pursuit of a fancier car the hard
conversations part of working well in
any group is the ability to have hard
conversations it’s easy to avoid having
conversations that deeply go into your
feelings and tough issues ironically
avoiding hard conversations usually
makes things worse not better
properly conducted hard conversations
vastly improve matters and can totally
change the atmosphere in a positive way
I have found this to be the case both at
work and at home if one person takes the
initiative others usually follow it’s
easy all you have to do is say how you
feel and what your concerns are and make
sure you aren’t attacking the person I
still recall the feelings of excitement
and positive group cohesion thirty years
ago when at a faculty meeting the design
division got up the nerve to tell our
youngest faculty member that we wanted
him to leave it was clear he would never
complete his PhD thesis if he continued
working at Stanford as a lecturer
everyone including the person we were
dismissing spoke openly and from the
heart I have found over and over again
that if one person speaks from the heart
others follow and the group’s feelings
of community and commitment increase
from the medicine on the other hand if
the discussions remain on a superficial
and impersonal level the feelings of
frustration in alienation about
sociologists speak of realistic and non
realistic conflicts a realistic conflict
is a disagreement that is goal-oriented
that is to say it’s about something
specific that the conflicting parties
need to resolve when such conflicts
arise in well-functioning relationships
their resolution can lead to progress
toward the goal a non realistic conflict
is at heart about something other than
what is being talked about its primary
purpose for at least one of the
students is to discharge tension it’s
not really about the goal of solving a
problem such conflicts arise when there
isn’t real mutuality in the group
instead there is a pseudo mutuality when
people pretend their relationship to the
others is something that it isn’t they
may be hiding a poor self-image or a
sense of exclusion or jealousy whatever
its root causes they are suffering
discomfort that builds up tensions in
provoking a non realistic conflict they
are seeking a temporary discharge of
their built-up tensions unless something
is done about the root causes of the
tension such conflicts can only put a
good communication skills affect every
area of your life they can mean the
difference between getting a job and not
getting it making an important
connection with someone or not and
surviving public crises without too much
damage to your reputation or becoming
persona non grata we elect presidents
based more on their communication style
than anything else we value people who
communicate openly and honestly and we
avoid people who don’t pick up on social
cues that we don’t want to be cornered
or kept on the phone for a half-hour the
best communicator isn’t necessarily the
person who knows the fanciest words it’s
the person who pays attention and makes
Chapter seven
[Music]
conversation while being driven in New
York City by my friend Harry me here
well why don’t you use your turn signals
Harold I don’t like strangers to know my
business belonging to groups gives us an
important way to express our humanity
most of us are affiliated with many
groups in addition to family we have
groups of friends professional political
health and school groups and so on the
way you interact within those groups can
change the way you feel about each
situation and can enrich or screw up
your life in this chapter we’ll talk
about making productive changes in your
team work physical space body language
and communication to make groups work
better for you working in teams
in my teaching and administrative roles
as the academic director of the D school
most of my day is filled with different
group experiences in the D school all
classes must be team taught the way we
do team teaching is different from any
other team taught courses at Stanford we
expect that the entire teaching team be
present at every class and always be
ready to participate although there have
been some remarkable exceptions most
other entities at Stanford tweet team
teaching as a relay race each person
does his run and hands off the baton to
the next person leaving the race we feel
that if every member of the teaching
team is participating the students get a
richer experience my colleague Jim Adams
loves this kind of teaching he tells me
I like team teaching so we teachers can
trash talk each other thereby giving the
students a better insight into
professors as people and the nature of
their world unfortunately most of my
colleagues are not at Jim’s level of
enlightenment regarding the virtues of
trash talk still it does benefit
everyone to have different viewpoints in
the same room
an iconic example of the benefits of
team teaching occurred when I received a
phone call from Bill on the evening of
our first class session he and I were
part of the teaching team for the class
transformative design I was thrilled to
be working with Bill because he was one
of my closest friends a world-class
designer who had designed the first
laptop computer and one of the three
people who had founded the design
consultancy I do the phone conversation
when his follows bill I was wondering
what you thought about our class this
afternoon I mean I thought it was great
what did you think yes I liked it great
do me a favor next time give me your
PowerPoint slides the evening before the
class you already know what I’m gonna
say why do you need them it’s not the
content I want to fix your fonts thank
you kidding No
two evenings later bill and his wife
Karen were at my house for dinner
I showed my PowerPoint slides to our
wines they are both designers and have
great aesthetic sensibilities
they humored me by agreeing that my
fonts were not bad however I knew bill
was right
I had sinned in multiple ways he
proceeded to point out the defects too
many font styles too many different font
sizes no consistency of style and worst
of all I had not used the official D
school font as soon as he finished
Karen dubbed bill the font Nazi we all
had a good laugh the next week I of
course told the story to the class that
