Bill Marriott Jr. on the Lesson He Learned from Ike

In this week's New York Times Corner Office column, Adam Bryant interviews Bill Marriott Jr., Executive Chairman and former CEO of Marriott International.   The hotel company's longtime leader and founder's son offered this interesting anecdote about a time when he met President Dwight Eisenhower. 

In 1954, I had just finished Supply Corps School and came home for Christmas to our farm in Virginia. Dad’s best friend at the time was Ezra Taft Benson, who was secretary of agriculture and later became president of the L.D.S. church [Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]. And he invited Ike and Mamie Eisenhower. So here’s the president and the secretary of agriculture, here’s my father, and here I am. They wanted to take Ike to shoot some quail, but it was cold and the wind was blowing like crazy. My dad said, “Should we go and shoot quail or should we stand by the fire?”And Eisenhower turned around and looked at me and he said, “What do you think we should do?”  That made me realize how he got along with de Gaulle, Churchill, Roosevelt and others — by including them in the decision and asking them what they thought. So I tried to adopt that style of management as I progressed in life, by asking my people, “What do you think?” Now, I didn’t always go with what they thought. But I felt that if I included them in the decision-making process, and asked them what they thought, and I listened to what they had to say and considered it, they usually got on board because they knew they’d been respected and heard, even if I went in a different direction than what they were recommending. 

I found the anecdote fascinating, because it confirms my conclusions about Eisenhower as a decision-maker.  In Chapter 9 of Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer, I examine Eisenhower's leadership during the months leading up to the D-Day invasion.    Here is an excerpt:

General Dwight Eisenhower commanded one of the most powerful military forces ever assembled in human history during World War II.   Under his skilled leadership, the Allied Forces stormed the beaches of France, defeated Hitler’s army, and liberated Europe.  Several years later, the American people elected the popular war hero as their President.   Naturally, not everyone believed that the retired general would make a smooth transition to the Oval Office.  During Harry Truman’s final months in the White House, he reflected on the challenges awaiting his successor: “He’ll sit here, and he’ll say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen.  Poor Ike – it won’t be a bit like the Army.  He’ll find it very frustrating.”[i]  

Truman spoke from experience.  Getting his ideas and decisions implemented had been a formidable challenge at times.  The obstacles did not always prove to be his opponents in Congress; at times, Truman encountered resistance from members of his own administration.[ii]  Political scientist Richard Neustadt, who worked for Truman and several other chief executives, once observed, “The President of the United States has an extraordinary range of formal powers… despite his ‘powers’ he does not obtain results by giving orders – or not, any rate, merely by giving orders.”[iii]   Even the leader of the free world needs to build commitment and shared understanding if he wants his decisions to be executed in a timely and efficient manner.    

As it turns out, Eisenhower could not simply issue dictums from on high, even as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II.[iv]   He needed to hold a complicated alliance together and balance the competing demands of many strong-willed individuals on both sides of the Atlantic including the two heads of state, Churchill and Roosevelt; each nation’s military chief of staff, Marshall and Brooke; and powerful field commanders such as Montgomery, Patton, Tedder, and Spaatz.   Historian Stephen Ambrose has pointed out that Eisenhower’s diplomatic skills often proved to be more important than his strategy-making prowess.  He observed:

“Although none of his immediate superiors or subordinates seemed to realize it, Eisenhower could not afford to be a table-thumper.  With Montgomery’s prestige, power, and personality, for example, had Eisenhower stormed into his headquarters, banged his fist on the table, and shouted out a series of demands, his actions could have been disastrous.”[v] 

 

Eisenhower learned the importance of persuasion from one of his mentors, Brigadier General Fox Conner.  Eisenhower served on Conner’s staff in the Panama Canal Zone during the early 1920s.  Conner shared stories and lessons about his time on General Pershing’s staff during World War I.  He made the young Eisenhower study history extensively.  Eisenhower explained what he learned: 

 

