Where are the Waldos?

Do you remember the children’s puzzle books, Where’s Waldo? by British illustrator Martin Handford?You would have to find the skinny guy in the red-striped shirt and glasses in a thickly populated illustration.  The Board of Directors at Uber are starting to remind me of this popular series. No matter how hard they look they can’t seem to find someone to take responsibility for what goes on in the company.

I’ve written quite a lot about Uber this year, from the shocking revelations of sexual harassment made by a former employee, to the assurances of board member Arianna Huffington that the company had no systemic problems, to the heartrending suicide of one of their engineers, Uber has been dominating the business news. Now they’re again grabbing headlines, this time for pocketing millions of dollars of drivers’ commissions due to a “miscalculation.” The company has been basing its percentage on a driver’s entire fare, rather than what the driver makes after taxes. Uber spokeswoman Rachel Holt has issued a statement according to the New York Times that “We are committed to paying every driver every penny they are owed — plus interest — as quickly as possible,” but I have to wonder how a company of this size could make not only this mistake, but expect drivers to pay the taxes on fares instead of passing that cost on to the customer.

Where is the board’s oversight in this? Either they’re ignorant of what is going on here and therefore negligent, or they’re complicit. The solution is simple. Rather than trying to find a chief operating officer to babysit CEO Travis Kalanick, they’d be better off replacing him. The buck, like their fares, has to stop somewhere.

 Andrew Faas is the author of From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire

Illustration credit: Where's Wally at Wemberley?

Roger Ailes Built an Empire by Bullying Monica Lewinsky

Long before women on Fox News came forward to reveal the systemic sexism and sexual harassment encouraged, and inflicted, by Chairman Roger Ailes, there was Monica Lewinsky. If you remember her as the coed temptress who inspired the hanky-panky of a horndog president, there’s a reason for that. It was a narrative Ailes created to drive ratings.

Ailes recognized Bill Clinton’s lies about his involvement with Lewinsky as a ripe opportunity to exploit the situation to bring new viewers to Fox News. He cared little about the truth and even less about the individuals involved. What he did care about was a ratings bonanza and he relentlessly pushed the story creating the beginning of the disinformation age—what Stephen Colbert would later call, “truthiness.” Ailes bullied Lewinsky in prime time and got rich off her misery.

It’s no surprise then that Lewinsky just wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times titled, “Roger Ailes Dream was My Nightmare.” She reiterated what I’ve been discussing for weeks—that Ailes created a culture at Fox News that was so toxic that women had nowhere to go to report abuse. No surprise when you realize that his network’s success was created by disparaging a woman. I say “Brava!” to Lewinsky for having the courage to give the most appropriate eulogy to a bully.

Hopefully, there are some lessons on bullying for the rest of us from this debacle. We must learn not to vilify women for their proximity to powerful men assuming that they, and not the man, must be to blame. That goes equally for interns and former first ladies. Imagine if we had held Ailes accountable for what he did to Lewinsky? We might have prevented the very atmosphere that castigated Hillary Clinton and promoted the rise of Donald Trump. We can only hope history will forgive us.  

Photo credit: Huffington Post

Compassion and Power Can Coexist in Successful Leaders

Can power be a source of compassion? We’re so used to seeing bad behavior from people in power we’ve forgotten that real leaders also serve their subordinates. This is one of the reasons the Faas Foundation is partnering with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence on the Emotion Revolution in the Workplace study—to help leaders use the tools of emotional intelligence to create psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces.

An insightful article in the New York Times, “When Power Makes Leaders More Sensitive,” by Matthew Hutson explores how leaders might avoid power’s often corrupting influence and instead become more sensitive to the needs of their employees.  According to recent studies, the key seems to be seeing power not as permission to do whatever you want, but rather as responsibility to take care of others.

There are ways to influence those in power to adopt the latter view, including reflecting on the use of power, being held accountable for the use of power, observing the generosity of other leaders, and having a feeling of belonging to the group. All of these factors take into account emotional intelligence, which can help leaders be kinder, more socially skilled and make more ethical decisions.

While I too often have to call out wrongdoers, power can also be a source of service and compassion. Former President Barack Obama comes to mind. And there is the work of TDIndustries in Dallas as well as the Conscious Capitalism movement. They prove that productivity and profitability aren’t in direct conflict taking care of your stakeholders.  They prove that business can be humane—and still flourish.

Andrew Faas is the author of From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire.

