Marx and the Corporations: Chapter 9 - The Network

My favorite manager of the last century, Jack Welch of General Electric, said once: “Control your own destiny, or someone else will." In today's corporations, that saying should be altered a bit to: "Control your own destiny by using someone else."

Having an international network is critical to developing an outstanding career in large companies. People should know you, and you should know as many people as possible, leaders and managers. The reality is that in corporations, there are always roles to be filled, programs to be run, and people to be led. And your name should be there on the list of potentials. These appointments always come with promotions, more cash, and a great career. Is not what we all want? Well, maybe not all; my bad!

A second benefit of a strong network is the help one can get from fellow networkers in terms of knowledge and resources. It is probably one of the significant assets a corporation has when compared with small and medium businesses: a large number of skilled practitioners, bright managers, and leaders. One just needs to make use of them.

Unfortunately, this networking has its own flaws, is not always fair. One example is the geographical distribution. People tend to support people from their geography or country in their careers, mainly when talking about large IT hubs, East or West of the world. And I am returning to my comment about appointing managers from other geographies, which is not always favorable for the business. Some of the appointments are hilarious and show a lack of geopolitical knowledge, a lack of consideration for the local culture, or even worse, simply a wicked action. From time to time frictions between different countries are happening and they must be considered when appointing managers. But that is only one problem. Second, this model geography agnostic creates an unbalanced diversity at the top of IT international corporations where the usual suspects are Brits, Americans, and, lately, Indians.

The trend was somehow intensified by the labor arbitrage, as explained a few chapters back. On top of that, the on-site delivery workforce should be added to the pressure. Currently, one-third of the IT engineers in Silicon Valley are of Indian origin. All these people performing on-site, near shore, or offshore Research & Development and delivery centers need managers, promotions, and careers. These have exploded in the last 8-10 years. Today Bloomberg shows that 26 CEOs of the S&P 500 are of Indian origins. Among the top 20 IT giants, we count on at least 8 Chief Executive Officers of Indian origin. How many were 20-25 years ago? Almost none. Numbers don’t lie. Due to their significant presence in today's IT world, Indians are pushed to very high positions in corporations, which makes sense as long as others are not prejudiced.

On the opposite side, please think of how many managers from smaller regions or countries retire from their executive positions. In Romania, almost none, as I remember, in the last 19 years I have been around. Same as in other Central and Eastern Europe or Middle East & Africa countries. They leave or are let go before reaching age, irrespective of their results, which are sometimes outstanding. Again, numbers do not lie. I wouldn’t call it age and geographical discrimination, but I'm not sure which other term I should use.

An excellent tool for networking is the mentorship. Whether IT or not, the mentorship model is used in almost all large companies. Having somebody to share with one the experience, the knowledge, the decision-making process, and all the good stuff coming with a high position within a large global organization is priceless. From the mentor side, it is also an admirable way to give back.

A long-term mentorship program ensures a strong bond is created along the way between the mentor and the mentee. This happens mainly based on an increased feeling of trust between the parties. Now, let us take a step back and think of how many colleagues you know have been exceptionally promoted only because, at a particular moment in their career, they had, for a while, a well-positioned mentor or supporter. Or, even more pronounced, think of colleagues who were executive assistants of the managers responsible for essential businesses within the organization. If intelligent and knowledgeable, an executive assistant gains the boss's trust in no time. The moment they decide to leave the assistant position, they have a bright career ahead of them. It might be well deserved, but without the push of the former boss, it would have taken more time. On the other side, I am aware of cases when people missed career promotions because their mentors or supporters left the company. And they were very good people, but somebody decided that others are “better", read have their strong supporters still around.

Meritocracy is a term that comes from two languages: merit from Latin and kratos, which means power from Greek. Seems that this kratos/power is used all over the place. The notion has been around for centuries, but only very late, in the fifties of the last century has been used seriously by sociologists. Obviously, the large companies of the world are using this system of advancement based on performance in a much better way than a communist regime, no doubt about it. There is, though, a percentage of nominations and promotions that use subjective "metrics" based on network, not on merit. These create a certain level of discomfort and frustration among the people and should be avoided by any means. It is a matter of hygiene.

