Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions in Business Today (16 page)

Y
ou don’t have an ethical problem. You have a classic career problem, and its solution is straightforward: you need to get out.

Look, you’re at a company where the work you do is not valued. We’re afraid that it doesn’t really make any difference if you are right or wrong. Your work could have the potential to unlock untold profits. But if your bosses fundamentally don’t think it matters, you will be shouting into the wind forever. Do yourself a favor. Find another place where management will value the conceptual stuff you do. And chances are, the manager you leave behind won’t feel you’ve been disloyal. He knows what’s going on—and he’ll be happy to replace you with someone more in tune with management’s mind-set.

We called your problem “classic,” incidentally, because it’s so very common. It typically starts as yours did, with an employee’s creeping sense that the terrific work he or she is doing doesn’t particularly interest the powers that be. The situation quickly spirals down as the employee becomes angry and frustrated and the bosses grow annoyed. As the disconnect widens, the employee’s performance usually worsens, and feelings of resentment—on both sides—expand to the breaking point.

Then, boom, the employee is usually canned or quits in a rage. Luckily, it is not too late to avoid that in your case. Make your exit amicable and orderly, which will be good for both the company and your reputation going forward. But do what you need to do soon—move on.

W
elcome to the world of politics, where every business value you’ve been taught over the past couple of years is pretty much null and void. We mean values like clear goal-setting, rewards for achievement, productivity, and speed. Surely your finance professors sang their praises, and your summer bosses did the same. But politics has different values, and your adjustment problem suggests you’ve begun to discover them.

Don’t worry.

Your new job is part of a system that is absolutely essential to the healthy functioning of society. No doubt you felt proud to accept a position in government, and you were right to.

But something’s bothering you, and if we had to guess, it’s the…well, the politics of politics. The bureaucracy. The compromising. The deals, favors, and earmarks. The lack of differentiation and candor. The “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine” mentality of the whole scene. It’s all so uncompetitive, right?

Right—and not changing. Government is filled with the inefficiencies of politics and always will be.

Now, that’s OK for some people; they make their careers in government. But given your rapid discomfort, you don’t sound like part of that crowd. Your future is in the private sector.

No rush, though. The good news is that a few years in politics can be very good for a business career. Knowing how things get done in government can be very useful in all sorts of situations you may face, especially as you get to more senior levels in a company.

The same, however, can’t really be said of the reverse. That is, it’s rare that experience in business helps people succeed in government. Yes, capitals everywhere have a smattering of former CEOs in high-ranking roles, but very few of them have achieved great things, to put it mildly.

Why? Who knows for sure, but we’d wager they feel the exact same frustrations you do—only multiplied by a lot.

B
efore answering, can we ask you a kind of awful question, with all due respect? Is the problem possibly you? It does happen, now and again, that leaders ignore “challenging questions” because those questions are more annoying than constructive—and the people asking them are too.

If that’s you, and you have the self-awareness to accept that unpleasant fact, our only suggestion is to redirect your energies toward real work—or
you’ll
be in the parking lot before long.

But let’s assume that’s not you, and that your questions are meaningful, if maybe a bit touchy. In that case, you’re in one of two situations, neither of them optimal but both actionable.

It could be you have a boss problem—that is, your boss is something of a jerk and can’t handle open dialogue, particularly if it is potentially contentious. In that case, if you like your job well enough, your best bet is to wait it out for a while. In time, most good organizations find such stultifying idea-blockers and move them elsewhere or out.

On the other hand, you could have a culture problem, that is, the leadership of the organization in general does not relish constructive curiosity as a way of life. In that case, you have a question to ask yourself. Does your job have enough upside to live with this objectionable downside?

We are not trying to lead the witness—the answer could be yes.

Take the case of a friend of ours. About twelve years ago, he became logistics director at a small consulting firm. Since then, the firm has fared pretty well, but its three partners have steadfastly remained opaque. Employees never know what the partners are thinking about the firm’s direction—do they want to build or flip?—or how they rate each person’s performance. The result is a constant sense of anxiety and basic confusion about strategy and resource allocation.

Our friend, however, has no plans to leave. He makes a good salary, for one, and he enjoys a short commute. The work is interesting enough, he says, and he likes most of his colleagues. Yes, the leadership’s lack of candor drives him nuts—“intermittently,” as he puts it—and he feels certain that it has hindered the firm’s growth by “some significant amount.”

