Tag: employees

What Do Bosses Know About Their Employees?


1297457573478_ORIGINALWell, it varies from one boss to another, but one thing I can tell you for sure –nobody should ever expect a boss to bother learning who his subordinates are.  I mean as people. 

Yes, some overzealous HR pros in large companies paw through whatever material is made public by the social networking in pursuit of dirt, but  that's just "fact-finding" and gossip-mongering.  No, I am talking about a genuine human interest. 

In most cases there is none.  Watching all sorts of bosses interact with their employees I frequently wonder whether it registers in their heads that they deal with real people.  I think they subconsciously block this tiny detail out, so that they wouldn't feel guilty for being assholes.  So, how can you expect them to notice anything about your personality, if they see you as a cardboard cutout?  They are blind even to the most obvious manifestations of your existence outside of the workplace. 

You may belong to a weekend fight club and come to work every Monday with poorly covered bruises; or aspire to be the greatest drummer of all times and constantly bang your fingers on hard surfaces to some beats in your head; or know everything there is to know about existentialism and talk about it at length during office parties – none of it will be noticed: they see and hear it, but their minds reject it.  For them, you are still just Steve from Logistics, or Mike from Customer Service, or that girl from Accounting. 

Do I know for a fact that this sort of myopia exists?  Yes, I do.  My position as a financial executive and/or consultant allows me to observe various bosses in close proximity.  Over the years, I've collected a huge body of evidence to support my statements here.  But I can also vouch for their validity based on the incidents that involved me personally.  I'm not going to dwell here on the fact that none of my employers ever learned anything of my true motivations, ethical standards, or even why I work so hard and care so much.  Instead, let me share with you an instance of an inexplicable blindness.

I don't ever shove CFO Techniques into people's faces.  Being a book's author barely has any impact on consulting deals and it definitely has nothing to do with my CFO job.  But people do find out on their own: they connect with me on LinkedIn and see it on my profile, or they Google me, or whatever.  Normal people, not bosses.  A company's owner writes an email to one of his strategic financial partners with a copy to me: "Let me introduce our CFO M.G.  From now on, she is taking over all our M&A negotiations."  Apparently the fact that the three of us were at the same table during a corporate function has slipped his remembrance.  As per usual, I simply ignore it.  The external party doesn't:  "Not only that I've met Marina already, but I also keep her book on my desk."  The boss replies, "Oh yeah, I forgot, I introduced you, guys."  You may think that he deliberately ignored the part about the book, but I swear, he is not that devious – he simply blocked it out, didn't see it at all.    

And that's absolutely Ok.  Attentiveness is not a prerequisite to being a business leader and a jobs creator.  I'll take brilliance and perpetual drive to succeed over tact and personal involvement any day.  And I have to be honest – I'm not quite sure if I personally would've been as aware of people around me and familiar with some aspects of their lives if I weren't such an avid, life-long student of behavioral science.  At the end of the day, one can say that my interest is self-serving. 

Of course, sometimes it hurts just a bit that the people, for whom you work so hard, don't even care to learn who you are, but in the grander scheme of things we should not care – as I always say, every job is just another line on your resume.  Moreover, we should be grateful – we don't really want these people to know too much about us or our vulnerabilities.

That said, however, it is still pretty surprising when bosses are confused about most basic, most superficial facts about employees who worked for them for years.  Sometimes it brings about ludicrous, almost sketch-like dialogues.

A tragedy struck one of my subordinates: her Mom, only 55 years old,  died unexpectedly of a heart attack.  The girl has been with the company longer than me; she was originally hired by the CEO at the time when there were no other executive managers in the company at all – just owners and staffers.  The CEO shuffles into my office to reflect on the unfairness of life.

She said, "You know, it's so cruel: Shen's parents were the first-generation immigrants -  worked so hard to provide for the children!  And now, the kids are all grown up, married, educated - it was a time for her Mom to finally enjoy her life, and then this happened.  Just terrible!"

