Future of Work Briefs

Who do Yahoo's "work@home" telecommuting champions think they're kidding? Marissa Mayer is no fool. She didn't take over as Yahoo's CEO because the company was doing well; she came on board because the stumbling Internet enterprise was an underperforming underachiever that had lost its way.

I attended a sobering presentation on ethics delivered by Egil Krogh, one of the White House officials convicted of conspiring to violate civil rights during the Watergate crisis. Krogh’s message suggests we give greater emphasis to basic leadership and citizenship.

Pope Benedict XVI is someone who has probably looked himself in the mirror and looked at his predecessors — no one else has done this — and said, "For me, I need to do this. Because I'm taking an honest look at my physical and mental and spiritual balance sheet, and I don't have enough assets right now."

For a Christmas gift, I was given a book of English proverbs and sayings. When I read it, I was struck by how many of the sayings found in the book related to the work I do. I soon realized that most of this wisdom originally came from my grandmother.

When the management of a corporation deteriorates, the first reaction of the best-informed stockholders is to look around for the stock of better-managed companies. In thus orienting themselves toward exit, rather than toward voice, investors are said to follow the Wall Street rule that "if you do not like the management you should sell your stock."

Every organization has rules. However, many rules are only enforced retroactively, after the damage is already done. We need to think more about the costs of our actions before we do them and temper our desire to win with integrity.

One of the great challenges for business leaders is to separate fact from opinion. Bad facts must lead to action. Bad opinions may lead to action, but not necessarily. The different implications arising from hard fact and harsh opinion are illustrated by two whistleblowers who have recently published books.

Business leaders have no choice but to get involved in politics in a world where political gridlock is as real a threat to one's business as your competitor's new killer product or a hurricane bearing down on your warehouse. To do otherwise is not just short-sighted, it's an abdication of responsibility.

There is a simple power story often told about such behavior: research shows that people with more power tend to pay less attention to others. They are more action-oriented, pursue their own goals, and exhibit disinhibited behavior in part because they believe that rules don't apply to them; they are special and invulnerable.