on the payroll, or install a web cam on every employee's computer and hit a buzzer every time you see them steal off for a coffee break.

However, the report says investing in Skype headsets all round, and organizing a regular video conference call are good first steps. "The addition of video-conferencing results in significant improvements to the quality of a team's decisions and the use of richer media also results in increased levels of performance and trust," the Cisco report says.

Effective use of technology can significantly shorten the time to effectiveness for those collaborating on projects in various locales around the world, according to the report, but care must be taken over the selection and deployment of different forms of computer mediated communication (CMC). Research suggests that it takes a minimum of two weeks before CMC relationships are as socially grounded as those made face-to-face (F2F).

"Users of electronic communication can take up to four times as long to exchange the same number of messages as communicating face-to-face, particularly as non-verbal cues can account for up to 63% of the social meaning within face-to-face exchanges," says the report.

Cultural differences can also slow communication. Multi-cultural teams can apparently take up to 17 weeks to become as effective as teams whose members are of the same culture.

"Individuals in 'high-context cultures' (those in most Asian, South American and Middle Eastern cultures and, to a lesser extent, French, Spanish and Greeks) tend not to express feelings and thoughts explicitly, whereas individuals in 'low-context cultures' (North Americans and most Europeans) do," says the report.

"Therefore, people from high-context cultures can often perceive those from low-context cultures as too talkative and obvious. Conversely, those from low-context cultures perceive others from high-context cultures as sneaky and mysterious," concludes the report.

Tearing Up the Jack Welch Playbook

New Rules for the Jack Welch cronies

Link to central page.

Lessons from the Commish

Why the NFL's Paul Tagliabue is a genuine Hall of Fame executive.

Link to article


1. Don't sacrifice long-term goals just to win today's game.

2. Know your strength--and use it to determine your game plan.

3. No pandering: Earn respect on the field of play. No more complaining about how tough it is to please your boss.

Entire text will be in comments section...

Cursing & Cubes

In the Workplace,Every Bleeping Word Can Show Your Rank
March 21, 2006; Page B1
By JARED SANDBERG
Wall Street Journal, Link to entire article

Ann Garcia had to thread the needle. On the one hand, the No. 1 executive at her former company hated the use of profanity, seeing it as a sign of not having learned to communicate effectively. On the other hand, the No. 2 executive appreciated a potty mouth now and then because it indicated passion. He "felt that if you weren't swearing, you probably didn't care enough," says Ms. Garcia.

...Still, profanity is a barometer of corporate culture because cussing up a blue streak may be taboo to some companies and expected in others. It's used as everything from a social bonding tool to a badge of status, from a weapon to a substitute for it. Not least, it's a stress reliever when a paper tray doesn't know it's already full, a voicemail system doesn't recognize a password, or when an automated restroom faucet splashes your pants, suggesting incontinence that is good for no one's career.

"Uttering a profanity is almost like enjoying a breath of fresh air," concedes P.M. Forni, author of "Choosing Civility" and co-founder of the Johns Hopkins Civility Project. While he recognizes its usefulness, he hates it for the most part. "As a form of respect for the people around you whose sensitivities you cannot individually gauge, you should abstain from uttering profanities."

...In some workplaces, says Timothy Jay, a professor of psychology and author on cursing, "if you're the one who doesn't swear, you're the weirdo." He says "profane language can be very effective in gaining credibility," and has been a privilege of rank. Traditionally, "it works down the hierarchy, not up," he says.

...Similarly, Jay Sapovits, a sales executive who won't swear in certain environments, distrusts other salespeople who never find occasion to swear. "There's an inherent element of dishonesty with people who are in a situation where a swear is warranted and they don't swear," he says. "If a salesperson doesn't swear, they're either 1) not dialing the phone enough or 2) are not to be trusted."

...In almost any work environment, profanity can be a way to signal a level of intimacy among colleagues. As Amanda Jacobson Snyder, who works for a data publishing company, puts it, "It's sort of like a friendship's second base."

Watching Basketball Improves Investing

Net Gains: How Watching Basketball Can Improve Your Approach to Investing
March 15, 2006; Page D1
Wall Street Journal Link to Entire Article

(1) Keep your cool. - Statistically, hitting three or four shots in a row -- or beating the market in consecutive years -- just isn't that unusual. Indeed, if you and a bunch of friends each flipped a coin 20 times, half of you would likely get four heads in a row.

