Philip Greenspun Reviews “Lean In”

http://www.littlespeck.com/content/economy/CTrendsEconomy-06...

The boss who loses his temper a lot but doesn't engage in prolonged campaigns of harassment is the archetypical "asshole" boss, but not a bully. People realize he's a "Volcano" (see here: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/gervais-macle... ) and his credibility drops, so he is really only a danger to himself after a while. As long as you can tolerate superficial verbal abuse (and not everyone can, but I can deal with it at this point in my life) you're not at major risk of long-term career harm from the Volcano/Cartoon Asshole.

The asshole wants, out of work, things that normal people want (money, prestige, accomplishment, progress) and just goes about getting them in an emotionally retarded way. He can't persuade people or lead, so he falls back on abuse, but he doesn't actually enjoy hurting people (he might not care much about others' emotions, or he might be utterly blind to his effects on other people, but he's not sadistic). Bullies are different; they actually enjoy destroying people. They like abusing power even more than they like getting rich or climbing the ranks.

Assholes can be worked around. Even if one gets you fired, your reputation will usually be intact. In fact, you're likely to get sympathy because people who know their reputations are impressed that you held out for that long. "Really? You worked for him for 15 months?" Bullies are different, in that they deliberately ruin your reputation, and because they're selective in their choices of whom to attack, they keep their credibility intact. Workplace bullies know that they can only target a small number of people, and only the socially weak (new guys, young people, women) and they're superficially nice to everyone else, so they end up with sterling reputations.

Bullies are nice to everyone except the people they perceive as being weak. The danger is that most people will have moments of (usually transient) weakness. A bully boss can turn transient weakness (a health problem, a failed startup, child-raising complications) into a permanent career smear.

I worked for one of these at Google. He was superficially very nice, but he sabotaged people. I investigated him quite a bit while I was there, and after I left, got access to a bunch of shit I shouldn't have been able to see. He had an HR record as long as my forearm of using fake performance problems to tease out reports' health problems, rescheduling meetings to conflict with peoples' medical appointments; but HR did nothing because he had a superb reputation for "delivery" on projects (mostly because he was a great blame-shifter). I was weak at the time because I was coming off of a failed startup. Had it not been for that, I doubt I would have been his target.

Also, it's a misconception that a workplace bully is only going to do typical boss things in the nastiest way. They deliberately interfere with work performance. Bully bosses don't let you go off and do great things but give negative reviews. (That's an asshole boss having a shitty day.) They actively make it impossible for you to perform, so it looks like you melted down and that they had nothing to do with it.

Yes, if you're attacked by one of these, you're off the Sheryl Sandberg track for good. It doesn't mean that you'll never have a decent career. It does mean that you're out of the running for CxO implants into existing enterprises-- you need a smear-free career history for that, unless you go full-on Don Draper-- and now that VC-istan is fully corporate, you're probably not fundable either.

There are apartments selling for $100 million. Who lives in those? How did they get there? What are their stories? The answers are not what middle-class Americans think (hard work! pure luck!) but you don't exactly have to become one of them (almost impossible) to learn how they do things. They don't even bother to hide it anymore.

After about 5 years, you'll realize that most of the "effortless" rises are cases of people who learn something damning about a powerful person and leverage it into all kinds of social currencies.

Stupid extortion: "Give me $10 million or I'll reveal ." That's far too direct and really dumb. You go to jail for that.

Smarter (if still evil) extortion: "Hi. You may not remember me but I was with you on January 24, 2007 in New York when . Those were fun times, no? I heard that a lot of venture capitalists attend your winter party in Aspen. I'd like to attend, because I'm looking to start my own company." That's how 90+ percent of the most successful people got where they are.

Maybe they could have used that as a launching pad for something that would have survived the trough, or maybe they could have been acquired at the perfect time a la Mark Cuban and our gracious host, but the fact that they didn't doesn't much point to any fatal failures of judgment. A lot of people got swept up in the bubble and subsequent crash (just as a lot of people are getting swept up in dotcom 2.0 and will cry bitter tears when it too crashes.)

It's valuable because it shows a career track to women in technology, which is undoubtedly a male-dominated field. It also repackages a lot of existing knowledge into a format that is accessible to ambitious young women.

It's valuable because it allows me to talk to my sister about how she perceives gender issues. She is a mechanical engineer, and without having a common language it would be difficult for me to relate my career to hers.

It's valuable because my girlfriend can pick it up and use it to develop an understanding of how she fits in the workplace. Having a reference text allows her to interface with peers and build a dialogue.

When I first started editing inside investing, I realized something about two days into the job: we commonly conceive writing as the pursuit of truth through argumentation. In many cases, that is patently wrong. Most writing serves to stoke conversation.

All of this discussion--whether it suggests males are intrinsically different or that there is more to women's pay and achievement gap in terms of social dynamics--is the point of the book.

All of this criticism is valid, but guess what--did the book get you to think about women in the workplace? Have you considered how you behave in relation to your female colleagues and employees as a result of reading this book? If so, it's done its job.