The Frustrated CFO

The Struggle Is Real for Employers As Millennials Enter the Workforce with Their Own Value System

Like many hiring execs, I still have an employer account with Monster.com, even though the time when they dominated the job-hunting market has passed.  Nowadays, they are not even at the top of the industry leaders list.  Still, we got used to them in the 17 years they've been around.  And they do try their best to provide the paying clients with value-added bells and whistles beyond the standard ad posting:  resume matching, database searching, description writing, HR Resource Center, and whatnot.  

One of these add-ons is the email service that blasts recruitment articles to all registered users.  I usually ignore these emails, but the last one had an article with an enticing title The Real Reason Millennials are Leaving Your Company.  

The first thing that caught my eye was the singular "Reason."  I thought, "The author was able to identify a single, most fundamental cause of what appears to be a case of chronic pins and needles in the millennial butts?  That's remarkable!"

I got even more curious reading the logline.  It talked about an abundance of options, "a plethora of jobs" that allow millennials to be "super selective" in their career choices.  Moreover, it promised expert advice to employers on how to keep the "valuable millennials" in the work seats.  I was like: This must be one of those sci-fi imagine-if humorous thingies, because these statements, if not drenched in undiluted sarcasm, can only refer to some remote planet in an unknown universe.  Here on Earth, right now, most of the millennials you and I know are either unemployed, or work jobs that have nothing to do with their chosen professions (let alone vocations), or stretch their schooling to avoid facing the bleakness of the job market.  I mean, there are premium cable shows and broadcast sitcoms about it.   

And, "valuable millennials?"  Yes, they exist, in small numbers and tiny clusters, and you ought to be very lucky to have them around.  But generally speaking: the state of our arts and entertainment is a testimony of young people's value and their values.  And when it comes to hiring, you need to go through 800 entry-level resumes to find 3 candidates who can write a coherent sentence, even though (I'm talking to you, senator Sanders!), all of the applicants have college degrees.     

Opening the article immediately dispelled all enthusiasm.  Firstly, no pinnacle reasoning was crystallized.  The piece was divided into subsections addressing different causes for millennials' job mobility.  Since the author is not a Canadian afflicted by the national inability to pluralize words, I can only attribute the use of the single form in the title to writing and editing sloppiness.  And, of course, there was not a single whiff of alien or any other humor.

In fact, the self-branded Talent Maximizer® Roberta Matuson, who wrote the article, takes herself and her "advisory" role very seriously.  In complete solemnity she lists the following as the reasons why the millennials don't want to hold on to their jobs (with my commentaries):

• Millennials want to work for companies that help to improve society.  Ms. Matuson suggests that those employers who want to retain Millennial workers should "take a closer look at the organizational purpose," assess how the company's mission impacts society, and redefine its purpose.

To paraphrase Woody Allen, "What's wrong with this?  Everything!" 

First of all, what does the lame formula "improved society" mean?  What's a "better society" for one person, is hell for another.  The massive support of Bernie Sanders by young voters clearly shows that they want to live in a welfare state.  I, on the other hand, have been preaching no government interference and market economy my whole life.  I would understand if the focus was more specific - let's say on environmental issues.  If employees of different ages boycotted the fracking industry, for example, our society would seriously benefit in the long run.  But I doubt we are talking about future impact here.  I'm pretty sure that if the fracking industry started providing free daily lunches to local people, the millennials would think of them as employers with a positive mission!  Never mind the explosions and the fiery faucets.

And what happened to the old-fashioned purpose of being profitable, staying in business, and continuously providing jobs?  It's not good enough?  Do all millennials want to work for non-profits spending grants, or public companies depleting investors' pension and college funds?

• Millennials need constant external motivation: nurture, praise, repeat.  A shout-out here, a lunch with a boss there, or an invite to an off-site event, Ms. Matuson suggests, will help to demonstrate that the employers care.  Otherwise, the millennials will leave, because "the recession is over."  

Well, this is not the first time I am confronted with the suggestion that what I call "hugging motivation" is more important to younger people than fairness, objectivity, professional growth, adequate compensation, etc.  Don't get me wrong, the acknowledgement of one's achievement is incredibly important, but only if it's deserved.   Constantly patting on the back some unimpressive, low-value jackass out of fear that they will leave - that would be a betrayal of my work ethics and a violation of my fiduciary duty as a CFO.  Merit-based rewards, people!  That's what made America great in the first place and that's what will bring the greatness back! 

And here she goes again with the sci-fi twist: the recession is over!  Where?  In Alpha Centauri?  Oh, wait - on the front page of The Wall Street Journal and in government reports.   In real life, we are in the permanently recessive stage of economic decline with no prospects for upward turn.  This slow sliding may feel to the uninitiated as a flat plateau, but just you wait - we are bound to experience some dramatic crashes as well.

• (Brace yourself for this one, cause contrary to the previous statement:) Compensation is important to millennials, especially if they have student loans.  "If you don't pay the millennial whatever he or she thinks they are worth," they will leave.

So, no matter how much you praise them, and hug them, and take them to lunch, the old-school paycheck still matters! Except there is nothing old-school about it either.  Back in the day, wages were determined by clear and tangible factors: the sophistication of the job, the level of expertise, the scarcity of QUALIFIED professionals on the market.  But apparently it doesn't work like that with the generation of people who were born after The Breakfast Club and Back to the Future came out.  The key to their adequate compensation is their own self-worth.  We must pay them whatever they think we must pay them.  And don't forget, the employers need to account for the student loans!  Essentially the implication is that we have to pay them what they NEED and not what they earn.  "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" maybe sounds right to Sanders's supporters, but it is not the principle that lies in the American foundation.  You know whose principle that is?  Marxists-communists!

• Millennials require work-life balance.  

Just the millennials?  Is that what the article's author actually believes?  That millennials should be treated preferentially when it comes to working hours, paid time-off, etc.?  That there should be two different HR policies in every company, one for millennials and another for the rest of us chickens?  That's age-based discrimination, isn't it?   