"Fund managers can look like they're hot or like they're a market beater," says Thomas Gilovich, co-author of the "hot hand" study and a psychology professor at Cornell University. "But you swap out of your underperforming fund and into the hot fund at your peril. Given that the market is pretty efficient, past performance just isn't a good guide."

Why do people reach grand conclusions based on skimpy data? Part of the blame lies with so-called confirmation bias. If you are convinced you're a great stock picker or that basketball players can "get hot," you will likely find the necessary proof.

"The brain looks for patterns," says Meir Statman, a finance professor at Santa Clara University in California. "And once you decide there is a pattern, you will look for confirming evidence and you will dismiss contradictory evidence as a fluke."

(2) Expecting less. - While it's hard to say definitively that some fund managers are superior to others, some basketball teams clearly are more skillful. Yet fans of weaker teams are forever hopeful.

How often does a college basketball team that's trailing at halftime come back to win? Allan Roth, a financial planner with Wealth Logic in Colorado Springs, Colo., often puts this question to audiences. He says people typically guess that between 30% and 60% of teams make a comeback.

In fact, Mr. Roth looked at over 3,300 college games played in November, December and January and found that, among teams trailing at the half, less than 20% came back to win. Why do folks think the number is so much higher? Mr. Roth figures there are two reasons.

First, we tend to be overly optimistic. "It's America," Mr. Roth says. "We believe in the underdog -- and we believe in the small investor." Even though studies suggest that most investors lag far behind the market, we like to think we can beat the odds and come out on top -- which helps explain why market-tracking index funds still aren't that popular.

Second, comeback victories tend to get the most media attention, so they stick in our minds. "It's the same thing with hot mutual funds and hot money managers," Mr. Roth says. "Because investors only hear about the winners, they think it's easy to beat the market."

(3) Playing the odds. - Investors hate the idea of losing, which can lead to irrational behavior.

Investors are often too worried about looking foolish in the short term. Stocks, like the three-point shot at the buzzer, may be the best bet. But many investors shy away from stocks, because they worry about stinging short-term losses and the pangs of regret that accompany them.

"If you believe there's a premium to owning stocks, you're crazy not to own them if you're a long-term investor," Prof. Thaler argues. "You shouldn't be so bothered by day-to-day or month-to-month volatility."

Hitching Your Wagon to a Star - Payoffs/Perilous

Hitching Your Wagon To a Star Has Payoffs But Can Be Perilous
March 14, 2006;
Wall Street Journal

Link to entire article

Every company basically organizes itself along two parallel lines. One is the conventional corporate hierarchy. The other is an informal network of shared political ties that create coalitions or clans.

The benefits of hitching your wagon to an office star are pretty clear: As your manager ascends the corporate hierarchy, he or she can pull you along as well. In the face of often plodding upward mobility at many companies, that can amount to a shortcut replete with substantial rewards, including money and power.

But there are also perils. Once a patron moves, departs or fades, that executive's favorites can become sitting ducks. Arguably, those employees may have been promoted beyond their competence. Blaming them avoids placing the blame where it belongs: on the kingpin responsible for their rise.

The fact is it's a jungle out there, and the players at most offices aren't that far removed from our distant relatives in the animal kingdom. "When a new lion takes over the pride, he kills all the babies sired by the previous male so he can sire new young," says retired environmental health specialist Don Vandervelde. "The same is true for chimpanzees and other primates."

Mentoring Not Currently Worth the Risk

Today's Bosses Find MentoringIsn't Worth The Time and Risks
By CAROL HYMOWITZ
WSJ
Monday, March 13, 2006
Link

Since he became chief executive officer of Irvine, Calif.-based Freedom Communications in January, Scott Flanders has been crisscrossing the country to meet and talk with employees at dozens of locations. But Mr. Flanders has also told his managers that they can't afford to constantly offer advice and guidance to their staffs.

"In this flatter world, where most managers have a broader span of control, there aren't enough hours in the day to double-check everything employees do," he says. "We can't tolerate mediocrity, but we have to presume the competence of employees -- and then, when we're disappointed, spend time coaching and training," or weed out failures.

This new model of management -- teaching by example and offering employees intermittent feedback rather than meticulously reviewing everything they do -- is being adopted formally and informally at many companies. It's a change many managers have to make. Their staffs are larger because of restructurings that have cut layers of managers, and increasingly they are expected to produce work themselves while supervising employees' output.

