World War II poster by Seymour R. Goff.
Points to Ponder: When it comes to senior management there are no casual conversations. Anything you say or do can be used against you at an appropriate time in the courts of the corporation.
Storyline:
Most Senior Managers live A Purpose Driven Life. That purpose is connected to objectives, key results, associated success indicators and that extends into all aspects of their life including home life (that story in future FR). They feel the time is very precious and every moment has to be used into some productive output and even casual conversations fall into those categories. Here are two of the many stories I have encountered during my career.
Story One: First Impression and knowing the audience.
One day I received an email from a guy in my group who was visiting a facility in a foreign country. He was very excited that he had run into my boss in the hotel restaurant, and as he mentioned “We had an exciting shoot the breeze session (casual conversation)”. A week later in my 1:1, the boss told me about that meeting and said “Your guy told me that he was there to just check out on things. Seemed to me that he didn’t have a very clear purpose for the trip. For just checking out, why didn’t you use our local people?” There was some other conversation that is not mentioned here for confidentiality reasons. But the same meeting and the same words but very different interpretations. The guy was there for a very critical supply line issue but in the half an hour with the VP, in his excitement to “Break the Ice”, he had broken the Iceberg that I had to tackle for years after.
Story Two: Holiday Season Parties and after a few Drinks (1976)
The General Manager (GM) of our division had invited his direct staff, some engineers and the spouses to his place to celebrate holidays and to appreciate 60-70 hours per week that we had put in for the entire year to start the new manufacturing plant and introduce the flagship product. At dinner very delicious food and exotic drinks were served. After dinner more vintage wine started flowing and the people seemed determined to shed their inhibitions and let the night take its course.
In one room the casual conversations between spouses drifted in the direction of the work life effectiveness. Many Spouses felt that because of long work weeks, their partners did not have enough time at home for children or themselves. They came to the other room to express their feelings to the general manager. The spouse of the design manager (DM) took the lead in starting the conversation on behalf of the team, but with the drinks warming up the blood, and more joining, it got very intense. Words got out of control and looking at our general managers’ face, I felt that things were not looking good. The event ended soon after. As our still gracious GM was walking us towards our parked cars, I heard him tell the DM: (name) I have never been humiliated so badly by anybody.
A month after the incidence, DM office had been moved from Mahogany Lane to our lane: the lane of the working class. His special privileges like having a secretary were suspended and he was stripped of his title and staff. He left our company a few weeks after.
Reflection:
Yes in both stories above, supreme EGOs were involved and there were better ways to handle the situations. The stories like above have happened in other places and with all genders. In my 40 years career, I have witnessed episodes of casual conversations resulting in unwanted consequences; not only the type mentioned above but also others where they were brought up during performance review discussions, key job assignments and promotional considerations.
On the flip side, FR has and will continue to publish stories that have resulted in positive outcomes and good benefits.
Holiday Season is fast approaching and the readers may encounter more articles on this subject (about caution and moderation) in other publications too.
This FR is: One For The Road.