Varna’s Mind

Google, Gmail, and Google Apps Accounts Explained

February 19, 2010 at 10:24 am

by Gina Trapani

If you've taken the leap and hosted your domain email with Google Apps, no doubt you've noticed that you miss out on services that regular Gmail accounts get: like Google Reader, Voice, Wave, Analytics, and right now, Buzz.

After complaining about the disparities on a recent episode of This Week in Google, a helpful Googler unofficially got in touch to clarify and confirm the problem. Let's call her/him "Helpful McGoogler." Here's what HM said.

To the user, it may appear that there are three types of Google accounts: Gmail accounts, Google accounts, and Google Apps (for your domain) accounts. In truth, there's only one kind of account: a Google Account.

Helpful McGoogler explains:

Abstract the idea of a "Google Account" from being associated with Gmail or Google Apps. You can tie ANY email address to a "Google Account."

Check out https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount and notice that it asks you for your "current email address." So let's say I go to school at Big University and I have an email address helpfulmcgoogler@biguni.edu... I can use that email address while signing up and that will be my login name to access Google services.

Some of the confusion that leads to "you must have a gmail.com address" to access Google services is because a Google Account comes "for free" when you open a Gmail account. So using a Gmail address always just works.

Google Apps accounts provide a subset of Google services hosted for your domain. You get some, but not all of what vanilla Google accounts get.

Helpful McGoogler says:

When you open a Google Apps domain account. You are essentially creating a branded Google Account world for the Google services your domain is hosting. You can see your services at https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/[domain.name]/Dashboard.

So, let's say you have a Google Apps domain that is example.com and you created a user gina@example.com. You will be able to log in with gina@example.com for all your Google Apps hosted services. Typically this is email, Docs, Calendar, and Contacts... but you can click the "add more services" link to expand that. Right now, you won't find stuff like Reader, Google Voice, AdWords, Finance, Analytics, etc... but still there is some interesting stuff in there.

But what if you want to access ALL services through a single email address?

Helpful McGoogler says:

What you do is create a NORMAL Google Account (described at the beginning) and associate it with your gina@example.com email address. That "vanilla" google account will now have access to all (well, I think all) Google services. You can have a Reader account, a Voice account, an Analytics account, etc all associated with your non-gmail address. It can even have the same password--but it doesn't need to--to make it seem like it's the same account... but in reality, it's a very separate account.

Still, this just means you have two different Google accounts, with different Contacts and Calendar and Google Docs data on each. Google Apps accounts provides a subset of the services you get with a regular Google Account, and so having a GApps account duplicates those datastores. This is the scenario I complained about on TWiG.

Helpful McGoogler acknowledges that this is indeed a problem:

Here is a scenario that really trips people up... Let's say you are using your gina@example.com email and are all happy
that you have your Contacts all in-line and organized and filled out. Now you go and create a vanilla Google Account using your gina@example.com email address (mostly because you want to use Google Voice and Google Reader with the same log-in as your Apps account%u2014btw, this was totally me a couple years ago). When you set up something like Google Voice, you will expect your Contacts to be full of all the goodness you set up in your gina@example.com "hosted Gmail" instance... you will be disappointed to find your Contacts are empty.

This is because the vanilla Google Account that is being used for Google Voice will be accessing a DIFFERENT "Contacts" service which has no data (sadness). My ugly solution was to initially export the contacts from my Google Apps Account and import them to my Google vanilla Account and try to keep them in sync when I make edits.

This double set of Contacts especially stinks for Android users who sign into Android with their Google Apps account, because your Google Contacts and Calendar are baked into your phone setup.

Helpful McGoogler is with me on this:

When you add Android into the mix, Contacts get weird. Because, I think, you can add your Google Apps account to Android and not your gina@example.com "vanilla" Google Account. (GT: Yes, this is true.) But, when you sign in to Google Voice on Android, you will need to enter the password (which might be the same) of your vanilla Google Account. BUT, on Android, your Contacts are read from the system's phone book. Not necessarily the vanilla Google Voice Google Account that has its separate contacts (accessible through the normal Google Voice webapp). Ugh. The "Contacts" issue is by far the most 'hurting' in this whole scenario.

Yup. Calendar is also an issue.

I thought this was the full extent of the problem, so it's nice to have even unofficial confirmation from the horse's mouth. Helpful McGoogler DID say s/he thought the teams at Google are aware of the issue and are working to address it. It also sounds like some bits of Android need to get refactored to work seamlessly with both vanilla Google accounts and Google Apps accounts.

