How we do things as important as what we do

LITTLE ROCK — The medium is, indeed, the message.

The manner in which you do a thing is as important as what you actually do. Frequently the act or the medium or the method with which the deed is carried out conveys a message about the intent and the values of the person who acted.

Here are two recent books that discuss the implications that often accompany our actions:

Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything in Business (and in Life) by Dov Seidman (Wiley, 352 pages, $27.95).

Writer Robert A. Heinlein used to argue in favor of arming almost everyone, saying that if you knew that the person you were dealing with carried a gun, you would be extra careful and sensitive to his needs. That's not entirely dissimilar to what we have in this age of transparency, when someone can Google a person before they go out on their first date.

Behaving as if everyone is armed with your personal information is a very good idea, according to author Seidman, because they are. Databases and Web sites track individuals' and institutions' transactions, words, accomplishments and crimes. Something you say or do will come back to haunt you or help you.

And this new openness also acts as a catalyst for what author Thomas Freidman called "flatness" - the reduction and elimination of most of the old, insurmountable hierarchies of business and information. According to Seidman in his latest book, people and companies that are able to leverage this freedom will benefit. The ability to honestly interact can be a powerful catalyst.

He writes: "A new model emerges: connect and collaborate. To succeed in this new model, workers and companies alike need to develop new skills and harness new powers within themselves. Companies - and the people who comprise them - need to recontextualize how they do business. Individuals must develop new approaches to the sphere of human relations. Both companies and employees must learn to share in whole new ways. Successdepends on how people of diverse backgrounds and skills communicate with and complement one another. In a connected world, power shifts to those best able to connect."

He also discusses the ethical and moral implications of all this openness. Seidman is an experienced and worldly observer, so he is not unrealistic about the baser instincts that motivate many of us. Nonetheless, he also presents a hopeful and positive future where lying and obfuscation are less possible and ultimately unacceptable because there are fewer places to hide.

What Were They Thinking? Unconventional Wisdom About Management by Jeffrey Pfeffer (Harvard Business School Publishing, 241 pages $25).

Change is good - but not always. Pfeffer, a Stanford University professor, looks at business decisions that were made mostly for the right reasons but proved to be bad choices that conveyed the opposite of what was intended.

What message, for example, are you sending customers when you cut back on the number of retail sales people in your store? There may be a need to reducecosts, but he cites his own experience of how focusing strictly on the bottom line can backfire. In shopping one day for sheets on sale at Macy's and not receiving assistance, Pfeffer headed over to another store, where the helpful employee made the sale. What did Macy's gain by "cutting costs"? And what has it lost?

Pfeffer also looks at lying on resumes, cutting benefits, poor communication, bad manners and other dumb business practices, but the crux of this book is his "unconventional wisdom" that people really matter and that, given the right opportunity, they want to do the right things.

Unfortunately, self-serving managers often execute well-intended strategies with tactless tactics that subvert the human element. Throughout, Pfeffer reinforces Voltaire that common sense is not so common - at least among management.

Richard Pachter is the business book columnist for the Miami Herald. He can be reached at rapWordsOnWords.com; more of his columns are available at www.WordsOnWords.com.