incident provided me with a mantra for
the rest of the term which was fix up
your fonts or bill will get on your case
it was all in good fun a powerful lesson
lies behind this incident however I was
trained as an engineer I am used to
worrying primarily about the content
bill was trained as a designer bad
aesthetics made him viscerally upset if
I were teaching the class alone the
students would never have been exposed
to the sensibility that bill brought
with him so naturally the sharing of
sensibilities and different points of
view enrich the educational experience
for students and for teachers and this
occurs when we bring teachers from
different backgrounds into the same
classroom
needless to say bill prepared all the
future PowerPoint slides handouts and
web postings for the class
everything was elegantly done in the
same style using the official D school
font I never fully recovered every time
I look at fonts I fondly remember Bill
I also curse him for all the extra time
and effort I now put in struggling to
get my presentations close to his
minimal level of acceptance student
teams we also require teamwork from the
students most of our courses are based
on project worked from interdisciplinary
student teams we generally don’t impose
any structure on the way student teams
organise themselves again this is
different from the mainstream many other
academic units dictate team structure
and assign different responsibilities to
the students within the team much of the
faculty mentality that team members
should be assigned specific roles seems
to me to be analogous to what happened
to me in the third grade when the
teacher assigned a structure thinking it
would train us for the real world in
fact it had the effect of deadening
initiative discouraging us from learning
the skills we needed to be responsible
and flexible enough to find the
appropriate structure for each specific
situation sharing a project requires a
set of skills that are different from
those used when working alone everything
discussed in the conversations section
of chapter six is applicable to teamwork
in addition there is the added dynamic
of multiple players generally the
students are organized into groups of
about four so it’s possible for there to
be various splits in the way students
handle conflict we sometimes get three
against one or one against three we
sometimes get two pairs and sometimes
one pair and two singles or in the worst
case for singles remarkably most teams
work out well and conflicts usually get
we actually have a professional
psychologist on staff we call him the D
shrink and he promotes the idea that
open communication leads to much better
team performance there are various
theories on how to compose teams to
match different personality and skill
types I find that the most important
thing to be learned from studying about
different personality types is the
visceral acceptance of the fact that
basic differences exist between people
people are different because they have
different academic majors and because
they also have different styles for
learning and doing things each person
needs to know that his way is not
necessarily the only right way this will
serve him both on the job and in the
family you know by now how much I like
jokes right well during a court case
after listening to the plaintiff the
judge says you’re right the defendant
gets excited and says to the judge but
Your Honor what really happened was and
the judge then says to the defendant
you’re right hearing this a spectator in
the courtroom says wait a minute your
honor they can’t both be right the judge
responds saying you’re right the point
here is that seemingly contradictory
things can all be correct most
real-world activities are not zero-sum
games ways can be found in which
everyone and especially the team moves
if it’s done out of respect and caring
controversy is not a bad thing it can
even be a good thing it’s important that
the controversy not get personal and
damaged the team sense of mutual support
and understanding it’s also important
that everyone on the team have an
intention to make things work things go
awry when people have different levels
of commitment and different goals for
the team when things do not go well it’s
easy for some team members to become
self-righteous it is good to know the
truth and it is good to know that the
truth in itself does not dictate any
specific action as was pointed out in
Chapter one you give everything its
meaning so lighten up and assist the
team to get the job done constructive
criticism in our workshops we have
adopted a system for criticism that I
originally learned from the late George
and Prince in a synecdoche workshop the
idea is to give criticism in a
supportive way that promotes positive
evolution of the students work by saying
– I like statements followed by one I
wish statements for example I might say
I like the way you took into account
concerns about safety and I like the way
it looks then after a short pause that
would continue I wish we could find a
way to make it smaller the first thing
to notice about this feedback is that
there is no but between the I like and
the I wish they are separated by only a
short pause nothing else the second
thing to notice is that I wish is said
in a way that encourages further
refinement in a positive way it enlists
everyone who hears the comment including
the commentator he’ll work on figuring
out a solution the way not to say it
would be it will not work you made it
too big this is a blocking kind of
statement whereas the I wish version
says yes
this system for criticism of student
work was used for many years in our
product design program now it has become
a fixture in the D School where it is
used for feedback to and from students
this type of evaluation is in theory
done after each class session by the
teaching team and by any students who
wish to participate in addition sessions
involving the entire class and teaching
team are done during class every few
weeks based on this changes are made
both to subsequent classes and future
course offerings the current version of
the I like I wish system does not limit
the order or number of these statements
sometimes a group does all the I likes
first followed by all the I wishes a
modified version has been introduced by