“He laid great stress in his instruction to me on what he called the ‘art of persuasion.’  Since no foreigner could be given outright administrative command of troops of another nation, they would have to be coordinated very closely, and this needed persuasion.  He would get out a book of applied psychology and we would talk it over.  How do you get allies of different nations to march and think as a nation?  There is no question of his molding my thinking on this from the time I was thirty-one.”[vi]  

As Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force many years later, Eisenhower indeed proved quite adept at bringing people together and finding common ground. The enemy too recognized Eisenhower’s strengths as a leader; the Germans once wrote that, “His strongest point is said to be an ability for adjusting personalities to one another and smoothing over opposite viewpoints.”[vii] Consider how Eisenhower chose the D-Day invasion strategy amidst much contentious debate among the heads of state and military commanders.  He built commitment to the final plan by leading a fair and legitimate decision process.   During often heated deliberations, Ambrose points out that Eisenhower “acted as chairman, listening judiciously to both sides, then making the final decision.”[viii]   He insured that everyone “received a fair hearing.”[ix]  Moreover, “his basic method was to approach all problems objectively himself, and to convince others that he was objective.”[x]  

---

[i] R. Neustadt. (1980). Presidential power. New York: John Wiley and Sons. p. 9. 

[ii]Reflecting on the inefficiencies of decision-making within the U.S. government, Truman once said, “When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship." 
[iii]Neustadt, (1980). p. 10. 
[iv] This discussion of the decision-making process leading up to the D-Day invasion draws from historian Stephen Ambrose’s book on Eisenhower’s war years.  See S. Ambrose. (1970). The supreme commander: The war years of Dwight D. Eisenhower. New York: Doubleday.  For instructors wishing to teach about Eisenhower’s approach to planning the D-Day invasion, they might consider asking students to view a film about the decision-making process that the general led during the first half of 1944.  See R. Harmon. (2004). Ike: Countdown to D Day. Columbia Tristar.
[v] Ambrose, (1970). p. 323.   
[vi]Jean Edward Smith. Eisenhower in War and Peace.  2012.  New York: Random House. pg. 66.  
[vi]Ambrose, (1970). p. 324. 
[viii]Ambrose, (1970). p. 371. 
[ix]Ambrose, (1970). p. 373. 
[x]Ambrose, (1970). p. 664.

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Using Social Influence For Some Good

Consider the following three signs posted in hotel bathrooms (from a study by UCLA Professor Noah Goldstein and his co-authors):

HELP SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT

The environment deserves our respect.  You can show your respect for nature and help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay. 

JOIN YOUR FELLOW GUESTS IN HELPING TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT

Almost 75% of the guests who are asked to participate in our new resource savings program do help by using their towels more than once.  You can join your fellow guests in this program to help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay.

JOIN YOUR FELLOW GUESTS IN HELPING TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT

In a study conducted in Fall 2003, 75% of the guests who stayed in this room (#xxx) participated in your new resource savings program by using towels more than once.  You can join your fellow guests in this program to help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay.

Does the hotel guests' behavior change as a result of these changes in the language on these bathroom signs?  It sure does!   With the first sign posted above, 35% of guests chose to reuse their towels.   With the second sign, the participation increased to 44%.  Finally, the third sign increased reuse rates to 49.3%.   

What's going on here?   We are affected by the behavior of others - no surprise there.  We are more affected by "people like us" than by others with whom we do not feel a common bond.  Francesca Gino explains the research on this topic in her new book (Sidetracked: How our decisions get derailed, and how we can stick to the plan).  What's amazing about the example above is that the common bond created in the third experimental condition is simply that others stayed in the same hotel  room as the individual reading the sign about re-using towels.   The others are complete strangers!  Yet, the fact that they stayed in the same room creates just enough of a bond to nudge up the rate at which guests reuse towels.   Common bonds and social influence, of course, can also affect us in negative ways.   In this case, though, the researchers showed how we can use influence processes for some good. 

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Should You Examine All Your Options At Once?

