Sins of the past haunt the present, impacting your future too, what to do ?

The new CXO (John) had no handover or parallel working with his predecessor; there was no handover document or any evidence of work done and in progress. The incumbent (Bob) did not know that he was going until the end of the day on a weekend when he was told not to come from next Monday. It was a first time experience for the newcomer who had a few changes in his career. Not that the company had precedence of taking such action against senior people, the circumstances were material enough to precipitate such an action.

But let’s set the context first: It was a top 10 company in its industry, visible and perceived market leader in some segments; proud of its legacy and people, they had set some benchmarks. Calculated risks was a part of the DNA to maintain leadership in the market, the company had hired Bob to take the innovation agenda forward; on his part, he was a veteran and subject matter expert having spent many decades in his chosen industry and field of specialization and acknowledged as a steady dependable performer.

Under his charge the company took on a few innovative projects that on success would leapfrog them in the industry; while the element of risk was low to moderate, the management accepted the same and pushed ahead with endorsing the effort. Bob welcomed the opportunity and set forth to execute with the cross-functional team, the vendor a past acquaintance with reasonable credibility. A few months delayed, the project went live with much fanfare and received mixed reviews from the sales team – the primary users.

Cracks began appearing quickly which led to tactical fixes and then the blame game started; the users blamed Bob’s team that they did not understand the ground reality and build castles in the air; they in turn blamed the developer for making assumptions with no domain expertise to back it up. The developers blamed the customer for changing the brief in every meeting and the cycle repeated itself with every iteration. The matter was escalated to respective CEOs who met but disagreed on every aspect unwilling to take the blame.

Heat turned high on Bob who had chosen the vendor while he fruitlessly attempted to mediate to find an amicable solution. Lawyers on both sides fine combed the contract to find an upper hand; both ended up litigating unwilling to step down from high moral ground. The size and proportion of the project and its failure had an adverse impact on company performance; the CEO was chastised for allowing such an event to occur. The company needed to set an example for the imbroglio, and the fall guy ended up being Bob.

John was handed the project as his key task to recover lost ground and ensure that the deliverables are aligned to the requirements of the sales team. Past success with sales projects gave confidence to John in getting started on the right note. He met the sales teams, created empathy, won them over and created a democratic governance process for vendor selection. It was important to John to keep all stakeholders engaged and feeling wanted in the new avatar of the much maligned project which had taken Bob as collateral damage.

During his interactions, John unearthed and unraveled the story slowly putting the pieces together with surprise, trepidation and decided to keep circling back with his team and the CEO to ensure that he hears alarm bells early enough to take corrective action. Not that the project had a smooth run, it did see its share of bickering and debate, John needed a lot of patience and assertiveness to keep everyone on track. The cautious approach worked well and the project unfurled successfully with bouquets following for John and the team.

John did not allow the ghosts of the past haunt him beyond the cautionary approach for this project; he was also pushed into closing the litigation and creating a settlement with the antagonist of the past. The intellectual property thus created was important to the company and the vendor very well knew this and leveraged it in their favor. The good news was that the vendor gave up all rights to the IP, the bad news was that it cost the company a lot more than the total cost of the old and the new projects combined to close the case.

What options did John have in such a situation ? He was tasked to resolve a conflict, he did reach resolution at a cost. He completed the project satisfactorily which was expected in the second attempt. The price paid rankled the company for a long time and the CEO did not let the dead stay buried with references to history. John would smile at these references and move the agenda to another subject. While he was not directly responsible for the failure and its consequences, it hurt that his profession was tainted.

Is it ethical to take credit for good work done by your predecessor or your team ?

A: When he took on the new role in the highly visible company, he knew that he will have to put in some effort to fill in the gap left by his predecessor; the company was one of the pioneers in their industry and had taken good steps towards retaining their leadership position. The new CIO with impeccable pedigree was excited to take on the new assignment that was expected to bring great opportunities to excel. He launched into the new company full of enthusiasm and quickly aligned the team to his ethos and way of working.

As he settled into the position, work done over the last year began to show signs of fruition; the industry wanted to write about the success, publish case studies, requests for which were redirected to project owners to engage and provide the requisite details. At the same time he pushed the pace of innovation and work thus propelling the enterprise into newer waters, claiming success often. Skillfully he continued to sidestep requests for sound bites, media coverage and interviews where his contributions were limited to shepherding.

In management meetings he requested his colleagues to help in maintaining continuity and present along with him; he also brought along teammates to provide on-the-ground view of reality. The latter he practiced for new projects too with the rationale that the team best presented practical challenges and real life issues while he fully owned the project and was responsible and accountable for challenges if any. He wanted to instill a sense of pride to the team members as they presented to the powers that be.

Z: She came on board as the incumbent left to pursue entrepreneurial interests; she did not know the industry, a reality not different from the one faced by the CIO in A. Her new company too had a large number of initiatives that had progressed well and were in various stages of completion. The team aligned to her way of working – quite different from their earlier experiences. Coming from an unrelated industry where she had spent her entire professional life, her uncommunicative stance evoked paparazzi curiosity.

She shunned the external media and also cast an unfriendly eye on her team almost putting to stop completely any connect with the world outside – a diagrammatically opposite of the recent past. She was unable to make significant headway with new initiatives with her team with her demeanor and ability to gain the trust of her team. Reciprocally she trusted no one and played the lone ranger, preferring to attend meetings alone, which initially surprised the team until they realized the reason for the behavior.

In her desire to prove her mettle and look good in the eyes of the management, she purposely painted a bleak picture of the past casting aspersions on the team ability as well as the departed leader whose position she now occupied. Positioning herself as the manna from heaven to the rescue of the enterprise, she almost convinced her audience that the situation was grim and she will overcome the challenges with grim determination and hard work and a bit of help from the team who let this happen in the first place.

She created a false sense of urgency and fear to paint a picture au contraire and then step by step proceeded to take credit for remediating the situation. Wherever her team completed a task or achieved a milestone, she dramatized the event and presented to the management projecting herself as indispensable and critical. As a result she alienated a large part of her team in her own insecurities who slowly started departing for greener pastures. Remember the maxim ? People join companies, they leave their bosses !

Between A and Z, they represent two ends of the spectrum: one focused on team and works to empower them and help their confidence; the other self-centered, stifling the team, their work and achievements. Most will choose to be on the side of A and profess that the behaviors outlined are what they practice with their teams. At the other end Z by virtue of the inability to lead has taken the extreme step of isolating herself and living a self-created bubble which can burst anytime leaving her pantomime exposed.

Success is rarely illegitimate, it has many fathers; people do see through facades eventually, be prepared to face the consequences when it happens.