Identity Card

Identity Card

BLOGGER:  ARIN GOLDMAN

When I got my first business card I felt like I had arrived.  Simple black print on a white card with little more than my name and extension, the classic Salomon Brothers starter card.  There wasn’t even a title on that first card since in those days, before title proliferation, Salomon Brothers designated rank by differentiating the quality of the paper and the color of the type, rather than by including a title.  My basic black and white card was low end but that was okay, all that mattered to me was that I finally had a job and a title even if it wasn’t explicitly noted on my card.  I was on my way.  Over the years my titles changed,  the company merged and changed its name a few times and my card became congested with all kinds of additional data. Fax numbers, email addresses, cell phone numbers, logos.  My business card had become my identity, a way to share information in multiple settings both business and social.  And I had cards with me at all times.  I was so accustomed to exchanging cards that I accidentally gave one to a mugger when he asked for my credit cards.  Fortunately, he never called and I saved myself the inconvenience of having to cancel stolen cards.  I kept at least one of all of my cards, each one signifying a different phase of my both my professional career and my life.  When I left banking someone told me that it was okay to use my old cards during my trarnsition so I did, but after awhile it seemed a little desperate to introduce myself as Arin Goldman, former Managing Director so I finally gave up using my last set of business cards, relegating them to the drawer with all of the other dated cards.  There I was cardless, a woman without an identity.  For a long time I carried index cards so I would have a piece of paper to write my name, number and email address on if necessary.  Once when asked for my “card” by someone with whom I really wanted to exchange contact information I awkwardly ran into my apartment building and borrowed a scrap of paper from my doorman, quickly scrawling my number and email address on a torn piece of menu. More than twenty years as a professional and the best I could do was share information via a ripped piece of menu. Still despite that indignity I continued to remain cardless in part because I couldn’t figure out what I would put on a card and in part because I remained embarassed that I didn’t have a title or company name to include.  Even though I had become increasingly content outside of a corporate setting, I couldn’t come to terms with the whole card thing and so I remained a person without an identity.

Finally, a few weeks ago I decided to take control. I realized that tying my identity to a company was ridiculous.  In these uncertain economic times, with companies tossing off loyal employees right and left, going out of business, selling themselves and giving up names and logos, why shouldn’t I have my own card. Given the current economic and employment enviroment it no longer seems necessary to have a company logo or a title.  My new cards are simple, they include my name, cell phone and email address.  And www.imagineage.com of course!

To find out more about Arin, click on her photo

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WHY CEOs DO SUCH STUPID THINGS

Why CEOs Do Stupid Things

BLOGGER: JOEL WEINBERGER, PHD

A scorpion asked a frog to take him across a river.  The frog refused, saying, “You will sting me.”

 

The scorpion replied, “It would be foolish for me to sting you because then we would both die.”

 

The reassured frog agreed to carry the scorpion across the river.  At the halfway point, the scorpion stung the frog.  The dying frog asked, “Why did you sting me? You will die too.”

 

 “It’s my nature”, replied the scorpion.

We have witnessed the CEOs of the major car companies flying to Washington on private jets to ask for billions to rescue them from their own bad management decisions.  Next came the bank CEOs begging to be rescued from their foolish, almost criminal, behavior with subprime bonds.  Vikram Pandit, the CEO of Citigroup, assured Congress that he “gets it.”  A few months later, he authorized the expenditure of 10 million dollars to redo executive office suites for top Citigroup executives.  And the list for AIG is long enough to fill this essay.  The latest was that they awarded “retention” bonuses, totaling tens of millions of dollars, to employees of the very division that brought them to the brink.  Many of these valued employees have left so that the bonuses designed to retain them are instead rewarding them for jumping ship.  The excuse?  Contractual obligation.  Suddenly the corporate world has discovered obligation and responsibility, at least when the object of said values are themselves.  And now, one of these CEOs, Rick Wagoner of GM, has become a sacrificial lamb to our anger.

How do we explain this?  Stupidity?  Greed?  Arrogance?  Callous indifference to the opinions and feelings of others?  To a degree, all of the above.  But there is more going on and that more is part of human psychology.  These people acted exactly as people who hold such positions can be expected to act.  It was their nature.

People do not become CEOs by accident.  They want to run major corporations.  In addition to hard work, sacrifice, intelligence, connections, and luck, research has shown that there is a personality type that strives to climb to the top rung of the corporate ladder and is more likely to get there.  Such a person is high in what is called Power Motivation.  Power motivation refers to the desire to have an impact on the world and/or others.  When it is poorly socialized, power motivation can result in being a mob boss or a boxer who bites off ears.  When it is well socialized, it can result in rising to the top of an organization, to becoming an executive, even a CEO. 