Stanford Professor Baba Shiv and Columbia Professor Sheena Iyengar have conducted some interesting new research about consumer decision-making processes.  They created a series of experiments to examine whether consumers were more satisfied when they examined all their options at the same time, versus looking at the options sequentially.

Their experiments involved the purchase of products including wine, chocolate, and nail polish.   The research findings showed that, "Sequential choosers were less satisfied with their chocolates than were participants in the simultaneous group. And, when offered the opportunity to switch to a different chocolate — a randomly selected one, they were told — more of the sequential choosers opted to do so, even though they knew virtually nothing about it."

What explains the higher satisfaction on the part of those examining all their options at once? The researchers argue that hope and regret play a significant role.  People in the sequential situation worry about possible future options (subsequent and unknown) that they may forgo by making a choice now.   People don't seem to have that worry when they examine a wide array of alternatives simultaneously. 

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How Do Sexy Ads Affect Consumers' Desire for Immediate Rewards?

Wharton marketing professor Gal Zauberman and USC Professor B. Kyu Kim, have written a working paper called "Can Victoria's Secret Change the Future? A Subjective Time Perception Account of Sexual-cue Effects on Impatience."   The scholars conducted a series of experiments in which they showed "sexually suggestive and non-suggestive photographs to self-identified heterosexual male students."  The suggestive photos came from the Victoria's Secret catalog.  Geesh... I imagine that students flocked to sign up for this study!  

After seeing the images, subjects had to assess the value of items, such as a $65 Amazon gift card, that were received immediately versus a year later.  The research found that viewing the suggestive photos tended to enhance the value of the immediate reward and diminish the value of rewards provided a year later.  In other words, the subjects' discount rate rose substantially. 

Zauberman argues that, "Part of the reason why people discount future events, more or less, is their perception of duration [of time]."  The suggestive photos may "lengthen the perceived temporal distance to delayed rewards. That is, sexual cues make the wait seem subjectively longer, resulting in greater impatience."  In other words, consumers may not only be compelled to buy an item, but they may be much more likely to buy NOW even if it is not the most prudent financial decision. 

The scholars conducted other experiments as well.   They also showed subjects photos "designed to elicit physical symptoms similar to arousal -- increased heartbeat and respiration, for example -- that weren't actually sexual in nature."  Interestingly, people showed the same impatience that occurred when they had viewed the suggestive photographs.   In sum, "Sex may not be the only driver of this temporal response."

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Pixar Storytelling Rules: One Rule Could Help You Make Better Decisions?

I found this terrific list of Pixar storytelling rules the other day.  I encourage all my readers to take a look.  The lessons apply to all storytelling, not just the development of animated movies.  Since great leaders tell stories to communicate key messages, the rules are a must-read for business executives. 

I'm particularly interested in Rule #9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

Think of a tough decision you have had to make recently, one characterized by high stakes and a great deal of ambiguity.   Were you stuck at some point, unsure of how to proceed?  If so, you might try applying this rule.  Make a list of the options you would clearly NOT pursue.  Ask yourself why.   Developing the options that are clearly not plausible or attractive may help you generate alternatives that do make sense.  

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Does a Flat Organization Have Negative Consequences?

Julie Wolf of Harvard Business School has conducted an extensive study of companies that have tried to flatten their organizational structure.  She studied historical data on 300 large U.S. firms over a 15-year period, and she conducted interviews and analysis of CEO calendars.   She examines the consequences of attempts by large firms to "flatten their hierarchies" - something often recommended to improve performance.   The conventional wisdom is that we should flatten hierarchies so as to push decision-making down to the lowest level possible.  However, Wolf found an unintended consequence of such flattening efforts: "Results suggest that flattening transferred some decision rights from lower-level division managers to functional managers at the top. Flattening is also associated with increased CEO involvement with direct reports—the second level of top management—suggesting a more hands-on CEO at the pinnacle of the hierarchy."  In short, by removing layers, we may be pushing decision-making up the organization, rather than down to the people at the local level with specific knowledge about the customer, markets, technologies, and the like.  Flattening could lead to a more centralized management structure.