I've always believed in the importance of work-life balance and regularly wrestle with the owners to ensure that every employee has access to the same set of benefits and perks.  And what my experience shows is that the millennials take the full advantage of these packages like no one else; sometimes to the point of abuse.  90% run out of the office the minute the clock strikes the official end time, no matter what's happening with the work.  Many don't even spare a few seconds to shut down their computers (yet all of them fancy themselves "environmentalists").  Just last year, I had a millennial employee who was out for 15 working days in the 5 months I tolerated her bullshit.  I've never had to deal with that kind of attitude before the millennials entered the workforce.         

The truth is that you don't need to be an HR expert to formulate your ideas about the reasons behind the millennials' prevalent job discontent.  Any experienced manager with a keen eye and some human insight can draw up a comprehensive list.  And here is mine (in no particular order):

1.  Many millennials, especially liberal arts majors, have a hard time defining their purpose and developing a sense of belonging at a job.  This is primarily because they go to college to learn... nothing.  I'm not even talking about slacking and partying.  There are so many narrow-niche bullshit "liberal arts" degrees out there, most bachelor graduates acquire no practical knowledge.  And it makes thinking of a career path very difficult.
2. Much scarier, they are not equipped with any basic learning skills.  They can neither study on their own, nor operate with minimal supervision.  Not able to absorb new knowledge, they feel like failures and will eventually leave for an "easier" job.
3. Turns out that the damned phone is a millennial Achilles heel.  The millennials are so used to texting, tweeting, and posting, 85% of them are afraid of talking on the phone.  When confronted with a job that entails constant voice-to-voice interactions, which are a plenty,  they opt to quit.
4. Aside from athletes and health freaks, young people nowadays live incredibly passive lives.  Some people say that the abundance of streaming content is to blame, but we all know that way before YouTube (2005) and  Netflix's streaming (2008), young people were already glued to their computers and game consoles.  Thus, they suffer terribly on the jobs that require them to be out of the office most of the time - selling, pitching, servicing, etc.  According to some HR professionals, this is one of the millennials' biggest complains.    
5. The bulk of this generation grew up with no discipline or structure, both at home and at school.  While being a non-conformist is an invaluable quality when it comes to independent thinking and artistic expression, in a survival-driven business environment the lack of self-control, inability to follow rules of conduct, and disregard for subordination can make one's life pretty unbearable. 
6. They want to be hugged and cuddled all the time.  Many of them crumble under pressure and cannot deal with reprimands.
7. I know it sounds like a cliche at this point, but it is true - they do want trophies just for showing up, because that's what they are used to.  As a result, they develop a clinical deficiency of self-motivation for achieving merit-based recognition.  They shy away from competitive environments where hard work and achievement translates into tangible rewards of raises, bonuses, and promotions.
8. Celebrity-saturated social media made the majority of millennials into unsettled zombies who are preoccupied with fantasies of becoming instantaneously rich and famous.  I guarantee that the star-struck ones will continue moving from one job to another, feeling extremely discontent.   
9. The majority of the millennials are not prepared to be self-reliant.  The livelihood of many a chronic quitter usually doesn't depend on their own paychecks; they expect to be continuously supported by their parents.  
10. And some young people, just like in every generation before them, are restless because they want to be adventurers; they are afraid that Life will pass them by.  The boring job can wait; while they pursue their dreams.  And, of course, sadly, most of them are confused, and don't know what they want, and don't have any ideas, or talents, or clues.  But let me tell you: that is the only good reason to quit your job (assuming you can afford it).  All the others are just weaknesses and incompetence.           

 

Funny Thing Happened On the Way to Ohio, or That Picture of Your Boss You Posted on facebook

I've said it before and I'll say it again: all entrepreneurial bosses are the same.  Of course, I don't mean it literally - they are not stamped figurines.  Yes, they are the same in their principal qualities (aggressiveness, single-mindedness, drive, vision, impatience, arrogance, callousness, etc.), but they are also different people with their own psychological makeups,  individual quirks, and human peculiarities.  Some can be informal and approachable, others are aloof and snobbish.  Some can be intellectuals, while others are simple and limited.  Some of them are religious conservatives, others are broad-minded libertarians.  Some are healthy and others suffer from an array of ailments.  Some like spicy food and others cannot stand a hint of curry or garlic in the air.

There is one universally common denominator that definitely unites all business owners, though - they are employers.  And as I wrote in CFO Techniques, one should never cross the line with one's employer, if for no other reason than in appreciation for creating one's job.

So, here is a little anecdote that involves a sociable female business owner, her all-male sales staff, and some spicy food. 

First, let me clarify one thing.  This woman, tough as nails and brutal in her nature, nevertheless strives to present a friendly and cheerful demeanor to the outside world.  Experienced people can see through that veneer and know to watch their steps around her.  However, when you get together eight men, even though subordinate, and one woman, even though a boss, the dynamic gets a little muddled.  I mean, when they are in a gaggle, it's especially difficult for men to suppress the testosterone.  It clouds their judgement and they forget for a hot second what's behind that charming smile. 

Oh, yes, and about the food: she really does like it hot.  You'd be in a restaurant with her, she orders a dish and then asks the waiter, "Is it spicy?"  The waiter smirks, probably thinking, "That skinny bitch will be asking now to make it mild," and answers, "Yes, ma'am, it's very spicy."  And she goes, "Could you, please, ask the chef to make it spicier." (Sometimes I actually consider of giving her a present of Pure Capsaicin Crystals, but I know she's going to try them and I don't want to be responsible for the consequences.)

Back in December, she held a three-day sales summit in the company's NYC headquarters - all salesmen came over from their different locations.  This usually means breakfasts, lunches, and dinners together.  Thankfully, in NYC that's not a problem.  The team enjoyed French-Asian fusion, classic American steakhouse, Korean...  An Italian restaurant is always a must, since the sales person with the most seniority comes from a Bolognese family. 