Many also feel pressured to spend more time with their own bosses, reporting their progress and lobbying for resources for their staffs. And with ranks thin and chances for promotion scarce, they are wary of investing too much personal capital in a young employee for fear that person may stumble later on, tarring their own reputation with superiors.

Mr. Flanders believes that managers who spend most of their time coaching employees on how to do their jobs are wasting their talents. They would be more useful, he thinks, if they thought of ways to expand their businesses and improve productivity and work quality. In his own first job, he says, his boss, who was an engineer, "inspected everything, but that slowed the pace of where we could move. Everything we did, we did with excellence, but we also lost market share."

The emerging hands-off management model does have critics. Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford Business School, cautions that "it's penny wise and pound foolish" for companies not to want managers to train and mentor employees. "Everyone has more people under them and many are playing it day by day, hoping their staffs will somehow be self-reliant," he says. "Maybe the lack of time for training won't affect performance today or next week," he adds, "but it will further down the road, when you need a new generation of leaders" or employees who can handle difficult assignments.

For most managers, it's a complicated juggling act knowing when and how much to coach employees. They don't have time for the hand-holding they may have received earlier in their careers, but they have to know who is and isn't performing well so they can jump in quickly if someone is underperforming.

"Doing this is a complicated dance, since no two employees take feedback in the same way," says Carl Bass, chief operating officer at Autodesk, the San Rafael, Calif., software maker. Some employees react well to candid criticism, saying it helps them to know what to do to improve, while others think it's a sign they're being shown the door.

Mr. Bass has learned to strategize before he meets with employees rather than blurt out criticism. He and Autodesk's human-resources chief met recently to discuss how to approach one valued employee they didn't want to lose about one aspect of his performance. They decided the employee would likely improve more quickly if he received praise for his past accomplishment along with advice about what he needed to do now.

Employees learn more from the example their boss sets than from any verbal feedback they are given, Mr. Bass believes. "As an executive, you're always being watched by employees," he says, "and everything you say gets magnified -- so you teach a lot by how you conduct yourself."

He adds that he learned one of his most important management lessons when he met Autodesk CEO Carol Bartz 13 years ago. Autodesk had just bought the company Mr. Bass had founded and Ms. Bartz, dressed in a business suit, was doing due diligence on the acquisition when Mr. Bass arrived at her office. She stopped everything and gave him her complete attention. "She made me feel like I was the most important person in the world, even though I was dressed in shorts and Birkenstock sandals," says Mr. Bass, who will become CEO when Ms. Bartz becomes executive chairman in May.

Tom Mattia, senior vice president, world-wide communications, at Coca-Cola, has about 90 direct reports, and he says he's trying to "mentor on the go." Last week he traveled from Atlanta to Chicago, New York and Louisville before heading to a weekend meeting in Miami. Next week he will fly to Sydney. "I try to make every interaction I have with someone on my team a teaching experience," he says. "There are always specific work issues that need to get addressed, but then I try to explain my thinking behind an approach so people can get more experience."

Rhino Principle Achieves Goals

The Rhino Principle
Paul Johnson, 01.30.06, 12:00 AM ET

There's a certain rule in life that I've found worth considering. It particularly applies if you're confronted by a crisis. I call it the Rhino Principle.

Now, the rhino is not a particularly subtle or clever animal. It's the last of the antediluvian quadrupeds to carry a great weight of body armor. And by all the rules of progressive design and the process of natural selection the rhino ought to have been eliminated. But it hasn't been. Why not? Because the rhino is single-minded. When it perceives an object, it makes a decision--to charge. And it puts everything it's got into that charge. When the charge is over, the object is either flattened or has gone a long way into cover, whereupon the rhino instantly resumes browsing.

Few people think of learning from a rhino. But I have. And when I hear of an author who cannot finish or get started on a book, I send him (or her) a rhino card. I paint a watercolor of a rhinoceros on the front of a postcard--something I do well, as I've practiced it a great many times. And in the space next to the address I write: "Stop fussing about that book. Just charge it. Keep on charging it until it is finished. That's what the rhino does. Put this card over your desk and remember the Rhino Principle."

Sending a rhino card usually works. Now, the Rhino Principle may not produce the perfect book, but it does produce a book. And once a book is drafted, it can be improved, polished and made satisfactory. But if the Rhino Principle is ignored, there is no book at all.

