At a friend’s urging, I recently bought a bike to commute to the new job. I can’t believe how having the wind in my face takes me back to being nine years old.

Okay, I can hear what many of the women reading this are thinking. Jeez, that’s the last thing we need, something to make guys even less mature.

That aside, my friend also gave me a great bit of sage advice. “Cars win.”

After a week of bike riding, I’ve been very safe because of those wise words. Which got me thinking, what else wins at work?

Clearly companies win today. With all the salary cuts, benefit reductions and layoffs, most workers are running scared. But even there, savvy employees can still negotiate with employers to get what they need. The best way to negotiate with your employer? Do it when you first get offered the job. That’s when you have maximum leverage. The next best way to negotiate, have a competing job offer in hand.

Bosses mostly win. Again, when I’ve had a boss, I usually have been able to get what I needed from them. Not because I’m a terrific negotiator, but because I always ask when they’re in a good mood. Trust me, this goes further than you realize.

Coworkers should win. I know the phrase is hackneyed, but doing random acts of kindness for coworkers is so darn wise. Doing favors before you need them in return. Most people take coworkers for granted, I always try to do the exact opposite.

Customers need to win. Really.

I guess I’m naïve enough to think that we don’t have to always have losers just so someone can win.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

A friend that I went to high school is an accomplished writer on ethical issues. He’s written a couple of books and columns for the NY Times and Fortune. He once called me the biggest BS artist he’s ever met, because I write about the workplace but don’t work in one. Of course I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “Sure Jeff, and you write about ethics.”

Seriously, even though I wrote most of my articles while in shorts on my couch, I always had guidance about what was going on in the workplace from the 50,000 people who’ve written to me through the years, both bosses and employees. This insight has provided an invaluable understanding about workplace dynamics and a treasure trove of creative solutions for solving common workplace problems.

I’ve also done an average of 25 speeches a year. Which has allowed me yet another venue to take the pulse of what’s going on at work. And finally, I’ve coached a number of executives through the years.

A couple of weeks ago a company asked me to serve as a consultant to them. This isn’t unusual, I’ve done it a number of times during the course of my career.

But as the conversations continued, they eventually asked me to work for them full time. Don’t worry, I’ll continue to write my column and blog.

This got me thinking about the basic tenet of Free Agent Nation. That being an entrepreneur is the most evolved place to spend your time in the workplace. I disagree, even though I’ve done the free agent thing for many years.

I think that there are times in your life where it makes sense to be on your own and there are also times where it makes sense to occupy box on the organizational chart.

Okay, it’s weird to think about having a desk and being expected to show up at an office regularly. But I’m excited about a concept that I haven’t had for many years, colleagues, people who I can bounce ideas off of. And yes, people that I have to convince. But even that prospect can only serve to make my ideas better.

There is life after Free Agent Nation. And I’ll keep you posted on my progress.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

Bloggers Confession: I am wrapped around the little finger of the Apple marketing department. I’m writing this blog on my MacBook, while I listen to tunes on my iPod, my iPhone is nearby and so is my iPad. Wow, I knew I was a junkie, but just writing that sentence made me feel like Steve Jobs personal rentboy.

That said, the recent press conference about the iPhone 4 made me extremely sad. Okay, I realize that Apple is a big corporation. And that public pronouncements by the CEO need to factor in competitors, lawsuits and today’s very fickle consumer. But Jobs sounded more like a Wall Street CEO defending the company’s bonuses than the guy who made the products that currently litter my desk.

Arrogant. Obnoxious. Above making mistakes.

How could a company that is so remarkably in tune with its audience’s hopes and dreams, be so annoying when they know there is a problem with their latest product? I’m not saying that they needed to launch a massive recall. But, I believe, Apple did need to accept some ownership for the reception problems plaguing it’s latest iPhone.

Okay, Jobs has been fighting some serious medical issues that could take him off his game.

And some could argue that Apple has always had an attitude and a tendency toward obsessive secrecy. Remember when that guy found a test phone a few months back?

But I fear that it is something else that’s happening here, market-capitalization-disease. Now that Apple has passed Microsoft in terms of the value of the company in the eyes of stockholders, I fear that Apple believes it’s own press clippings.

Steve, all you had to say was that the company always pushed the boundaries of technology, of style and of what’s possible. We get that. And we would have gotten that this glitch was part of what we all value about Apple the most. But when you went all Nixon on us, well it made me sad.