My advice, if you are looking for a great career within a corporation, is to find a mentor among the managers walking on clouds and stick with them for a while. It will help tremendously your position in the company. It is not always easy to find a decent one but worth the effort as this is the way corporate life works. If one is looking for a better life!

I would add that human relationships are extremely important irrespective of the social model. So it was in the ancient times, in the communist regimes or the capitalism. For networking, the same rule applies as for the security: it is too much until the moment it is not enough. Here are two examples.

I was part of a complex and challenging project in California, an Enterprise Resources Planning implementation. I led the Order fulfillment team with +30 people, very diverse in terms of skills and nationalities, half Indians, by the way. My development team leader was a lady from Australia with whom I always had an excellent relationship. One day, she became very frustrated with the Global development team leader, so she refused to call him when I asked her to solve a template issue. Her refusal happened in an open space with all my team around at their desks, not the best place for a confrontation. Unfortunately, I reacted poorly. I asked her several times to call our colleague from Global, but she rejected the idea. Finally, I raised my voice, telling her that she was not in the right place to do that and asking her to join me to discuss with that guy right away, which she did, somehow surprised by my reaction. I ended up with a report against my behavior, which was judged by the Corporate Misconduct Council. My direct boss, a VP English lady, a promoter and a supporter of the five Romanians working for the company, defended my action with arguments such as project pressure, culture (Romanians tend to speak loud and sound aggressive even if they do not fight each other), my general professionalism and strong knowledge. The Council banned me from any bonus, raise, or promotion for three months, and I was under surveillance not to repeat the behavior of yelling at people. A verbal reprimand and some coaching were added. My network helped me that time in a rather tricky situation. My Australian colleague followed me to the Netherlands to continue the project, and I am still changing emails with her occasionally. No hard feelings.

The second example concerns a good acquaintance of mine and his abrupt exit from a company. Some people are still wondering what it was all about. In fact, it was not an abrupt leave. The internal investigation started in the organization for him and probably for other colleagues early in the year. He left the company amicably half of the year later. Obviously, I cannot share the story with you as I am not aware of all of it, but you should understand few elements. The corporation was not prejudiced, not even with one dollar. The several lawyers to whom he presented the case were very sure that the company would come back to its senses and stop the harassment. Surprisingly, the auditor supported by few of his managers considered that he was in some kind of conflict of interest while basically he was doing his job, selling and promoting the company's services. A puzzle of random facts was put together using the pieces the corporation found on his phone and laptop, which were copied in full. He allowed that, as he knew that there was nothing for him to hide. Obviously, there were personal messages, pictures etc., especially on his phone, which were used despite the GDPR. A few months after the investigation started, he was told that he was suspended from his duties (entirely illegal based on that country legislation) and escorted outside the building like a common criminal. Only handcuffs were missing. All his accesses were cut, and all his communication channels with anybody in the company were off. Pure communist or, even better, Putinist style. Luckily, he lives in a house on the ground. In a tall building, he could have easily become suicidal and jumped (read be pushed to jump) from a high floor as per the well-known method. A local bureaucrat, some administrator whose sole function was signing papers and chasing people, was the axe tail and run the show. He was famous on the local market as he publicly stated that his goal in life is to destroy few of the company’s partners and suppliers. Reasons are unclear, envy the success of others one might guess. Later after these events, he changed the role in the company, he was sent to continue his activity in a “basement” of the corporation according to his rodent abilities. 

Network, in this case, helped my guy as much as absolute zero. Nobody, absolutely nobody from his Business unit leaders talked to him, nobody called, nobody asked for explanations, details to understand the circumstances. The country's local HR director was never involved. Omerta ruled all across the company! He and his lawyers wrote pages of explanations, but nothing was considered. He was simply left alone with a bunch of false or misinterpreted accusations. The network was not enough at that time. It was like he never existed in the company and never served it with the utmost loyalty and excellence for many, many years.

The bottom line is very simple. Out of these two networking examples, we gather 50% win odds. For poker connoisseurs, the figure is excellent. In real life, not so much.

Next week, last chapter: 10. The brainwash and the bulsh..t.