Unfortunately for the boss-lady, Italian food doesn't offer too many possibilities for extra-spicy.  She orders Shrimp Fra Diavolo over linguine, but it's not doing the job.  Red pepper flakes are asked for and happily received.  She starts shaking the plastic thing over her plate and orangy-red bits sparingly drip out (there is a reason the container is designed this way - one must use the hot stuff with a caution).  That's not enough for her - she starts shaking harder and harder...  until the top flies off and most of the pepper from the bottle ends up in the sauce.  All the men at the table are laughing their heads off - the boss slipped up!  Maitre d' sees it (how can you not, with all that violent shaking?) and immediately runs over, offering to replace the dish.  The lady refuses and laughs lightheartedly with her "boys" about her clumsiness.  She removes some of the pepper excess onto her bread plate and proceeds to eat what, I imagine, is an unbelievably spicy pasta without breaking a sweat.

Six weeks later, the same group of people is on the road visiting their Rust Belt customers.  They started in Pennsylvania and are now on their way to Ohio.  I'm sure my readers understand that the food scene in the industrial towns of Western PA is not quite the same as it is in NYC.  Here you go for Italian because it's probably your best choice.  So, there they are again with dishes that vaguely correspond to the Italian names on the menu.  This time around the owner's sauce is not spicy at all, but the generic plastic bottle with red pepper flakes is already on the table.  She reaches for it and the shaking ensues.  The memory of the NYC debacle is too fresh for the boys not to bring it up: "Be careful, don't shake the top off," a few of them warn.

Let me step aside for a second: Just as the bosses' human qualities differ, so are the ones of the subordinates.  A couple of them are of the self-conscious type - they simply don't want to be inside a public spectacle again.  Others are genuinely concerned about her not spoiling her food.  Yet, there are always those resentful, passive-aggressive employees, who secretly cherish the idea of a boss making a fool of him/herself.  One of those had his iPhone at the ready.

Well, as you probably guessed, the container's top comes flying again and a half of the red pepper flakes ends up on the pasta.  Oh, the childish hilarity!  Everybody laughs - some wholeheartedly, some to cover up the awkwardness.  The prepared dude snaps the picture and immediately posts it on facebook.

A young salesman who told me about the repeat performance of the pepper flakes show was visibly hesitant and uncomfortable with the whole facebook posting part.  I was simply appalled at the disrespect.  And what about the owner/CEO herself?  Did she fire that rude fucker?  Of course not.  The emotions should not interfere with business - it's impossible to replace a high-caliber sales exec overnight.  But I know this woman very well.  She's never going to let it go.  You can see it in her unsmiling eyes when she laughs about the whole thing.  She is on the lookout: as soon as she finds someone else, the insolent fool will be gone.  She will not even flinch; just like she doesn't flinch from the spiciness of her food.

Quote of the Week: "Wave Bye-Bye to the Bureaucrat."

Synopsis of James O. Incandenza's short (16 min) film Wave Bye-Bye to the Bureaucrat, Latrodectus Mactans Productions, Year of the Whopper:

"A bureaucrat in some kind of sterile fluorescent-lit office complex is a fantastically efficient worker when awake , but he has this terrible problem waking up in the A.M., and is consistently late to work, which in a bureaucracy is idiosyncratic and disorderly and wholly unacceptable, and we see this bureaucrat getting called in to his supervisor’s pebbled-glass cubicle, and the supervisor, who wears a severely dated leisure suit with his shirt-collar flaring out on either side of its rust-colored lapels, tells the bureaucrat that he’s a good worker and a fine man, but that this chronic tardiness in the A.M. is simply not going to fly, and if it happens one more time the bureaucrat is going to have to find another fluorescent-lit office complex to work in . It’s no accident that in a bureaucracy getting fired is called ‘termination,’ as in ontological erasure, and the bureaucrat leaves his supervisor’s cubicle duly shaken. That night he and his wife go through their Bauhaus condominium collecting every alarm clock they own, each one of which is electric and digital and extremely precise, and they festoon their bedroom with them, so there are like a dozen timepieces with their digital alarms all set for 0615h. But that night there’s a power failure, and all the clocks lose an hour or just sit there blinking 0000h. over and over, and the bureaucrat still oversleeps the next A.M. He wakes late, lies there for a moment staring at a blinking 0000. He shrieks, clutches his head, throws on wrinkled clothes, ties his shoes in the elevator, shaves in the car, blasting through red lights on the way to the commuter rail. The 0816 train to the City pulls in to the station’s lower level just as the crazed bureaucrat’s car screeches into the station’s parking lot, and the bureaucrat can see the top of the train sitting there idling from across the open lot. This is the very last temporally feasible train: if the bureaucrat misses this train he’ll be late again, and terminated. He hauls into a Handicapped spot and leaves the car there at a crazy angle, vaults the turnstile, and takes the stairs down to the platform seven at a time, sweaty and bug-eyed. People scream and dive out of his way. As he careers down the long stairway he keeps his crazed eyes on the open doors of the 0816 train, willing them to stay open just a little longer. Finally, filmed in a glacial slo-mo, the bureaucrat leaps from the seventh-to-the-bottom step and lunges toward the train’s open doors, and right in mid-lunge smashes headlong into an earnest-faced little kid with thick glasses and a bow-tie and those nerdy little schoolboy-shorts who’s tottering along the platform under a tall armful of carefully wrapped packages. Kerwham, they collide. Bureaucrat and kid both stagger back from the impact. The kid’s packages go flying all over the place. The kid recovers his balance and stands there stunned, glasses and bow-tie askew. The bureaucrat looks frantically from the kid to the litter of packages to the kid to the train’s doors, which are still open. The train thrums. Its interior is fluorescent-lit and filled with employed, ontologically secure bureaucrats. You can hear the station’s PA announcer saying something tinny and garbled about departure. The stream of platform foot-traffic opens around the bureaucrat and the stunned boy and the litter of packages... The film’s bureaucrat’s buggy eyes keep going back and forth between the train’s open doors and the little kid, who’s looking steadily up at him, almost studious, his eyes big and liquid behind the lenses... The bureaucrat’s leaning away, inclined way over toward the train doors, as if his very cells were being pulled that way. But he keeps looking at the kid, the gifts, struggling with himself... The bureaucrat’s eyes suddenly recede back into their normal places in his sockets. He turns from the fluorescent doors and bends to the kid and asks if he’s OK and says it’ll all be OK. He cleans the kid’s spectacles with his pocket handkerchief, picks the kid’s packages up. About halfway through the packages the PA issues something final and the train’s doors close with a pressurized hiss. The bureaucrat gently loads the kid back up with packages, neatens them. The train pulls out. The bureaucrat watches the train pull out, expressionless. It’s anybody’s guess what he’s thinking. He straightens the kid’s bow-tie , kneeling down the way adults do when they’re ministering to a child, and tells him he’s sorry about the impact and that it’s OK. He turns to go. The platform’s mostly empty now. Now the strange moment. The kid cranes his neck around the packages and looks up at the guy as he starts to walk away: ‘Mister?’ the kid says. ‘Are you Jesus?’ ‘Don’t I wish,’ the ex-bureaucrat says over his shoulder, walking away, as the kid shifts the packages and frees one little hand to wave Bye at the guy’s topcoat’s back as the camera, revealed now as mounted on the 0816’ s rear, recedes from the platform and picks up speed."