People high in power motivation have certain characteristics that go along with their need to have an impact.  They are competitive with others and assertive in their interactions.  They need to be top dog.  They crave prestige.  Thus, they value corner offices, keys to the executive washroom or even private bathrooms, exclusive country clubs, chauffer driven cars, private jets, and well-appointed offices.  They own high performance cars, wear expensive suits, and have their initials monogrammed onto their shirt cuffs.  The more such prestige items, the better.  Consider the impact of walking into a spacious, corner office with a magnificent view.  Although such an office has no bearing on the quality of work done in it, it screams importance and prestige.  This is just what the high power personality lives for.  Bonuses are important because they bestow immediate prestige.  They show how important you are and how much more important you are than your fellows.  They are better than high salaries because they can be repeated every year.

High power people also are prone to taking risks, especially when their choices are public.  This is both because big risks have more impact than small risks and because they do not want to be seen as “wimpy.”  An important person with high prestige needs to be at the forefront and show high competitiveness and nerve.  Taking risks shows “balls”, something a powerful person needs to have.  Leaders, people of high impact, top dogs, cannot be timid.  And, they get a charge out of having the kind of impact a high-risk decision can bring.

What this means is that CEOs are just behaving in accord with their personalities, their natures.  They are about prestige items, being splashy, and looking important.  They must take big risks and are especially likely to do so when others, especially competitors, are watching.  That they would behave in a manner consistent with their natures should not be surprising.  Even their inability to anticipate the public outcry their behavior engenders in our current economic climate is related to power motivation.  Much of this motive (and others) is not fully conscious.  People high in power motivation do what they do without really thinking about it.  These behaviors come naturally to them.  Only if something is clearly pointed out, would such a person become aware of the negative impression he or she is making.  This accounts for the “blindness” such people sometimes have to their foolish and callous acts.

What to do?  First, demonizing, unless the law has been broken (as with Madoff), does no good.  These people are just being who they are.  And who they are can results in positive consequences for their companies.  They work hard.  They are devoted to their companies.  It is only when their need to show off, to display, to be top dog, adversely affects business that we have the meltdowns we are now experiencing.

The good news is that these people, unlike mafia dons, are generally well socialized. They want to do the right thing.  If socialization pressures change, if what confers prestige changes, so will their behavior.  In order to reduce negative risk taking, outrageous bonuses, and out of line perks, the contingencies that support them have to be changed.  CEOs have to be made aware of the negative impact of some of their behaviors.  This changes their reward values.  The big three auto CEOs drove to their next congressional hearings instead of jetting there.  Many of the AIG bonus babies gave back their bonuses.  These items no longer conferred prestige.  Instead, they conferred shame and ridicule.  Top dogs do not want shame and ridicule.  They will do almost anything to avoid them.  The new prestige item may be $1 salaries.  Such a person is taking huge risks, making tremendous sacrifices, and garnering favorable publicity.  Such a person is having a real impact and is being admired. 

Those monitoring CEOs can also keep the potential negatives of power motivation in line.  (I wouldn’t count on boards since they are likely to be high in power motivation themselves.)  If they do not, the CEOs will revert to their former behaviors once their companies are no longer in trouble so that their self-sacrificing behavior no longer has impact or creates prestige.  (We also cannot expect highly skilled people to work for nothing indefinitely.)  If stockholders know that high power people are liable to these excesses, they might keep a closer eye on them, especially when things seem too good to be true.  Make certain that perks and bonuses reflect the company’s performance rather than a competition for prestige items between a small group of competitive individuals with power.  Since stockholders can be shortsighted, focusing on immediate payoffs, government has a place as well, as watchdog.  These checks may be necessary.  If we disregard the nature of power motivation, we are likely to be stung again. 

But the stockholders, society, and government also need to realize what makes high power people tick.  They need prestige.  They need to have impact.  They need the thrill of competition and of risk.  They need an outlet for these needs or they will obtain no fulfillment from their jobs.  They will have no incentives to work hard or even to seek employment in the corporate world.  They then won’t do the good they can do in our economic system.  If we don’t respect their nature, we will not benefit from it.

So, the solution is to allow, even encourage, the search for prestige and impact but to keep a watchful eye out for the excesses high power motivation people are prone to. In a nutshell, monitor, but do not straightjacket, corporate CEOs.  Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater through mistrust of the societal concerns of those high in power motivation (a left-wing excess) and don’t give free rein to unbridled power motivation in order to unleash the free market potential of talented people (a right-wing excess).

What are your thoughts?  Leave a comment.

Joel Weinberger is Professor of Psychology at Adelphi University.  He is also Founder of Thinkscan.com.  You can find out more about Joel at www.thinkscan.com.

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