I listened to all that and agreed, "Yes, it's totally fucked up.  With respect to her Mom, it was Shen who was the first-generation immigrant.  Her parents got divorced when she was a little girl.  Shen came here 13 years ago with her farther and she didn't see her Mom for 8 years.  They missed each other terribly.  The girl was able to bring the mother here only after she herself came of age and became a US citizen.  They were together for only 5 years.  The Mom still worked 7 days a week to support herself, and now she is gone."

And here you have it, ladies and gentlemen: a boss's "reality" vs. truth.            

Book Recommendation: “The Imperfectionists”


21i4J04UUZL._AA160_Tom Rachman's "The Imperfectionsts" have received the most glowing literary reviews for a debut novel I've ever encountered.  It is, indeed, a wonderful book.  Maybe one day, I will switch to cultural critique and start writing belletristic essays about artistic qualities of creative endeavors.

For now, though, this is a blog for working stiffs, primarily those operating in entrepreneurial environment with all its quirks, disadvantages, vulnerabilities, strange dynamics and faulty objectives.  Unexpectedly, in addition to its novelistic value, "The Imperfectionists" had something remarkable to offer from that standpoint as well.  Its setting, "the paper," is a microcosm of the small-business universe.  The book dissects extremely personal matters of human misery; and the author appears to be digging deep into his first-hand experience with actual people, whose traits fed his imagination.  Yet, these characters turned out to be a surprising array of archetypes we meet everyday in our offices.

You've got a backstabbing bully, who uses the little authority his position allows him to doll out misery to others and boost his own ego by spewing teasing insults.  You've got a quiet schemer, who hides behind the wall of seeming indifference, while devising and implementing his intricate plan of revenge and ascension.

You've got your driven career woman who will sacrifice everything, including her own happiness, in the pursuit of what she defines as success.  And you've got a perfectionist with encyclopedic knowledge of all matters related to his profession and ambition of high quality.

You've got your obsessive-compulsive sloppy staffer, who has been there for twenty years, still as mediocre as ever and ridden with fears of dismissal, displaying the full spectrum of passive-aggressive behavior.  And so on, and so forth…

There is even a painfully familiar female CFO who thinks that the other employees "can't accept that she's young and a woman and above them in the food chain.  But she's the one keeping them employed."  Sounds familiar?

And yes, there is the expected succession of private owners: from the brilliant founder; to the son, desperately trying to prove his worthiness, but failing exactly because of that; to the completely disinterested and unfit grandson.  None ever caring about people they employ and at the end betraying their own legacy.

The business is small, struggling in the era of media transformation, dying…  I was astonished with Mr. Rachman's description of the strange sensation overwhelming the employees when they realize  that this stage of their lives is over – I have observed these emotions in people's eyes myself: "All these years, they have vilified the paper, but now it's threateining to quit them, they're desperately in love with it again."

Isn't this amazing that inside a very private book we still find characters so familiar, we recognize them as if they were our co-workers and, in some ways, ourselves.  What does it say about us?  Is it possible that with all our uniqueness and human individuality, when it comes to our jobs, we just fall into the draws of files organized by type?

Donna Ballman’s Great Article on Workplace Rights


Those who visit my blog consistently probably remember my post The Distortion of Bill of Rights in Small Business and know that I frequently come back to the issues of an employee's freedoms and rights even in the pieces not related to to those topics directly.  I would like to draw the readers' attention to this great article by Donna Ballman written for AOL Jobs 10 Workplace Rights You Think You Have, But Don't. 

Ms. Ballman is an employment attorney, so unlike my insider's point of view, her perspective is independent and supported by legal expertise – really a must-read for everyone who confused their workplace for a democracy.

Language Barrier


I don't know why, people still single out the US as a country of immigrants.  Just because before Columbus "found" the "New" World, this land was vastly unpopulated, and after that Europeans started moving in?  Well, people,  all over the world, migrated from one place to another through the history of humanity.  And I can assure you that Americans who can trace their origins to Mayflower and beyond, don't consider themselves immigrants.    

Of course, we have an inflow of new immigrants, and we  do lead in absolute numbers, but per capita, Australia's and Canada's immigration rates are currently three times higher than America's.  Also, there is a question of concentration.  What we should be called is a country of uneven immigration. 

