Glib politicians and CEOs rejoice: research suggests that sidestepping questions can be a good policy if you do it artfully enough. 

Todd Rogers, executive director of the Analyst Institute, and Michael Norton, a Harvard Business School professor, looked at public speakers who, when faced with a difficult question, provide a slick answer to a different question that they would rather have been asked.

Their conclusion? Listeners mind this less than a straight answer delivered badly.

Elsewhere:

• McKinsey on why those who try to imitate Toyota’s lean manufacturing often fall short;
• Mastering the art of confrontation (and arguing with Rudy Giuliani);
• The credit crunch can be an opportunity for entrepreneurs as it forces bigger companies to be conservative and possibly shed assets.

At first glance, the news that Procter & Gamble and Google have been temporarily swapping staff sounds like the premise for a sitcom. P&G’s workers are stereotyped as robotic Proctoids. Googlers are supposed to be geeky-but-funky.

But as the Wall Street Journal account reveals, both companies share an underlying obsession with detail that runs deeper than any superficial differences in jargon or style. Any sitcom based on this odd couple would be running out of culture clash gags after the second episode.

The P&G/Google tie-up sounds clever and worthy of emulation by other companies. It offers a chance for P&G to learn from Google’s disruptive online innovation while giving Google a lesson in what it takes to thrive over the long term.

But while it is hardly material for TV comedy, Pooglers and Groctoids would be a great title for a children’s book.

The difference between managers and entrepreneurs was highlighted this week by University of Cambridge research on the latter’s mental tolerance for risk – and how that might be simulated through the use of drugs.

The findings are discussed in a podcast by Shai Vyakarnam, director of the Judge Business School’s entrepreneurial learning centre.

On a similar theme, you might also like to check out the FT’s video lectures on managerial psychology, our podcast interview with Stanford’s Baba Shiv on how to master emotions when making decisions and our MBA Gym entrepreneurship workout.

Elsewhere:

• The role of a CFO in a downturn;
• NYU Stern prof suspects multi-headed mythical dog not motivated by altruism;
• Tips on how to look busy by a notorious French slacker.

Now that the waves of redundancies are spreading from financial services to other sectors, more and more people are having to rely on their networking skills to find new jobs. But how do you network from such a position of weakness?

This is one of the questions discussed in a new FT Management podcast featuring two executive search specialists – Samuel Johar, chairman of Buchanan Harvey, and David Peters, Heidrick & Struggles’ regional managing partner for Europe, the Middle East and Africa – and Paul Danos, dean of Tuck business school.

Mr Peters says those who haven’t been very good at maintaining a professional network should not feel that this precludes them from ringing old contacts at times of great need.

I think people often worry too much about this and make the mistake of thinking that, because they may call somebody that they haven’t been in touch with for a while, they will look awkward or seem as if they were a supplicant…

Most people, especially good people, do understand that [networking] is a circular business and everybody needs help at some point in their career.

Elsewhere in the podcast – which can also be downloaded through iTunes – Mr Johar and Professor Danos discuss the extent to which emerging markets and regulatory bodies might hire those who have lost jobs in finance and other industries.

I worry when people talk about there being a business case – as well as a moral case – for making the workplace fairer.

Reformers who claim that appointing a female director or CEO increases a company’s return on capital by 10 per cent are playing with fire, for instance. Not all statistics will be so helpful.

Take a new study called Women in the Boardroom and Their Impact on Governance and Performance, by academics at the University of Queensland and London School of Economics (and flagged by the Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Blog).

Surveying US companies, they claimed that attendance at board meetings was better at more gender-diverse companies, where CEOs were also more likely to be held to account for poor stock price performance.

But the study went on to claim that this same diversity hampered their adjusted measure of financial performance:

The average effect on gender diversity on firm performance is negative.

The authors hypothesise that this might be because the appointment of female directors increases the intensity of monitoring from the boardroom to unproductive levels.

Frankly, I don’t care whether the financial performance stats are positive or negative. The moral case for boardroom diversity is strong enough in itself.

Further reading: a new MBA Gym workout on corporate social responsibility, giving an interactive taste of how the subject is tackled at business school.

Counter-intuitive thought of the day comes from Michael Porter, the Harvard strategy maestro, courtesy of the Insead Knowledge site. Prof Porter believes that downturns can give managers more room to make bold strategic moves.

During good times, companies are often trapped by the need to hit quarterly profit forecasts, he says. In a downturn, however, the share price and financial performance of almost every business looks dreadful, lessening that pressure.

Trying to look a little bit better when everybody is bad doesn’t really get you very much. Ironically, during these periods, companies often have more flexibility to make moves and to make investments than they do during more normal periods when they are getting more short term scrutiny.

Convinced that “great fortunes” will be made during this bleak period, he is scathing about companies that carry out across-the-board cuts to their cost base instead of preserving strategically vital spending.

Don’t just take 10 per cent off of every department. That’s a disaster. Cut to a strategy.

Alas, I doubt that Prof Porter’s comments, delivered at the World Knowledge Forum in Korea, will save many companies from excessive cost cutting zeal.

Tom Peters has given managers some tips on how to carry themselves during a recession.

“Banish gloomy from your personal demeanor,” he suggests, before adding that a sunny demeanour “is pretty stupid, too: who do you think you’re kidding?”.

A determined look – “gettin’ on with gettin’ on” – is best, he concludes. Inevitably, there is a garish PowerPoint slideshow.

Elsewhere:

• An alternative guide to managing in hard times;
• Obama as marketing case study;
• Why people mistrust products that do more than one thing – and how to neutralise that fear;
• Notable bankruptcies of 2008;
• How to justify paying top managers too much;
• Why installing a bar in your office is a good thing.

Malcom Gladwell has written an article for the New Yorker examining whether self-made successes from the wrong side of the tracks have an advantage over those who never had to battle for acceptance by the establishment.

He focuses on Sidney Weinberg, who left school at 15 and became a famous senior partner at Goldman Sachs. Long after becoming powerful, Mr Weinberg still played the role of “dumb, uneducated kid from Brooklyn” when advantageous.

Mr Gladwell says his underprivileged past eventually became an aid rather than a hindrance, even though he was operating in a relationship business that normally rewarded cultural insiders (or so one would assume).

“There are times when being an outsider is precisely what makes you a good insider,” he suggests.

Playing up humble origins can indeed be a good career strategy. But the article got me thinking about other ways in which canny individuals exploit dual identities in the workplace, often to disguise the extent to which they are part of the establishment.

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