Bad Executive Behavior
A cornucopia of poor behavior in the executive ranks from the Dude's past, a series of really bad things done by those in power. It is almost as if they are proto-sociopaths. Hmmmm.
Over a decade of exposing some of the seamier sides of the profession of Product Management. An irreverent traipse through the thickets, some past wisdom, packaged with wit, profanity, and references to intoxicating substances.
Strap in, it's gonna get bumpy!
The Dude Knows he would be a terrible executive. He has neither the temperament, nor the ability to stand knuckle brawling of the politics that are required. He has made his peace, and is glad to be a mere individual contributor.
But in his 22+ years in product management, he has seen some doozies of executive bad behavior…
Asian Flu and cost cutting
When the Dude first broke into product management (at the time the title was Product Marketing Manager, to imply that he reported to marketing, not engineering) he joined at the worst possible moment. Thailand had a currency bobble, that then moved to South Korea, and finally all of the pacific rim economies. Since the Dude at that time worked on capital equipment for chip makers, that was a dark day indeed. The migration of semiconductor manufacturing from the US and Europe to SE Asia was well underway, and accelerating.
Almost all of our orders came from the region. And the equipment was expensive. Starting at near a million dollars and going up, well a LOT, it didn’t take too many delayed, or canceled orders to cause there to be layoffs in our Silicon Valley offices and factories.
The first 9 months of his tenure at this job the staff was required to use their PTO (vacation time) to save payroll costs, and to reduce the number of heads to be cut. At the end of the 9 months, the Dude, who started with no balance, was -160 hours of PTO. It was allowed to “borrow” from your future accrual if you didn’t have enough.
Problem was, he had a brand new product, and it was in the birthing process, so he had to work. Not only did he go negative in his PTO balance, but he had a “gentleman’s agreement” with his boss to work anyway, and to make it up later.
Near the end of this 9 months, the Dude was at a trade show in Japan, where his new product was announced (to great fanfare and response), and in a drinking session with a junior executive and other team members, the jr. Exec had a moment of lowered guard.
Apparently, more costs needed to be cut. And the ELT was tossing around ideas. One offered by the CEO was:
Hey, we just gave everybody 8 weeks of time off, why don’t we just halt accrual of more PTO for a year to help reduce our payroll costs…
We were all staring at Mr. Junior Executive with gaping jaws as he was telling us this story. Fortunately the other members of the ELT convinced the CEO that this was a REALLY BAD IDEA.
The Award to an ex-employee
About the same time, the company the Dude worked for would rent out the Santa Clara Convention Center for all hands meetings once a year. Big shindig, food, refreshments (non-alcoholic) and a series of presentations by BU leaders and the ELT.
One of the highlights was the handing out of recognition and rewards. They would read off the achievement (Patent for xyzzy. Process change that saved money/shortened the production cycle. Etc).
The Dude should add that the day before this meeting, there was a RIF of about 8% of the workers. So, the mood was a bit off in this supposedly happy time.
Then the CEO was on the stage reading off the awards and handing out the plaques, taking pictures.
I think you can see where this is going…
A plaque was handed to the CEO, a name was called, and no response. Name called again. Some nervous banter by the ELT, until someone from the audience yells out that they laid this poor soul off the day before.
Yep, some HR person didn’t connect the dots, and pull the award to prevent the CEO from looking like an asshole.
Not sure if there was an additional headcount reduced after that, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
Closing the division
Had a sales meeting. Typically they are 5 days, but the week before it was shortened to 4 days. Monday through Thursday. The Dude thought nothing of it at the time.
Then he heard from a couple of the sales people in town that they were told to NOT come into the office on that Friday, even if they hadn’t departed for far points.
Definitely not normal.
Friday comes, and we have a last minute all hands meeting. Our VP/GM walks into the room, and with a straight face tells the entire operation that it is being closed. All the production was moving to Asia, so the manufacturing and procurement people would need to teach our Asian team how to build the product, and how to build a pipeline. They had 4 months.
Engineering and Product were given the option to relocate, or find a different job.
The executive was cool as a cucumber telling us all, some who had almost 20 years experience, that we would be moving to Silicon Valley, or would be unemployed.
Then he left, changed into some gym shorts and went for a run.
Of course, none of the engineers moved. Only one of the product managers moved (moi).
RIF time (a.k.a. layoffs)
In 2007 or so, the Dude was in middle management. Meaning we didn’t have a product leader, but the Dude played it on TV. There was a sniffling in one of the key markets the company was in a trough (a huge, sudden decline in bookings) and we needed to trim expenses.
Thus, the weekly senior staph infections (oops, I meant “Staff Meetings”) became the expected stack ranking and figuring out who to trim from the payroll.
Bleak stuff, but the Dude understands how the business world works, and accepts it.
From the outside, the expectation is that the stack ranking is done objectively. Reviews/performance/cultural fit were all the “stated” criteria, and early in the process that was true.
Then began the horse trading. Someone in Operations disliked a key engineer, and argued to include them into the bad list. Engineering countered with a particularly hated tech lead. Marketing disliked one of my PM’s, one who was not a low performer, but one who stood up for herself to the product marketing team.
As the lowest person on the org chart (the Dude was the only one in the room without a Director or Senior Director title), he had no choice. The person on his team that he could live without, one who pretty much phoned it in, and was a pain in the arse to deal with didn’t make it on the list, but one of his favorite mentees was forced on the list.
Total bullshit, but that was pretty much the catalyst of the Dude’s personal avowal to not become a cocksucking executive. That was really bad sausage making.
### EVP’s behaving badly…
At one stop on the Dude’s career, he worked for a company that while mid sized, had three principal product groups. Each was led by an EVP (Executive VP). An EVP was someone who was a tit-hair away from the C-suite.
These three EVP’s were:
One was completely out of his league. He had Peter Principled his way to the top. Dumber than a box of rocks, he was the classic “take credit for everyone’s work” asshole. But the CEO loved him for some reason.
One was solid, smart, but happened to have the business that was most challenging. It had the greatest growth potential, but it had structural issues that he was unable to address, and hence the business was always fighting regulators, market trends, and counterfeiters (several customers were in China, and suddenly copied instruments appear…
One (ours) was a back stabbing, ladder climber. Focused solely getting ahead, and one-upping everyone else. This person literally pushed out anyone who would even remotely get in their way on their progression to the corner office.
Plenty of tales of bad behavior, but the one that the Dude is going to relate is the one that played out in the Edgar 10-k filings. That is where companies detail the executive compensation
Since the Dude is off all the usual socials, how about doing him a solid and sharing this. Either forward the link, or share it on:
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Where is the rest of this story? I'm on pins and needles about the 10k filing.