This principle can be applied to many other things, particularly business. When an entrepreneur has an object in his line of vision, he should dismiss all other considerations from his mind, abandon all other activities and charge directly at that object, continuing to charge until the object has been secured. All kinds of qualities are needed to make a great businessman. But aggressive single-mindedness is by far the most important. Indeed, it is indispensable.

To what extent does the Rhino Principle apply to politics and statesmanship? In my view it applies with even more force. The story of Moses in the book of Exodus is an exposition on this approach. So is the monumental story of Alexander the Great of Macedonia and the destruction of the Persian Empire. Caesar's conquest of Gaul, as described by himself, is another epic in the need to charge and keep on charging until the object is taken.

In the history of the United States one sees time and time again how success was achieved through the concentrated pursuit of a clear and definite aim.

The original settlers who arrived on the Mayflower observed this principle. They wanted the freedom to practice the religion of their choice, and to secure this they disregarded wealth, comfort and safety and worked toward their goal until it was achieved.

The American leaders who objected to George III's government argued around (and beside) the point until they produced the Declaration of Independence. This was the moment at which America adopted the Rhino Principle: A salient object was perceived, and everything was sacrificed for its attainment.

Abraham Lincoln concentrated all his energies into one two-pronged aim: the preservation of the Union and the defeat of those trying to sunder it. He pursued this aim wherever it took him and never deviated from it, despite enormous difficulties and reverses, until the Union was triumphant.

Winston Churchill embodied the Rhino Principle. His objects were not always consistent--and they were sometimes the wrong objects. But there was always the same single-mindedness in his pursuit of them. In 1940 Churchill and the defense of freedom in Europe came together in a common destiny. I remember, as a boy of 11, listening to his broadcasts during that fateful summer and hearing my father say, "That man Winston Churchill has a clear aim and is very determined. That is what we need today."

I've often noted that the statesmen who succeed on the big issues have a distinct vision of their goals combined with undeviating energy in pursuing them. Konrad Adenauer was one such example, Charles de Gaulle another. And in the 1980s two others who shared that trait, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, joined forces to win the Cold War. Neither was very sophisticated nor subtle, but both understood the importance of having a clear aim and concentrating unreservedly on that aim until it was accomplished.

Is President George W. Bush cast from the same mold? I rather think so. I certainly hope so.

We can choose to lead quiet lives and get through them without achieving much. But if we want to do the big thing, if we hope to leave a record that will be admired and remembered, we must learn to distinguish between the peripheral and the essential. Then, having clearly established our central objective, we must charge at it again and again until the goal is achieved.

That is what the rhinoceros does. It may not be a model animal in most ways. But it does one thing very well. And that one thing we can learn: Charge!

New Year's Proclamation on Black Tie Dinners

A proclamation issued on black-tie dinners:

Whereas black-tie dinners cost our corporations hundreds of thousands of dollars that could be spent on executive bonuses or other worthy things; and

Whereas not a single person I know under the age of 80 likes to go to these things, and the only reason the elderly like to go is that they really don't have anything else to do at night, don't eat much, and fit into clothes they bought 20 years ago; and

Whereas this is a new century, and the time is right to reevaluate dead customs and shake off the husks of past traditions that no longer have meaning;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that from this date forward ALL BLACK-TIE DINNERS SHALL BE ABOLISHED and the savings be given to whatever good causes would have benefited had the events been held.

The Leadership Mindset

Business Week
January 30, 2006
By Jack and Suzy Welch

The Leadership Mindset
Success will now come from the reflected glory of your team, not from what you do

I've been appointed to a senior leadership position for the first time. It's a challenging job, and I want your advice on how to approach my new role. -- Darlington Ntuli, Randburg, South Africa

First of all, kudos are in order. Not for getting promoted, though that's great. But kudos because you seem to understand that being a leader means you will actually have to change how you act. Too often, people who are promoted to their first leadership position miss that point. And that failure probably trips up careers more than any other reason.

Being a leader changes everything. Before you are a leader, success is all about you. It's about your performance. Your contributions. It's about raising your hand, getting called on, and delivering the right answer.

When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. It's about making the people who work for you smarter, bigger, and bolder. Nothing you do anymore as an individual matters except how you nurture and support your team and help its members increase their self-confidence. Yes, you will get your share of attention from up above -- but only inasmuch as your team wins. Put another way: Your success as a leader will come not from what you do but from the reflected glory of your team.