              David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest, pp. 687-689, Little, Brown and Company

(For those who are wandering whether I'm reading Infinite Jest right now: Yes, I'm reading Infinite Jest right now.)

The American Revival of Failed Soviet Labor Constructs

Let me admit right off the bat that Matthew Shaer's article The Boss Stops Here in the June 24th issue of New York magazine has brought my already high level of agitation to a boiling point.  So, if some of my comments appear to be hostile, don't be surprised - you've been warned. 

The article takes up a subject unusual for a life/politics/culture publication - it ventures into the business discipline of organizational management; specifically, a post-modernist pseudo-innovative spectacle of a "non-hierarchical workplace."  Fancy verbage and incorrectly-used business terminology aside, Shaer focuses on a few companies, whose owners, to put it simply, replaced management leadership with the collective's (as in all employees) show of hands. 

At Menlo Innovations (one of the companies in focus, a software developer), for example, "there are no bosses ... and no middle managers."  Instead, "every morning, the entire staff circles up to discuss" the distribution of assignments." Valve Corporation (a video-game company) operates as a network of self-governing teams, with employees choosing at random which team to join and when to switch to a new one.  In all the companies mentioned in the articles, the projects' progress reviews are the collective exercises as well. Obscenely, personal achievement means nothing, because it's the whole team that gets evaluated: the brilliant guy who comes up with incredible solutions at lightning speed gets no recognition and his mediocre team members, who spend weeks gnawing at their portions of work, get to share in his professional triumphs. 

Now, get ready for it! At Menlo et al, hirings, promotions, layoffs, and firings are handled by a committee.  At W.L. Gore & Associates, once a year all (!!!) "employees gather to rank their colleagues based on their contributions to the overall success of the company.  Those rankings are used by a separate committee of associates to determine pay raises or cuts."  The article omits the exploration of how such committees are elected and/or appointed.     

As far as I am concerned, all of this is nothing if not yet more evidence of the incredible ignorance I bring up so frequently.  Most people learn so little about World History, they are not capable of recognizing that there is nothing new about these "experiments."  It has all been done before: In the Soviet Union and other countries of the former Eastern Bloc everything was decided by various committees, starting with the ones in every single place of work and residence through the different medium levels all the way up to the Central Committee of the Communist Party!

Moreover, all these team-work models have already been tested (and failed) in the Soviet Union.  Such groups were given a very special name - they called them Brigades of Communist Labor.  The main purpose of these constructs was to eradicate any form of individualism - intellectual, political, emotional, spiritual.      

Throughout the article, the author kept making an unfortunately confused mistake by calling these unformed socialistic blobs of companies "flat structures."  That just fucking hurt me!  A flat organizational structure is a typical attribute of a small business.  But instead of eliminating the leadership and reducing everyone to some equalizing average, it actually elevates each employee to the level of a multi-functional manager.  Every person handles a multitude of tasks covering entire sectors of the value chain.  Moreover, they do that with little supervision and only general guidelines from senior and executive management.  This is how they achieve, what I call, "career growth in the same chair," raising themselves from one level of expertise to another.  And I'm not talking about mom-and-pop candy shops here - this is how $50-$750 million companies are ran by 10-20 hard-working people.

I have been working in such environments my entire career.  So, it was laughable to me that the article made a big deal about companies with employees setting up their own schedules.  You must be kidding me! Who in a small, or even a mid-size company has got the time to set up their subordinates' schedules!

The author praises some Fortune 1000 companies for trying to fix their management problems through workplace decentralization.  Look, I don't give a flying fuck whether a Fortune 1000, or any large company, recognizes that there is something wrong with it and takes a stab at fixing itself through decentralization and "flattening."   It's not enough to make them more efficient, because, to paraphrase Woody Allen: You know what's wrong with them?  Everything.  Companies are not supposed to be that big - break them up into small entities and the flat structures will come naturally (see above).                

While reading the article I couldn't help but notice that in these companies only functions related to daily operations, general administration, and HR management (much despised and largely ignored by many entrepreneurs) get "delegated" to the workforce masses.  The labor is not actually involved in the decision-making responsible for the strategic development and the survival of the company: which commercial directions to pursue, which projects to undertake, which clients to accept, where to procure the financial resources, etc.  It is so evident that Matthew Shaer had to acknowledge that "overseeing strategy, the long-term vision of Menlo as a whole, still falls" to the two owners, who "also serve as representatives of Menlo at scads of management and business conferences," both in the US and overseas.  Nobody else gets to go.