Illustration credit: BIGSTOCK

UnitedHealth and Corporate Wrongdoing: Triple Jeopardy for Employees

It’s no coincidence that the business model behind the recent revelations of UnitedHealth Group defrauding Medicare is eerily familiar. They have managed to combine the toxic demand to succeed at all costs found at Wells Fargo with the heartless teachings of shareholder over stakeholders from the Harvard Business School. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress look to gut the Affordable Care Act citing increased costs, never realizing what is contributing to those rising prices. There’s just one word for that—sick.

Benjamin Poehling, the former finance director at UnitedHealth, alerted the Justice Department to this when he realized that billions of taxpayer dollars have been stolen by big insurance companies that have been bilking the system. Now the Justice Department is suing his former employer, UnitedHealth Group, and plans to investigate other companies who are also Medicare Advantage participants.

Medicare Advantage, which is the program that’s been swindled, was supposed to be the solution to the $13 trillion funding gap in Medicare.  It was instituted by Congress to fix the gap by turning it over to the insurance companies with the expectation that they provide better care for a lower price. At this point the only ones benefiting are the insurance companies. According to the New York Times, UnitedHealth has reaped some $3 billion in profit over five years from Medicare Advantage. We still don’t know how much other insurance companies may have stolen.

As in all of these whistleblower cases, this puts employees in a terrible position. Comply and you become a crook and if caught, will be fired and possibly prosecuted. Refuse to comply and you’ll be fired. Become a whistleblower and risk your career and possibly your health and well-being. You’d think an insurance company would recognize behavior that puts people at risk. 

Trump’s Official Biographer Thinks the Bully-in-Chief Will Resign

There’s no question that Donald Trump’s self sabotage is rooted in his past. In his insightful article in the Washington Post, Art of the Deal co-author Tony Schwartz points out how all of the behavior we’ve come to abhor from Donald Trump as president was clearly laid out years ago.

Schwartz spent almost a year following Trump, interviewing him, observing him in action and otherwise studying the man for the 1987 memoir. He says that nothing Trump has done as president surprises him. “The way he has behaved over the past week — firing FBI Director James B. Comey, undercutting his own aides as they tried to explain the decision and disclosing sensitive information to Russian officials — is also entirely predictable.”

I’m in complete agreement about Trump’s predictability. He behaves as a classic bully—a fragile sense of self-worth, impulsive behavior, blaming others for his own misdeeds, and a worldview that everything is a zero-sum game of winners and losers. Most notable is his use of deflection, deceit, denial and deception. That’s why he’s the definition of a bully in my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire.

How much of Trump’s behavior came from a critical and demanding father whose abuse froze his emotional development in early childhood is best left to the experts, but the result is someone who is clearly unqualified for the highest office in the land. However, Schwartz doesn’t think that Trump will continue in that position much longer.

He told Anderson Cooper on CNN that he doesn’t believe Trump will go through the impeachment process. “There is no right and wrong for Trump; there’s winning and losing. And right now, he is in pure terror he’s going to lose.” To circumvent that, Schwartz predicts Trump will find a way to resign and then “figure out a way, as he has done all his career, to turn a loss into a victory so he will declare victory when he leaves.” 

We can only hope that happens before he takes the rest of us down with him.

Photo credit: MMM

How Theo Epstein Broke the Cubs’ Drought by Building a Stable Culture

I was in Chicago the night of the seventh game of the 2016 World Series. As a Canadian, I’m more of a hockey guy—but I couldn’t help get swept up by the excitement that night.

The Chicago Cubs used to be Major League Baseball’s punch line for any joke about perpetual losers—until Theo Epstein. Epstein, known for helping break the “Curse of the Bambino” with the Boston Red Sox at the tender age of 31, also led the Cubs to their first World Series win in 2016 after a 108-year hiatus. Clearly, Epstein knows how to win.

His extraordinary feat was lauded in Fortune, where he made the top spot on the World’s Greatest Leaders list, but what makes him truly remarkable is what he learned from his years with the Red Sox. In his book, The Cubs Way, author and Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer Tom Verducci, describes it this way:

“Once he’d joined the Cubs, Epstein gave his scouts very specific marching orders. On every prospect he wanted the area scout to give three examples of how that player responded to adversity on the field and three examples of how that player responded to adversity off the field.”

In other words, Epstein realized the importance of character and wanted to build a psychologically healthy workplace. His previous approach with the Red Sox, which was similar to the obsession with statistics, number-crunching and little-known niche talents similar to the movie Moneyball, wasn’t sustainable. By the end of his tenure the team was falling apart. He realized that no amount of data could account for character and chemistry.

So when Epstein started his term as the president of baseball operations for the Cubs, he did what I describe in my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire – he built a stable work culture. As he explained to Verducci, “If we can’t find the next technological breakthrough, well, maybe we can be better than anyone else with how we treat our players and how we connect with players and the relationships we develop and how we put them in positions to succeed.” Here’s the proof: the video of the 2016 World Series parade.

