You Can Tell I'm the Boss Because I'm Chewing With My Mouth Open...

Disclaimer!!! All but one of my past six bosses have had great table manners.  My current boss has great table manners.  Glad I got that in there...

One of the things that can happen to people who gain more power in organizations is that they can cease to feel like the rules apply to them.  I would call that the "to heck with it, I'm in charge" mindset.  The cool leaders don't succumb to that line of thinking, and go above and beyond to treat themselves like the rest of the employee population.

Of course, it doesn't always work like that, as Paul Hebert of Incentive Intelligence recently told us over as Fistful of Talent.  I like to think of it as the "Gecko Rules"

"When the behavior Senior Managers want isn’t modeled by the Senior Managers in a company, the company is on the fast-track to chaos.  Think about the two levels of “culture” in many companies.  To give you a head start, here are a few:

-Working from home – VPs do it, CEOs do it, even educated Directors do it – but don’t let that Marketing Manager do it – he may take a nap.

-Dinner on the expense account – How often does the VP of “X” get with the VP of “Y” for dinner to discuss organizational stuff and the meal is expensed?  Quite a bit.  But let's see how fast the expense report for a programmer and an operations person meeting over pizza and beer to work out a glitch in the system gets kicked back.

-Cubes vs Offices with Doors – hey – all you people without doors on your office – you’re our most important asset – but knock first when you come to my office – I've got a door (neener, neener, neener.)

Now, don’t take this as a rant on Senior Managers – hey – I’ve been one.  My only point is that as a Senior Manager in a company, you have responsibility to model the behaviors that define your company.  Don’t think little transgressions go unnoticed by employees." 

Paul's list is a pretty good one of how two distinct cultures can emerge, and is consistent with the following guidance from the esteemed Bob Sutton (of Stanford University and the author of The No A****** Rule) over at Business Week:

"A growing body of research—notably by professors Dachner Keltner at University of California, Berkeley, Deborah Gruenfeld at Stanford, and their students—documents that three things happen when people are put in positions of power:

1. They focus more on satisfying their own needs;

2. They focus less on the needs of their underlings;

3. They act like "the rules" others are expected to follow don't apply to them.

A particularly amusing study—undertaken by Keltner, Gruenfeld, and another colleague—shows that giving people just a little more power than their colleagues causes them to eat more cookies, chew with their mouths open, and leave more crumbs. Keltner also cites research showing that power leads people to process information in shallower ways and to make decisions that are less carefully reasoned."

What puzzled me about Sutton's cited study was the cookies thing.  Why more cookies?  When you get more power, do you assume money and power take over for looks?

Note - if you ever see me chewing more with my mouth open, it's because I have a head cold. 

I Promise...

Comments

[Evil HR Lady]

Well, if I'd known that Sr. Mgmt gets more cookies, I wouldn't have taken the mommy track.

[Michael Haberman, SPHR]

But Evil, mommy's get more cookies anyway.

[Jenn Barnes / HR Wench]

1. Paul Hebert is awesome.
2. I love "the cookie study". I just want to know who's job was it to scrape up the crumbs and weigh them...

[Evil HR Lady]

Michael--yes, but we have to bake them (or buy them) and then try to keep them out of the grubby paws of our toddlers. If you are an executive, others bring you the cookies.

[Meg Bear]

had a chat with a friend last weekend where he mentioned that at an unnamed consulting firm the partners didn't have "areas for improvement" in their performance reviews, instead they had "a style". I found myself on the one hand annoyed and on the other hand saying "yeah! that's what it is, it's my style". What can I say, I'm conflicted ;-)
PS I have excellent table manners