I've always believed that organizational structure is a blunt weapon.  Structure is an easy lever to pull if an executive wants to reduce costs and influence behavior.  However, simply moving boxes and arrows on the organizational chart often does not lead to higher performance.   Structural change must be accompanied by process and cultural change.  Specifically, Wolf's research suggests that firms need to be very clear about the allocation of decision rights when layers are removed.  I also think that firms need to pay close attention to status/informal hierarchies, rather than only focusing on the formal organizational structure.   Often, the informal hierarchy drives decision-making processes.   The values of the organization drive decision-making processes.  Flattening of the formal structure has to be accompanied by an effort to reduce the salience of status differences, and it has to be buttressed by leadership which emphasizes the value of putting decision-making in the hands of those closest to the work. 

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How Teams Reject Good Advice

Prof. Mueller

Wharton management professor Jennifer Mueller and Wharton lecturer Julia Minson have published a fascinating new paper titled, "The Cost of Collaboration: Why Joint Decision-making Exacerbates Rejection of Outside Information." Minson and Mueller compared how pairs of people responded to outside input as opposed to individuals working alone.  They found that people working in pairs exhibited a greater tendency to reject outside input.   The individuals and the pairs gave initial responses to a series of questions such as, "What percentage of members of Congress are Catholic?"   Then, they had an opportunity to revise their estimate based on outside input.  As expected, the pairs demonstrated higher accuracy during their initial responses (two heads are better than one).  However, the discrepancy in accuracy disappeared after the opportunity to incorporate outside input.   Why? The individuals working alone tended to adjust their responses more so than the pairs. 

What's going on here?   A number of factors surely play a role in this phenomenon.  However, I think the general point is that teams have a tendency to be inward-focused at times.  An in-group vs. out-group dynamic emerges, whereby you exhibit an affinity for your fellow group members, and you tend to reject, marginalize, or discriminate against those in the out-group (such as the outsider providing input to the pair).  The group members also may spend time bolstering each others' confidence in the judgment at which they arrive, and that makes it difficult to alter that judgment in the future.

I recall one fascinating example of this phenomenon in action during a leadership development workshop.  My colleague Amy Edmondson was conducting a team exercise called the Electric Maze.  She invited a group of individuals on stage to work on the exercise.  After the group had a chance to plot their strategy for a few minutes, the audience members had an opportunity to offer the group advice before it started the exercise.  The group barely listened to the audience.   They had become so fixated on the strategy that they had begun to concoct that they were not receptive to outside advice.  The amazing thing is that the group had only been plotting its strategy for a few minutes when the outsiders chimed in with their input.  Yet, the group dismissed the outside input. The team already had become insular!

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Larry Page Reforms Decision-Making at Google

Google Vice President of Operations Kristen Gil has written a terrific memo explaining how Larry Page changed decision-making at Google when he took over again last year.  Page worried that decision-making had gotten bogged down at Google, that the firm wasn't acting with the same agility as in the past.  What did Page do?  First, he outlined some new rules for how and when meetings should take place.  Here's an expert from Gil's memo: 

For starters, we noted that every decision-oriented meeting should have a clear decision-maker, and if it didn’t, the meeting shouldn’t happen. Those meetings should ideally consist of no more than 10 people, and everyone who attends should provide input. If someone has no input to give, then perhaps they shouldn’t be there. That’s okay – attending meetings isn’t a badge of honor – but the people who are attending need to get there on time. Most importantly, decisions should never wait for a meeting. If it’s critical that a meeting take place before a decision is made, then that meeting needs to happen right away.