Your success is due to us. Please don’t insult our intelligence when you overreach. Just admit it and we can all move on.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

Last week a friend stopped by who’d just been riffed by Microsoft (reduction in force, for the luckily uninitiated).

She spoke angrily about the HR woman who answered most of her questions wrong concerning her severance and departure from the company. Initially my friend was told there was no severance beyond six weeks and her layoff would leave her just short of the date where she’d be fully invested in her pension. Later she talked to a more senior HR staffer who reassured her that she would receive enough additional time to receive her pension.

Misinformation. It happens all the time. But I can think of few times more painful than when you are getting laid off to get bad information. In football the term for this would be piling on. And yet I hear from people all the time who have to go through an experience that would be difficult enough by itself, getting laid off, but then the salt water is poured in their wounds by insensitive or incompetent HR or management staff.

Let me lay a card or two on the table. I like the vast majority of Human Resources people I’ve met through the years. I’ve spoken at HR conferences, I’ve written for HR publications and I consider many HR people to be my friends. This shouldn’t be surprising because I like people with heart.

It pains me when people in HR forget that they need to be the bridge between the company and its people, rather than just serving as an agent for the company.

Let me explain. I once spoke at a HR conference. I began by asking if audience members grew up with an adult’s table and a children’s table at big family events like Thanksgiving. Most of the audience smiled and said they had.

I then asked a simple question, as an HR person, which table do you sit at where you work, the adult’s table or the children’s table? For the rest of the session, every person who spoke began by saying that they sat at the adult’s table and then they explained why. “I have a great relationship with the CEO and board.” “I attend executive staff meetings.” “I report directly to the CEO,” were typical responses.

Oh, there was one exception. At the very end of the session one HR director said that she preferred the children’s table because you could play with your food, there weren’t a bunch of annoying rules and meals were always fun.

The correct answer concerning which table is either “both” or “neither.” The most effective HR people must be able to mix it up at both the adult and children’s table, but they should never allow just one audience—executives or employees—to dominate their thinking. Because, to be effective, they need to be a bridge between both groups.

It is tough to have to fit in both in the rarefied air at the top of the corporation and in the trenches where the work really gets done. Let’s just give thanks that there are people out there who can.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

When Kobe Bryant was recently asked what his fifth championship meant to him he replied, “One more than Shaq.”

Which got me thinking, why does it appear that so many successful people are jerks?  Or worse. Do good guys really finish last?

When it comes to success and the jerk factor, you quickly discover that there is an embarrassment of riches to plume. And I do mean embarrassment.

John Thune, the former CEO of Merrill Lynch who managed the remarkable trifecta of bludgeoning his company’s market value, laying off thousands of people and doing a one million dollar plus remodel of his own personal office.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein who sold his customers financial products and then bet that these products would fail. He then had the temerity to call his performance, “Doing God’s work.”

Tony Hayward, BP CEO. The jerk of not only the year, but of the decade. Tony, the only person who wants you to have your life back more than you do, is the rest of us. Really.

Enron, Lehman Brothers…okay, this is too easy.

It’s unfortunate that many jerks in the workplace are successful. And often their success can be tracked to their jerkiness. However, that begs the most interesting question here. Can you be successful without being a jerk?

Yes, I believe that you can. For the simple reason that I believe that jerks often instill fear in the people around them. And fear works, for a while. But eventually people realize that there are sane bosses out there, that they don’t have to tolerate boorish behavior at work. That good guys mostly finish first and that’s a much better team to be on.

Jerks succeed in spite of who they are, not because of it. Thankfully, the jerkiness eventually has a way of biting them in the butt.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

In 1989 I gave my first Commencement Speech at the University of Puget Sound. Even though I wasn’t asked to speak to graduates this year, I decided to not let that hold me back. Actually the speech below is much less for the graduates and really directed at the corporations that seem to value these graduates so highly—much too highly. Without further ado…

Dear Graduates—after wandering the halls of academe for 16, or more years, congratulations. The good news, no more homework. The bad news, say goodbye to summer, your ten-month year is about to come to an end.

My undergraduate years were a valuable time for me. I learned how to do my own laundry, how to drink Jell-o shots, how to use a cafeteria tray as a sleigh, how to kiss with one leg on the floor, how to cram all night for a test and how to forget everything the moment that the test was over—all helpful skills to possess.