What can I say?  This is the precise recipe of building the absolute power used by the Soviet leaders (and still employed by their contemporary successors): You let the hoi polloi pretend that they are the "power," delegate to the "collective" the most unpleasant tasks of dealing with each other, but leave yourself with the rights for the real leadership, for the ultimate decisions.  And guess what?  In that top-of-the-Olympus realm, there is nobody who can challenge you, because you got rid of all qualified personnel aka managerial talents.  In Russia, they first called them the enemies of the people and then "cleanse" them out, if you know what I mean.  

I found it very emblematic that the owners of Menlo Innovations consider Thomas Edison a "patron saint" of the company and keep his bust in the middle of their open-style working space.  That same Thomas Edison who hired a very talented engineer named Nicholai Tesla and stole all of Tesla's ideas, patenting them in his own name.  That Thomas Edison who later staged public electrocutions of puppies and other small animals in his attempt to discredit the viable Westinghouse/Tesla high-voltage system, in order to eliminate the competition. 

And "the lady doth protest too much": Menlo employees' readily provided self-convincing quotes insisting that their "self-management" meetings keep the morale high (What about that guy who donated his outstanding one-of-a-kind solution to his team?) and make them feel that they are working toward a common goal.  Oy! Hurts again!  I have always propagated that creating in employees the sense of being important, of being a part of the bigger picture is a key to the successful management of human assets.  But it's not achieved through making everyone into an unrecognizable little screw in a homogeneous pile.  It's done by raising the awareness of each and everyone's crucial value and singular necessity for the company's survival.  

In reality, just as it happened in the Soviet Union, all these collective decisions and committees' resolutions, usually lead to dilettantism.  These people may be great designers and coders, but what the fuck do they know about business administration and organizational development.  In fact, most of the high tech pros I've ever worked with were incredibly disorganized individuals, intellectually far removed from any administrative skills.

Another false agenda the poor schmucks who work for these "organizational innovators" subconsciously force themselves to accept is what I would define as the "evolution of rewards pretense."  Since pre-historic times to these sad days, only three main factors have been stimulating people to work hard: the adequate merit-based pay, the recognition of achievements through promotion (not just title-assignment, but the real elevation of responsibilities), and the self-realization aka pride in your own professionalism. 

When there is no middle or senior management, the promotions are out as well.  It's not like you are going to take over an Owner's position.  Turns out (here comes the funny part) that material stimuli are "irrelevant" as well.  There is a quote in the article from one of the developers at DreamHost, who explicitly says: "Twenty years ago, it was about higher pay.  Now it's more about finding your work meaningful and interesting."  Well now, is that why you are ogling Mark Zuckerberg's photos in Forbes and invest your 401k pennies into high-risk stocks?  And don't deny it, because I know you do.   But hell, of course money is "not important."  What else are they going to say?  The decent jobs are scarce and the candidates are a plenty.  So many young people went into coding and computer engineering; they are literally a dime a dozen.  Those who get employed consider themselves lucky, and if you tell them to drink that "teamwork" and "money's not important" Kool-Aid, they will.      

But the aspects that make this whole collective/committees bullshit especially inconceivable to me have to do with the very core of the business management, i.e. the behavioral science, the human nature itself.  Did these business owners somehow develop some sort of a new breed of people, the kind that's inherently free of the evolutionary pre-built competitive instincts?  Or maybe they psychoprofile every single employee and keep only those who are uncommonly fair and just, or, more likely, idiotically indifferent?  

Incredibly, like all fanatics, these commy-following bosses manage to fool not only their employees, but themselves as well.  Let me remind my readers that the greatest incentive for all organizational restructurings is profitability.  I have no doubt that the private owners of the businesses highlighted in the article are under the impression that by eliminating the key decision-makers they significantly increase their profits.  Let's face it: even in the current market, high-quality execs still make relatively decent salaries.  Unfortunately, these owners, marred by their own special brand of entrepreneurial ignorance, are unable to see the big picture: while their worker-bees spend unnecessary long hours on trying to inexpertly debate the organizational issues, they are not attending to their primary responsibilities, e.g. ACTUALLY WORKING!!!  Talking about real losses! 

The article's author describes one of these long meetings, which started at 11 am and went until 2 pm (!), "and by the midway mark, the proceedings were moving a little more slowly, with more exasperated sighs, or slight but conspicuous head shakes, and sometimes everyone seemed to be talking simultaneously, in one big warbly squawk."  But don't worry.  There is always the pressure-relieving tool introduced at Menlo a few years ago, "walkies" - ten-minute group walks around the block. 

As my readers know, I am a small-business crusader, who believes that giant corporations structured around towering hierarchies of management are cancerous.  At the same time, people of extremes and ideological fanatics (and don't be fooled: this is exactly what we are dealing with here) always terrify me, regardless of whether their views are "progressive" or "reactionary."  Why does everything always have to be so categorical: either a pyramid of useless bosses, or no bosses at all?  Why can't their be a middle ground: a handful of well-qualified key decision makers whose expertise allows them to make high-priority decisions quickly, without slowing the business down, while all functional decisions are left to the employees? 

I'll tell you why: Because that's a "small business" model.  Unfortunately, these "innovative" owners don't want to remain small and work hard to survive.  Notice that most of them are high-tech.  They want to grow big as fast as possible and sell themselves either to a larger competitor or a private equity firm, or (oh, the sweet dream!) make billions by going public.  Meanwhile, just like the Soviet Commies before them, they pretend to be "just and fair" by "empowering" their "collectives," only to completely abandon and betray them in that bright future.  I fucking hate this phony bullshit!                      

"We Are Good Bosses," Says One Boss to Another

So, that's how these people manage to live with their own shitty selves!  They walk around with a clear conscience; with no doubt in their souls about their actions.  They don't think about the injustices and the insults of different caliber they spread around with every step they take.  They don't even qualify them as injusticies and insults.  Instead, they pat each other on the backs and tell themselves that they are good bosses!  Their self-delusion probably goes even further: I am terrified to think about it, but they might have convinced themselves that they are good people.  Honestly, the idea of these people going through their lives thinking that they are saints makes my skin itch on the inside.  