people who don’t follow the original
idea behind the I wish they use the I
wish simply to state something they
would like to change without suggesting
a direction for improvement then they
add a third set of items given in the
form of what if these serve the function
of the problem-solving aspect of the
original use of I wish under this newer
version we might get feedback such as I
liked meeting as a group or I wish we
spent more time in our group and then
what if we met after class personally
I’m more comfortable with the original I
like I wish version when it comes to
criticizing students work the I wish
version works well when it’s used to
suggest areas for improvement and as a
positive pull similar to the question
how might we both I wish there was a way
to accomplish blank and how might we
accomplish blank are good ways to get
people to move forward in a proactive
problem-solving frame of mind regardless
of the version used this feedback
mechanism is effective it’s invaluable
in the D schools quest for continual
improvement in teaching
the students and teaching team like it
and it adds a feeling of community to
the class the same tool can be
profitably used for constructive
criticism in many situations it is
certainly not limited to student work or
to academia it can be usefully applied
to both your personal and your
professional lives we once had a senior
member of the teaching team who had
never before taught at the destroyed and
was used to the formal European academic
tradition at the end of the first class
session one of the Stanford professors
explained to him that it was our custom
to gather for and I like I wish feedback
session and he agreed to join however
when he realized that the session would
also include students he was taken aback
the idea of students telling him what
they did not like seemed audacious to
him still he was a good sport and
toughed it out after a few such sessions
he became such a big enthusiast that
when a class ran a little long and the
other teaching team members wanted to
forego the feedback session he was the
one who insisted they follow through
styles and cultures
my wife Ruth’s book club agreed to read
an early version of the manuscript for
this book one of the members Marcia sent
me an email thanking me and telling me
she liked what she had read however the
your turn exercises scared her not
surprise me
what about shy people she asked that
struck a note in me it also brought back
a terrible memory I had suppressed
probably my worst teaching error I was
teaching a graduate class on designing
mechanical devices that day we were
covering a set of parts called a 4-bar
mechanism I had assigned students to
find mechanical devices in their
environments and to take turns in front
of the class presenting an analysis
relating what they found to what we were
studying the presentations went along
well until one student did a
presentation without regard to the
vocabulary we had been using in class I
pointed out her projected diagram
showing a 4-bar mechanism operating the
tail flap on an air
and asked her what that was called she
did not answer I got angry and blurted
out this is the fifth week of class it
is inconceivable to me that you would
not be able to identify a four of our
mechanism we have been talking about
them twice weekly since the first class
where have you been the woman did not
say a word she left in tears and never
returned
she was from China and it was especially
humiliating to her but I had caused her
to lose face in front of the entire
class as soon as I realized what I had
done I felt terrible week after week I
hoped she would return here this day I
regret that I did not reach out and
contact her two years later she showed
up in a class I was co-teaching with
Sherri Shepherd designed to be
supportive of women graduate students
Jerry was the only female professor in
Stanford’s department of mechanical
engineering at that time we used some of
the techniques presented in his book
and the class passed without incident I
noticed for the first time however how
very shy the student was I finally
realized what a frightening experience
being in front of the design
to bid at the final feedback session dis
student lo mein you are much nicer in
this class than the last one it relieved
a bit of a guilt I carry from my
previous insensitivity to your shyness
we have many foreign students at
Stanford some come from cultures that
are fairly aggressive and they tend to
fit right in many others come from
cultures where students are taught to be
passive receivers of knowledge and to
consider faculty is unapproachable
almost as deities for such students and
for naturally shy American students the
Silicon Valley culture can be especially
trying behaviors such as self-promotion
group work approaching strangers seeking
assistance meeting with an instructor
during office hours and speaking up in
class can be difficult for them nowadays
with people working studying and living
in countries that were foreign to their
forebears analogous cultural
difficulties exist in many parts of the
world this situation is especially
worthy of attention when you have people
from another culture who are born in
your country or who speak your language
you must not assume that just because
someone speaks your language well she is
comfortable with your culture in
interacting with others it is important
to look for the outliers and take into
account their discomfort with what may
seem very natural to you outliers can
occur at both ends of the spectrum I had
a PhD student from Shanghai he was most
unusual in those days before the
economic upswing most students from the
People’s Republic of China were
supported by their government and lived
frugally worked diligently and used
bicycles or walked they saved what money
they could get to buy things to take
back home this young man did not fit the
mold he bought a car during his first
few months then he started not showing
up for our weekly meetings when he did
appear I was not impressed by his output
I gave this student several minor
[Music]
finally I’d had enough even though a
close colleague in Shanghai had
recommended him to me it was time to end
the relationship I told him that I did
not want to continue to work with him
and he should find another thesis
