H OW TO WORK FOR AN IDIOT SURVIVE SZ THRIVE... WITHOUT KILLING YOUR Boss This page intentionally left blank H OW TO WORK FOR AN IDIOT SURVIVE SZ THRIVE... WITHOUT KILLING YOUR Boss By John Hoover CAREER /i P RESS Franklin Lakes, NJ Copyright © 2004 by John Hoover All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press. How TO WORK FOR AN IDIOT EDITED AND TYPESET BY NICOLE DEFELICE Cover design by Lu Rossman/Digi Dog Design Printed in the U.S.A. by Book-mart Press To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201- 848-0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books from Career Press. The Career Press, Inc., 3 Tice Road, PO Box 687, Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417 CAREER P R ES www.careerpress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hoover, John, 1952- How to work for an idiot : survive & thrive— without killing your boss / by John Hoover. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56414-704-5 (pbk.) 1. Managing your boss. 2. Executives—Psychology. 3. Office politics. 4. Interpersonal relations. 5. Psychology, Industrial. I. Title. HF5548.83.H66 2004 650.1'3—dc21 2003054652 Dedication To my father, Robert J. Hoover (1925-2001), who showed me how we can change the ways we think and act. Acknowledgments I want to thank Career Press publisher, Ron Fry, for having the courage to publish the confessions of a recovering Idiot Boss and examine the sometimes unsightly underworld of employee/employer relationships; Career Press editorial director, Stacey Farkas and editor, Nicole De Felice, who transformed a raging torrent of ideas and personal illustrations into a readable document that actually makes sense; my mother, Ruth Schultz Hoover, a gifted writer herself, who examined early drafts and said," Listen to your editors"; Sandy Wilson, a gifted training and development professional, who read an early draft and confirmed that the issue of Idiot Bosses needed to be brought out of the closet and into the daylight where we could all have a good laugh. Thanks also to author and leadership expert, Danny Cox, for being an inspiration to me and to so many. And special thanks to Pamala Davenport for her encouragement to see this through to the end. This page intentionally left blank Contents Introduction 9 Chapter 1: Confessions of a Recovering Idiot 15 Chapter 2: Will the Real Idiot Please Stand Up? 37 Chapter 3: The Making of an I-Boss 61 Chapter 4: Idiot Procreation 75 Chapter 5: Banishing Talent 93 Chapter 6: Success In Spite of Stupidity 109 Chapter 7: Idiotthink: The Great Disguise 139 Chapter 8:A Strategic Partnership 157 Chapter 9: Idiotspeak: How to Talk to Your Idiot Boss 179 Chapter 10: Idiot-eat: Using Meals to Advance Your Career 195 Chapter 11: Idiocy: Theoretical, Theological, and Biological Roots 209 Chapter 12: The Open Hand 225 Bibliography 243 Index 245 About the Author 251 This page intentionally left blank Introduction After studying Idiot Bosses for nearly two decades, I finally un- derstand why females in certain species eat their young. The experi- ence of working for an Idiot Boss is so universal and the feelings of frustration so widespread that the mere mention of this book title resonates throughout the human race. It does not resonate, however, with Idiot Bosses (code name: "I-Bosses"), not because they take exception to the name-calling and innuendo, but because I-Bosses just don't get it—any of it. I once failed miserably trying to market a seminar titled, "How to Manage People who are Smarter, More Talented, and Productive than You Are." My mistake was advertising to Idiot Bosses who needed the seminar. If I had advertised to people who could anony- mously enroll and send their Idiot Bosses, I'd be a multimillionaire. How to Work for an Idiot might not be a seminar to which bosses will eagerly send their employees, but as a book, the potential audience of highly motivated revenge seekers is huge and as ubiquitous as oxygen. Speaking of omnipresence, on the seventh day, God relaxed and thought back over the productive week He had just completed. Suddenly remembering that He forgot to fix the Idiot Boss malfunction, God winced and said, "oops." Not feeling the problem was annoying enough to create an eight-day week, God let the idiot thing slide, and the rest is history. Then again, God doesn't have to work for an idiot. 