I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons in my many years as a boss and manager, and here’s one of them: You’ll never go wrong betting on the certainty of top executives to show off their hubris, arrogance and ego at exactly the worst possible time.
It takes a lot of confidence—some have less charitable terms for it—to be a big-time executive, and in all too many cases, that confidence/arrogance can run amok.
So it is with Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein. According to The New York Times, “A little more than a week after Goldman’s chairman and chief executive drew fire for saying the Wall Street giant was ‘doing God’s work,’ the bank said Tuesday that it would spend $500 million—or about 3 percent of the $16.7 billion it has so far set aside to pay its employees this year—to help thousands of small businesses recover from the recession.”
Wall Street banks “doing God’s work?” You can say a lot about the business practices on Wall Street, and a lot has been said over this past year. However, no one in their right mind ever considered it “doing God’s work”—except an over-the-top arrogant bank executive, of course.
But as the Times story also noted, “Lloyd Blankfein also showed a bit of humility, acknowledging at a conference in New York that Goldman had made mistakes, and that it was sorry. ‘We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret,’ he said. ‘We apologize.’ ”
OK, my dad always used to tell me that confession was good for the soul, and an apology is simply a public confession. That’s usually a good thing, especially in a business setting, and in fact, there can be solid business reasons for being contrite and apologetic, as we pointed out in this classic Workforce Management article on “The Art of the Apology.”
But the head of Goldman Sachs apologizing for some of the practices that have made Wall Street the target of so much anger from average Americans? That’s a big story, but only if the apology was truly sincere, contrite and represented a clear and honest change in past practice.
As Atlanta-based attorney and consultant Stephen Paskoff said in our “Art of the Apology” classic, “Apologies can be a powerful tool for conflict resolution, but only if they’re part of a cultural change. You need your corporate leaders to say, ‘If we make mistakes, we fix them. If someone says there’s a problem, you need to listen to what they have to say. And if you have a problem, you need to bring it up, because we’ll listen.”
And that’s where I have a hard time swallowing an apology from the head of Goldman Sachs. It doesn’t sound sincere, and more to the point, I don’t see Goldman’s Lloyd Blankfein touting any cultural changes at his bank that are flowing out of the transgressions he now feels compelled to apologize for.
“Blankfein’s apology might ring truer,” Gilbert wrote, “if he hadn’t been named CEO of the year by the magazine whose conference he was gracing with his presence. The fawning adoration for the multimillionaires who run the banking industry has only been diminished, not destroyed, by the damage their actions wrought. … Goldman and its peers need to practice humility and contriteness for an extended period, rather than seeking image-buffing headlines with token gestures.”
I don’t know if I could have put it any better, because Blankfein’s apology flunks the basic sniff test when it comes to public apologies: If it doesn’t sound humble, genuine and heartfelt, it probably is just a PR device to momentarily divert attention away from something else—like $16.7 billion in employee bonuses for an industry that had to be bailed out by the American taxpayer.
I love David Letterman. His late-night talk show is clearly the best of the bunch, and in my mind, he’s followed along in the footsteps of his mentor, the great late-night king, Johnny Carson.
It’s clear to me that David Letterman, highly paid late-night comedian and CBS talk show star, never heard (or conveniently forgot) one of the most basic managerial rules of all—don’t fish off the company pier.
Although many of the details are sketchy, there’s nothing that says what Letterman did was anything but consensual. One CBS Radio report I heard said Letterman was having sex with female staffers in his office, and as bad as that sounds, it’s still legal for consenting adults to engage in such behavior should they choose to do so.
That’s what catches me up, however. Why would any thinking, rational person—particularly someone of Letterman’s stature—choose to put themselves in a compromising position like that?
“While Letterman seems to be in no immediate risk of losing either his family or his job (ratings from last night’s telecast will likely be stratospheric), his troubles may not be over,” Time magazine says. “Having sex with people who were his employees or whom he managed could leave him, or CBS, open to a sexual-harassment lawsuit. It’s certain the comedian has given the network’s lawyers plenty of reasons to be up at night.”
Bosses getting involved with those who work for them is a trend that’s probably as old as the workplace itself. However, it’s fraught with peril and, in my long experience, is almost never worth the risk.
In fact, if you looked at this as a smart businessperson and examined the risk-reward potential, or the ROI of such a relationship, you probably wouldn’t get involved in such a deal at any level. But, that’s applying rational thinking to something that’s clearly an irrational decision.
Letterman has had a lot of drama and bad stuff to deal with in his life, but this is one that wasn’t foisted upon him; it’s trouble that’s self-inflicted. Even if the foiled extortion attempt turns out to be the worst of it, he’s left his many fans wondering just how someone who seems so smart and snappy on the surface can engage in such foolish (and some would say terribly bad) behavior when the office door is closed?
As someone who makes his living skewering other people and joking about their foibles, Letterman’s now going to become the punch line for a lot of manager and workplace jokes.
