After 37 years in corporate America, my career came to a sudden halt when I was laid off in June, thanks to Bain & Company's management consulting advice to my former employer. It wasn't personal; just business. Several hundred fellow staffers joined me in the Great Employee Volcano Toss. It wasn't much fun for us, but Wall Street seemed to like it, as the stock price has been creeping back upward from its lackluster performance over the past year.
Somewhere along the line, my former dysfunctional employer (let's call them DysCo) decided that obeisance to the Gods of Wall Street was the driving force behind all decisions. After a major growth spurt fueled by rapid acquisition, their first pronouncement on the future was... wait for it... to keep growing.
Reality, though, had other ideas. Despite DysCo's geographic reach and diversity of clientele and service offerings, growth just wasn't in the cards. Like the Grinch cracking the whip on the little dog pulling the sled full of purloined toys, none of the management imperatives to work harder or smarter were fixing the problem.
It had been suggested that, given DysCo's explosive growth in a matter of a few years, perhaps this would be the time to bring in some new executives with experience in running an organization of this scale. That idea was vetoed. After all, there was some huge money to be made using DysCo as a personal ATM for the entrenched executives. They weren't about to share that with anyone else, or step away from their newly powerful roles.
They did agree to bring in the MBA whiz-kids from Bain & Company to provide "management consulting" advice, for the modest fee of a few million dollars a year. Bain had a good thing going, too. First, they advised DysCo to build out a massive management structure to handle the new gigantic enterprise. Then, when that didn't yield the desired results, Bain got paid to figure out how to take that structure apart again.
Follow along below the Bain & Company money pit for more...
Somewhere during the course of DysCo's growth rampage, the executives lost their connection to the workers. Once upon a time, the executives were workers. They did the same sort of work as the rest of us. They worked on collaborative teams with us. They understood the pressures and challenges we faced.
Once they reached the top of the DysCo foodchain, however, they made a choice - consciously or subconsciously - to disconnect from the rest of us. The greater the resulting abyss, the more we were bombarded with happy-talk corporate messaging about how great everything was, how lucky we were to work for such a great employer.
Employee engagement and workplace morale plummeted. Benefits were cut. Covenants between the employees and the company were broken. Ethical lapses became more overt, more pervasive. Client dissatisfaction became more vocal. Voluntary departures increased, enriching competitors while depleting our ranks.
All the while, the executives were spinning their protective cocoon, a place with sufficient soundproofing to block out the plaintive wails of the laid-off workers, the complaints of the overworked staff who remained, and the warnings of the clients. The only people who could penetrate this inner sanctum were the Bain & Company whiz-kids, and Wall Street analysts.
Safe in this cocoon, the executives could believe what they wished. Things that made no sense in the outside world - like laying off more and more people to "fix" DysCo's performance - made perfect sense in the cocoon. The fact that thousands of top-notch employees and managers were leaving for positions with DysCo's competitors (and taking customers with them) was lost on the cocoon dwellers. If they didn't see it or hear it, it never happened.
Outside the cocoon, it's mass carnage, but inside, the numbers are looking better, the future is looking bright, and the executives will be getting their all-important bonuses and stock options once again.
Our cocoon-dweller-in-chief, Mitt Romney, exemplifies this phenomenon. Polling results showing him losing by greater and greater margins? No worries, he has his own data that says just the opposite. Campaign aides screaming that Mitt needs to be out on the trail, rebooting himself yet again? Not necessary. Mitt's got this under control. Pundits find the candidate aloof, disconnected, robotic? No problem. Ann's reminded everyone that they're lucky to have someone of his caliber ready to run the country and besides, Obama's still black. It's all good.
Unemployment remains high, with millions out of work, losing their homes, struggling without health care? Thousands of them wound up this way because of Bain's heartless machinations that made Mitt such a wealthy man? Not a problem... in fact it's a great photo-op for another ad showing how Obama's failed to fix the economy.
If denial could be harnessed as a form of alternative energy, America would be in great shape. Unfortunately, though, most of us live outside the cocoon, and reality looms large in our lives. But as bad as it seems, we do well to remember: it could be worse. We could be corporate executives who have to sign over their bonus checks to Satan. That dude drives a hard bargain.