To tell you the truth, I prefer honest assholes, like the ones whose primary traits are itemized in the list provided by the Time's article attached on the bottom of this post.  They are at least somewhat conscious of their attitudes and  justify their behavior with the "business necessity."  You know: A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do - that sort of thing.  I also think that self-aware bastards are less casual with their cruelty.  Unless they are real sadists, they apply it knowingly and, therefore, sparingly.  

The conversation quoted in the title is not an allegory: I actually had the misfortune of witnessing it.  I had to summon all my will power not to burst out laughing at these jerks.  I've had pangs of suspicion that many business owners felt good about themselves, but this was the first time one of them actually voiced such self-deception in my presence.  Why was it so bitterly funny?  Because, the statement was prompted by their finally adapting a pension plan they promised their employees two years ago. 

These are employers who pick favorites and treat them with an obvious preference, while discriminating against others.  They forget to disclose new commercial initiatives, thus forcing everyone to run against time in order to turn their ideas into business realities.  They will not hesitate to make a "good-natured" joke at an employee's expense or brazenly comment on someone's deficiency.  The list can go on, and on, and on, and on...  What can I say?  Swell guys! 

But let's see.  What are (in my opinion) the attributes of a really Good Boss???

1.  Fairness and objectivity; no bullshit like, "I don't like that bitch's personality, so I don't care if she's going to leave, even if it'll hurt my company."

2.  Dedication to a merit-based system of rewards comprised of both tangible and moral incentives.

3.  Intelligence and business acumen that perpetuates the company's success and keeps employees gratified that they don't work for an incompetent idiot.

4.  High performance standards applied equally to everyone - first and foremost to his/her own work.

5.  Capacity to fully comprehend the abilities and  values of their direct reports.

6.  Sufficient organizational savvy to match subordinates' abilities with functional tasks.

7.  Acceptance of personal responsibility as a job-creator and human-resources leader.

8.  Strong emphasis on the development of employees' know-how and professional growth.

9.  Balanced combination of delegation and efficient supervision; none of that hands-off micromanagement crap I write so much about.

10.  An actual effort to understand people working for the company.

11.  Sufficient tact and self-confidence (!) to prevent casual personal insults, usually resulting from deeply seated insecurity.

12.  And this one is just for me: For once in my life I would like to work for someone with a good memory, because I'm fucking fed up with their forgetting time after time the stuff I say, write, and report to them.   

So, my dear business owners and other chiefs, try to test your performance against the criteria above and see how you do.  None of the "good bosses" I know would score enough for a "D" grade.

Related articles

9 Core Beliefs of Truly Horrible Bosses

The Boss Who "Cares" aka The Hypocritical Bastard

Hey you, hard-working people, regardless of your profession, stature, or rank! I am talking to all of you!  Beware of "NICE" BOSSES!

You know the type - he always smiles at you, tells you jokes (and laughs loudly himself), asks about your family (sometimes even during first interviews), says "thank you" at the end of the day, declares that he wants everyone who works for him to be happy, claims to keep your opinion in high regard.  

This is all BULLSHIT!!!  This boss is a liar and a hypocrite!  Don't think for a second that because he acts like that on the surface, he really cares and will do right by you in terms of things that really matter, i.e. create material (compensation, benefits, working space) and moral (respect, recognition) stimuli for you to work harder and feel satisfied with your own performance!  

In fact, this faux exterior should be taken as a first sign of a shitty character.  There is an old proverb that applies perfectly here: "He makes a very soft bed that will be hard to sleep in."  The only person such a boss cares about is himself!  At the end of the day, all that huggy, phony warmth is just for him and him alone.  And because people like that lie to themselves the same way they lie to others, he goes home honestly believing that he is a swell guy and a wonderful boss.  He simultaneously pats himself in the back and jerks himself off.

 But when it comes to serious, important staff...  This is the guy who will fight you tooth and nail for every penny of raise or bonus you want to give your direct subordinates at the end of the year.  It doesn't matter to him that you only want to reward those who applied themselves the hardest, grew, learned, developed, and that you keep it all within the budget.  He'd rather double his own withholdings (for being so wonderful!) than reinforce the merit.  In fact, he will say, "Didn't we pay for her plane tickets when she went to her grandmother's funeral?"  Yes, we did - you suggested it to  be "nice."  So, now you think that was in lieu of the annual performance bonus?

And this is the guy who will reply to every great proposal from the members of his executive team, writing the exclamation-point emails: "Thank you!" "Great idea!" "Brilliant!" But he will never green-light the actual implementations.  You will see the mean gleam in his eyes every time the life proves you right or someone on the outside of the business confirms that you understand it much better than he does.  If that happens, he will enter a crazy cycle, competing with you all the time, even though he is the boss and, therefore, already won by default. 

I believe that the best working environments are created not by cuddly fakeness, but by indiscriminate fairness, accommodation of professional growth, and respect of achievements (the principles I myself exercise).  If that's impossible to have, I prefer an honest brute instead of a "nice" hypocritical bastard.  In this economy (or, as I call it "new reality") only a few of us get lucky and find "better" jobs.  The rest must tolerate whatever hateful things they are forced to experience.  And that's Ok (there is no such a thing as a "perfect" job anyway), as long as you face the reality with the full understanding of the situation and don't get fooled by appearances. 

The Chronically Insubordinate "Nurse Jackie"

If there are people out there who can be identified as The Frustrated CFO's devoted readers, they probably have been to the author's Facebook page and know that, for the time being, Nurse Jackie is listed there as one of my top 5 favorite TV shows.  Besides the incredible ballsiness of the creators, who do not shy away from some of the most controversial issues of healthcare industry, social division, workplace dynamics, and intimate relationships, my highest appreciation goes for the show's realistic depiction of the overwhelming human frailty. 