But, as he says, “I’ve traded an OK quality of work for a great quality of life. A good deal, if you ask me.”

Like our friend, you too can stay and make peace with your situation. Or you know you have reached your limit and start to look for another job. To fall between these options—to hang around and complain under your breath—is a fast track to probably the worst workplace hell imaginable: victimhood. People with this self-infliction conceive of themselves as vanquished heroes. Their bosses see them as energy-sapping boors. Do not go there!

Only you know what deal you will ultimately make. Just be sure you make a choice—one way or another.

I
t’s not hard. But it does require a certain mind-set—one you may have difficulty finding in yourself. If so, you’re not alone.

Every week, in fact, we receive several e-mails that sound like yours. The wording and details are different, of course, but the underlying question is always the same: Why am I the only person at my company who gets it?

Now, we realize there are days when it can feel as if everyone around you is inept. Companies, after all, are comprised of people, and people can screw up, reward mediocrity, play politics, and otherwise commit a myriad of organizational sins. But the “everyone’s dumb but me” perspective is dangerous. Not only is it a career killer, it’s simply not right. How do you explain the thriving, creative financial services industry? Or the envelope-pushing genius of the life sciences field? The fact is: too many companies perform well every day, inventing, making, selling, and distributing millions of products and services and returning billions in profits, for every manager out there to be a total nincompoop. It just can’t be.

Which is why we suggest that you reflect on your own mind-set, looking for an attitude that might explain your gloomy view of the working world. To be direct, we are wondering if you might be a boss hater.

Now, very few people would ever identify themselves as boss haters—they usually see themselves as noble victims, “speaking truth to power,” as it were. Forget that line. Boss haters are a real breed. It doesn’t matter where they work—big corporations, small family firms, partnerships, nonprofits, newspapers, or government agencies. Boss haters enter into any authority relationship with barely repressed cynicism and ingrained negativity toward “the system.” And even though the reasons behind their attitude may be varied, from upbringing to personality to political bent, boss haters are unified in their inability to see the value in any person above them in a hierarchy.

Interestingly, the boss haters in any organization tend to find one another, and once in numbers, they usually become quite outspoken. Boss haters also tend to be on the high IQ side. It’s unfortunate, really. Because instead of using their intelligence to look for new ideas to improve the way work is done, boss haters focus laserlike on all of the organization’s flaws and the sheer, incomprehensible idiocy of the higher-ups.

Of course, due to their general intelligence, some boss haters do get ahead—briefly. But more often, the organization feels their vibe, and bosses respond in kind with distancing, or worse.

Now, maybe you’re not a boss hater. But the sweeping nature of your question pretty much tests that notion. We suggest, then, that you test yourself. Could it really be that every single boss you’ve encountered has a problem?

Or is the problem something you could fix—just by opening up your mind?

H
aving exhausted traditional companies that obviously find you too old, too unfamiliar with the ways of the new world, or otherwise too problematic to bring on board, you’ve got at least one option remaining: find a company where hiring you represents absolutely zero risk.

You need, in other words, a job where the compensation is entirely variable—you get paid on commission and receive little or no salary. Yes, most of those kinds of positions will feel like nursery school to an old sales hand like yourself. But with your experience and ambition, you should be skipping grades pretty quickly. All you need is that first door, which we assure you will swing open when you say the magic words to an employer: “Give me a shot—I’m free.”

G
enerally, yes. Its value depends, of course, on the quality of the coach. This is a field where there is no specific training and accreditation only for those who seek it out. There are certainly some charlatans out there who simply tell you what you want to hear, or don’t have much feel for leadership, never having done it themselves. Obviously, they’re useless.

But good executive coaches can provide a truly important service. They can look you in the eye and tell you what no one else will, especially if you’re the boss. Messages like: You don’t listen carefully enough, or you’re too much of a loner, or you kiss up to the board but too often bully your people. They can tell you that you rely too much on the advice of one employee who really isn’t very smart, or basically any number of other unpleasant messages that take real guts to deliver.

The challenge is for you to hear them. Because at the end of the day, the ultimate value of executive coaching—done right—is only as big or small as your ability to receive it.