Who wants to be that guy? No manager that I know of. Yet Letterman, the guy who has publicly reveled in zinging Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer and many others for their sexual high jinks, is now going to become the poster boy for bosses behaving badly. That’s called karma, I believe.
And the jokes and zingers about this have already started. As Time magazine solemnly notes: “Letterman has also probably given truckloads of material to other comedians—or even his own writers. Let’s just say he may come to regret calling his company Worldwide Pants.”
No, my experience hasn’t found any of that, but it has shown me that reasonable people like reasonable rules and polices that help guide them in their everyday duties. Employees want to have some structure to their jobs and some help in dealing with difficult situations, and that’s why smart and well-thought-through policies can make for a better business.
But there is another side to workforce rules and regulations: They can be used as a hammer to pound workers into submission and limit flexibility and thoughtfulness. In my world, you want to cultivate smart employees who use their brain and exercise some discretion, when appropriate, to deal with the many shades of gray that we deal with in life.
The problem is that discretion is hard to manage. Tough, inflexible rules are much easier to hold employees to, especially when such rules are put in the hands of small-minded and unbending supervisors in an organization’s management food chain.
And, that’s why what happened at Best Buy, the large “multinational retailer of technology and entertainment products” (as the company describes itself), is a lesson for executives everywhere.
According to the Denver Post, “Two employees who tried to stop a knife-wielding shoplifter at the Best Buy store … in Broomfield [Colorado] were fired for violating corporate policy. Jared Bergstreser tackled a man who allegedly stole two cell phones from the store August 1. Colin Trapp came to his aid. Both men were fired [August 16] at the request of corporate officials because they ignored company rules against following shoplifters out the door, Bergstreser said.”
According to a Wall Street Journal account of the incident, “Bergstreser said he gave chase when a man burst out of the Best Buy store … with an armload of electronics he hadn’t paid for. Bergstreser, a 20-year-old former high school football player, said he wrestled the man to the ground. Trapp, 23, said he also rushed out of the store and pinned the suspect.”
The tussle got messy when “the alleged shoplifter was able to grab a pocket knife and cut a store manager who also had run outside,” according to the Journal. “The suspect and a male accomplice then fled, jumping into a getaway car, a gray Pontiac with a female driver, local police said. No one has been arrested.”
This falls into the category of “no good deed goes unpunished,” because what many feel is heroic conduct is actually a violation of Best Buy’s corporate policy.
Spokeswoman Kelly Groehler told the Denver Post that the company has clear policies regarding shoplifters, basically that they are supposed to let them go. “Employees who work in our stores are aware, and trained, on the standard operating procedures for dealing with shoplifting or theft,” she said. “These procedures are in place first and foremost for the safety of our employees.”
Although Best Buy’s policies are apparently common in the retail world, that hasn’t stopped people in Colorado from feeling that these two Best Buy employees got a raw deal.
The Journal notes that “scores of comments, most expressing admiration, have been posted on Trapp’s Facebook page and other Web sites. ‘Punished for not being cowards,’ one commentator wrote. … Several posters pledged to boycott the chain.”
I understand the Best Buy policy on shoplifters, and I agree with the need to have such a policy, but I wonder: Did Best Buy really need to terminate the employment of two very engaged members of their workforce? Was there not another option? And is this not a case of following the rules over the cliff?
On Wednesday, the Denver Post published an editorial protesting Best Buy’s decision to fire the young men. “Shouldn’t heroism be rewarded?” the paper asked. I agree completely. There’s a way to deal with this incident and reward the heroic effort without having these guys lose their job.
Best Buy needs to inject a little common sense into this argument and not be so focused on rules and procedures that they can’t see the bigger picture. If I were the Big Boss at Best Buy, I would have my HR people give these two a formal written reprimand for violating policy, but also a bonus and public commendation for their effort—above and beyond the call of duty—to help the company.
Heroes in the workplace should be recognized and rewarded, whether they help subdue shoplifters or land the damaged airplane they’re piloting safely in the Hudson River. Common sense and good management practice should tell us that this is the right thing to do. Letting corporate rules and policies dictate otherwise is no way to run a railroad—or to build a highly engaged workforce.
Hey, Management Guy! I know people really value honest, straight-shooting executives, but how honest is too honest? For example, does it ever make sense for the Big Boss to diss or put downhis or her workforce? This seems like a really counterproductive and shortsighted management strategy to me.
— Sam in San Jose, CA.
Sam:
A couple of years ago, The Management Guy would have told you that it is over-the-top stupid for ANY senior manager to openly diss or talk trash about the company’s workers. Not only does this violate Hall Of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi’s old maxim that a leader should always “praise in public, criticize in private” (a philosophy The Management Guy has tried, with modest success, to emulate), but it also makes the manager in question look like a churlish philistine.