Now, that's a big transition -- and no question, it's hard. Being a leader basically requires a whole new mindset. You're no longer constantly thinking "How can I stand out?" but "How can I help my people do their jobs better?" Sometimes that requires undoing a couple of decades of momentum. After all, you probably spent your entire life, starting in grade school and continuing through your last job, as a contributor who excels at "raising your hand." But the good news is that you've been promoted because someone above you believes you have the stuff to make the leap from star player to successful coach.

What does that leap actually involve? First and foremost, you need to actively mentor your people. Exude positive energy about life and the work that you are doing together, show optimism about the future, and care. Care passionately about each person's progress. Give your people feedback -- not just at yearend and midyear performance reviews but after meetings, presentations, or visits to clients. Make every significant event a teaching moment. Discuss what you like about what they are doing and ways that they can improve. Your energy will energize those around you.

And there's no need for sugarcoating. Use total candor, which happens, incidentally, to be one of the defining characteristics of effective leaders.

Through it all, never forget -- you're a leader now. It's not about you anymore. It's about them.

I've always heard it said that "there is no profit in winning if you lose your soul." Will historians say of us: "They won fortunes in the new global economy...but destroyed families, communities, and even nations"? What do you call winning? -- Doug Flett, Edinburgh, Scotland

Winning, actually, doesn't have anything to do with the markets or profits -- though it can. Winning is a personal journey. It's about reaching a destination you choose. At its most fundamental, winning is about achievement. Your goal could be creating a happy family, teaching children to read, or sailing around the world. Then again, it could be building a company that succeeds in the global marketplace.

Your suggestion that economic success is somehow, by definition, morally corrupt is dead wrong. Look, winning in business is not a zero-sum game. In sports, when one team wins, the other loses. In business, when a company wins, there are usually collateral winners, too. The executives and shareholders, of course, but also employees, distributors, and suppliers. Success often leads to dozens of startups that supply the "mother" company, creating jobs, the lifeblood of any society. When people have meaningful work, they have the freedom to set goals, not just survive. They have the freedom to dream.

Sure, there are those who lose their souls to profit. That old story gets refreshed with every new account of corporate cheating. There always will be corrupt jerks in every field, from the priesthood to politics. But we believe that most businesspeople want to win the right way. They want to start companies or help build them. They want to search for new ideas. They want to invent new technologies. They want a better life for their families, friends, and colleagues.

Will future historians look back on these people and say their definition of winning ruined the world? Or might they just say they made it a better place?

Manliness Mansfield: Calling all Hombres

Harvey Mansfield, the 73-year-old government professor and conservative elder statesman of Harvard University, has a new book out called "Manliness". The book was discussed in the Wall Street Journal last week.

"After more than a half-century at the university -- as undergrad, grad student and professor -- Mr. Mansfield seems to have settled into his role as campus gadfly. This is not to say that scholarship and teaching do not occupy his time. In the past 40 years, he has published more than a dozen books, including a translation of Tocqueville, as well as groundbreaking studies of Machiavelli and Burke.

But it is his combat with campus liberal orthodoxy that has brought him a more public profile. To drive home his crusade against grade inflation, he began giving students a real grade (what he actually thinks of their work) and an "ironic grade" (which goes to the registrar). More controversially, Mr. Mansfield argues that grade inflation is the result of the university's affirmative-action program -- admitting too many underqualified minority students and then not wanting to give them poor marks."

Mansfield will be speaking at NC State in the next few weeks. The following are some selected comments from the WSJ:

"Defend yourself." That's the lesson Harvey Mansfield drew for Larry Summers the week before Harvard's president was forced to resign. Mr. Mansfield went on to suggest that Mr. Summers's capitulation to those he offended (when he said women might be biologically less inclined to succeed in the hard sciences) is not simply a craven kowtow to political correctness, but proof, also, of a character flaw. Indeed, Mr. Mansfield continued with a mischievous smile, "He has apologized so much that he looks unmanly."

His new book, "Manliness" (manfully, no subtitle), argues that the gender-neutral society created by modern feminists has been bad both for women and men, and that it is time for men to rediscover, and women to appreciate, the virtue of manliness.

