I’ve had great bosses and terrible bosses, smart bosses and dumb bosses. I’ve also had bosses who were thoughtful managers, bosses who were purposely forgetful, and bosses who were over-the-top political. There were ones I would run through a wall for, but also ones I would run away from if I saw them walking down the street. One was a model leader, a special guy I learned a lot from, while another was a thuggish bully who had no quantifiable skills except the ability to glower and intimidate. I learned a lot from him too.
But through it all, the good and the bad, the smart and the dumb, the special and the crazy, I’ve never seriously been tempted to take matters into my own hands and throttle my boss. I’ve been tempted many times, but never, ever, did I seriously think about strangling any of them—even though I had some pretty good motivation to do so.
That’s why I was amused to see someone go over the edge and actually do it, as Houston Astros pitcher Shawn Chacon did last week when he tried to strangle Astros General Manager Ed Wade. I’m not in favor of violence to settle a dispute, but a Houston Chronicle story hit the issue square on the head when it asked, “Did Chacon just live out everybody’s favorite fantasy? Do worker bees everywhere secretly dream of whupping up on the boss?”
“ ‘People are laughing because it is a common fantasy,’ ” family therapist Tim Louis told the Chronicle. “ ‘They think, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to react in rage against an authority figure like a boss?” ’ … Louis said there’s nothing wrong with the occasional malevolent thought. But psychiatric treatment is called for when a person obsesses over a boss, makes a plan for how they might hurt him or fear they might actually do it.”
But lest you think this is a one-sided situation, check out this blog post titled “Is Ed Wade a Saint in the Shawn Chacon Debacle? Signs Point to No.” Wade is known to have a temper, and he reportedly threw a chair against a wall, shattering it, when he was with the Philadelphia Phillies. There’s some thinking that Wade is not blameless in this encounter, given his temper and past behavior.
Here’s my take: Violence has no place in the workplace, and no matter what Ed Wade said or did, Shawn Chacon was wrong to take matters into his own hands, so to speak. That’s a sure way to lose your job in any universe. Thumping on the bad boss may be a workforce fantasy for many, but like most fantasies, it is one best left unfulfilled.
Today’s installment of Boss Basics comes from a different place, and it takes me back to a lesson I learned at a big company in my past: When in doubt, reorganize the staff.
This company was famous for moving people to various offices, and the best thing you could do as a manager dropped into a new location was simple: reorganize the staff, fire a few people, and show that you are “making the tough choices.” This played to the organization’s cultural bias that something always needed to be fixed, and that getting tough and making changes was always the best way to do it.
This is complete and total nonsense, of course. John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach, once noted that you should “never mistake activity for achievement,” and he’s absolutely right. Making changes—like firing people and reorganizing the staff—certainly gives the illusion of change because it makes it seem like something is happening. But as Wooden notes, it’s just activity, not real achievement, and that’s where the flaw lies.
But, reorganizing the staff when there’s heat on for big change is a time-honored Boss Basic. And not surprisingly, it’s going on right now at Yahoo.
As The New York Times notes, “Under pressure from many shareholders for its poor performance and for its failure to complete a deal with Microsoft, Yahoo is doing something it has done several times before: reorganizing itself.”
Advertising Age (a sister publication of Workforce Management) points out that this is the fourth reorganization at Yahoo in the last 18 months, and that “It’s hard to find a company that reorganizes more than Yahoo.” The Times story also notes “analysts were skeptical that reorganization would be any more effective than any of the previous ones at restoring Yahoo’s fortunes.”
“It changes nothing,” said Benjamin Schachter, an analyst with UBS Securities. “Companies that are doing well generally don’t do reorgs. They significantly impact morale and show that the crux of the problem is the lack of execution. This is a management team that has not been able to execute.”
Change for the sake of change rarely works, and sometimes the need to reorganize and change pushes organizations to do really stupid things, as we have seen at Circuit City. But, I truly doubt this is really about change or making the company better. It’s simply taking a page out of the management playbook that all bosses seem to get — making a change to buy time and perhaps make some people think that there is something bigger and better going on.
This kind of flawed strategy rarely works. It didn’t work for Circuit City and I doubt it will for Yahoo. It’s simply activity without achievement, as John Wooden would say, and although it is a standard practice taken right out of the boss playbook, it is flawed and foolish. And, it may be the last big move the current Yahoo management team gets to make.
Well, Facebook got a big win in a California courtroom when a “federal judge in San Jose late Wednesday rejected a bid by founder Mark Zuckerberg’s longtime adversaries to reopen a recent confidential settlement in a case,” the Mercury News reports.
“The principals of ConnectU, who claimed that Zuckerberg stole source code and ideas from them while they all were attending Harvard, were hoping to revisit a confidential settlement reached Feb. 22, based on new evidence that it said had surfaced in Zuckerberg’s instant message logs,” according to the paper’s latest story.