As I wrote in a recent blog post, Alan Mullaly also changed decision-making at Ford by setting out some new ground rules for his key Thursday morning business review meetings with his senior team.  Clearly establishing new ground rules and shared norms can be very important for altering patterns of behavior that have become dysfunctional.    Page made a second change that I find even more interesting and potentially quite effective.  He recognized that, as a firm grows in size and complexity, senior executives often find themselves disconnected.  Senior teams become fragmented.   Travel schedules, meetings, and the needs of their particular units take them away from their peers.  As a result, members of the senior team do not communicate often enough.  They don't share and integrate information effectively.   Page set out to change that dynamic.   Here's another excerpt from Gil's memo:  

Besides fast decisions, another key hallmark of start-ups is their fast-paced, densely populated offices. We’ve always promoted this approach at Google, organizing around small teams and working in close proximity to one another. Even Eric Schmidt shared his office with an engineer when he first joined the company.  But as Google grew, the executives spread out to the far reaches of our campuses so they could work side-by-side with their teams. To make sure our key decision-makers could work and make decisions in an environment more reminiscent of a start-up, we created a ‘bullpen’ in one of the buildings on our main campus, which was specially designed as a place for members of our executive team to work and talk in an informal setting. These execs now set aside a number of hours per week to be there. It’s amazing how fast things can get done – even in a large company – when you put so many key people together and don’t give them an agenda.

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General Petraeus: Welcoming Dissent

I've enjoyed reading Tim Harford's excellent book, Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure.  I find the overall argument of the book quite compelling, and the I love the stories and examples that Harford uses.  Some assertions are maddening, but you have to just push through on the occasional bizarre pronouncement. For instance, he writes that it's wrong to assume the Soviet planned economy failed because it lacked the profit motive or the creativity of private-sector entrepreneurs.  Huh?  He argues that the failure was due to an inability to experiment.  Somehow, in Harford's mind, the inability to experiment didn't have anything to do with a lack of profit motives and private sector entrepreneurship.  I don't get it.

The book is excellent overall though. He makes a great case for the importance of experimentation and the willingness to tolerate failure.  Harford also makes a strong case for why leaders must embrace conflict and dissent.  Take the story of General Petraeus that Harford tells us in the book.  Petraeus organized a conference on counterinsurgency in Fort Leavenworth during the Iraq War.  He invited many people, inside and outside the Army, who had been quite critical of the Army's strategy to that point.   It was a highly unusual meeting for the U.S. Army.   Petraeus also often invited lower level officers to email him directly about their observations and insights regarding how things were going in Iraq.   He wanted to circumvent the usual gatekeepers and hear directly from those on the front lines. 

Apparently, Petraeus learned the importance of inviting dissenting views from Major General Jack Galvin, a man to whom Petraeus reported back in the early 1980s.    According to Harford, "Jack Galvin also taught Petraeus that it is not enough to tolerate dissent: sometimes you have to demand it."  Music to my ears!  I have argued that same point for years.  Just telling people you want to hear from them doesn't always surface the full range of divergent views and perspectives that you need to hear.  When he's telling these stories, Harford is at his best.  I strongly recommend the book.

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Preventing Analysis Paralysis

The Corporate Executive Board has posted a useful article on Business Week's website regarding how managers can avoid analysis paralysis.   Among their recommendations, they advise the following:


Unclutter dashboards for managers: Even the most relevant and informative survey data won’t get very far in your organization if managers cannot readily access them. Our research shows that managers who transform data into usable information for their teams can increase business performance by 24 percent. So, focus managers on what matters by providing them with personalized views of the data they need to be effective. Streamlined online dashboards provide managers with instant access to aggregate survey results from their team and organization overall. Ideally, they highlight areas of strong performance and opportunities for improvement for each manager, and equip them with the resources to improve.

I agree completely.   Many organizations face metric overload these days.  Senior leaders need to think carefully about the priorities of the organization and communicate those to all the troops.  Then, the dashboards used to run the business must reflect those priorities.   How does one rationalize the metrics and reports being generated? It starts with tying the dashboards closely to senior leadership's priorities.  One can go further though.   I can recall an exercise we undertook when I worked in corporate finance at a major aerospace firm in the early 1990s.  We went out and talked the people who received the reports we generated.   We asked them whether they used our reports, and if so, how.  We also asked them when was the last time that they had examined each report.  It sounds so simple, yet many people who put together dashboards and reports don't actually know how their data are being used.  By connecting the dashboard creator and user more closely, one can identify which metrics are most useful.    