After that episode of TWiG aired, at least three listeners emailed me saying they use third-party service Soocial to sync Contacts across their multiple Google/Google Apps accounts. I haven't tried this myself--and you may have to enter your Google account password into Soocial to set it up, which is a big red flag--but it's something.

Are you having the Google Apps account dilemma? What are you doing to deal with it? Let me know in the comments.

Update: Google Apps user Matt Jacob explains his frustrations with the Google (Apps) account dichotomy. I love how he refers to Google Apps accounts (lowercase a) versus Google Accounts (uppercase A). Clearly FREE vanilla Google Accounts get more preference than potentially-paid Google Apps accounts, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Filed under Webapps

Google

22 comments-->

Tried a lot even this post to get a solution. My gmail is clearly adifferent game from my apps account. Would really like to get this solved so i can use only my apps account. read a lot even the google apps book by granneman still only compliated solutions and no greader and contacts with google apps.
Take care Dr Shock, not going crazy yet.

Walter van den Broek [ 1]
Feb 19 10 at 10:42 am

I have the same issue. For the most part right now I just import my apps contacts to my gmail contacts. But it%u2019s getting a little old.

It seems more and more I want to use the services on the gmail account because they aren%u2019t on apps.

What I%u2019ve consider doing is just having my apps account forward emails to my gmail account and start using that as my primary account.

When buzz came out I was planning on doing this, but not sure how well buzz is being received now.

I don%u2019t fully understand the complaint on the android side of things. I just add both my accounts to the phone and to my knowledge it syncs them both contact wise.

Chris Davis [ 2]
Feb 19 10 at 10:49 am

I%u2019ve been waiting for an explanation like this for years! My problem is that I thought I could merge the accounts by adding my Apps account to my vanilla account and then set the Apps email address as the primary one. It turns out you can%u2019t do that, but now my Apps account is somehow associated with the vanilla account. I really have no idea what data would and wouldn%u2019t be retained if I disassociate the two and then create a vanilla account using the method described in the article. To me, the solution *seems* so simple%u2026allow me to merge the accounts and set which email address is the primary one. Bonus points if they let me choose the alternate email address at will (ex: for emailing stories from Reader).

Justin Cardinal [ 3]
Feb 19 10 at 10:55 am

This issue has plagued me for years. Having an Android phone has only made it worse. Thank you Gina for raising the issue%u2014I can%u2019t wait for it to be properly addressed!

Marsh Gardiner [ 1]
Feb 19 10 at 10:56 am

I%u2019ve been experiencing this issue for quite some time. The only things I use my Google account for are Reader, FeedBurner, YouTube and commenting on Blogspot blogs. Any mail that is sent to my gmail.com address (I believe that was the only thing available when I signed up years ago) is forwarded to my Apps address.

Because of the separation of apps, I don%u2019t use Google Voice, Wave or Buzz. These are all apps I%u2019d love to use/try, but I%u2019m not willing to jump through hoops to get things working nicely.

Tim Weston [ 3]
Feb 19 10 at 10:56 am

Thanks for addressing this Gina, this is an issue that has been haunting me for years %u2014 it%u2019s good to get some semi-official confirmation that my understanding of the way these accounts work is accurate.

BTW, I was playing with Soocial just this morning and it did NOT require that I enter passwords for either my Google Apps account or my Google Account. Seems like this may be the answer to some of my contacts-related woes.

Brian DeHamer
Feb 19 10 at 11:07 am

Thx Gina for pointing it out once again. I really hope Google comes with something to migrate your Google Account (or Gmail) to your Google Apps.

I recently wrote about how you can use your Google Apps Gmail to send shared items you want to share via e-mail in Google Reader (Google Account). Tweak Google Reader to use Google Apps

Graham [ 1]
Feb 19 10 at 11:08 am

I can backup the soocial recommendations. It is the most awesome app for contact sync.

An additional benefit of soocial is that it allows 2 contacts to connect so that when the contact updates his contact details it is automatically updated your side. This is really awesome because i do not have to worry about info being obsolete.