Mr. Mansfield's contention that women and men are not the same is now widely supported by social scientists. The core of his definition of manliness -- "confidence in a risky situation" -- is not so far from that of biologists and sociologists, who find men to be more abstract in their thinking and aggressive in their behavior than women, who are more contextual in their thinking and conciliatory in their behavior.

Science is good for confirming what "common sense" already tells us, Mr. Mansfield allows, but beyond that, he has little use for it: "Science is a particular enemy of manliness. Manliness asserts something you can't scientifically prove, namely the importance of human beings." Science simply sees people as just another part of the natural world. But what manly men assert, according to Mr. Mansfield, is that "they are important and that their party, their country, their society, their group, whatever it may be, is important." As examples, Mr. Mansfield offers Arnold Schwarzenegger (predictably, since he's no girly-man), Humphrey Bogart, Donald Rumsfeld and Margaret Thatcher -- yes, women can occasionally be manly. (Both Clintons are manly in their own ways -- Hillary is "formidable," while Bill is the "envy of vulgar men.")

Achilles, though, is Mr. Mansfield's model of a manly man. "He challenged his boss, Agamemnon, who had taken his girlfriend from him. He didn't so much make a complaint against him as to . . . say that what Agamemnon had done was the act of an inferior person, and that only true heroes, the men of virtue like Achilles, are fit to rule." In other words, Achilles raised the stakes and resolved to defend a cause larger than himself -- the manly action par excellence.

Mr. Mansfield suggests that it is difficult to rid men of their tendency to seek out such battles. Yet he believes that the sexual revolution has been a surprisingly easy one. "Certainly," he notes, "there has been no massive resistance like the segregationists opposed to the civil-rights movement." He has been surprised by the extent to which men have adjusted to this current system, but believes the evidence that they will never do so completely is to be found all around us.

Take housework. Mr. Mansfield cites surveys that show that despite their now equal capacity to be hired for jobs outside the home, American women still do two-thirds of the housework. He argues that this is not simply a hangover from our former oppressive patriarchy. Rather, he writes, it is evidence of manliness. "Men look down on women's work . . . not because they think it is dirty or boring or insignificant, which is often true of men's work; they look down on it because it is women's work."

When it comes to the subject of housework, Mr. Mansfield has a decidedly different take from that of the late Betty Friedan. He accepts her point that keeping house in the modern era need not be a full-time job, and that boredom, or "the problem that has no name," is a natural byproduct of forcing educated women to remain in the home, even when there is not enough to keep them occupied mentally or physically. But he disapproves of her "demeaning of household work to . . . a necessary thing that you can't take any pride in." And though he doesn't accuse Friedan of doing so, Mr. Mansfield suggests that more radical feminists, like Simone de Beauvoir, built upon this notion "to demean motherhood as well."

Such women might well wonder, as I did, what we have to gain from encouraging men to do less of the housework. But Mr. Mansfield believes that women do instinctually realize the value of respecting manliness. He offers the example of the police detective in the movie "Fargo." She performs her job "wonderfully," says Mr. Mansfield, but "she's careful to maintain the sensibilities of her husband . . ., an artist, who at the end of the movie succeeds in getting his drawing accepted for a two-cent postage stamp." "This is pitiful," he laughs, "but she makes a big thing of it."

Of course, Mr. Mansfield doesn't need to go to the movies to see how men and women behave today. He has the classroom for that. Though he thinks that his female students have become "more assertive than they used to be," he observes that "the very same women will be careful of the sensibilities of the men they wish to attract and not try to compete with them except in fun or ironically." "If not," his brow rises slightly, "I think they would have trouble getting married."

"What you see today at Harvard and elsewhere are a lot of liberal males who are trying to make women happy by trying to treat them as if they weren't women." "And that," says the man who never misses the chance to open a door for a woman or help her put on her coat, "doesn't work very well." So why didn't he simply write a book on gentlemanliness? "Because before you're a gentleman, you have to be a man. Gentlemanliness is a refinement. It presupposes that you have a certain superiority over women, but teaches you how to exercise it. It also teaches you that women are superior in their ways."

How to Meet

From the Wall Street Journal on March 6, 2006; Page B3

Theory & Practice: Corporate Meetings Go Through a Makeover
Better Productivity Is Goal As Methods Differ to Boost Effectiveness of Employees
By PHRED DVORAK

So it isn't surprising that managers increasingly seek ways to make meetings more productive. At Silicon Valley start-up Ruckus Wireless, employees remove the chairs from some meetings so participants get to the point quicker.