9 10 How to Work For an Idiot Idiot Bosses are the mutant hiccups of organizational evolution with cockroach-like immunity to calamities that wipe out truly tal- ented and creative people. Although idiots are barnacles on the ship of executive survival, they can nonetheless serve valuable functions— as long as they're not in charge. The bad news is they usually are in charge. The good news is, talented and dedicated people can rise above the situation and thrive in spite of their I-Bosses. If How to Work for an Idiot doesn't provide you with the knowledge and awareness to deal with this vertical mobility challenge, it might at least keep you from going postal. Nearly everyone now works or has worked for an I-Boss. Despite the liberties this book takes with archetypal Idiot Bosses in the tradi- tion of Dagwood's Mr. Dithers or Dilbert's despicable department head, it also suggests some methods and techniques to help you deal with fools in positions of power more easily. You'll encounter pearls of wisdom in the pages ahead. But, at times, you'll need to follow a herd of swine to find them. Isn't that how real life works? I'll lead you through many of my own experiences so the truths will be revealed in the appropriate con- text. You'll learn to reflect on your own life experiences and, in doing so, potentially make your relationship with idiots tolerable and even productive. You'll begin by activating and enlarging your empathic capacity, thus rendering Idiot Bosses powerless to increase hostility, blood pressure, or the likelihood of homicide. I-Bosses only have as much power over your mood as you allow. For most, the terms empathy and idiot don't often appear in the same thought. But what has resentment done for you lately? Resent- ment causes your heart to shrivel and your veins, arteries, and capil- laries to harden. While all that's happening to you, your I-Boss's heart is merrily pumping away, forcing oxygenated blood though veins, ar- teries, and capillaries as wide open and free-flowing as a Los Angeles freeway at 3 o'clock on a Sunday morning. By sharing some of my good and not-so-good life experiences, and inviting you to reflect on your own memorable and forgettable experiences, you'll begin to see how your I-Boss came to aggravate you so much. How aggravated we allow ourselves to become is more about our own attitudes than the external persons or circumstances committing the alleged aggravating. The key to surviving and thriving Introduction 11 without killing your boss (as the subtitle suggests) is to take control over the only thing you have control over: your emotional response to the things other people say and do as well as things that go bump in the universe. How to Work for an Idiot is as irreverent as it is therapeutic, as satirical as it is sensible, as lighthearted as it is heartfelt, and treats the classic hierarchical management model with all of the dignity and respect it deserves in a progressive private sector—none. Chapters such as "Idiotspeak" and "Idiot-eat" are replete with tales of bungling and stumbling attempts at leadership; mostly my bungling and stum- bling attempts at leadership. If I can help you become more comfortable with your frail and imperfect humanity, I've helped launch you on a path toward a se- rene and comfortable coexistence with the idiots in your personal and professional lives. With empathy comes increased tolerance, patience, and a sense of peace. Facing truths about our own flirta- tions with stupidity can sometimes be difficult. That's why I've chosen to lace this book with wall-to-wall humor. If a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, a barrel of laughs can wash down the big pills you might need to swallow. I've had a bitter pill of self- aggrandizement lodged in my throat for years. I gag on it to this day if I eat too fast. There is no guarantee my anecdotal approach to surviving and thriving despite your Idiot Boss will make you taller, better looking, increase your intelligence, or lose weight. I do guarantee that I write from a position of authority on the subject. If you read my biographi- cal sketch on the back cover, you know that I hold a Ph.D. I also have two Master's degrees and years of experience as a worker bee, middle manager, executive, entrepreneur, consultant, and mental health clinical intern. More important than any of that is the fact that I'm an idiot. More accurately, a recovering idiot. The operative word (in case you didn't notice) is recovering.