advisor he astounded me by telling me it
was not fair to dismiss him in this
manner I asked him what he thought would
be fair he suggested the point system
similar to that used by the Department
of Motor Vehicles each offense has a
specific number of points associated
with it and you lose your license only
if your total exceeds a certain number
of points this was too amusing to turn
down we agreed on the system of points
amazingly he shaped up immediately after
our agreement and never got close to
having his license suspended he finished
in a reasonable time with a good thesis
after graduation he found a job on the
East Coast got married had a child and
never went home to China on the other
end of this spectrum I find that when I
go abroad I am often the outlier it
takes a little courage to introduce a
bit of interactive California teaching
style once I was with a classroom of
students in a regional college near
Mumbai after I worked hard to break the
ice for about 40 minutes I got the
students to open up and we had a nice
interaction going the director walked in
and after a few minutes of observation
decided he would help me he loudly
announced I request you do not interrupt
the professor until after the lecture if
looks could kill in any group setting
it’s important to realize but not
everyone thinks like you do whether
because of cultural differences or just
differences in style aim to understand
each other’s communication preferences
and learn from each other when was the
last time you
I have often had the experience that
after students miss a class that come to
me for the lecture notes
my style is to lecture extemporaneously
so I don’t really have a set of lecture
notes to give the student instead I’ve
proposed what seems to me to be a
perfectly reasonable alternative I
suggest that the students copy a
classmates notes go over them and then
come to me to discuss anything they feel
unclear about often it turns out that
the students don’t know anyone else in
the class and they’re not sure who to
ask about borrowing notes it’s as though
students in the same class are ships in
the night passing each other with just
enough recognition to avoid collision my
urge to assist students in breaking
through this veil of anonymity was one
of the factors that led me to create
courses in which students interact with
each other in this context I devised an
exercise that has been very effective in
getting people to connect this
connection helps to break through these
ships in the night phenomenon of people
being in the same environment and not
connecting airplane travel has evolved
into a classic example of people
spending hours together including
sleeping next to one another without
communicating an effective group
icebreaker is to divide the class into
pairs in which each tells the other what
type of person she is this provides good
experience in both talking and listening
the students then are asked to relate
what they heard about their partner to a
different group of partners this is a
good way for us to discover how poorly
we listen and how little we remember
after the first introductions a great
way to connect with a large group is to
form circles of six to eight people and
have them each take turns completing the
same sentence the sentences I use always
begin with the last time I after
everyone has completed his response to a
given sentence I introduce the next
sentence to the group
this time a different person goes first
and when this round is completed a new
person begins the next sentence I use a
different human experience for each
round they thus end up completing
sentences such as the last time I
laughed was the last time I cried was
the last time I had trouble sleeping was
the last time I did a good deed was the
last time I got angry was the last time
I did something brilliant was the last
time I did something stupid was the last
time I had a mystical experience was the
last time I stole something was the last
time I lied was the last time I thought
about suicide was and finally the last
time I felt love was I have found this
technique also works well with groups
and settings outside the university this
is a very effective exercise on several
levels it gets people to find out a
little bit about each other and it start
to form connections with others in the
group it’s also a way for people to see
that we all share a common basis of
experience we all laugh cry lose sleep
at night and do things we are proud of
things we are not proud of things we
regret and thing
that is all part of the human experience
we often hide parts of ourselves because
we feel others would not understand or
would disappear we aren’t sure they
don’t do similar things my experience is
that students from all over the world
have had similar emotional experiences
after all we are all human it goes a
long way toward establishing trust when
students tell their stories to each
other I arranged the room so that I
don’t hear the stories that go with the
responses I do this to emphasize that
this is a student to student sharing
experience it always turns out that the
more you reveal about yourself the more
people like you it’s ironic that we hide
aspects of ourselves because we fear
rejection it’s the hiding not the
revealing that leads to ejection your
turn apply these same ideas in a private
conversation next time you’re having a
leisurely conversation tell your
acquaintances what type of person you
think you are and then ask our to tell
you about herself then go on to share
the last time you could not sleep all
night and ask your partner when that
happened to her from there start trading
stories about the last time you had a
good laugh the last time you made a bad
mistake and so on at the end notice how
your relationship with the other person
has been altered or the details you
shared the name game some people
identify strongly with their names
others hate their names and many others
are more or less neutral in their
feelings I am as students to rate their
feelings about their names on a scale
from 1 to 10 I’ve gotten ratings all
along the scale I used to do a class
exercise in which I asked the students
to shut their eyes and think about the
name that best describes who they are or
if they feel they already have the
correct name to pick another one that
