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march 2005 143 appropriate care, depriving patients of needed services and drugs, and it im- plies that such roadblocks result in in- creased presenteeism.
We presume corporate leaders will be intrigued by this issue, too – American employers pay a greater proportion of health insurance than companies in any other Western nation. But before the business community can be convinced to invest money to combat presentee- ism, more work must be done to char- acterize the nature and size of the prob- lem. For instance, researchers must establish a baseline for decreased pro- ductivity due to illness. Imagine a per- son who is 100% healthy and produc- tive. (Quick! Send him to work for us!) Does that person represent the base- line? Would any deviation from 100% health and 100% productivity be con- sidered presenteeism? We think not.
The 100%ideal is just that, an ideal.
An equally vexing problem is how to remedy the situation. Should clinical guidelines be applied more rigorously?
Should employees be screened for the most costly diseases? Should employ- ers pay closer attention to “report cards”
for physicians and medical groups?
Should workplace health care systems be enhanced? We are grateful to the author for stimulating thought along these lines.
Theodore G. Ganiats, MD William A. Norcross, MD Professors Department of Family and Preventive Medicine University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine La Jolla, California Presenteeism: At Work –
But Out of It
In light of the business community’s drive to reduce health care costs, we were intrigued by Paul Hemp’s con- tention in “Presenteeism: At Work–But Out of It” (October 2004) that “presen- tee” employees – those who go to work with untreated illnesses instead of stay- ing home – may be costing U.S. compa- nies billions of dollars annually. We are
primary care physicians who have col- lectively worked for more than a half century in a city that boasts one of the most aggressive managed-competition markets in the United States. We’ve seen that the managed-care revolution and other recent cost control efforts have been moderately successful, at least in blunting the rate of increase. But the article seems to support critics who say these systems throw up roadblocks to
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L e t t
noyed by Larry Downes’s opinion piece
“First, Empower All the Lawyers” (Fore- thought, December 2004). It reflects the typical managerial attitude that law- yers should be encouraged “to use law as a strategic weapon.” I’d like to make three points:
First, anyone suggesting that law be used as a weapon in business loses all rights to complain about the legal, reg- ulatory, and insurance burdens that have been brought down on business by companies that have attempted to use law as a weapon.
Second, it is all very well to complain about in-house lawyers who don’t know enough about intellectual property, an- titrust, or the other complex and highly specialized areas of law Downes lists.
But the simple fact is that most corpo- rate legal departments are understaffed (precisely because they are viewed as expensive overhead) with lawyers who are expected by management to magi- cally answer questions about every area of the law – an impossible task.
Third, it is certainly the mark of the mediocre lawyer to just say “No” or
“Don’t do that” without proposing al- ternative solutions to the problems at hand or providing a reasoned assess- ment of the company’s legal risk. But lawyers add the most value to an orga- nization by preventing it from engag- ing in conduct that will ultimately de- stroy value. Lawyers are often seen as
“roadblocks to innovation” – but an ounce of prevention…
While there is a certain schadenfreude in seeing predicted disasters occur when management charges ahead despite warnings, it would be more gratifying to in-house counsel if companies would
“fix” their supposedly “broken” legal departments by focusing less on weap- onizing them and more on listening to them.
Colin P.A. Jones Founder Lexdox Japan Tokyo
tive coaching – the technically brilliant leader who leaves a wake of bitter co- workers is all too common. It’s equally clear, as Stratford Sherman and Alyssa Freas point out in “The Wild West of
Executive Coaching”(November 2004), that organizations looking to improve their leaders’ behavior face major ob- stacles. There are no accepted standards for executive coaching, there are no agreed-upon criteria for what makes a coach qualified, and there’s no well- understood way to know whether coach- ing is working.
But my colleagues and I see a glim- mer of a solution where the authors don’t. We worked with executive coach Marshall Goldsmith to study propri- etary data from leadership develop- ment initiatives conducted for nearly 12,000 leaders at eight large compa- nies. What a leader should want to know is whether peers and direct re- ports notice a behavioral improvement that makes a difference to them. So the data included 86,000 responses by col- leagues to surveys on perceived changes in the leaders’ behavior. We found that the more the leaders involved their col- leagues in the behavior-improvement process (for example, by asking for sug- gestions), the more likely the colleagues were to report amelioration in the lead- ers’ behavior. (Some 94%of leaders who were thorough about dialogue and fol- low-up with colleagues were perceived as having made a positive behavior change.) Leaders who made the least
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effort at dialogue and follow-up were perceived as having achieved the least amount of positive behavior change (some 60%of their colleagues perceived them as unchanged or even worse than before).
