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Business Rule #31:
Your Opinion is not the Only One that Matters
September 23, 2005
by Caroline Pfouts
“Our people are our most valuable asset.” Is there a CEO in America who hasn’t repeated this message to his staff? Like so many clichés, the reason it’s become so popular is because it’s true.
When Martha Stewart says her business is about connecting with her audience, she knows what she’s talking about. She certainly has produced magazines and television shows that assume her consumers are sophisticated people with style and taste. Whether she’ll be equally successful in connecting to the public with her edition of The Apprentice remains to be seen.
The division of the candidates into the “corporate” Primarius team and the “creative” Matchstick team suggests that business people are not creative and that creative people are not good at marketing. Even though the candidates divvied themselves up into the two categories, the labels denigrate the members of both teams. Are the members of the Primarius team less creative because they can sell? Not if tonight’s performance is any indication.
With eight people on each side vying for attention, the first challenge that project managers Jeff Rudell and Dawna Stone faced was organizing their teams. Everyone, of course, wants to be the star, coming up with that one great idea that carries the day. The problem is that when eight people shout at once, nothing gets accomplished.
On Matchstick, Dawn Silvia was particularly sensitive to her team’s out-of-control noise level. With a Master’s degree in publishing and writing, she was the natural choice to write the updated fairy tale—but she wasn’t able to work in a room where there was so much going on. Noise disrupts most people’s ability to read and write. That’s why you need to be quiet in a library.
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Jeff tried silencing the rest of his group to let Dawn work. When that failed, his ultimate approach was traditional, albeit ineffective—he became dictatorial. Jeff took on all the creative decisions and wrote the book himself.
By its nature, writing is a solitary activity. But wanting to keep Dawn involved in the process, Jeff read aloud each new line of the book to her as he wrote it. No wonder Dawn was demoralized—he acted as though there was something wrong with her because she couldn’t compose amid pandemonium. Rather than sending her off to a library with a laptop, he decided that it was best to demonstrate his superior ability to function in a loud environment. Dawn wasn’t the only one bored and insulted by the process. Others on the Matchstick team also resented that they weren’t allowed to make any significant contribution.
Jeff’s contentious communication style, at once dictatorial and argumentative, also discouraged support from his group. “Whatever you’re trying to do, you’re failing,” he yelled at Dawn. The nasty exchange must have had a chilling effect on anyone in his group who overheard it. Later, after asking for Dawn’s advice and expertise, Jeff shouted down her opinion. Of course, there are times in business when deadline constraints make it impossible to hear from everyone, but there’s no discernable reason for a leader ever to tell his staff that he doesn’t care about their ideas.
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The problem is that when eight people shout at once, nothing gets accomplished.
