A Department Divided

An IT manager at a client of mine constantly berates others. I call him “The Seagull”. Instead of really managing, he flies in your room, makes a lot of noise, shits on everyone, and then leaves. I especially love the way he talks down to people who are quite likely much smarter than he is.

One of his tactics is to pick particular events (which, if taken into context, are probably what any reasonable person would have done) and then hammer away on people. By selectively picking something “stupid” and constantly revisiting that “stupid” mistake, he successfully beats others into submission so that they are less likely to resist in the future. He bolsters his legitimacy to do so by claiming that president of the company holds him personally accountable for everything under him.

In light of this mess, I couldn’t help but mass send this Frontline PBS episode to most everyone in the department. My favorite is the end (clips 4 and 5), where the correctional officers are put through the same exercises as the 3rd graders. In situations like this, the “inferior” group rarely (if ever) wins. If they argue, then they’re exhibiting the “inferior” traits that they supposedly have, and none of the others in the group will do anything but sit on the side lines and hope to eventually be a part of a winning team.

Perhaps the most bitter pill in all of this is that in the end, this yahoo isn’t doing anything that his employees aren’t letting him do.