For dealing with all these other issues i have always just used my vanilla account as the main one and use the apps account as a forwarding address, because as you say. The free has more features.

nafnosseb
Feb 19 10 at 11:25 am

Add another frustrated Apps user to your list. Maybe with Gina and TWiG%u2019s exposure of this problem we can get Google to move their butt!

norm.corriveau
Feb 19 10 at 11:27 am

I%u2019ll also backup the Soocial recommends. I use it to sync my contacts between all of my google address books, including my google apps account. That brings my contacts over to my google voice account, which is just awesome.

dogboi
Feb 19 10 at 11:29 am

The Contacts issue has bothered me forever, and the only thing I can do is manually sync my regular contacts and my Google Apps contacts periodically, but it%u2019s still a pain in the neck. I wonder if it%u2019s possible to build an app to automate that sync.

This has also been a problem for me with the launch of Google Buzz, because tons of people have been adding my main vanilla Google account to their Buzz, which is also a Google Apps account, but since Buzz hasn%u2019t been added to the hosted Gmail accounts, there%u2019s not much I could do with it. The workaround I came up with is 1) use Google Dashboard (http://www.google.com/dashboard/ ) to manage the sites I have connected to Buzz; and 2) create a Fluid app for http://buzz.google.com using the latest Mobile Safari user agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16

That at least lets me do something with Buzz until they enable it in hosted Google accounts.

I really wish Google offered a way to consolidate both accounts, though.

Guillermo Esteves [ 1]
Feb 19 10 at 11:33 am

I just checked out soocial and it does not require you to give up your account credentials. It instead asks you to grant access using the google account connect.

kmontano
Feb 19 10 at 11:48 am

Gina, you are my personal hero for bringing this issue to light.

The particular irony, of course, is that a Google Apps account is penalizing PRECISELY the wrong people. It is leading-edge users who signed up for Google Apps in the first place, and it is those same users who most expect a unified experience and access to new features.

I hope your gClout can bring about an official answer to this maddening problem%u2026

Noah Levin
Feb 19 10 at 12:01 pm

Great post, I posted about these issues yesterday. Seems like the conclusions I came to were about right%u2026

http://perlmonkey.blogspot.com/2010/02/bzzt-crackle-bzzt-i-think-there-is.html

google.com/accounts/o8%u2026 [ 1]
Feb 19 10 at 12:06 pm

Wow, thanks for putting what I have been thinking in writing and getting some attention to it. I have been pondering what I have been doing wrong all to find out that others have the same issue. I am looking to get an android phone soon and was trying to figure out how it would all work with Google voice and my email which is on a Google aps account. Thanks for letting me know that i am not alone on this nor did I set it all up wrong! Keep us posted if you hear more.

David Konigsberg
Feb 19 10 at 12:40 pm

Yet more fuel for my fire. Google needs to FIX the products it%u2019s already providing instead of coming up with new products (like Buzz/Wave) that are also part of the existing problem.

Chris Barnes
Feb 19 10 at 12:58 pm

I have mixed feelings about this%u2026I kinda wish that I could have buzz%u2026but then again%u2026I am glad I don%u2019t%u2026I wish I could have wave%u2026but I never use it on my gmail account%u2026I need voice! besides that I am fine

Matt
Feb 19 10 at 1:40 pm

I have that exact problem%u2026 for me (and this comes as massive fan of all things Google) if I can%u2019t get the service I want on my Apps for Domains I don%u2019t use it. However I do have one exception; Google Reader, I used that before I moved to Google Apps and so continue with that on a %u201Cnormal%u201D Google account.
Sure I tried buzz and wave but without my contacts there it%u2019s useless to me. However Soocial looks pretty interesting, might have to play around with that.

Also I second everything Noah Levin said a few comments up. Thanks Gina for bringing this to the front.

Andrew Wardlaw [ 1]
Feb 19 10 at 3:36 pm

As a quick follow up, Soocial worked perfectly. No passwords needed, you just have to grant it permission. Now I have all my contacts in both accounts. Google Buzz may just have become useful%u2026..

