When the two people at the top of a company have a dysfunctional relationship, thereâs no way that the rest of the company beneath them can be functional. Itâs like having two parents who fight all the time. The kids feel the strain, and they start to reflect the animosity back onto the parents and vent it at each other.
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Conversely, if youâre a boss, these are the people to nurtureânot the ones who are clamoring for promotions and complaining about not being utilized enough but the ones who are proving themselves to be indispensable day in and day out.
Donât let your ego get in the way of making the best possible decision. I was stung when Roy and Stanley sued the board for choosing me as CEO, and I certainly could have gone to battle with them and prevailed, but it all would have come at a huge cost to the company and been a giant distraction from what really mattered. My job was to set our company on a new path, and the first step was to defuse this unnecessary struggle. The easiest and most productive way to do that was to recognize that what Roy needed, ultimately, was to feel respected. That was precious to him, and it cost me and the company so little.
You canât wear your disdain for people on your sleeve, though. You end up either cowing them into submission or frustrating them into complacency. Either way, you sap them of the pride they take in their work. Over time, nearly everyone abdicated responsibility to Peter and Strat Planning, and Michael was comforted by the analytical rigor they represented.
These are all executives who have been trained for years to grow their own businesses and are compensated based on their profitability. Suddenly I was saying to them, essentially, âI want you to pay less attention to the business at which youâve been very successful, and start paying more attention to this other thing. And by the way, you have to work on this new thing along with these other very competitive people from other teams, whose interests donât necessarily line up with yours. And one more thing, it wonât make money for a while.
If you pay attention to chronic victims, youâll notice how fragile they areâ how dependent their attitudes and feelings are on things they donât control. When things go their way, theyâre happy; when things donât, theyâre defensive, passive-aggressive, and occasionally aggressive-aggressive. If their spouse is in a bad mood, theyâre in a bad mood too. If they hit traffic on the way to work, they bring their anger and frustration to work with them. If a project theyâre leading isnât on track, they blame someone on their team.