Never mind that this behavior defies all logic or business sense. Guys like Zell do it because, well, the “devil made them do it.” Yes, the same comments would probably get any other employee fired, but sometimes, top executives get to be top executives despite the fact that they are missing a basic impulse-control gene. They succeed in spite of themselves, and that’s why they sometimes end up treating and talking about workers like they are the conquered chattel of Attila the Hun.
Just this week, Bartz appeared at an investment conference in New York where she was questioned about how quickly the changes she was making at Yahoo would begin to pay dividends. That’s a pretty standard question, of course, and Bartz had a pretty standard answer, according to the Associated Press.
“While pointing to some progress,” the AP reported, “Bartz said it probably will take another year or two before Yahoo reaps the gains from her shake-up.”
Most CEOs would have left it at that, but Bartz, for better or worse, isn’t like most CEOs. She couldn’t resist the urge to follow up her straightforward assessment of Yahoo’s progress under her leadership with a gratuitous and unnecessary swipe at her workforce that would make Sam Zell proud. “For everything you can do in three steps,” Bartz added, “it will take Yahoo 22 steps [to get it done].”
You would be right to point out that it is foolish, shortsighted, and does nothing at all, but then again, you aren’t a big-time CEO like Sam Zell or Carol Bartz.
Now, Carol Bartz is not Sam Zell, but she does have a lot of the same qualities, including a wonderfully colorful vocabulary. It remains to be seen whether trash-talking her workforce in public will help in her revival of Yahoo, but The Management Guy remains unconvinced.
He’d rather put his faith in Vince Lombardi’s Super Bowl-winning advice than in the approach of Zell or Bartz, but then again, Lombardi was also known to swear like a trooper, too. The difference is, he never publicly dissed his workforce. Like all good coaches, he knew you don’t get very far by trash-talking the very players you count on for your ultimate success.
There’s seems to be no end to the advice that every so-called “expert” in America wants to dispense to all the beaten-down workers who have been navigating around pay cuts (or at a minimum, pay freezes), furloughs, reduced benefits, more work, fewer colleagues to help and a lot more stress.
Yes, it’s a tough time to be a worker, and it’s even tougher for managers trying to motivate and keep engaged all those employees who have lost so much and are probably tired of hearing “but you should be happy you still have a job” for the 100th time.
I’m also one of those “managers desperately trying to motivate”-types, but if there’s one thing that I can’t stand even more than all the cutbacks, it’s the never-ending flow of silly, stupid and downright terrible advice from all those so-called “experts.” Their pat, simplistic, one-size-fits all solutions to complex workforce and people management problems are well meaning but, to my way of thinking, only serve to do more harm than good.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about: A Web site called Human Resources IQ sent out a press release titled “Pay Raise Alternatives to Keep Employees Motivated.” It offers “advice” on how to motivate workers when you can’t give them a raise, or worse, have cut their pay or made them take a furlough.
This is a good topic that could use some sound advice, but like so many of these PR-generated missives, it fails to help in just about every way possible. Check out this “advice” from the press release and see if you agree:
• Show Them the Love: “Typically in a business manager role, the opportunity arises to go to lunch with a client, go to sporting events, concerts, etc. Step aside and pass those tickets along to an employee or consultant. A $150 dollar ticket to a Billy Joel concert goes a long way and provides maximum ROI. Images will be posted on their social networking pages (Note from your blogger: WTF?), the company will get maximum exposure and competitors will lose job candidates because they’ll wonder why their consulting firm/employer doesn’t ‘show them that kind of love.’ ”
• A Good Meal: “Treating an employee to an exceptionally good lunch (including picking him or her up from the office) is a tremendous display of appreciation.”
• Call Me Anytime: “Give cell phone breaks. Fold a consultant/employee into the company cell phone plan. Many companies have a massive plan with “bucket minutes.” Over the past few years, cell phones have become a necessity. One less bill per month is an awesome feeling.
• New Business Cards: “Award an employee a new title. If an employee is a programmer, make him a ‘senior programmer.’ If most of the department has been laid off, this employee is a lead dog anyway. If ‘senior’ doesn’t fit, try ‘lead,’ etc. Get creative. Be sure to order new business cards for your employee, too.”
• Everyone Hates Traffic: “Offer a flexible schedule or telecommuting.”
• Get Creative: “Let employees/consultants come up with his or her own ‘perk.’ If it’s a viable option, implement it immediately.”
The only really good idea in this bunch is offering a flexible schedule or the ability to telecommute. All the rest of these “tips” are things that a) good managers should have already been doing; or, b) are downright dumb (New, fake titles? New business cards?).
No one likes getting their pay cut, or going on a furlough, but the real keys to keeping workers at all levels engaged and motivated is to explain exactly WHY the business needs to make these cuts, and, the shared sacrifice that EVERYONE in the organization is making to keep things going.
Honesty and full transparency about the critical business reasons for making the cuts will do a lot more to get employee buy-in than will buying a lunch here and there or offering up some silly new job title.
And whatever you do, stay away from simplistic advice from PR-driven “experts” who revel in foolishness. Your workforce deserves a lot better than that.
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