Issues at Uber Debunks Study that Social Responsibility is Bad for Business

It’s time for Uber to move out of the line of fire or risk losing the company. There’s a reason that I used that phrase in the title of my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire. Too often when companies install a culture of bullying and personal harassment they need to get rid of the bullies at the top in order to survive. 

Uber has given me no end of issues to write about recently and today isn’t any exception; the New York Times reports that 20 employees have been fired following a sexual harassment investigation. The outside law firm Perkins Coie was hired to look into 215 allegations of harassment, discrimination and bullying and found reason to take action in 58 cases. According to the Times, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is also looking into workplace culture as part of a larger investigation.

When you add these firings to the massive exodus of top executives, including the company president, the heads of finance and product, the East Coast general manager and high-level engineers, Uber begins to look like a car wreck. This news follows shocking revelations about sexual harassment revealed by a former female engineer and the suicide of an African-American engineer.

Uber’s troubles directly contradicts studies such as the one conducted by Florida Atlantic University College of Business that report corporate social responsibility as bad for shareholders. Consistent malfeasance and bullying in the workplace doesn’t seem to be doing much to bolster Uber. Isn’t it time to set aside the teachings of Milton Friedman and Harvard Business School that only shareholders count and start building psychologically healthy, safe, fair and productive workplaces?

Illustration credit: MMM

Donald Trump: Bully, Coward and Traitor

Any soothsayer will tell you that there is no pleasure in seeing negative predictions come true. I’m no oracle, but it’s been frighteningly clear to me from observable data and research just how predictable Donald Trump’s bullying behavior is. As I discuss in my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, a bully who has gained power will do anything and everything to hold onto it. This latest episode with the firing of FBI Director James Comey continues to prove this. It comes as no surprise that this action was taken just days after Comey requested a significant increase in resources to further the investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election, according to the New York Times. Or that there were reports that he had grown outraged over the probes in to Russia.

It’s all very predictable. Trump continues to reveal himself as a bully, a coward in his dealings with subordinates (especially the firing of Comey and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates), and a traitor. It doesn’t take a forensic investigator to figure out that Trump is in deep with Russia. Today Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov into the Oval Office. The photos of their meeting were released by the Russian Foreign Ministry, not the White House.

In Congress, Democrats—and just three Republicans—are demanding a special prosecutor or independent investigation, in order to get to the bottom of Trump’s Russian ties. Meanwhile, a whopping 57 members of the GOP are neutral or even supportive of eliminating Comey and have nothing to say about investigating Russia. I would like to remind them of the need for checks and balances against the executive branch. They remind me of the character Seymour in the horror comedy Little Shop of Horrors who kept feeding the monstrous plant Audrey II the blood it craved never realizing that one day, Audrey would try to eat him, too. Beware feeding the bully: his hunger is insatiable and he doesn’t care whom he consumes.  

Photo credit: Little Shop of Horrors