There are places where people have never seen an immigrant.  I have a Turkish friend who once stopped with his half-Swedish-half-French wife in a small Midwestern town for gas and the shop-keeper called a sheriff.  100% true story. Homogeneous regions and countries scare me – they are too easy to manipulate.

I enjoy the blessed places, where you can see different faces and hear different tongues every step you take.  And it is with a great reluctance, I have to recognize the fact that the language barrier problem sometimes affects the work environment.  Well, it's rather accent barrier.   

I myself have no such problem.  Over the years I worked with people from more than 20 countries.  I pay attention and my ears got accustomed to all sorts of accents and grammatical deviations.  Unfortunately, that cannot be said about everybody.  Many times I have encountered situations of stark misunderstanding between employees of different origin.  It results in  frustration, waste of time and even errors. 

Few years ago I had two employees in my analytics group – one was a woman from Ukraine and another was a man from China.  While I had no problem communicating with them, they could not understand each other.  The woman was very cautious about filling the gaps in information with her own assumptions and guesses.  Instead, she would drag him into my office, asking me to explain.  CFO, the Interpreter! 

Something needed to be done.  I thought of replacing one of them, but that's not my way of doing things.  Instead, I asked them to communicate in writing – every time they needed to say something to each other, they used IM.  Some people may think that it took away more time – not true.  They spent so much time trying to understand one another and getting me involved, my solution was actually a time-saver.  Actually, seeing the words has improved their verbal communication as well.    

I think problems like that are rooted in the lack of effort.  The two kept asking me why I didn't have problems understanding either of them.  I'd said,  "Just pay attention to expressions and emotions and it will be easier to understand."

Like in this video.  The great comedian speaks a cartoon language he invented himself.  Yet, people all over the world understand him.

 

    

    


   

We Are All “Up in the Air”


MV5BMTI3MzYxMTA4NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMDE4ODg3Mg@@._V1._SY317_ Back in the Fall of 2009, when "Up in the Air" was released, I didn't see it, but people told me I should have.  I watched it the other day.  Wow!  It is not just an excellent movie and the most realistic piece of American cinema I've seen since 2005.  It is also a gold mine of occupational themes that hit so close to home, it's unreal.  You know, the subtle truths about corporate existence, which are so familiar to those of us, who have been boiling in that soup their entire lives.  Thank you, Jason Reitman!

Our new economic reality of depressed businesses and desperate people serves as a recognizable background to the personal stories unfolding in front of us.  The uncertainty of survival in the contemporary corporate world is so pervasive, nobody knows what tomorrow shall bring.  "Living in the Now" is not a conscious choice of enlightened individuals anymore.  Whether a CFO or a receptionist, in companies large or small – every wage-dependent person lives one day at a time.

As the matter of fact, George Clooney's character, Ryan Bingham, is sent to large companies.  These companies can still afford to hire an outside firm to conduct the "separation" exercise for them, with fancy folders and severance packages. 

In small business environment, even during the best of times, you wouldn't think of spending money on protecting yourself from the brutal necessity of firing people with whom you worked side by side.  As a CFO/Controller, I've had my share of sitting across the table in a conference room, looking into a person's eyes and delivering the bad news.  I developed my own style as well: do it gently, make them feel better, give them hope…  Some even thank me at the end.  Just doing my job, like Ryan Bingham.

He, actually, works for a small company owned and managed by his boss (Jason Bateman), who (how typical!) changes his mind about the company's direction three times in a few depicted weeks.  Ingeniously, the filmmakers reduce smooth and dashing George Clooney to a powerless subordinate: his entire way of life is about to be changed by his boss's decision and there is nothing he can do about it.  "…Here's the boat?.. Do you want to be in the boat?"  You are either in or out.  You have no choice.  You swallow your pride and you go along.  Just doing your job.

What are we doing?  How do we go on and live with ourselves when we fire someone who is good at his job?  How do we sleep at night after dismissing hundreds of hopefuls' resumes?  And what happens when our own resumes get swept into trash?  Do people feel anything at all?  Those are our hopes that get dismantled.  Do we register the weight of what we do?  I don't know.

Everyone's life is up in the air, with no help coming.  Help ourselves? We can try to stay positive and continue struggling on – that's the best we can do.