“But Judge James Ware rejected their bid, issuing his ruling two days after a hearing Monday that he ordered closed to the press. … Ware rejected ConnectU’s claims that Facebook had committed securities fraud in procuring the settlement … (and the judge) appeared to concur with a Massachusetts judge who portrayed ConnectU’s attempt to undo the settlement as ‘buyer’s remorse.’ ”
This still doesn’t change my opinion that Facebook and MySpace are overhyped by people who seem to have a singular goal of convincing the world that social networking sites are a really big deal in—and the clear future of—recruiting.
That remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: Facebook can get on with its business life without a potential company-killing legal action hanging over its head.
I’ve never been a big fan of Facebook, or MySpace, for that matter. As such, I’ve never been swayed by the relentless overhyping of those who have tried to convince the world that Facebook and other such sites are the future of recruiting.
Some of the big job boards, such as CareerBuilder, Jobster and Yahoo HotJobs, currently have or are developing Facebook applications in hopes of helping recruiters and hiring managers reach out to Facebook users. As we reported here at Workforce Management, “More than half of the site’s users are out of college and many are seeking full-time jobs in a career-oriented environment, which makes them a coveted workforce group among employers searching for young talent.”
But now Facebook has a big problem: a “legal battle over whether Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ripped off Harvard classmates in launching his social networking Web site,” according to the San Jose Mercury News.
The case is currently being heard in a San Jose, California, courtroom. “At issue is whether ConnectU, founded by some of Zuckerberg’s Harvard classmates, can reopen a settlement they reached with Facebook over their claims that he stole their ideas and code to start his company. ConnectU claims it found new evidence relevant to the case,” the story says.
The stakes, the newspaper notes, are enormous: “ ‘The worst case scenario is that Facebook doesn’t own its core code and that it’s been using someone else’s code for the foundation of its company. That could lead to damages that are catastrophic,’ said Eric Goldman, assistant professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law and director of SCU’s High Tech Law Institute. ‘In the worst case scenario, this could be a fight for Facebook’s life.’ ”
So, even if social networking does become a big deal in recruiting, Facebook may not be a part of it, depending on the outcome of this lawsuit. And even if Facebook prevails, it may be a costly victory. As the Mercury News points out, “Facebook appears to be racking up considerable legal bills. On Monday, Facebook attorney Neel Chatterjee was backed up by 10 colleagues from his firm, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. ConnectU’s side included attorneys from Finnegan Henderson, which specializes in intellectual property, and attorneys from the high-powered Washington, D.C., firm Boies Schiller & Flexner. Attorneys representing two separate interested parties were also present.”
This is a case to watch, and it may be the one thing that can actually bring highflying Facebook back to earth. If so, it may be time to rethink all that hype about the site as the future of recruiting.
Global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released its “Top 10 Workforce Trends of the Future” this week at the annual SHRM conference in Chicago, and the list is a mix of the obvious, the speculative and the odd.
But predicting how the future workforce might operate is one of those things that is guaranteed to get people talking —and thinking—about how they might better operate their own workforce. And anything that gets people to think more strategically about how they work is a good thing.
So, here is the list. It’s guaranteed to spur some pretty intense debate:
• The rise of teleconferencing; the end of much business travel. Increasing airfares, along with pressures to be more environmentally responsible, will push businesses to replace business travel with teleconferencing.
• Social networking: the only recruitment tool. Over the next 10 years, recruiters will increasingly shift their recruiting efforts away from traditional print ads and online job boards to the rapidly expanding world of social networking sites.
• No health benefits for you. Unable to compete with foreign companies that do not provide health benefits to their employees and retirees, more and more U.S. corporations will join the movement to eliminate employer-paid health benefits and create a national, single-payer alternative.
• Four-day workweeks: the new corporate standard. With rising gasoline prices, the availability of increasingly portable and affordable technology, and the desire for more work/life balance, four-day workweeks will become the new standard for corporate America.
• Companies will mandate wellness programs in response to health care costs. Until companies can find a way to excise the burden of employer-paid health insurance, more and more will institute corporate-backed wellness programs and mandate worker enrollment.
• Corporate degree programs will mold potential workers. More and more jobs will require advanced technology know-how, creative problem-solving abilities and superior communication skills. In response, employers will create their own degree programs to develop future or potential employees.
• Globalization will lead to an exodus of specified workers to job-rich locations. The expansion of the global economy will lead to a global talent pool, where companies will aggressively recruit the best available workers, regardless of where they reside.
• Say goodbye to the cubicle. In an effort to improve employee collaboration, productivity and efficiency, U.S. employers will replace cubicles with open community spaces.
• Say goodbye to the corporate headquarters. In an effort to cut real estate costs, become more eco-friendly and attract the growing number of workers who want increased work/life balance, more companies will adopt policies that let workers do their jobs wherever and whenever they want.
• Free agent workers will take over the workforce. Free agents are the fastest-growing worker segment in the U.S., and their number will continue to increase rapidly over the next decade as companies look to hire the best talent on a project basis and workers take charge of their own careers.
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