just feels good then I asked them to
mill around and interact with each other
staying in the persona that their new
name implies to them this is an
interesting way to briefly try out
changing your skin
if you’re not happy with your given name
it’s relatively easy to do something
about it either legally or simply by
choosing to go by a name other than
what’s on your official documents
some people purposefully distort the
pronounciation of their names to hide or
downplay their ethnic origins while
others insist on an authentic ethnic
pronounciation but seems exaggerated to
outsiders choosing a less ethnic name is
most commonly seen in show business
however it also happens in the general
workforce a man named Jose Zamora
reported that he was sending out
hundreds of resumes and getting no
responses until he removed one letter
from his name and became Joe it’s
terribly unfair yet experiments have
consistently proven that applicants with
Latino names and black sounding names
such as Lakeisha Washington or Jamal
Jones don’t get called for interviews
nearly as much as those with white
sounding names such as Emilie Walsh or
Brendan Baker people’s relationships to
their names are complicated it’s best
not to assume anything one thing is for
sure if you use someone’s name you take
the relationship to a different level
than when you do not many people
mistakenly believe they have trouble
remembering names I’ve always found
there is a lack of intention and
attention underneath their defeatist
attitude people take the time in some
groups to have each person say her name
aloud this method seldom gets the names
learned and it is more a pretense than
an actual taking of responsibility for
the name issue name tags are a common
tool for avoiding the issue of really
dealing with names it’s easy with name
tags to pretend that people know each
other’s names if you really want to
handle learning people’s names and
groups there are many ways to proceed
one is to break into subgroups of two
people and then build up from there the
trick is to get something memorable from
each partner an easy way to do this is
to come up with something on you
that you both share this serves as a
hook for anything including a name to be
remembered it must be dwelled upon and
repeated thus when you and your partner
join another parent you should introduce
each other to the new pair and give them
the hook that you both share
you can keep enlarging the group size
and get everyone to repeat each person’s
name and the hook that goes with the
name for groups of 30 or less I prefer
to deal directly with the entire group
having everyone stand in the circle and
in the low-stress version the students
repeat in unison the name they just
heard in the high stress version each
person takes a turn and gives his name
and the names of all the people who have
gone before him the exercise can in both
cases become more fun and the names get
easier to remember they become stickier
if in addition to his name the student
also simultaneously introduces himself
with a whole body physical gesture then
the others repeat both the name and the
gesture the gesture is easy to remember
and it makes the name easier to remember
it is useful to reinforce this learning
by giving each person a list of the
names to take home and if possible also
photos for subsequent group meetings I
have photos and names posted in the room
for easy reference regardless of what we
do in the group I always assign myself
the homework of learning names as soon
as practicable usually by the second
meeting many teachers never learn their
students names I never used to why
bother now I realize that I just didn’t
want to devote any effort to it I
thought that if it didn’t happen
automatically it was because I didn’t
have the ability in reality it has
nothing to do with ability it is a
classic case of not giving the required
attention to carrying out the intention
this is a sure way to develop a non
achievement
people who perform prodigious feats of
memorizing go through all sorts of
special efforts to pay attention to what
they are memorizing they know you cannot
memorize something without giving it
particular attention it is mindfulness
rather than brain structure that
differentiates them from us on the other
hand you can assist others to remember
your name if you add a memorable hook
when you introduce yourself your name
becomes easier to remember even with
difficult names also help others greatly
by spelling their names even simple
names can often be confusing when I say
my last name people sometimes hear Ross
rather than for all so I always spell it
when I say it to strangers more over the
phone using names transforms
relationships I should have learned this
years ago from my wife’s college biology
teacher who memorized all the students
names before the first day of class
my wife immediately fell in love with
him as did many of his other students to
this day 59 years later she still
carries it from knowing names connects
who’s in charge when people work in
groups the question of leadership arises
the issue of who leads and how the group
is led can be spoken or unspoken formal
or informal much has been written about
leadership and leadership styles growing
up in America I was brainwashed to
believe that every organization needs a
formal structure with a leader on top
when I was in the third grade the first
thing we did when the teacher had us
form a group was to elect a president
vice president secretary and treasurer
it was my teachers way of preparing us
for good citizenship nobody seemed to
notice that the structure was
functionally meaningless in the sixth
grade we elected a mayor of our school
my friend Seymour was elected mayor of
public school 96 in the Bronx and
because I had mimeograph his election
posters he appointed me police
commissioner I guess it was good
training for the real world because I do
remember using my high office to cover
up my crimes such as tardiness and
truancy in retrospect these two
experiences did more to brainwash me
into believing the only to work in a
hierarchy then they did to make me into
a contributing self actualized citizen
my experience at Stanford regarding
leadership working with groups of
colleagues and with groups of students
has been remarkable and somewhat