Andrew Wardlaw [ 1]
Feb 19 10 at 3:49 pm

I thought I had found a solution but it turned out to be a bit kludgey. In the settings/accounts tab you can %u201CGet mail from other accounts%u201D and %u201CSend mail as%u201D the account that you received the email from. But the problem is that this solution using POP3, so my email was always delayed. I still do this within my Google Apps account since this is my main account. If Google would allow push IMAP instead of POP3 then I could live within my gmail account, basically allowing me to use Gmail as a mail client. I wrote about my solution here:

http://www.blog.matthewhooper.com/living-in-the-cloud-aka-moving-from-a-local-mail-client-to-gmail/

Matthew Hooper
Feb 19 10 at 7:41 pm

I have the Palm Pre running WebOS and it is very tightly integrated with Google contacts. I have multiple Google Accounts and an Apps account which syncs with the phones contacts across all accounts. If I make a change locally it will change on all my Google accounts. Same if I change in one of my accounts it will change on the phone also. Google calendar is also sync from all my accounts into the calendar app on the phone using colors to differentiate the different accounts. Now, most of this works great with those to apps, but Google Voice, Reader and such do not enjoy the same benefits, same with other Google products.

oldsage [ 1]
Feb 19 10 at 10:04 pm

I can see how all that can be frustrating. I haven%u2019t had to deal with it yet although I am hoping to in the future when we move to Google Apps of a horrible register.com email service at work.

Playing the devils advocate: In a way I can kinda see how they may not integrate every new Google service especially those in Beta as far as the Business end goes because of possible security issues that could arise. Although they would obviously want to disable them by default and then and then make you enable them through the dashboard, but there could still be holes since things aren%u2019t sand-boxed. I know one huge worry our boss had when we suggested using Google Apps for email is both up time, support and most importantly security and privacy. And even reading the Google Apps Site it is not clear where the files are stored, how to grab them when moving them to another service or any other common security and privacy questions most business have. The answers are probably out there, but should be much more easily accessible (ok I have gone out on a bit of a tangent).

Anyway I can possibly see how they wouldn%u2019t want to integrate it right away although being able to have sandboxed contacts and sync them between two accounts seems very easy, little security issue especially within Google servers and contacts has been around a while so that seems a little silly it isn%u2019t there yet.

From the looks of it most people use some service be it a phone with something like synergy (Palm Pre) or Social which manages the syncing the accounts, cause Google has tools and api%u2019s to export and import it is just a matter of using those to keep both up to date in an automatic process and of course securely.

Nathan Bowhay
Feb 20 10 at 12:49 am

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by David Sirota, Louis A. Mischkind, and Michael Irwin Meltzer

Most companies have it all wrong. They don't have to motivate their employees. They have to stop demotivating them.

The great majority of employees are quite enthusiastic when they start a new job. But in about 85 percent of companies, our research finds, employees' morale sharply declines after their first six months%u2014and continues to deteriorate for years afterward. That finding is based on surveys of about 1.2 million employees at 52 primarily Fortune 1000 companies from 2001 through 2004, conducted by Sirota Survey Intelligence (Purchase, New York).

The fault lies squarely at the feet of management%u2014both the policies and procedures companies employ in managing their workforces and in the relationships that individual managers establish with their direct reports.

Our research shows how individual managers' behaviors and styles are contributing to the problem (see sidebar "How Management Demotivates")%u2014and what they can do to turn this around.

Three key goals of people at work
To maintain the enthusiasm employees bring to their jobs initially, management must understand the three sets of goals that the great majority of workers seek from their work%u2014and then satisfy those goals:

• Equity: To be respected and to be treated fairly in areas such as pay, benefits, and job security.

Achievement: To be proud of one's job, accomplishments, and employer.

Camaraderie: To have good, productive relationships with fellow employees.

To maintain an enthusiastic workforce, management must meet all three goals. Indeed, employees who work for companies where just one of these factors is missing are three times less enthusiastic than workers at companies where all elements are present.

One goal cannot be substituted for another. Improved recognition cannot replace better pay, money cannot substitute for taking pride in a job well done, and pride alone will not pay the mortgage.

What individual managers can do
Satisfying the three goals depends both on organizational policies and on the everyday practices of individual managers. If the company has a solid approach to talent management, a bad manager can undermine it in his unit. On the flip side, smart and empathetic managers can overcome a great deal of corporate mismanagement while creating enthusiasm and commitment within their units. While individual managers can't control all leadership decisions, they can still have a profound influence on employee motivation.

The most important thing is to provide employees with a sense of security, one in which they do not fear that their jobs will be in jeopardy if their performance is not perfect and one in which layoffs are considered an extreme last resort, not just another option for dealing with hard times.

But security is just the beginning. When handled properly, each of the following eight practices will play a key role in supporting your employees' goals for achievement, equity, and camaraderie, and will enable them to retain the enthusiasm they brought to their roles in the first place.

