By Ustaz Mark Bang
It’s true the manager can make or break a business, but to use the word “always” is wrong. People don’t “always” do anything.
People are selfish and usually work for their own best interest; the best manager in the world may be able to reduce turnover and maximize employee satisfaction, but if there is more money and opportunity somewhere else, people are going to quit and move. Here’s the thing that kills companies: the belief from management that “it will always succeed because it has always succeeded.”
Once the company is on autopilot, the managers tend to focus on what’s good for them and not what’s good for the company or their employees. That’s when everything goes to hell. I saw this over and over again, most notably at one of the institutions I worked for in Wau.
I joined one of the schools in 2022; at that point, they were already the undisputed masters of the universe; their market share was so large they had to work to fend off antitrust suits. At that school, by then, was changing. Managers came in or were promoted who were more interested in drama and politics and moving up the ladder and consolidating power.
It was absolutely jaw-dropping to see managers who would bitterly complain because their rival in the company “has more subordinates than I do.” Instead of focusing on the business, these people focused on “empire building” or how they could get more power and people.
Every year the top management polled the employees about “the three top things that are hurting”. And every year certain managers would threaten their subordinates if they said anything bad that might reflect on the manager, and once they got the suggestions, the managers reworded them before passing them up.
I am guessing management never saw a real issue, ever. The managers would send out “anonymous” surveys, then sit around in a room and discuss “which ‘negative’ employee said what,” and then they were rated accordingly for layoff. Morale plummeted.
The director of my department was well known for gauging how much of a sycophant or ass-kisser his subordinates were. If you were not sufficiently ass-kissing him all the time, he turned a vengeful eye on you. Believe me, the only people happy in that department were the ones who could easily say things like, “Wow, nice tie today, Tom!” with a straight face.
The people who wanted just to build world-beating products didn’t fare so well. Morale sucked. People did move to other departments and companies, but let’s not forget that at that time Cisco was still among the top-paying companies in the world, and you could make an additional 50 per cent of your pay in bonuses alone. The people who stayed were not the best employees; they were the ones who were content with the pay structure, the knowledge they had, the prestige they enjoyed, the commute, the friendships, and so on. The best employees moved on.
But in the rare instance, there were still pockets of real managers who were focused on the business and the development of the employee. I remember one man who, as Director, was beloved and respected by all.
He was both political and effective; no matter how busy, he never missed employee development meetings with every one of his subordinates, and he always stood up for them, something that was extremely difficult in the vicious, backstabbing environment of the institution’s management. It’s always easier to solve a problem by throwing an employee who stands up when something is wrong under the bus.
When he left to join a start-up and make more money, it was an absolute disaster for his people. They felt betrayed and heartbroken. He didn’t leave because his manager was bad; he left because he had the opportunity to make millions somewhere else and prove himself as a senior manager.
In big companies like that institution, moving from head department to director is a blood sport of hurting your rival, not delivering better products or services. And while the morale of his employees collapsed, people didn’t suddenly all quit. Things went on because they always had.
At the institution, we used to say you could put the logo on a pile of dog shit and people would still buy it. The unspoken part was that the more dog shit you sold people, the weaker the brand name became. Things don’t “always succeed because they have always succeeded.”
Plenty of other big names have shown that. When I worked at National Semiconductor, the chairman once said something I have never forgotten: “It’s bad when good employees quit and leave, but its worse when they quit and stay.” I would equate “company” with “boss.” The version I heard was: “Employees don’t leave the job; they leave their boss.” The distinction is important to me because I love my job.
I loved the technical and design challenges; I loved the challenge of pulling in information on any of a multitude of topics and presenting it in a comprehensible and engaging manner; I loved the daily sense of accomplishment and fresh promise.
My last boss was an absolute shit of a person. All were in service to his titanic and insecure ego; in his mind, he was the embodiment of the company and the product (a daily news report) we produced. If you pleased him, you were the “best (job title) he’d ever worked with.”
If you transgressed in any small way (I referred unfavourably to his current favourite and—horrors!—pushed my chair back from an overcrowded meeting table at which he’d begun to pat the faces of the others around the table), it was only a matter of time before you found yourself on the List.
I used to tell people that what kept me going back each day was the thought that, somehow, some way, I’d be able to change things for the better. That was no longer possible. My leaving was only a matter of time. One afternoon, that time came. I figured I was on my motorbike and halfway home before the boss man figured out what was going on. “Public Staunchest Ally”
The writer of this article is a human rights activist, writer, and professional teacher.