atypical originally I was a member of
the mechanical engineering department
which had about 25 faculty members
grouped into three divisions I was a
member of the design division the
Chairman chose a director for each of
the three divisions this was an
efficient arrangement because he only
had to deal with three professors
instead of all 25 most of the faculty
members were content because someone
else was doing their divisions
administrative work and they could
devote their time to their own research
and teaching however I started to notice
defects in the organizational structure
as my career
the Chairman could easily influence the
division directors behavior because he
had a lot of control over the assets he
allocated to them if they were young he
also had a lot of control over their
future careers when tough issues came up
I felt that division directors were at
times in the position where their own
personal interests opposed those of the
individuals they were represented
furthermore the directors were often not
capable of truly representing the other
members of their division in the design
division the situation came to a head
when the director at that time took a
leave and he and the department chairman
without consulting the faculty in the
division attempted to install an
unsuitable replacement
it was the mid-1970s and people were
reconsidering many things within the
social order it was a time of student
unrest social protest and the
questioning of traditional societal
structures and values at that time the
design division had eight faculty
members and we unanimously decided to
restructure our group to operate as a
flat organization without a director the
department chairman raised many
objections to our new structure and we
budding the objections I came to fully
realize what a potentially powerful new
form we had created we had a good idea
that structure has been thriving for 40
years and the design division is now
much more successful than it ever was
our new structure hinged on an hour long
weekly meeting opened to all design
division faculty and staff the meeting
had no chairperson we simply went around
the table taking turns bringing up any
issues that require the divisions
decision reporting on past happenings
and announcing future events we operated
by consensus and negotiation almost
never voting on anything there was
almost no acrimony and people treated
each other with respect
collegial ‘ti and spirit of shared
purpose and commitment
we’d rarely had meetings with each other
before this reorganization nobody but
the director knew what was going on and
people took little or no responsibility
for the Commons under the new system
there was a major transformation and it
was very exciting we were all in charge
and we all wanted to make it work when
we started the department Chairman’s
main objections were based on the idea
that there would not be one director to
represent the divisions interests to the
chair and that we would be unmanageable
it turned out to be just the opposite we
now had the most powerful form of
organization in the department because
we were a large group of people with one
voice it was impossible for the Chairman
or the Dean to buy one person off there
were now eight faculty members behind
each issue if one of us had trouble
getting promoted a salary issue or
anything else that required support we
could send eight people or any subset to
meet with the chairman of the Dean it
was a powerful new model that allowed
for the traditional single director
structure as one of its forms if needed
we could appoint someone director for a
day and we actually never did that we
chose to divide up the jobs and rotate
among them in order to be efficient and
to make it easy for others to deal with
us one of us was responsible for the
finances another handled course
scheduling another represented us at the
Chairman’s weekly meeting with the other
divisions directors yet another person
dealt with staff issues and the
dreariest position of all went to the
person who dealt with office and
classroom space to compensate we decided
to let him have the exalted title of
space czar all these jobs were regularly
rotated and new positions were created
on an as-needed basis we all had an
equal voice those who cared most about
an issue took on the leadership to get
it handled if nobody cared we didn’t do
much about that issue until someone
wanted it resolved the new system went a
long way toward creating a unique and
strong culture interestingly whenever we
acquired new faculty by virtue of
expansion
or to replace people who retired left
for other reasons they quickly adapted
to become fully contributing members to
this unique group we have made some
slight modifications to our meetings
over the years we now have a student
representative at each meeting and the
non teaching staff attend every other
meeting we have also added a second hour
to allow for philosophical discussions I
have developed a lot of respect for the
power of flat organizations by virtue of
my 40 years of experience in the high
functioning design division furthermore
it has led me to believe that the role
of many high executives is overrated
executives tend to get credit for
anything that happens on their watch it
often means they get credit they do not
deserve and the hierarchical
organizational system seems more
effective than it really is
I remember the resume of a design
division director who left for a more
exalted administrative position at
another university the section listing
his administrative achievements showed
that during his directorship the design
divisions ought to have tripled he
neglected to mention that the entire
increase was due to research grants the
faculty had obtained and that he had had
absolutely no part in either raising or
spending the money I don’t fault him I
would have done the same thing I also
noticed how having one person at the
head of a group causes bottlenecks if
it’s a hierarchical system leaders need
to be available or things have to wait
for them if the leader is wrong then the
entire enterprise can be brought to ruin
there is a long-standing argument for
the idea that one person needs to be in
charge it goes way back to Adam Smith’s
writings in his book The Wealth of
Nations even Friedrich Engels agreed