Achievement related
1. Instill an inspiring purpose. A critical condition for employee enthusiasm is a clear, credible, and inspiring organizational purpose: in effect, a "reason for being" that translates for workers into a "reason for being there" that goes above and beyond money.

Every manager should be able to expressly state a strong purpose for his unit. What follows is one purpose statement we especially admire. It was developed by a three-person benefits group in a midsize firm.

Benefits are about people. It's not whether you have the forms filled in or whether the checks are written. It's whether the people are cared for when they're sick, helped when they're in trouble.

This statement is particularly impressive because it was composed in a small company devoid of high-powered executive attention and professional wordsmiths. It was created in the type of department normally known for its fixation on bureaucratic rules and procedures. It is a statement truly from the heart, with the focus in the right place: on the ends%u2014people%u2014rather than the means%u2014completing forms.

To maintain an enthusiastic workforce, management must meet all three goals.

Stating a mission is a powerful tool. But equally important is the manager's ability to explain and communicate to subordinates the reason behind the mission. Can the manager of stockroom workers do better than telling her staff that their mission is to keep the room stocked? Can she communicate the importance of the job, the people who are relying on the stockroom being properly maintained, both inside and outside the company? The importance for even goods that might be considered prosaic to be where they need to be when they need to be there? That manager will go a long way toward providing a sense of purpose.

2. Provide recognition. Managers should be certain that all employee contributions, both large and small, are recognized. The motto of many managers seems to be, "Why would I need to thank someone for doing something he's paid to do?" Workers repeatedly tell us, and with great feeling, how much they appreciate a compliment. They also report how distressed they are when managers don't take the time to thank them for a job well done yet are quick to criticize them for making mistakes.

Receiving recognition for achievements is one of the most fundamental human needs. Rather than making employees complacent, recognition reinforces their accomplishments, helping ensure there will be more of them.

A pat on the back, simply saying "good going," a dinner for two, a note about their good work to senior executives, some schedule flexibility, a paid day off, or even a flower on a desk with a thank-you note are a few of the hundreds of ways managers can show their appreciation for good work. It works wonders if this is sincere, sensitively done, and undergirded by fair and competitive pay%u2014and not considered a substitute for it.

3. Be an expediter for your employees. Incorporating a command-and-control style is a sure-fire path to demotivation. Instead, redefine your primary role as serving as your employees' expediter: It is your job to facilitate getting their jobs done. Your reports are, in this sense, your "customers." Your role as an expediter involves a range of activities, including serving as a linchpin to other business units and managerial levels to represent their best interests and ensure your people get what they need to succeed.

How do you know, beyond what's obvious, what is most important to your employees for getting their jobs done? Ask them! "Lunch and schmooze" sessions with employees are particularly helpful for doing this. And if, for whatever reason, you can't immediately address a particular need or request, be open about it and then let your workers know how you're progressing at resolving their problems. This is a great way to build trust.

4. Coach your employees for improvement. A major reason so many managers do not assist subordinates in improving their performance is, simply, that they don't know how to do this without irritating or discouraging them. A few basic principles will improve this substantially.

First and foremost, employees whose overall performance is satisfactory should be made aware of that. It is easier for employees to accept, and welcome, feedback for improvement if they know management is basically pleased with what they do and is helping them do it even better.

Space limitations prevent a full treatment of the subject of giving meaningful feedback, of which recognition is a central part, but these key points should be the basis of any feedback plan:

• Performance feedback is not the same as an annual appraisal. Give actual performance feedback as close in time to the occurrence as possible. Use the formal annual appraisal to summarize the year, not surprise the worker with past wrongs.

Recognize that workers want to know when they have done poorly. Don't succumb to the fear of giving appropriate criticism; your workers need to know when they are not performing well. At the same time, don't forget to give positive feedback. It is, after all, your goal to create a team that warrants praise.

Comments concerning desired improvements should be specific, factual, unemotional, and directed at performance rather than at employees personally. Avoid making overall evaluative remarks (such as, "That work was shoddy") or comments about employees' personalities or motives (such as, "You've been careless"). Instead, provide specific, concrete details about what you feel needs to be improved and how.

• Keep the feedback relevant to the employee's role. Don't let your comments wander to anything not directly tied to the tasks at hand.

Listen to employees for their views of problems. Employees' experience and observations often are helpful in determining how performance issues can be best dealt with, including how you can be most helpful.