When will it take for the rest of the business world get the message?

Photo credit: Chicago Cubs

From Canada’s National Symbol to Canada’s National Shame: The RCMP

There comes a time when a dysfunctional police force puts the very people they have sworn to serve and protect in danger. For the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, it’s gone beyond even that—the officers in the ranks and their support staff are suffering from decades of bullying, abuse, harassment and reprisals against whistleblowers. Under this regime, the very notion of upholding the law has become a national disgrace—and a danger to national security. It’s time to completely remake the RCMP.

I’ve been following the toxic culture at the RCMP for more than a decade. In my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, I discuss how the RCMP typifies a dictatorial culture and the damage they are doing to their officers and the public. I’m not alone in my concerns. CBC News ran a report today calling for civilian governance of the police force. The sad truth is that the millions of dollars spent thus far settling harassment suits, and on evaluations and investigations, haven’t changed the dictatorial culture of the RCMP one iota. In fact, things have actually gotten worse. This brings little hope to people working in toxic workplaces. If the full force of the Canadian government, independent commissions and academic scholars can’t improve things—what hope does the average person have when it comes to bullying in the workplace?

As I’ve written before, in order to reform the police the force needs to be taken apart and rebuilt. The recommendations to the RCMP to add civilian governance is a good start, but it requires nothing less than a total transformation from A to Z. Adding a civilian police commissioner is nothing more than applying a band-aid on a sucking chest wound. It might shield our eyes from the ugliness for a time, but it does nothing to save the patient.

Illustration credit: Greg Perry/Toronto Star

The Bully-in-Chief Strikes Again—Very Predictable!

Donald Trump’s behavior and beliefs constantly befuddle everyone—the news media, pundits, academic experts and the average person are constantly trying to decode what he’s really saying and what he really believes. There’s a good reason that this is impossible, which David Roberts makes crystal clear on Vox in his insightful article, “The question of what Donald Trump ‘really believes’ has no answer.”

According to Roberts, there’s a simple reason that Trump defies logic—he doesn’t believe anything.  Roberts writes:

“The question presumes that Trump has beliefs, “views” that reflect his assessment of the facts, “positions” that remain stable over time, woven into some sort of coherent worldview. There is no evidence that Trump has such things. That is not how he uses language.”

He goes on to explain that when Trump speaks, it’s to position himself as dominant in the culture’s social hierarchy.  He has no interest in, or ability to share, an exchange of ideas; he only uses language to assert his superiority. “This essential distinction explains why Trump has so flummoxed the media and its fact-checkers; it’s as though they are critiquing the color choices of someone who is colorblind,” Roberts writes.

This is also why Trump is so very predictable. There are no deeper traits; he fits the bully archetype to a T, never digressing for a moment from this persona. This is why, as I wrote on Monday in my post, “Donald Trump: Bully, Coward and Traitor,” you don’t need to be an oracle or an expert to figure out what he will do next. This is why I dedicated an entire chapter of my book, From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire, to Trump as the very definition of what it means to be a bully.  And this is why I’ve been such a vocal advocate for psychological evaluation of senior executives before putting them in positions of power. That’s just as true for the C-suite as it is for the highest executive office in the land. Any company thinking of doing less should ask itself this—could you really afford to have a Donald Trump run your company?

Photo credit: Notey

Mental Health is a Major Challenge in All Environments

One of the unique features of the university setting is that it often doubles as educational institution and place of employment for students as well as staff. Like workplaces all over North America, providing mental health care is a major challenge. According to statistics from Mental Health America, one in four adults live with mental illness. And yet colleges are just now waking up to the pressing need for services on campus, according to a recent series in USA Today.

There are a number of reasons for the significant increase in the need for mental health services. For one thing, thanks to better treatments and therapies young adults living with mental illness are now able to attend college, something that was unobtainable a generation ago. But old stigmas die hard, and college students can be reluctant to get help if it means that their parents might find out. And for those willing to reach out, there are often too few services and those services are poorly conceived for this complex population. Sadly, many times little or improvement is made until a campus is turned upside down by tragedy.

Another issue is how to fund mental health programs on campuses. Charging students for services can be a deterrent to seeking help when issues are being kept from parents. There are grants in some states, but these may not be enough to increase services to needed levels.

All of this is why I’m working with Mental Health America and the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Our need for psychologically healthy, safe and fair workplaces can and must extend to higher education.

Andrew Faas is the author of From Bully to Bull’s-Eye: Move Your Organization Out of the Line of Fire

Photo credit: BIGSTOCK

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