with Smith that a ship needs one captain
I certainly am NOT an expert on ships
and I hate to disagree with the
luminaries above capitalism and
communism however this is at variance
with my experience the flat
participatory model we developed worked
very well and completely suited my
personality I feel blessed to have
worked under it for the main part of my
career at Stanford I can assure you that
the model we developed worked better
than the conventional
alternatives that abound at Stanford I
strongly encourage listeners in academia
industry and other fields to experiment
and find an appropriate model for your
own situations if you can break the
thrall of the conventional wisdom you
might find a management structure that
strongly supports what you want to
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minimizing competition you may not have
a choice in how a group is led whenever
there is a hierarchy of positions and
pay scales it’s likely that you’ll also
encounter some people who will step on
each other as they attempt to climb the
ladder you’ll know them as the office
gossips the backstabbers the users the
phones I encourage you to steer clear of
this entire culture I can’t tell you
that people like that don’t wind up in
high positions they do and too often
it’s important to ask yourself what kind
of satisfaction you’ll derive from being
that kind of person even if it does mean
you get the title reward don’t lose
sight of your humanity in the pursuit of
a fancier car many businesses and
academic organizations use competition
as a means of encouraging people to be
their best they literally have contests
sales contests design contests etc
pitting people against each other
although our culture is habituated to
winner-take-all athletics and other
zero-sum games I’m not a fan of this
well it can’t have a strong upside for
the winner
it is a strong downside for everyone
else it can lower morale foster jealousy
and hurt relationships it’s important to
learn to be motivated to do your
personal best regardless of what happens
around you I have found that contests
bring out the worst in students whereas
learning to cooperate and share brings
out the best if students are exposed to
a learning environment where there is a
strong mutually supportive teaching team
as role models and if they are given
enough autonomy they generate their own
sense of excitement and commitment
without the defeat and discouragement
that is an inherent part of the contest
mode it is generally believed that
contests are good motivators I agree
that they are however they are not the
only motivators we regularly get
extremely high student motivation for
and draw large crowds of spectators to
project presentations that are the
result of cooperation rather than
competition
the positive motivational effects are
just as good without the destructive
downside of contests look for ways to be
inclusive rather than competitive for
ways to help the whole team really
rather than just one individual as much
as possible it behooves you to erase the
idea of competition in the workplace
when you’re moving competition leads to
backstabbing gossip and generally
negative feelings even if you succeed
what you set out to accomplish
maybe you’ll get the raise however
you’ll also lose friendships and may
ever have to feel that you have to watch
your back power dynamics often lead to
this competition when there are multiple
levels or layers in an organization you
may have a boss and a boss’s boss and so
on maybe a co-worker has more clout than
you do or is making more money this is
all meaningless in life real-life none
of that matters you have to be satisfied
only with yourself not worried about
what the Joneses are up to one great way
that we get rid of power struggles is by
going for walks together see if I have a
meeting with a colleague in my office
then I’m the one with power and vice
versa if the meeting is in her office
instead we walk the hierarchy is gone
whenever you can eliminate situations in
which one person is sitting behind a
desk the desk creates distance and a
power imbalance that can make the other
person feel self-conscious and less then
rethinking a private office in the
engineering school at Stanford every
professor has a closed-off room known as
his private office I have a standard
relationship with my private office for
43 years and I was happy with the
situation my office housed my vast
collection of books feces and off prints
of technical papers it also housed all
my paper files and was decorated with
framed pictures of a long ago trip to
Chiapas Mexico in addition there was a
collection of mechanical models the
used my lectures to amuse visitors and
to remind me of some past experience
then I got involved in the D school and
my relationship to my office changed
there are no private offices at the
d.school just open bullpen arrangements
it was like the space I shared with
other lecturers at the City College of
New York when I had my first teaching
job and the space I shared with other
PhD students at Columbia University it’s
hardly the prestigious office that a
chaired senior full professor expects
yet I found that I spent more and more
time in the D school staff space and
less and less in my private office this
arrangement went on for over four years
then two major events occurred in my
life after four moves the D school
finally landed in its permanent home and
the building have held my private
mechanical engineering design group
office was condemned I knew a smaller
private office was assigned to me in a
separate wing of the same building that
now houses the D school I donated my
collection of books and research
documents to a special library at the
University of California Davis and move
the rest of my possessions into my new
private office I hardly ever go there
instead I lend it to individuals with
critical space needs I spend all my time
at the d.school
at the d.school there are now not even
partitions between people’s faces a
staff of more than 20 shares one common
unobstructed space outfitted with a few
desks many shelf like desktops portable
files and desktop computers there is no
hierarchy that determines who sits where
and there is periodic spontaneous
shifting of home bases when we first
moved into the permanent d.school space