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How Early Career Experiences Shape Future Career Prospects and Decision-Making

Antoinette Schoar and Luo Zuo have published a new paper titled, "Shaped by Booms and Busts: How the Economy Impacts CEO Careers and Management Style."    They studied how early career experiences shape future career prospects and decision-making.  Here is what they found:

"Economic conditions at the beginning of a manager’s career have lasting effects on the career path and the ultimate outcome as a CEO. CEOs who start in recessions take less time to become CEOs, but end up as CEOs in smaller firms, receive lower compensation, and are more likely to rise through the ranks within a given firm rather than moving across firms and industries. Moreover, managers who start in recessions have more conservative management styles once they become CEOs."

I found the last point particularly interesting, namely that a person tends to become a bit more risk averse after experiencing a major recession early in his or her career.  Now that could be a good thing.  Perhaps we will see less "irrational exuberance" in future years from those currently starting out their careers.    

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Decision Quicksand

The Wall Street Journal reported recently on a new study by Professors Aner Sela and Jonah Berger about what they describe as decision quicksand. These scholars compared the approach individuals took on three types of decisions: hard, important choices; hard, unimportant choices; and easy choices. The scholars found that individuals spent the most time on the difficult, but unimportant decisions! Moreover, happiness declined as the length of the decision-making process increased. it reminds me of what a former dean once said to me: "Academics find a way to argue the most over the decisions that matter the least!" Well, it appears that trivial choices trip up many people, not just hopeless professors.

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The Simple Decision Test

I heard a common complaint from a mid-level executive today: "Its really hard to get closure on any decisions around here." I wondered whether the chief executive understood the level of frustration. Was the CEO the problem, or were decisions getting bogged down in the bureaucracy, even before getting to the top? In many cases, decisions get derailed by silo rivalry, dysfunctional team dynamics, and leaders who are conflict averse. As a result, people can't seem to achieve closure on key decisions.

What should a chief executive do to determine if this closure problem is slowing down his or her firm's ability to compete effectively in the marketplace? I believe they should occasionally slice through the organization's layers and ask a simple question of mid-level managers? "Are you waiting excessively for certain decisions to be made by senior executives?" If the answer is yes, then the CEO must trace the flow of a few sidetracked decisions to diagnose the problem. If many mid-level managers express the same frustration, then the CEO knows that the firm has a broader cultural problem; it's not just a few poor leaders here and there.

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Henry Stewart Talks: Making Decisions

Prof. J. Edward Russo, S.C. Johnson Family Professor of Management at Cornell University, has edited a new seminar series on decision-making.  Henry Stewart Talks, a publisher of online seminars by leading experts, has published this series.  I'm honored to have been asked by Professor Russo to participate in this seminar series, along with accomplished researchers such as MIT's John Carroll, Gary Klein of Macrocognition, and Duke's Robert Clemen.  I hope you will take a look!

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Stop the Charade!

I continue to be amazed at how many executives get themselves into trouble with their teams by engaging in what my friend and colleague Michael Watkins calls the "charade of consultation."   The charade occurs when an executive makes a decision, and then goes to his team to "consult" them about the issue.   The executive might even entertain a discussion of multiple options, yet then steer the dialogue toward the alternative he or she preferred from the outset.  Naturally, team members see right through the charade.  Such leadership approaches actually diminish trust and commitment. 

Scholars have shown that people care about the procedural fairness of decision-making processes; they don't just care about the outcomes.   When leaders engage in the "charade of consultation," they create the perception of an unfair process.  The research clearly shows that perceptions of procedural fairness affect buy-in, trust, and commitment.  

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