Anger Management

Steve Bennett

Image: Paul Sakuma/Associated Press

Intuit C.E.O. Steve Bennett used to have a problem with criticism. If you questioned his approach or dared to imply that you might do a better job as chief, you could expect an intense debate. It’s not that Bennett, 53, would yell and scream. That wasn’t his style. More often than not, he’d press hard until he wore down his detractors. “I would get passionate and become intimidating and aggressive in asking questions to try to figure out why we disagreed,” he says.

But that was the old Bennett. “Now I don’t overreact,” he says. “I’m thoughtful and can more easily manage my emotions.”

He sounds like a guy who has discovered religion, or at least therapy. The latter is not far from the truth, and the Mountain View, California-based software company seems healthier partially as a result of its chief’s emotional enlightenment. It certainly hasn’t hurt. Last year, earnings for the maker of TurboTax, QuickBooks, and Quicken were up 9 percent to $417 million, on revenues of $2.3 billion, a 15 percent increase from 2005’s revenues. All told, Intuit’s revenues have more than doubled since Bennett joined in 2000, after 23 years as a top executive at General Electric.

Few things short-circuit a productive business environment like an angry, abrasive boss. Still, it’s not easy for any boss to admit when they've crossed the line, and not many leaders are self-aware and confident enough to publicly acknowledge their communication faults. This is no longer true of Bennett, although telling me about his “breakthrough” during our interview is the first time he’s discussed it with someone outside Intuit.

“In the past I might have had a debate,” says Bennett about his prior usual reaction to criticism. “Now, I take what makes sense and throw the rest away.”

He adopted his newfound sense of calm about a year ago. Bennett was reading through reports from Intuit employees who had recently taken a leadership course when he noticed a majority felt that the most important lesson they’d learned was identifying and controlling their emotional “triggers.” It wasn’t a word Bennett was familiar with, so he called the course’s instructor, who explained that a trigger is simply a person’s hot button—an insecurity or a pet peeve that causes you to overreact in any number of unproductive ways, from shutting down to spewing four-letter words.

Of course, triggers aren’t an entirely new concept, but macho managers have been dismissing them for years as little more than lame psychobabble. To Bennett, the word was a revelation. He set out to identify his own triggers. Perhaps in the process he also learned how his confrontational style affected employees. He recalled an instance when his bonus decreased while the business he was in charge of excelled. Frustrated and desperate for an explanation, the moment he heard the news he confronted the person responsible for his performance review and spent 30 minutes “aggressively probing” for the reasons behind his lackluster assessment.

“I should not have kept probing and not asked six questions and gotten six answers that pissed me off even more. I should have just gone and talked to someone else,” he says. Not only didn’t Bennett get a satisfactory answer, but his bonus did not change. In retrospect, he says, he believes that going into such a discussion while agitated likely made him more combative. The confrontation also tarnished the relationship, a long-term consequence that, he now realizes, just wasn’t worth it. Such incidents, says Bennett, led people to assume he was stubborn or a bad listener, “which is not true, but my behavior at that point could have let [my colleague] make this conclusion. That is what people remember, and that becomes your brand.” The now indoctrinated Bennett adds, “Things that hit your triggers are like toxic waste: Deal with them in the wrong manner, and they cause damage.”

Bennett is so taken with the concept of triggers that he’s sharing what he has learned. Last fall, he and 20 people who report directly to him went through a three-hour training session together. It was led by Brooks Fisher, Intuit’s executive in charge of leadership training and development, who also held a separate session for 300 of the company's other leaders.

The sessions made a clear impact. “I have worked for a lot of great companies, but never with a C.E.O. who stands up and shares openly the things he does not do well and where he is trying to do better,” says Brad Smith, Intuit’s senior vice president of small business. He says the experience was as personal and productive as a group therapy session in which participants talk about what makes them angry. Smith, a self-described small-town boy from West Virginia who went to a state university, says he gets triggered when someone implies that he is, well, a small-town boy who went to a state school, even if the person does not means to be condescending. Trigger-training helped Smith recognize moments when he gets “emotionally hijacked” and becomes prone to respond with undue frustration.

“All leaders need feedback,” says Bennett. “But overreacting shuts down the kind of feedback you need to learn, grow, and get better.”