Remember the reason you're giving feedback%u2014you want to improve performance, not prove your superiority. So keep it real, and focus on what is actually doable without demanding the impossible.

Follow up and reinforce. Praise improvement or engage in course correction%u2014while praising the effort%u2014as quickly as possible.

Don't offer feedback about something you know nothing about. Get someone who knows the situation to look at it.

Equity related
5. Communicate fully. One of the most counterproductive rules in business is to distribute information on the basis of "need to know." It is usually a way of severely, unnecessarily, and destructively restricting the flow of information in an organization.

A command-and-control style is a sure-fire path to demotivation.

Workers' frustration with an absence of adequate communication is one of the most negative findings we see expressed on employee attitude surveys. What employees need to do their jobs and what makes them feel respected and included dictate that very few restrictions be placed by managers on the flow of information. Hold nothing back of interest to employees except those very few items that are absolutely confidential.

Good communication requires managers to be attuned to what employees want and need to know; the best way to do this is to ask them! Most managers must discipline themselves to communicate regularly. Often it's not a natural instinct. Schedule regular employee meetings that have no purpose other than two-way communication. Meetings among management should conclude with a specific plan for communicating the results of the meetings to employees. And tell it like it is. Many employees are quite skeptical about management's motives and can quickly see through "spin." Get continual feedback on how well you and the company are communicating. One of the biggest communication problems is the assumption that a message has been understood. Follow-up often finds that messages are unclear or misunderstood.

Companies and managers that communicate in the ways we describe reap large gains in employee morale. Full and open communication not only helps employees do their jobs but also is a powerful sign of respect.

6. Face up to poor performance. Identify and deal decisively with the 5 percent of your employees who don't want to work. Most people want to work and be proud of what they do (the achievement need). But there are employees who are, in effect, "allergic" to work%u2014they'll do just about anything to avoid it. They are unmotivated, and a disciplinary approach%u2014including dismissal%u2014is about the only way they can be managed. It will raise the morale and performance of other team members to see an obstacle to their performance removed.

Camaraderie related
7. Promote teamwork. Most work requires a team effort in order to be done effectively. Research shows repeatedly that the quality of a group's efforts in areas such as problem solving is usually superior to that of individuals working on their own. In addition, most workers get a motivation boost from working in teams.

Whenever possible, managers should organize employees into self-managed teams, with the teams having authority over matters such as quality control, scheduling, and many work methods. Such teams require less management and normally result in a healthy reduction in management layers and costs.

Creating teams has as much to do with camaraderie as core competences. A manager needs to carefully assess who works best with whom. At the same time, it is important to create the opportunity for cross-learning and diversity of ideas, methods, and approaches. Be clear with the new team about its role, how it will operate, and your expectations for its output.

Related to all three factors
8. Listen and involve. Employees are a rich source of information about how to do a job and how to do it better. This principle has been demonstrated time and again with all kinds of employees%u2014from hourly workers doing the most routine tasks to high-ranking professionals. Managers who operate with a participative style reap enormous rewards in efficiency and work quality.

Participative managers continually announce their interest in employees' ideas. They do not wait for these suggestions to materialize through formal upward communication or suggestion programs. They find opportunities to have direct conversations with individuals and groups about what can be done to improve effectiveness. They create an atmosphere where "the past is not good enough" and recognize employees for their innovativeness.

Participative managers, once they have defined task boundaries, give employees freedom to operate and make changes on their own commensurate with their knowledge and experience. Indeed, there may be no single motivational tactic more powerful than freeing competent people to do their jobs as they see fit.

Reprinted with permission from "Stop Demotivating Your Employees!" Harvard Management Update, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2006.

See the latest issue of Harvard Management Update.

David Sirota is chairman emeritus, Louis A. Mischkind is senior vice president, and Michael Irwin Meltzer is chief operating officer of Sirota Survey Intelligence. They are the authors of The Enthusiastic Employee: How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What They Want (Wharton School Publishing, 2005). They can be reached at MUOpinion@hbsp.harvard.edu.

Toward the beginning of “The Auto­biography of an Execution,” David Dow relaxes after a speech with the celebrated death penalty abolitionist Sister Helen Prejean. (“It was the first time I went drinking with a nun.”) Prejean tells Dow, who has represented more than 100 death row inmates over 20 years, that “support for the death penalty is a mile wide, but just an inch deep.” Dow responds: “Well, Sister, I believe you can drown in an inch of water.” This book is Dow’s effort to drain the puddle.