we had just hired a woman named Kim to
be our chief financial person previously
she had worked for many years in the
dean’s office and she was very familiar
with the Stanford finance system after
two weeks she told me that she was
finding it difficult to do her work in
the open D school space I immediately
responded that I could solve her problem
we purchased a new desktop computer for
her and set her up in my private office
I gave her my office key and assured her
she would be the only person using that
office after about 10 days I noticed Kim
was back at her original computer
station in the open space community
office she never went back to the
private office once she had experienced
the feelings of camaraderie she could
not go back to the old seclusion of the
private office it was too isolating for
her I knew just how she felt we
eventually moved the computer out of the
private office and into our common space
I wonder if the computer also felt a
sense of relief before we move to the
open floor plan I had been in private
offices my entire professional life I
now realize how much better equipped the
d.school is for individual and group
relations it also does wonders for
information flow and communications when
I come into work it feels very much like
coming home to my family what we do of
course all have times when we need to
think of work without interruptions when
that happens there’s a simple signal we
put on headphones
and then everyone knows not to bother us
we can also remove ourselves from that
space and go into one of the private
rooms if we need point if you have any
input into your workspace try opening it
up to a more non hierarchical setup give
yourself some time to get used to it and
then see if you work better in a
space and body language physical
position is very important unless I am
giving a theater style lecture my
favorite teaching arrangement is to have
everyone sit in a circle moreover I
insist on the circle being is small and
is perfectly round as possible
the closer the people are to each other
physically the better the group
functions I have conducted many
experiments with all sorts of groups and
the results are overwhelmingly in favor
of very tight circles this falls in line
with the Design Thinking concept of
radical collaboration a circle means
there’s no hierarchy of who sits where
there are no good seats bad seats or
preconceived notions about the types of
people who sit in front who we would
call the brown nosers or back who we
call the class clowns and slackers it
means that we’re all looking at each
other
encouraging eye contact and connections
among people changing the circles
diameter changes the feeling in the
group in a very palpable way if we want
everyone to participate then no one can
be left out physically everyone needs to
be on the same level if someone sits
back a little from the circumference she
is left out emotionally as well as
physically and those too far inside
exclude others by blocking their view of
fellow participants if you find yourself
on the periphery of a group and notice
that you feel left out try moving to a
more central location chances are you’ll
feel more involved in what’s going wrong
change your location and you will change
how you feel about the event you’re
attending when you have trouble really
engaging or working on a goal
see if your location is supporting or
hindering your efforts it’s hard to get
noticed at work if you’re always sitting
closest to the exit and it’s more likely
to put in more effort in your workout
class if you’re in the instructors
Seidler I am often in a situation in
which students working on the same
project sit in a group of four or more
around a small table if one of the
students does not seem to be
participating much and her chair is
farther away from the table from the
other students I gently push that
students chair inward so that she is
physically an integral part of the group
that change usually results in much
greater participation from the former
outlier be aware of your body and what
it’s telling you if you like what it’s
saying keep doing what you’re doing if
you don’t like what it’s saying move it
to the position where it says what you
like large meetings provide classic
examples of the importance of physical
position they often take place in
conference rooms where there is one big
rectangular table that everyone sits
around if the table is long it’s
difficult to see most of the other
people on your side of the table if
people don’t see each other the
effectiveness of their communication is
diminished if one person is running the
meeting or perceived as more important
than the others there is an implicit
Authority associated with how close you
sit to that person if you want to
strengthen your voice in the meeting sit
as close to the authority figures as
possible and opposite the people you
want to influence if you want to hide
sit on the same side of the table and as
far as possible from the people you want
to hide from it’s even easier to
disappear if the room is so crowded that
you can take a back row seat and not sit
at the table at all if you have no one
to hide from and you want to have a
fully participatory meeting it’s much
better to abandon the rectangular
conference table in favor of a circular
arrangement where everyone can see and
be seen by all of the other participants
your physical position at a meeting
influences both your effectiveness and
your state of mind working in a
supportive physical environment is a
huge plus as students in the Stanford
d.school know well a book about the
school titled make space refers to some
of the key factors in providing a space
to promote creative learning in learning
by doing situations it is interesting to
look at attitudes about the d.school
type of space people seeing it for the
first time immediately think of it as
being a creative space so did the
students it’s as if the space is talking
to them saying hey the expectations here
are different from those in the rest of
the university when we were designing
the space they were often arguments
between the d.school team and the people
who manage space renovations for the
university I recall being told several
times it may be good for you guys but
who will want to use it if you leave the building it turns out almost everyone