Okay, I did learn a few things along the way. Unfortunately none immediately leap to mind. (Lest I seem like a total slacker, Dear Reader, what information do you remember from your college years?)

Which is exactly my point. I think that all graduates deserve congratulations. But this is not about you. I’m concerned that far too many corporations hold the lack of a college education against employees who want to get into management.

Just last week I talked to a woman who had run an office for two U.S. Senators, been a successful entrepreneur and was currently thriving in an entirely new career. She accomplished all of this without a college degree. Yet, there are many jobs that she cannot apply for.

This isn’t coming from a place of envy. I not only have a B.S. degree (a perfect description of my undergraduate years). But I also have a Masters of Business Administration (and isn’t that what the business world needs today, more administrators?). And I’ve served as an Adjunct Professor to MBA students on four separate occasions (in case you are wondering, “Adjunct” is Latin for “poorly paid”).

So my criticism comes from a person who has “paid his dues.” I’ve got the degrees. And I think college is a totally B.S. test for how you’ll perform in today’s workplace. There is nothing wrong with a college education. To use a dessert analogy, the degree is the icing, the cake is the person’s other experiences, expertise and insight.

That does leave us with a problem. If we are going to level the playing field in terms of those with, and those without a college education, how will we decide who is the better person to hire? We’ll have to look at the person and not use a convenient, and inappropriate, yardstick.

A few considerations: What has the person accomplished at work? How do the people they’ve worked with feel about their contributions? Has the person traveled abroad? Have they done volunteer work? Do they speak another language? Do they know what’s going on in the world? Do they understand your industry and its competitors? I would argue that all of these are more reliable measures of what a person can contribute to your organization than a tired, old piece of sheepskin.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a beef with college. I just believe that the life experiences and minds of many who have not graced the hallowed halls of academia is a terrible thing to waste. So enjoy your degree. Just don’t look down on people who don’t have one. Heck, you just might be able to learn something from them.

About The Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

After fifteen years of writing Working Wounded/Workplace911, I’ve concluded that there are a lot of myths about work. I thought it would be fun to tackle some of the bigger ones in this week’s blog. Check out my list below and send me some of your favorites.

It’s impossible to be overpaid when someone else signs the paycheck. Let me offer a short translation of this rule—as long as someone is willing to pay you a ridiculous amount of money to work for them, then you aren’t overpaid because they have established a market for your services. I disagree. Corporate salaries are absurd. Cost cutting, layoffs and a myriad of other organizational sacrifices should float more than just the boats of the CEO and a few top executives. I’m no Marxist, CEOs do deserve a big paycheck when they are successful. But this escalator only seems able to go up.

Greed is good. The biggest problem here is that when Oliver Stone came up with this mantra for his Gordon Gekko character in the movie Wall Street it was meant as parody. Yet I hear some variation of it whenever I talk to traders, salespeople, etc. Henry Ford, hardly a commie himself, once said that only a fool holds out for the last dollar. I think wretched excess is a terrible way to run a company.

The bigger the jerk, the better the boss. Probably my favorite quote on management came from President (and General) Dwight Eisenhower. He once said, “Hitting people over the head isn’t leadership, it’s assault.” Sure jerks do get your attention and possibly results over the short term. But most employees will flee at the first chance they get. There are just too many sane bosses out there to continue to slave away for a jerk.

You’ve got to be first to market. Microsoft seems to me to be the only company that consistently puts second-rate products on the market and lives to tell the tale. It worked for a long time until Apple recently passed them in market capitalization. The rest of us have to pick our spots and often the first to market position can’t justify launching a crappy product. So it often pays to wait.

Innovation is the middle name of American corporations. Despite rising productivity, I believe that corporations in the U.S. are running on fumes. Don’t believe me? Listen to most people talk about the management of their companies. It’s not a pretty sight. I see far more innovation right now coming from abroad and from the not-for-profit sector and I think it’s time that corporations started walking their talk.

Corporations are drowning in regulation. Tyco, Enron, WorldCom, etc. left in their wake Sarbanes Oxley and a host of other regulations. Undoubtedly Lehman, Goldman Sacks, etc. will leave their mark too. There is a lot of talk now about how corporations are being held back by senseless regulations. I hate filling out government forms as much as the next guy, but these laws came into place because of abuse by corporations. And in order to maintain the trust of the average investor these regulations need to remain in effect, no matter how much whining you hear from big business.

