Source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/corporate-dossier/five-ceos-who-paid-heavily-for-their-dalliances/articleshow/47628930.cms
and finally
04
Corporate Dossier June 12-18, 2015
guru speak
Adam Grant, Professor, The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania
Willing to Help
Organisations are full of Givers and Takers. No prizes for guessing
which type is more successful
T
he era of the alpha executive
is over. Research shows that
dominating power-seekers are
not the ones who succeed in an
organisation — the best managers are those who collaborate with
people, without trying to control them.
In this interview, Adam Grant, professor
of management and psychology at the
Wharton School of Business, presents a
fresh way to look at people in the workplace. Edited excerpts:
Who are the ‘givers’ and ‘takers’ in
the workplace?
Takers view interactions as a way of
extracting value from other people and
approach people with a mindset of, ‘How
can I get as much as possible from this exchange?’ At the other end of the spectrum,
givers come to an interaction trying to
figure out, ‘What can I contribute here?
How can I add value?’ That usually means
looking for ways to be helpful, without
strings attached. It might involve sharing
knowledge, providing mentoring, making
introductions, or showing up early or staying late to help a colleague out.
And what are matchers?
In the majority of our interactions, most
of us operate by the principle of matching. If you’re a Matcher by default, your
instinct is to try to maintain an even
balance of give-and-take in your interactions. You try to keep fairness and a
sense of quid pro quo in your dealings
with others.
Who is most likely to end up at the
:: exec salon
top of the success ladder?
This surprises many people: it’s the givers.
But interestingly, they are also most likely
to sink to the bottom — and I love that paradox. Some givers don’t succeed because
they are too self-sacrificing, to the point of
becoming doormats. Successful givers also
put other people’s interests first, they don’t
do so to their own detriment. They proactively block out windows of time to get their
own work done, then dedicate separate
periods to be helpful to others. Also, instead
of being ‘generalists’ in helping people with
any request that comes up, they are more
like specialists: they find ways to help that
they are uniquely good at, and enjoy. This
way, the act of giving is energising to them
rather than distracting and exhausting.
In their interactions, successful givers
look for ways to expand the ‘pie’, so that everybody around them can be better off. Part
of what makes them so successful is that
they find greater meaning and purpose in
their work because they feel that they truly
make a difference. They make it clear that
their colleagues really matter to them.
Therefore, they end up building deep relationships with people who often become
sources of creative ideas and opening doors
to new opportunities.
Can this classification be used to
evaluate talent?
The war for talent tends to focus on finding
people with ‘raw ability’. Yet wonderful
books — like Mindset by Stanford’s Carol
Dweck and The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle
— have shown that talent isn’t just born: it is
also learned, honed and developed.
The Taker mindset is, ‘I’m going to hire
the best talent possible so that I win and everybody else loses’. Failed givers are the ones who
promote talent in a way that they themselves
lose out. Successful givers try to promote talent, so that it’s a win-win for all. They spend
time and effort figuring out how to bring you
to the best of your ability, doing in a way that’s
good for the organisation and for them.
In one major study, Benjamin Bloom tracked
world class athletes, musicians and chess players, among others. He found that the vast majority of them were not that special in their early
lives: they didn’t win all their competitions;
they didn’t have the fastest times as swimmers
or the best track record as tennis players; they
weren’t playing Carnegie Hall by age seven.
Basically, they were average. The question was,
how did they become so great?
Bloom found that they often had a first teacher
or coach who made the activity fun for them. In
my opinion, those coaches and teachers were
all givers. They might have said to their young
student, ‘Look, I’m not going to sit you down
Givers vs Takers
Taker’s Values
„ Wealth (money, material possessions)
„ Power (dominance, control over others)
„ Pleasure (enjoying life)
„ Winning (doing better than others)
Giver’s values
„ Helpfulness (working for the
well-being of others)
„ Responsibility (being dependable)
„ Social justice (caring for the
Takers tend to pursue the dominance path:
they try to earn respect and influence by
being assertive, controlling things and conveying that they are superior to others. This
approach can work well, if you don’t have
to depend on other people, collaborate with
them or serve them. But as soon as you shift to
an interactive scenario, the giver’s approach
is much more effective. It says, ‘Look, I don’t
have to be better than you or more powerful
than you in order to earn your trust or for you
to see me as somebody who’s competent and
worthy of respect’. Givers don’t see status as a
zero-sum game, and they recognise that they
can earn respect by helping people as opposed
to controlling them. CD
Suzy Welch
Caught
Out at
Work
ANIRBAN BORA
Research shows that there are two
traditional paths to influence:
dominance and prestige. How do these
paths apply to givers and takers?
disadvantages)
„ Compassion (responding to the
needs of others)
GRAPHICA
Reprinted, with permission, from Rotman
Management, the magazine of the University
of Toronto’s Rotman School of Managment.
www.rotmanmagazine.ca
:: wanderlust
JACK WELCH
Former CEO, General Electric
In 2002, Jack Welch fell in love with Suzy
Wetlaufer, editor of the Harvard Business
Review, whom he met when collaborating on
an article, while he was still married to his wife
Jane. Wetlaufer resigned when the affair became public. During the divorce proceedings,
Jane Welch disclosed uncomfortable details
like how Jack was getting sizeable retirement
perks from GE, including an apartment and a
private jet. Welch, subsequently, agreed to pay
$2 million a year for their use.