There are no good or bad people on the show - everyone is a cunt with some redeeming moments here and there.  Nobody more so than Jackie Peyton herself, all her blemishes exposed under the microscope of the show's creators.  I have no right to judge, but I hope my readers will agree that Jackie can be considered severely flawed even under our contemporary, shifting moral standards.  She is a shitty mother, wife, friend, girlfriend.  It would be an unpleasant experience to simply bump into her on the street by accident.  She is a cheater, a liar, and... oh, yes, a drug addict.  As I always say, "Love the show, hate Jackie." 

I can hear the opposition screaming at me, "But she is a wonderful nurse!  She helped so many people!"  Here's what I have to say to that: Jacky Peyton is a highly skillful professional, but she is a terrible employee, who violates all rules of her workplace and, as a result, does more damage than good.  Moreover, she is an unethical employee who bestows her graces on a few people of her choosing, while screwing others.

Those who consistently watch the show probably anticipate my bringing up her current season shenanigans.  But no, I will not do that. Instead, I would like to give you an example of Gross Audacity strategically introduced to us at the very start of the series.

The main medical emergency of the Pilot was a young bicycle messenger with a brain bleed.  When he died, Jackie falsified his driver license to pass him as an organ donor, because she was of opinion that it was a "right thing to do."  Then she sat in front of his family and lied to their disbelieving faces about it.  The deceit deepened when she convinced the transplant team that Coop signed off the body release to them.  Jackie can lie like no one else!  And you know why she doesn't waver? Because she thinks that she is above personal wishes of a dead young man,  above rules and regulations, above subordination.  She believes that she can get away with anything as long as she follows her own perverse sense of right and wrong.  And that's fucked up!

Here is my question for those who still think that Jackie is a Good Nurse - if you had an employee like that on your staff, how would you deal with her?  By the way, this and many other cases could've landed dear Jackie in jail.  Loving mother, isn't she?

       

Pop Culture Impediment and Career Advancement

A couple of months ago I was working with a client, primarily concentrating on the improvement of accounting policies and the transition from QuickBooks to ERP. In the process, I interacted a lot with the company's staff accountant.

She is a sharp and ambitious young woman from Pacific Asia. I liked her very much and was particularly impressed by her outstanding work ethics (a rarity nowadays). She's been with the company for nearly two years and this was her first job after she got her BBA in Accounting.

Her knowledge of bookkeeping basics was pretty solid, which gave her much confidence. She was determined to leave the company and look for a job that would give her a faster career track. Never mind the fact that I've discovered a lot of errors and holes in those areas of company's records that pertained to somewhat more sophisticated concepts, such as Inventory/COGS conversion and revenue recognition.

It wasn't entirely her fault. She didn't have a benefit of working with a seasoned supervisor and wasn't savvy enough yet to understand that accountants were expected to look for standards pertaining to a specific industry. She is a capable individual, though, and most likely will get better with years. Hey, under contemporary standards, she is probably in a top 10% of quality workers. Those experience and knowledge gaps are not the reasons why I think it's unlikely for her to have a high-level career in an average American company.

Here is what happened during that consulting engagement.  Facebook filed S1, thus making public its hopes for a $5 billion IPO. The 02/02/12 issue of The Economist arrived at the client's office with a cover spoofing Mark Zuckerberg's profile on his own website, completed with Caesar's boast as a "status" and comments from various "friends," including Bill Gates, Matt Romney, etc.

Unfortunately, the "author" of the most amusing comment was obscured by the embedded subscriber's label - one could only see two letters "ge." I read, "The Death Star is fully armed and operational" and laughed, "This must be Google." The girl was standing next to me. She said, "It's 'ge,' not le' we can see." I explained, it's Larry Page of Google. She looked doubtful and also didn't understand, why I found it so funny. Something hit me and I asked, "Do you know what the Death Star is?" She shook her head, "No."

I didn't show it, but I was very surprised.  I understand that she was isolated from the rest of the world back home, but she graduated from high school and college here, in the States. I took her out for lunch and spent 40 minutes explaining: Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Google - Facebook competition, "Stars Wars," the Dark Side, Jedi, the irony of the reference - all fresh news to her.

This incident put me into an inquisitive mode and from time to time I threw well-camouflaged, unobtrusive questions at her.

"What kind of music to you like?" "Pop." "Like who?" "You wouldn't know them." "Try me. I am extremely eclectic when it comes to all arts. Who is your favorite band?" "They are all Asian."

Some time later she ventures, "What are your favorite bands?" "It's a long list, but there is a Top 10 that I can never rank - like Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Queen..." She said she'd never heard those names. I am ready to give up, but still, "The Beatles is one of my Top 5." She has heard the name, but never listened to their music. My heart aches in utter pity.

Every night she watches funny videos from her home country on YouTube. How about TV? (C'mon, people all over the world watch American TV shows . In 2004, I flew from Amsterdam to Istanbul and saw a Dutch girl watching an episode of "Six Feet Under" on her laptop). Alas, not this girl, "I don't watch American television."

The question is, does this hard-working, diligent, and fairly bright person have a chance of ever becoming a partner in an accounting firm, or a corporate CFO, if the said companies are not under Asian management? Unlikely.

The higher you advance in your career, the more you have to communicate with people around you. Nobody sticks to just business, there is always the small-talk. People will be discussing the latest "Homeland" episode and she won't even know what it is? When everyone starts noticing, what will they think? In this country, pop culture is like English - a common language of the melting pot, and you must be able to speak it, or you will devalue yourself in the eyes of others.

To tell you the truth, in spite of my religious belief in the merit-based system, I don't think that this is wrong. You don't have to like pop culture and, like me, you can criticize its prevailing weaknesses all the time. Yet, not to be aware of it entirely - that's just strange. Someone who does her job well, but is so disinterested in her immediate surroundings, will be considered a reliable functionary, but unlikely to climb too high up the corporate ladder.