The bottom line isn’t just the bottom line. If I’ve learned one thing as an observer of business and the founder of four corporations, it’s that there are many bottom lines for a business. In addition to economic there are also social and environmental considerations. The financials really only are a part of the picture. The sooner that corporations take a broader view of the bottom line, the sooner they’ll begin to fully reach their potential.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

Before Northwest Airlines became a memory following its merger with Delta Airlines, it offered a moment of brilliance. The company decided it would no longer board their planes by rows. You know, seating people in ten row clumps starting from the back of the plane.

Why would they end what is clearly the most orderly and effective way to board an airplane? Precisely because it wasn’t.

Instead, they decided to let first class customers, the disabled, the kids and frequent flyers board first. After that, first come, first served. Now here is the wild part. According to Northwest Airlines, letting people get on the plane randomly, instead of by row, would cut five to ten minutes from the boarding process. By boarding randomly, the airline expected to get 200 people on a plane in 20 to 25 minutes. If my math is correct (and since I’m a graduate of the New Jersey Public Schools, you should have your doubts), that could result in up to a 30% reduction in boarding time.

Think about it. Forcing people to go onto a plane section by section creates logjams in different parts of the plane. On the other hand, letting people on randomly spreads the logjams all over the plane.

Why is this important for those not in the airline industry? Because it’s my experience, reinforced by my emails for the last ten years, that the vast majority of corporations think like Northwest Airlines used to think. They like to command and they like to control. Even when involved with a creative project, organizations want to see plans, projections, reports and lots and lots of meetings.

This announcement reminds us that sometimes a little chaos can get us all where we need to go faster. Significantly faster.

So why do corporations value order so highly? Oddly enough it all comes from our experience in elementary school. A number of years ago I worked for former Army General turned Superintendent of Schools for Seattle, John Stanford. He observed that our school system was largely set up in the early part of this century to create factory workers. And it hasn’t changed from its earliest days. That’s why if you’re like me, you probably remember so much of an emphasis on discipline from your early years.

Factory workers. Obviously these days most of us are not on the line, but rather in jobs that require creativity and initiative. Yet, our brains were trained during the majority of our formative years to value order over all else.

I know what you’re thinking, that I’m taking one little example and getting totally carried away. Ironically, I’m going to accuse you—the corporate people reading this blog—of doing the very same thing. Stop embracing command and control at the expense of allowing pockets of chaos to thrive throughout your organization.

3M, widely seen as the corporation that consistently generates the most revenue from new products, allows each employee time to work on their pet projects during working hours. Sure they’ve got to finish their regular assignments, but they are given a little bit of leash to do something outside the scope of their jobs.

Which reminds me of the arch enemy of Maxwell Smart in the old TV show “Get Smart.” It was “Chaos.” All of our lives we’ve been told that chaos is the enemy. Make it your friend, like Northwest Airlines did, and you just might be surprised at how much more your organization will accomplish.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

You’d expect the “father” of the cubicle to be a proud parent. Heck, his invention multiplied faster than rabbits. But you’d be wrong.

Thirty years ago, Robert Probst was seeking to create the perfect place to work for the office furnishings company Herman Miller. In search of the “office of the future,” he designed the perfect environment for maximum satisfaction and productivity. He called his creation “the action office.”

Yep, the cubicle. At the time Probst was looking for something better than the open bullpen that was the norm for much of the last century. He wanted to create a space that would allow privacy, personalization and the maximum in flexibility. For example, his original creation had a variety of surfaces that you could work from each that was a different height.

So much for privacy, personalization and flexibility. Just before his death in 2000, Probst called his creation “monolithic insanity” in Fortune.

There are many reasons why the “action office” devolved in the cube. Soaring real estate prices, corporations trying to get more bang for the buck by packing employees in like sardines and even the tax code (corporations can write off cubicles much faster than they can write off their investment in walls in an office building).

There is a part of me that believes that the successor to the cube will be emptying out our huge office buildings in a massive wave of telecommuting. This makes sense for so many reasons—spiraling gas prices, increasing real estate costs and the fact that so many homes now have broadband access. The only problem with this picture is that we barely know how to manage the people we can see at work, so few of us have the foggiest idea of how to manage people we can’t see.

Which leads back to the “action office.” It’s clear that business is now 0 for 2. The bullpen didn’t work. The cubicle has spawned Dilbert and a massive amount of griping from most of the people who’ve worked in one.