This research reaffirms the coaching approach we advocate. We put the lead- ers at the center of an ongoing dialogue with their colleagues, who serve as part- ners in the effort. Rather than being the star, the coach is the facilitator; the leader and his or her colleagues are the main players.
On the matter of quantifying results, which Sherman and Freas say is nearly impossible, my colleagues have devel- oped – and have been using for some time – metrics that enable clients to sys- tematically track leaders’ progress to- ward behavioral change. The metrics are based on the leaders’ colleagues’
perceptions. We’ve teamed up with Mar- shall Goldsmith to form an executive coaching firm that gets paid only if the intervention leads to a positive change
in executive behavior. I hope we’re bringing some order to the Wild West of coaching.
Niko Canner Managing Partner Katzenbach Partners Cofounder, Marshall Goldsmith Partners, a subsidiary of Katzenbach Partners New York It’s bad enough that the authors present executive coaching as a panacea. But I’m more disappointed that HBR would publish an article that is so blatantly a commercial for a consulting organiza- tion – it’s full of comments such as “We are deeply committed to helping our coachees lead better lives.”I would have expected HBR to insist that such an ar- ticle be written from the standpoint of objective experts.
James F. Bolt Chairman Executive Development Associates San Francisco
Sherman and Freas respond:Thanks to Niko Canner for highlighting the facil- itative nature of coaching. We know and admire Marshall Goldsmith, whose insights and energy have significantly influenced us both. Our independent ex- perience strongly supports Goldsmith’s conclusions about the benefit of engag- ing a coachee’s business colleagues in the coaching process. That said, mea- suring colleagues’ perceptions of be- havioral change isn’t new, and the re- lationship of those measurements to business outcomes is obscure. Human nature – the context in which all coach- ing metrics must be evaluated–remains immeasurable. As for James Bolt’s view that coaching is not a panacea, we agree.
Erratum:Due to a transcription error, the company name Alstom was mis- spelled on page 119 of the February 2005 issue (in the HBR Interview entitled
“Transforming an Industrial Giant”).
HBR regrets the error.
L E T T E R S T O T H E E D I T O R
Sorting Data to Suit YourselfLetting custom- ers organize yourinformation the way theywant is a cool benefit today but will be a necessity tomorrow, says Harvard Law School Internet scholar David Weinberger.Reprint f0503a Both Sides NowWhat’s an oligonomy? A mar- ket with few sellers andfew buyers, says market watchdog Steve Hannaford, and Wal-Mart con- trols the most notorious one.Reprint f0503b Rotate the CoreBy rotating key executives through headquarters, companies can keep cor- porate lean but still hold sway over the units, says BCG senior VP George Stalk, Jr.Reprint f0503c Expanding in ChinaBain consultants Ann Chen and Vijay Vishwanath offer three key strategies multinationals can use to expand from China’s premium segment into the broader market.
Reprint f0503d
No More MetaphorsTruly new ideas spawn orig- inal language, but where new management ideas should be, there are too many clichés borrowed from other fields. We deserve better, argues HBR senior editor Leigh Buchanan.Reprint f0503e Global Manufacturers at a CrossroadsAs multi- nationals decrease their direct investment in low- wage markets, they’re opening the door to dan- gerous competitors, says Deloitte consultant Peter Koudal.Reprint f0503f
Vanishing Jobs? Blame the BoomersBaby busters won’t get the jobs the boomers leave behind, warns demographer Phillip Longman.
Reprint f0503g
The Faster They FallThe likelihood that an industry leader will lose its top position within five years has doubled since 1972, say McKinsey consultants S. Patrick Viguerie and Caroline Thompson.Reprint f0503h
Outsourcing MarketingMarketing is becom- ing more analytic and less creative. That’s why, HBS professors Gail McGovern and John Quelch assert, more companies are finding it makes sense to outsource many marketing functions.
Reprint f0503j
Lessons from the Slums of BrazilJetBlue’s David Neeleman talks about how his unexpected lessons from working with the poor have informed his company’s egalitarian culture.Reprint f0503k Book ReviewsHBR reviews four books.
58Lean Consumption James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones 70What Great Managers Do
Marcus Buckingham 80MarketBusting: Strategies for Exceptional
Business Growth Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan 92Want Collaboration? Accept – and Actively
Manage – Conflict Jeff Weiss and Jonathan Hughes 102The HBR Interview
Execution Without Excuses Michael Dell and Kevin Rollins
16Forethought 31HBR Case Study
The Shakedown Phil Bodrock 43Big Picture
Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce 124Best Practice
A Practical Guide to Social Networks Rob Cross, Jeanne Liedtka, and Leigh Weiss 135Tool Kit
Inventory-Driven Costs Gianpaolo Callioni et al.
146Executive Summaries 152Panel Discussion