HR Capitalist Believes That Operational Guidelines Are Optional

Last week (Wednesday, January 26th, to be exact), my fellow Typepad blogger HR Capitalist (www.hrcapitalist.com) posted a short musing on the subject of what he calls "Rules Orientation." Not a very clear term, it basically attempts to encompass the process of introducing new hires to the way the business is done in the company, i.e. operational guidelines. And the thesis is that it's not always necessary and the choice depends on the propensity of the candidate: if he wants the structure, give it to him; but if he doesn't like to be restrained by the rules, let him figure out his own way. The latter apparently is especially "good" for the companies that operate without rules in the first place - the mayhem kind of businesses.

(Side note: I cannot suppress my high cultural standards and must make a note about the inappropriateness of the "Fight Club" reference. I just cannot stand the pretentiousness of people who don't even understand what they are watching, but try to appear deep. Let me tell you, it took a lot of discipline, military organization, and RULES to properly run Project Mayhem. Remember? "The first rule of Fight Club is..." and so on - rules 1 to 8. Even The Narrator's psyche was protected from Tyler Durden within as long as the rules were followed. Once they were violated, the spell was broken.)

These kind of ideas and recommendations are somewhat surprising, coming from a career HR guru. How narrow is the employment niche of, what he calls, "low rules" candidates? In my opinion, minuscule - maybe some small haphazard consulting company with no supporting staff and a life expectancy of a couple of years, or a startup based on an IPhone App that will be hot for a few months and then lost in the sea of 300,000+ solutions.

In any other type of business, or even in the same kind but with a little bit of structural complexity, project deadlines, customer base, etc., operational guidelines guarantee faster immersion into daily duties. The only employees that should not be bound by protocol are the creative staff (designers, architects, artists, etc.); and even those need to abide by the rules of conduct, employment agreements, client-time billing, etc.

The biggest question is, who the hell can afford nowadays the unstructured learning curves of people not powered by certain procedural standardization? Especially if they are very good - you don't really want them to waste time on "figuring out" their personal ways of going about the job.

Moreover, I guarantee you that no small or midsize business, with its flat organizational structure and intense concentration of responsibilities, can let a no-rules screwball (or rather cannonball) into its already vulnerable system. Just imagine for a second someone like Susan Vance (Katharine Hepburn) running around your workplace, releasing leopards, breaking all conventions, and eventually reducing the result of long-time effort to a pile of disconnected fossils.

But I shouldn't be really surprised that this post was written. This is a typical problem with many narrowly-focused specialists, including HR gurus. They lack the ability for systematic thinking, are not capable of viewing business as an integral organism, where everything contributes to the ultimate success, and, thus, rarely make good executive material.

I am all for matching employees abilities to their appropriately assigned tasks and specifically talk about it in the last section of "CFO Techniques", but I cannot imagine trying to fit into any organization those people who cannot follow any rules.

A CFO's Democratism Gets Tested

In most smaller companies, CFOs and controllers include general HR functions into their scopes of responsibilities - that's a given. The flat organizational structures, though, with their spatial and psychological proximity of top executives to the staff, play peculiar tricks on those in charge of the company's human relations.

Very frequently a CFO takes a role of a buffer between the owner/CEO and the rest of the company's employees. She feels obligated to soften the impact of the direct dealing with frequently harsh and hard attitudes of the boss.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: more frequently than not entrepreneurs don't have an experience of ever being in a position of an employee and, therefore, they have very little understanding of the staff's mentality. On the other hand, a CFO maybe a right-hand person now, but she is still just a salaried employee, most likely grown into her current status by climbing through the ranks. If she is a decent human with a conscience, she is sensitive to the needs of valuable employees and cares about their well-being (if they are useless, let someone else care about them).

It's likely that an excellent CFO would enjoy a comparatively preferential treatment by a CEO: more disciplinary leniency, nicer attitude, better perks, general amiability, etc. When it comes to other employees, their efforts and achievements may be remarkable, but they are not as evident to the boss, and that reduces their value in his eyes. I've had one CEO openly tell me that if I want a certain benefit (let's say flexible spending account) for myself, he would be fine with obtaining it, but he did not care about the rest of the "worker-bees."

So, the CFO takes it upon herself to protect other employees from undue tyranny and act as their speaker when it comes to betterment of the employment conditions, whatever they are: raises, bonuses, vacations, benefits, etc. Sort of like a representative of the XYZ Company's employees union. And when she discusses this situation with her friends and family, she expresses her disdain for the undemocratic ways of her boss, taking pride in her efforts to right the wrongs.

Now imagine such a CFO taking a position with a new company - small, young, still pretty much in development stage. The owners are very liberal and treat everyone like equals. Moreover, the CFO is the last person being hired. Those few other employees have been there from the start. Nobody needs protection. Furthermore, there is one person who has been there the longest, starting as a CEO's assistant. Not that she gets any special perks or something like that, but she definitely feels very secure.

This should make the democratic CFO very happy. After all, wasn't she fighting for equality of other employees all the time before? Yes, it's nice; wonderful, really; exactly what she hoped to find... Except that... Being "the chosen one" was kind of a guilty pleasure too, an enjoyable self-esteem booster. And the gratitude of others for all that blow-cushioning effort was very rewarding as well. As important as the democratic principles were to this CFO, the old tyranny is somewhat missed.

That's how we, humans, are. For various reasons and purposes, mostly subconsciously and without any malice, we create these little lies that alter our self-image and other people's perception of us in one way or another.

It reminds me of my UK friend of many years, Gerald Hamer's, revelation concerning his constant bitching and moaning about endless international traveling he had to endure throughout many years of his impressive career as financial broker and adviser. "In truth," he said, "deep inside I love the goddamn airports; the sub-par plane food; the inevitable delays; god-forsaken Yakutsk, the coldest city on Earth, with its diamond mines one week, and unbearable humidity of Bahrain another. I wouldn't want it any other way."

So, all you, democratic CFOs out there, work as hard as you can and fight for your employees' well-being with all you've got, but be honest with yourself: you enjoy being special, the Most Valuable Player in the field.