So what is the answer? I think it involves combining the best of the future with the best of the past. The first part of the equation is really figuring out what jobs can be done by telecommuting. And what workers and managers are up to this challenge. Once these jobs are moved out of our buildings then we’ll actually have the room to turn the cube back into the “action office” that Probst originally envisioned. With fewer people they can be bigger and hopefully employees can have the ability to tailor them to their needs.

For all the talk of productivity, I’m surprised at how little of the conversation addresses the place where most of our work actually gets done. If more of us engage in this conversation, hopefully, we’ll be able to put the “action” back into the “action office.”

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. Check the revised edition of his Wall Street Journal best seller, “The Boss’s Survival Guide.” If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.

I like Doctors and Senators as much as the next guy. But I’m confused at why they are the only ones who consistently get their job title before their name (Dr. Welby and Senator Hillary, for example).

Read any newspaper or magazine and you’ll notice that the docs and politicos are the only group granted this courtesy. Nuclear physicists? No. Rocket scientists? Uh-uh. Teachers? You must be joking. And the funny thing is, I never hear anyone mention this. I can only assum this means that we’ve have we become conditioned to assume their professions are more important than others and warrant the special treatment of a printing their job titles.

Okay, I’m not jealous. And I’ve never tried to get anyone I know to call me “Columnist” Bob. But I’ve often wondered why a small group of people get their job title listed before their name even when they are far away from serving in any official capacity.

Let me anticipate the pro-honorific position—doctors have to go through a lot of school and politicians have to eat a lot of bad chicken dinners at fundraisers. Shouldn’t this sacrifice be acknowledged by all of us?

Then again, many lawyers, engineers and Ph.D.s in literature have a lot of schooling. And most public speakers have started down a lot of bad chicken dinners (that is a comment based on 25 years on the speaking circuit). Don’t the rest of us work hard too? By boosting a few professions, are we cheapening the efforts of the rest of us as we hold our nose to the grindstone at work week after week?

I was in a quandary on how to address this issue. Then the answer came to me in the form of an article in the New Yorker. The article talked about the form to sign up for Skywards, the frequent flyer program of Emirates (the international airline of the United Arab Emirates). When you list your name it gives you a drop down menu that goes way beyond—Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss and Dr. Some would say too far.

Just a few of your choices are listed below:

Admiral, Air Comm, Air Marshall, Al-Hag (denoting a Muslim who has made a pilgrimage to Mecca) Archbishop, Archdeacon, Baron, Baroness, Colonel, Commander, Corporal, Count, Countess, Dame, Deacon, Deaconness, Deshamanya (a title conferred on eminent Sri Lankans), Dowager (for a British widow whose social status derives from that of her late husband, properly used in combination with a second honorific, such as Duchess), Duchess, Duke Earl, Father, Frau, General, Governor, HRH, Hon, Hon Lady, Hon Professor, JP, Judge, Khun, (the Thai all purpose honorific, used for both men and women), L Cpl., Lt, Lt Cmdr, Lt Col, Lt Gen, Midshipman, Mlle, Monsieur, Monsignor, Mother, Pastor, Petty Officer, Professor, Senor, Senora, Senorita, Sgt, Sgt Mjr, Shikha (for a female shikh, or sheikh), Sheikh, Shiman (an Indian honorific, for one blessed by Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of wealth, wisdom, luck and other good things), Sister, Sqdn Ldr, Sqn Ldr, Sub Lt, Sultan, Swami, The Countess, The Dowager, The Dutchess, The Marquis, The Matron, the Rev Cannon, The Reverend, The Rt Hon, The Ven, The Very Revd, Ven, Ven Dr, Very Revd, Vice Admiral, Viscount, Viscountess along with Mr., Mrs. Ms. Miss and Dr.

After reading this article I worked hard to encourage all my friends to refer to me as Khun for the last week. Heck, one of my books was even published in Thailand. I love the idea of an all purpose honorific, but it didn’t stick.

As I went down this list I realized that it would be cumbersome and confusing for all of us to cart around an honorific. On the other hand, why honor only a few professions? Either let’s drop Doctors and Senators (preferably on their heads, maybe that would knock some sense into them) or let’s let everyone join in the fun. Feel free to use the list above as a starting point if you want to jump in the honorific pond head first.

About the Author: Bob Rosner is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. For free job and work advice, check out the award-winning workplace911.com. You can also hear workplace911 on BlogTalkRadio weekly. If you have a question for Bob, contact him via bob@workplace911.com.