Getting Over It
I recently had breakfast with an old friend. This is someone who I had participated actively in recruiting for his job. I thought he was both highly qualified and appropriately aggressive, and that he would “move the needle” on leading the organization forward. There is a reason leaders are highly paid and much sought-after. Organizations need this impetus to progress and it is quite hard to accomplish. The euphemisms abound about breaking eggs and making omelets. I am such an egg breaker by nature, so I saw that quality in him and pushed the organization to hire him. While I was not without support, there was a natural tendency for the governed (who participated in the hiring process) to judge the potential leader in the context of whether they were in the mood to have their eggs broken. There are also those involved in such a hiring process that are generally wary of radical outcomes. Do not get me wrong, this candidate was highly qualified by any objective standard, but it was the subjective qualities of “fit” that were at issue. There was a more “friendly” candidate available that was in a similar role elsewhere that would have been far lower risk. I did not see him as a leader, but rather a placeholder. Some prefer that to taking the risk with the eggs.
After several years almost everybody involved was patting themselves on the back that we had chosen a strong person to lead the organization and that we had made a very wise choice. There were more omelets than egg shells on the floor. All was well and then the mother ship (parent organization) decided they wanted a bigger, bolder move and asked Mr. Wonderful to take on the bigger role. I suspect that there were several reasons for that move. The new commander of the mother ship wanted to be seen as a bold leader to be sure. There was general concern that Mr. Wonderful would run out his term and then move on to greener pastures elsewhere, and that was an undesirable outcome. And, of course, there were solid organizational reasons for the creation of this new, bigger role. So the move was made and now the omelet chef was forced to be in full swing. The new role was controversial in that it combined a number of other units (re-orgs are a bitch).
I remember in a prior incarnation I ran a large, geographically diverse, global function. As part of my omelet-making experience I had to move some people around to fit the new model and get my new team properly positioned. Nothing radical and nothing out of the ordinary. I was traveling to Brazil to visit the field offices and this was in the days before ubiquitous internet-based email communications (the late 1980’s). It’s hard to believe there were such days. We had our own internal email system (we were quite progressive). In order to get our emails printed off, we each had to give the local receptionist our email password (presumably to be changed when we returned to New York). Three of us gave our strange/cute code words, but one administrative guy hesitated. That scene was reminiscent of that ad for Citibank when the guy on the train has to yell on the cell phone that his password is “Big Boy”. Sheepishly, the paranoid middle manager gave her his password, which was “Reorged”. That ended that quandry.
Back at the breakfast table, it turns out that Mr. Wonderful had been mysteriously and unceremoniously separated from his leadership position. That was a year ago. It seemed that someone upstairs (there was a new Honcho, as there always seems to be) preferred him in the omelet rather than making omelets. It ws somewhat unclear whether he had chosen to exit or been forced to exit and these are delicate matters so I had never probed for an answer to that. I figures I would learn the truth sooner or later.
This was the moment of truth. He had called me for the gathering and I had willingly complied. He was still in the organization, but in a low-profile work-a-day role. He laid his cards on the table quickly and clearly. He had, indeed, been sacked for a personal peccadillo of no particular significance. He had followed the reporting rules for such peccadillos and there had been the usual Q&A session (two to be exact) and then things had died down for months and no repercussions ensued. Then suddenly, the new Honcho sprang into action and delivered a verdict as a fully baked plan to be executed within hours. And I do mean executed. Off with his head. No comment, no thanks for services rendered, no bad-mouthing, and no formal firing. Just a removal from exalted leadership office with zero explanation.
Large organizations are funny beasts. They certainly have a life of their own and they are, by necessity, hide-bound in many ways. Leaders of these organizations change who they are often when they assume the cloak of responsibility. I almost feel like some high priest takes the new leader into a private goat house, reads to him or her from the Great Book of Wisdom, which is secretly kept in the goat house so none but the anointed can see it. No one knows who wrote the Great Book and amended it for all its updated causalities. But there it sits and its main purpose is to christen the new leaders and make them wise to the ways of the organization. They bear a sacred oath of secrecy and they emerge changed men or women, with rays of light coming from their eyes. They become all-seeing and single-purposed to protect, serve and maintain the organization at all costs. No mere mortal can stand in its way or lessen the whole. Only white smoke can be emitted from the sanctum.
My friend the ex-omelet-maker said he had spent his year contemplating the situation and deciding for personal reasons to stay for a few years. I have been the vanquished at times and there are lots and lots of reasons to stay and not go. But here’s the thing, so much depends on the messaging from the goat room. If the goat room wants you gone, but cannot justify bloodying the sacred axe on your neck, they make your life hell. You become dead man walking and no one is allowed (never stated, but clearly implied to all) to socialize with you. It is not hard to figure this out, but it is usually impossible to prove. Such was my friend’s non-fate as a non-person in a non-role for no particular reason and without specific goal or end defined.
He said he was over it and yet at the breakfast he kept replaying the scene where his eggs were shattered and he was spilled across the kitchen floor. Every attempt to cauterize the wound and discuss other things kept coming back to the scene of the crime in his eyes. A year had apparently not been enough time yet to move on. My only advice to him, “Move on, stay calm, get over it and get out as soon as you can.” He nodded and then went in for another, “…but why did they…..”