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Photograph © Richard Ross

Louisiana State Penitentiary, 2005.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EXECUTION

By David R. Dow

273 pp. Twelve. $24.99

Related

Up Front: Dahlia Lithwick (February 14, 2010)

Statistics from the Death Penalty Information Center show that the death penalty in America is dying. In 2009, the number of death sentences dropped for the seventh consecutive year; it’s now the lowest since the Supreme Court re­instated the death penalty in 1976. Eleven states considered abolishing the death penalty last year, citing high costs and lack of measurable benefits. New Mexico just became the 15th state to abolish it. A recent study from Duke University concluded that North Carolina could save almost $11 million annually by doing away with capital punishment. And the prestigious American Law Institute, which devised the framework for the modern system of capital punishment, recently abandoned the whole project “in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.”

Beyond the high costs, lengthy appeals processes and racial biases that infect the capital system lies a growing public uneasi­ness that we are sometimes executing the wrong people. According to the Innocence Project, 17 people on death row have been exonerated by DNA evidence.

Still, David Dow is in Texas, drowning in the death penalty. As he explains: “I understand the death penalty supporters. I used to be one. I can relate to the retributive impulse. I know people I want to kill.” But he devotes his life to fighting for his clients — many of whom he dislikes enormously, and all but seven of whom he believes to be guilty — because he’s certain that what Justice Harry A. Blackmun called the American “machinery of death” is broken. Cops fudge the truth. They coerce false testimony. Court-appointed lawyers sleep through trials. They miss deadlines. They fail to put on exculpatory evidence. Juries believe every word uttered by “expert” witnesses who opine on defendants they have never met. Jurors evade responsibility by hiding behind the other jurors. Judges evade responsibility by hiding behind jury verdicts, and appeals courts hide behind the trial courts. The Supreme Court can hide from a case by refusing to take it. Elected judges, particularly in Texas, must deliver convictions. Federal judges named to the federal bench because they are pals with a senator overlook deeply flawed trials. And by the time Dow comes into a case, the law will sometimes not permit him to help his client. As he explains: “Prosecutors and judges kowtow to family members of murder victims who demand an eye for an eye, and the lonely lawyer declaiming about proper procedures is a shouting lunatic in the asylum.”

Dow is a far cry from a shouting lunatic, and the farthest thing from a bleeding-heart abolitionist. He has a pickup truck, a taste for bourbon and a dog. “I do not want my clients to be killed, and I can’t stand them,” he writes. You’ll find Dow at least three stops past the Clint Eastwood mile marker on the Flinty Guy Highway. He is so bare-bones he won’t even use quotation marks.

Throughout the book, Dow toggles back and forth between his capital cases and life with his wife and 6-year-old son in Houston. They have certain expectations of him: SpongeBob, T-ball practice, trick-or-treating. Sometimes he misses these things to witness another execution. Then he launders his clothes (always in a wash of their own) and joins the family for dinner. Readers who don’t care about his son’s T-ball practices or his wife’s dance classes may find this background distracting, but for Dow his family is a lifeline back from the death chamber. It can’t be a coincidence that in a book about the brutal reality of capital punishment there is — in addition to the bourbon and cigars — a piece of steak, a rare hamburger, a piece of grass-fed sirloin or a roasted chicken on just about every other page. Dow isn’t doing high constitutional theory here; this is pure red meat. What Dow exposes in this dark, raw memoir is not just a dispassionate machinery of death that cannot be slowed, reversed or mediated by truth, logic or fact. He also exposes the inner life of a man who, in the face of all that, cannot give up the fight.

Nobody but Dow could have told Dow’s story. The problem is, he cannot fully tell it either. As he explains in an author’s note at the start of the book, the demands of ­attorney-client confidentiality have forced him to use pseudonyms, attribute procedural details of certain cases to other cases, and alter the timing of some events, though he insists that the “basic chronology” is correct — and that he never changed the facts of the crimes. His publisher appends a letter explaining why this was done and a memorandum from an ethics professor explaining the legal basis for this choice. Whatever the legal issues, the result is a book that is less an autobiography of an execution than a powerful collage of the life of a death penalty lawyer.