These CEOs paid heavily
for their dalliances
I am being interviewed for a
senior position by the founder
of a startup, who is famous for
dressing up in jeans and teeshirts. I have always dressed
formally at work. Should I dress
formally or in casuals?
It depends on what you are comfortable in. He isn’t hiring for your
sartorial sense but for your business skills. Let’s assume you go
to the interview dressed in tees
and jeans and feel like a fish out
of water, chances are you will not
be able to make an impression on
your prospective employer. And
interviews are all about the
impressions. So, if formals are
your thing, go dressed in them.
Just in case you are afraid of
been perceived as being stuffy,
pair a formal blue shirt with dark
jeans and comfortable slip-on
shoes. Another factor you might
want to consider, in case you really want to dress in tees, is your
physique. If you have a few excess
pounds around the midriff, formals and blazers do a better job
of hiding that unflattering bulge. A
tee shirt will accentuate it.
Bottom-line: wear what puts you
at ease. If by any chance you don’t
get hired for dressing what you
are comfortable in, fret not: no job
is worth that.
and make you drill away at the piano for hours;
instead, I’m going to make a game out of this,
so that you really enjoy music and become
intrinsically motivated. Hence you will put
in the time, energy and practice required to
develop this skill’.
That’s an example of how givers think about
talent differently. They look for the potential
in everyone, and they set challenging goals
for the people they work with. As a result,
they tend to uncover ‘diamonds in the rough’,
and more often than not, they’re able to bring
these people to higher levels of potential than
anyone ever thought would be possible.
With w
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LORD JOHN
BROWNE
Former CEO, BP
Sandeep Sabharwal
Lord Browne was one
of the world’s most respected businessmen. He
was also gay – a fact that
he hid from the rest of the
world. In 2007, a former
lover Jeff Chevalier tried
to sell his story to a tabloid. John Brown failed
to block publication
but mentioned in court
papers that the two met
while exercising even
though they met through
a gay escort service.
Authorities did not press
perjury charges, but
Browne was forced to end
his 40-year old career.
CEO, SLCM Group
BRIAN DUNN
Far-out destinations:
The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz,
California
Former CEO, Best Buy
Brian Dunn was the CEO of Best
Buy from April 2009 to April 2012. He
was forced to resign when it became
public that he had an affair with a 29
year old subordinate. The company’s
audit committee’s report states that
‘’During one four-day and one five
day trip abroad during 2011, the CEO
contacted the female employee by
cell phone at least 224 times, including 33 phone calls, 149 text messages,
and 42 picture or video messages.’’
Eventually, Dunn settled for a
severance package of $6.6 million.
Bon Vivant Moment:
The majestic view of The Twelve
Apostles from a helicopter in
Melbourne, Australia
Best Drive:
The Black Forest drive between
Stuttgart and Strasbourg in
Germany left me mesmerised
Emptied your pockets on:
Branded bags and watches
Panoramic Views:
The sky walk at the Macau Tower
BACK IN INDIA...
HARRY STONECIPHER
Former CEO, Boeing
Gettyimages
Write to us with your grooming
queries at [email protected]
In December 2003, 66 year old Harry
Stonecipher came out of retirement
to head the already scandal-plagued
aviation firm. In March 2005,
Stonecipher was forced to resign
after he admitted having an affair
with a female Boeing executive. Joan
Stonecipher, his wife of 50 years, filed
for divorce after her husband’s affair
became public.
Former Infosys head of sales
Phaneesh Murthy was a
star at the Bangalore based
IT firm before charges of
sexual harassment terminated his rise at Infosys
in 2002. He subsequently
joined iGate and was fired
from the company in 2013
after he failed to disclose
a relationship with subordinate and alleged sexual
harassment.
(Compiled by Rusha Sen)
Edit & Desk : Dibeyendu Ganguly, Moinak Mitra, Priyanka Sangani, Dearton Thomas Hector and TV Mahalingam
Design : Shubhra Dey, Sanjeev Raj Jain, Nitin Keer; Photographs : Ashwani Nagpal, Bharat Chanda, N narsimha Murthy; Process : Mumbai Production
Memorable journey:
The road trip from Jodhpur to
the Jaisalmer with the red chillies
spread on the road sides against
golden sands
Street food surprises:
Baguette sandwiches in the
back lanes of Paris and the egg
paranthas at a dhaba opposite IIFT,
Delhi
Bazaar Bargains:
Shopping in and around Quincy
Market, Boston
Goofy traveler moment:
Missed onwards connection because my wife delayed us souvenir
shopping at Louvre Museum, Paris
Traveler trip: Travel light
Regn. No. MAHENG/2002/6295 Volume 14 Issue No. 25“Published for the proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd. by R. Krishnamurthy at The Times Of India Building, Dr. D.N.Road, Mumbai 400001 Tel. (022) 6635 3535, 2273 3535, Fax-(022) 2273 1144 and printed by him at The Times of India Suburban Press, Akurli Road,
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