One of my clients, who is a director at a major Silicon Valley company, set up an urgent appointment a few months back and came to my office almost in tears. When he calmed down, he told me in vivid details how his boss, a VP, had completely undermined his mission and in the process had also demeaned him in ways that was quite transparent. He came fully resigned to the situation and came wanting to quit his job!
Here is his story:
His company had organized an elaborate, high-visibility customer camp to get those closest to the customers and others working on various customer-facing projects together to improve customer and intra-company interaction. High-level company executives had signed up for this event to woo the attending customers. The camp was open only to those on critical customer projects, and, to attend this event one’s VP-level boss had to sponsor their name. Since my client was working on several critical customer-facing projects he felt that attending this event would not only be straightforward, but even critical. So, when he approached his boss to get an OK on attendance, she intervened and said to him, why don’t you try to also get me in through your connections with the organizers of the event. He knew that her boss, in turn, would not approve her attendance, as she was not working with any customers, nor did she know what was going on with them.
So, for the ensuing weeks my client worked hard to get his boss enrolled in this camp and when he was successful, after seeking favors from his connections, marched victoriously into her office and announced that he was able to get her into the camp and that it would be great to have her in his meeting with the customers she had never met. Without responding to him, she asked my client to prepare a complete list of the customers and their issues that he was dealing with, along with who would be some of the key company staff working on these issues. My client assured her that since he was going to be running the customer meetings this was not really necessary, but was unable to see the boss’ hidden agenda. As he had spent much of his time and energy getting his boss into the camp he did not want to do additional unnecessary work.
But, she insisted!
When my client gave his boss the details about the customer meetings, he was shocked to find out that she did not want him to attend that camp and told him that now that she was fully briefed that she would conduct those meetings with the customers and that my client should not attend that camp; she would not approve his attendance! My client was both shocked and devastated, because he had worked so hard to get his customers ready for this meeting and only he knew the full context of the workings of each project and the respective customers. Besides, his customers were expecting him in that camp!
At this point it was clear to my client that his boss was merely seeking political visibility at this important event without adding any value and at the risk of subverting all that had gone on in the preparation for the event. It was not hard to see that she had simply hijacked the responsibility my client had away from him at this camp and was jockeying for visibility with key executives, both at the expense of important customer work for the company and my client’s mission. She did not care that the customers were coming to this camp, fully expecting my client to lead the meetings with them, even at the risk of making a fool of herself, because of her lack of awareness of the context, first-hand.
When my client told me what had happened and how upset he was because how his boss had hijacked and subverted his mission, I was quite sympathetic to his plight. When he asked me if he should quit his job, where he had been working for several years, but under this boss only recently, I told him that it would be taking an easy way out of the situation without teaching his boss the lesson she needed to learn. Besides, I told my client that he must learn how to deal with such bosses forthrightly, as this or similar situation was likely to occur in the future.
So, here is what we planned:
1. Seek a meeting with the boss to debrief the camp and to pursue the actions that came out of the customer meetings.
2. Call few of the customers who attended the camp and also some of the company players who attended the customer meetings with my client’s boss, because she had assumed that role to make herself visible. Seeking direct feedback from these attendees right from the boss’ office on a conference call required taking some risk, but my client had no agenda and nothing to hide, so he felt that was worth doing. Besides, the boss was under the misapprehension that she had finessed the situation well, which is often the case with deluded bosses! So, she welcomed such a conference call; a boon to my client’s strategy!
3. Fully expecting the negative outcome and the associated feedback from the fecklessness of the customers’ and teams’ meetings chaired by the boss, my client would then confront the boss with factual narration of this episode and clearly tell her that her agenda and her machinations had undermined his mission, the company, and the customer relationships that he had worked so hard to nurture until then.
4. Explain that for them to work together in the future and have respect for each other in their relationship, this type of behavior and subterfuge were unacceptable.
5. Ask her at the end of this discussion how she was going to deal with him in the future and what changes he should expect in their everyday working relationship.
My client was apprehensive about confronting his boss this way. I assured him that since he was already contemplating quitting (as some would), he had nothing to lose, so he must present his view with confidence, equanimity, and objectivity! After some practice my client was able to follow the script. To his credit that conference call from the boss’ office to customers and the team members went better than expected with both of them saying that without my client being there the customer meetings were not productive.
Using that as a springboard my client then followed the script and put his boss in her place, where she belonged!
Surprisingly, the boss already realized how the script was going to play out when she heard the team members’ and customers’ feedback on that conference call. At the end of this discussion my client’s boss showed enough contrition for what she had done and how she would manage their relationship from then on.
It has been several months since this incident took place and my client is quite happy with the new respect his boss is now showing him since this episode took place! In addition, he now feels empowered with a new skill that will serve him for the rest of his career!
So, if you have a boss that undermines and subverts what you do, learn how to stand up for yourself!
SM
What a B….!!