Poor meetings waste time and money, but they also may harm employee health. Professors in the U.S. and Britain recently surveyed 676 employees, who said they spend an average of 5.6 hours a week in meetings. The employees got gloomier and more anxious about their jobs the more time they spent in meetings they considered ineffective, says Steven Rogelberg, a principal researcher.

That may explain why there is now an industry of professional "facilitators," complete with a 1,300-member international organization and standards to become a "Certified Professional Facilitator." These gurus say one sure warning sign of a bad meeting is that attendees don't know what they're doing there.

"A lot of people come to us and say, 'I have no idea why I'm in those meetings,' " says Janet Danforth, a certified facilitator. Ms. Danforth says one of her corporate clients determined that ineffective meetings were costing the company about $1 million a year in lost productivity for 16 high-ranking employees alone.

Like most meeting consultants, Ms. Danforth advises clients to have a clear purpose and an agenda before they start. Other common suggestions: Set strict time limits, make sure discussion stays on track and know who is going to make decisions. In her meetings, Ms. Danforth also forbids gadgetry like BlackBerry email devices and notebook computers.

Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., requires all new hires to take a four-hour class in "Effective Meetings," featuring role-playing, quizzes and a 25-page handbook covering topics from the six rules of agenda-writing to the four essential roles to be filled at every meeting.

Agendas in Advance
Some of Intel's tips: Don't mix up housekeeping meetings for routine updates with those that aim to solve a specific problem; avoid "rat holes," or off-track discussions; and always prepublish agendas. Employees say the pointers aren't always religiously observed, but the standardized format helps.

Other companies have had success with radically different meeting techniques: Witness the experience of Triumph International (Japan) Ltd., a unit of a Swiss women's underwear maker.

At Triumph Japan, President Koichiro Yoshikoshi convenes a daily meeting at 8:30 a.m. sharp, at which he quizzes the company's managers on everything from the design of the new line of junior bras to the benefits of routing phone calls over the Internet. There is no agenda and no debate: Mr. Yoshikoshi decides on the topics of interest, and tries to finish each topic in two minutes or less, averaging about 40 topics in each hourlong session.

Mr. Yoshikoshi keeps the material related to each subject in its own clear plastic folder -- often popping documents into an overhead projector so his staff can see what he's referring to, a spokeswoman says.

The company's 50-odd top managers are required to attend or videoconference in from Triumph offices throughout Japan. If Mr. Yoshikoshi asks a question that no one can answer on the spot, he gives them a deadline for a reply -- usually the next day. For anything that is going to take more than a week to settle, Mr. Yoshikoshi demands a timetable -- within the week -- detailing exactly when things will get done.

8 Ways to Build Relationship Capital

I love this kind of stuff and over time hope to build a repository of solid business advice.

From Business Week:

1. Establish the rules of the game. Families should create a communication code of conduct so that all members play by the same rules.

2. Stop thinking about communication as a tool for getting people to agree with you. The goal isn't agreement, but understanding. Strive to understand the perspective of others, and you'll go from being a strong-armed leader to a good communicator and decision-maker.

3. Ask more questions. This one change in tactics will build understanding and improve communications. Of course, it's tough to keep on asking questions when someone disagrees with you, but that's how you go about gaining understanding.

4. Realize that giving people a voice doesn't always mean giving them a vote. Many leaders fail to elicit opinions because they fear this would give away their power. That's particularly common when parents and children work together. But our research shows that when people are given a voice, they are much more likely to support a final decision -- even if they don't agree with it.

5. Let others know your weaknesses and let them coach you. When one leader told his team that he recognized he had a temper, it allowed them to talk about it openly. Afterward, his salespeople no longer avoided speaking to him.

6. Don't make everything about right and wrong. When you communicate in absolute terms, you don't give other people room to have an opinion. You force them to agree with you, fight with you, or ignore you. Don't confuse strong opinions with strong leadership.

7. Cultivate positive feelings about others. If you dwell on negative thoughts, even when justified, they'll affect both what you say and how you say it. Communicate positively, and you'll promote positive change.

8. Address hard issues head-on. When the sister who had called me about her brother finally talked to him about his work ethic, he improved his habits. And the tension between them began to evaporate. That's the kind of relationship capital they can draw on to improve their business, and their families, in the future.