Those Whom the Gods Would Destroy...

It was another tense week at work. Yesterday I was at my desk at 5:30 in the morning and did not leave the office until after 7:00. The centerpiece of the day was a six hour strategy meeting in which tempers flared and jobs were threatened. It was ugly.

The first half actually went pretty well. I was a little disappointed because a company model was being presented that had virtually been shot down two weeks earlier. But the CEO kept his cool and all was fine. Then lunch. After lunch it was my turn. I had been charged with determining staff reductions in the administrative areas. I basically proposed that none were needed at this time, that the staff was under utilized, and that if they were properly managed we simply would not need to add staff. It was tense, and the CFO, who is scrounging for pennies, was not happy, but I only got a few bruises. My pride was a little hurt, but no real fireworks.

Those came when the CFO proposed shutting down our biggest division. It generates the most revenue, but costs are out of control, it's grossly inefficient, and most of the staff of that division have a flagrant disregard for company policies. But it holds our single most valuable asset and the bottom line is we simply cannot flush it down the toilet.

The CEO stopped just short of calling the CFO an idiot (that came later, with me, behind closed doors). Then he went after my boss, the COO. When all was said and done everyone in the room stalked out in a huff, (leaving me to clean up - by the way).

The CEO got even more annoyed with me when I followed him into the office to make sure he was OK. "For the thousandth time," he said, "when I get angry it's with an objective in mind." I get that. What I can't seem to make him understand is that he only thinks he understands how his little outbursts effect people -- believing they motivate his staff in some way -- but he doesn't see the real damage they do to his team, both personally and professionally. And he's really not seeing the damage it's doing to his relationship with his team. We are at the point where he is creating a "me vs. them" scenario, and he's definitely squelching any creative thought or participation. Very shortly the team members are going to get the message that it's not safe to venture any ideas and that we are simply a rubber stamp for the CEO's brilliance.