In describing the fraught relationship between law and truth, Dow laments the fact that when it comes to the law, “the facts matter, but the story matters more.” But having created a brilliant, heart-rending book that can’t be properly fact-checked, Dow almost seems to have joined the ranks of people who will privilege emotion over detail, and narrative over precision.

For those who already oppose the death penalty, Dow’s book provides searing confirmation of what they already know to be true: the capital system is biased, reckless and inhuman. But had a prosecutor written a book arguing that the machinery of death is fantastic, just trust him, Dow himself would weep for strict adherence to facts, however ungainly. We’ve seen too many books lately suggesting that facts and sourcing matter little. It isn’t a trend to which lawyers should contribute.

Perhaps Dow just doesn’t care. He describes the impotence of witnessing the last breath of an innocent client: “I stood there. I was idle. I was a man making phone calls, a wordsmith, a debater, an analyst.” His book — not quite fact but not quite fiction — may be another lifeline back from a kind of helplessness that is its own death chamber.

Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate.

Sign in to Recommend Next Article in Books (3 of 34) » A version of this article appeared in print on February 14, 2010, on page 10 of the Sunday Book Review.

I was slightly startled when I discovered yesterday that I was sharing a double bill at Monterrey Tech yesterday with Malcolm Gladwell. I have never read Gladwell’s famous books, “The Tipping Point” and “Blink”. And - up until yesterday, I had never seen him speak. But I know he has sold zillions of copies and is a famously good speaker - good enough to fill theatres with paying customers in London.

My first thought was an ignoble one - I wonder how much they are paying Gladwell? But then I decided to try to thrust this troubling thought to the back of my mind and to watch and learn. If Gladwell is indeed paid a fortune for speaking, perhaps I could pick up some tips?

The first lesson came from simply looking at the programme. The photo of me was unexceptional - it said here is a middle-aged man in glasses. Gladwell’s photo was very different. It was taken from a distance and showed off his magnificent Einstein-like Afro - it said, here is a mad genius. Unfortunately - short of buying myself a fright wig - I am never going to be able to compete with Gladwell in the hair stakes. But there are other things he does that might be easier to emulate.

First, he is a master of the “look no hands” style of speaking. He just stands up there, with a button mike and talks - and it all sounds very spontaneous, with little asides and jokes, and messages tailored to his Mexican audience. Second, he tells stories - there are theories attached to the stories - but the bulk of the talk is made up of charming anecdotes to illustrate rather simple themes. Gladwell was talking about what makes successful people, and essentially his argument seemed to boil down to two rather old ideas: “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again” and “perspiration matters more than inspiration”. Except he would never dream of using such shop-worn phrases. Instead, we are told about how Fleetwood Mac didn’t make it until they released their sixteenth album; and about how Bill Gates used to break into computer labs as a child to practice his programming skills. Coincidentally or not, these messages about the value of perverserance and hard work, and the chances of doing your best work late in life (Cezanne, apparently) are just the kind of thing that might cheer up an audience of jaded, middle-aged businessmen.

Anyway, after watching Gladwell, it was my turn. I also make a point of not writing out my speech. My theory is that it is more interesting to hear someone talk, than to listen them read a prepared text. However, I don’t quite have the Gladwellian confidence to work without any notes. I always have a few bullet points noted down on a piece of paper - just in case I dry up or lose my thread. And I also have a watch I can look at, so I can see how I am doing on time. This method has a significant disadvantage. It means you can’t stray too far from the rostrum and pace around, Gladwell-style.

My method also means that you can get your timings wrong - which is what happened to me yesterday. I thought I did OK and was quite fluent and convincing for the first thirty minutes or so. But then I realised I was running out of time, and I had to telescope the last bit of the talk - which meant that it was a bit rushed and less coherent than I would have liked.

So how does Gladwell do it? Afterwards, I broke through the autograph-hunters surrounding him and asked him how he managed to time his talk so beautifully - so that it ended bang on 45 minutes, without ever looking at his watch. He answered - “I know it may not look like this. But it’s all scripted. I write down every word and then I learn it off by heart. I do that with all my talks and I’ve got lots of them”

It occurred to me afterwards that Gladwell’s success as a speaker illustrates one of his homespun themes - hard work pays off. But he has also made an important realisation. He is not giving a speech or a lecture - he is giving a performance. And like any good actor, he knows that you have to learn your lines.

February 10, 2010 11:01pm in Foreign affairs | 12 comments