Back in 2006, when I told an ex-colleague (who had also previously worked with Patrick Naef) that I had accepted his offer of a job, he asked me “Do you trust Patrick?”
I had not been in the new role long before I realised that, in fact, it was Patrick who did not trust me. One evening we were putting the final touches to a presentation of the Phoenix project to the President and there was one issue which Nigel Hopkins had concerns about. As it happened, I agreed with Nigel and supported his argument. The following morning, just prior to the presentation itself, Patrick rushed me into a side room and said “Don’t ever disagree with me in front of Nigel again.” I was stunned. There was no time for further discussion at the time but later that day I explained that, as a VP in his Executive team, I would disagree with him whenever I felt it appropriate.
I guess that incident set the scene for our ongoing relationship. I lost count of the times Patrick later accused me of trying to “undermine” him, “manipulate situations” and even arguing simply to “get (my) own way”. Nothing could have even been further from the truth (I never did one thing which I did not firmly believe was in the best interests of the organisation and its people) and I often asked why he felt that way and why he did not trust me. His response was always that he did trust me. I can only conclude that Patrick’s understanding of the word ‘trust’ is not the same as mine.
I don’t think anyone who has worked closely with Patrick Naef would be under any illusions about how far he would go to support them if the chips were down. Years ago I was fortunate enough to report to a true leader who had a couple of basic principles - anything in his area that went well was nothing to do with him but was due to the efforts of his team whom he would publicly recognise; anything that went wrong was his sole responsibility and his fault and no-one else would get a public mention. I think it fair to say that Patrick’s approach is significantly different.
However, the speed of Patrick’s sudden u-turn on me was a surprise. Yes, we had had our differences but we had also voiced respect for each other and recognised that we covered each other’s ‘gaps’ quite effectively. Our differences resulted in an argument every now and again (some healthy, some not so healthy) but I thought we had recognised that was a necessary cost of the overall equation. I naively felt that there was a little bit more to our relationship than a line on an organisation chart and a three-month notice period, particularly given my loyal support for Patrick and his initiatives, many of which I was not in full agreement with. When Patrick appointed me into the role of SVP in 2008 he asked me to commit to staying in the role for two years. I made, and kept, that commitment. It never occurred to me that, at the end of that two years he would simply, without any warning, discard me. I have never witnessed such an act of personal betrayal on anyone in all my career. So, as it turned out, the question of trust is as rhetorical now as it was in 2006.
One of our biggest disagreements emerged during the cost saving exercise in 2009. Patrick informed us that the President had set him a very aggressive cost saving target and it was clear that this would not be met without a reduction of staff numbers. Staff redundancies were inevitable. It is fair to say that Patrick focuses less on the people aspects of the job and I have had a lot of experience of redundancy exercises in other companies. I had also put a lot of much needed effort into breaking down and reforming the well established processes in IT regarding people selection. It was clear that there had, over the years, been far more forces at work regarding career advancement than just skills, experience and suitability for roles. With the prospect of individuals losing their jobs, I was determined that the process would be as fair as it could possibly be so I offered to drive the initiative myself. I was warned by a number of people along the lines of ‘Patrick is getting you to do his dirty work for him. Once he needs to distance himself from this exercise he will ensure you get the blame’. But I thought that such views were an exaggeration. In any event, I had to be involved. Not only were we potentially vulnerable to favouritism/nepotism (whatever you want to call it) from some assessing managers, I also had concerns that Patrick might see the exercise as an opportunity to lose certain individuals.
One of the protective measures I proposed (and it was adopted) was the ability for any member of the IT Executive to veto any proposal for a staff redundancy. Although we had a very robust and open assessment and selection process, I felt that this veto would provide a final safety net. I believe that terminating someone’s contract is a most serious matter and not only needs to be done thoroughly and fairly, but should be seen to have been done thoroughly and fairly. Redundancies are particularly challenging as they impact people who otherwise would not be losing their jobs. But Patrick had explained to us that the reduced IT budget was not negotiable, so the exercise had to be carried out.
As the exercise progressed, incredibly, Patrick felt that the ‘veto’ process (which was there solely to protect individuals) could be extended to block appointments of staff looking to be redeployed - in effect a veto to ensure that an individual was made redundant. I considered this to be outrageous and a clear abuse of our agreed process. This led to a pretty acrimonious and lengthy disagreement between the two of us which left what turned out to be an indelible scar. Thankfully, with the active support of HR at the time, fair play prevailed but the incident left me wondering to what lengths Patrick would go to get rid of people he wanted to get rid of. I subsequently found out!
By his own admission, Patrick finds the people aspects of the job a challenge. It seems to me that he finds it difficult to see that you cannot deal with people in the same way as you do with hardware and software. Life would be so much simpler if we could just upgrade staff to the next version to improve their performance. Or click the uninstall option when you want them out and replaced. I cannot remember any situation when Patrick’s solution to a so called performance issue was not to remove the individual from the role. Such an approach is not only immoral and unethical, it also makes no commercial sense in an expanding organisation. Everyone can be developed, as long as you are willing to put in the effort and, where necessary, apply some patience. Patrick used to regularly tell me that there were ‘loads of good people out there in the market’. I would correct him, saying that there were ‘loads of people out there with good CV’s’. Anyone can write a good CV. But it seemed that the answer to all our problems was to ‘bring in new blood’ to replace anyone who had found themselves in his ‘black book’.
It isn’t particularly easy to get into Patrick’s ‘black book’ as he does keep an open mind until he sees what he believes is clear evidence for qualification. But if anyone does find themselves in it, escape is virtually impossible. I know of just one individual who moved from “we should fire this guy” to “he’s good”. But the standard sequence is “we should fire him” on to “why is he still here?”. Qualification into the ‘book’ was normally reserved for people who produced a lack lustre presentation. Perhaps it would be at the regular Project Review meeting, as a guest at the IT Executive meeting or a via an emailed powerpoint. Ironically, the reasons for the mismatch of expectations was often due to a misunderstanding of the brief. Sometimes it would be us (as Executive members) who would have been at fault for the incorrect brief, but we could never influence Patrick’s view and thus mitigate the damage to the individual. And often Patrick’s own brief would not be concise - he is always quite clear about what he doesn’t like about something, less clear about what he actually wants. But the easiest way to get into Patrick’s ‘book’ is to criticise him. He regularly tells people that he welcomes all feedback. He does - it helps him fill his ‘book’. He likes positive feedback and he abhors negative feedback. If anyone in my team ever challenged him or said things that he was not comfortable with, not only would he never forget it he would repeatedly ask (in a very accusing tone) me why the individual had such views.
It has not gone unnoticed that the vast majority of entries in Patrick’s ‘black book’ were from the UK. Certainly, it could never be said that Patrick’s views are ever based on race but equally the UK does not have an over supply in terms of incompetence. However, people from the UK do have a tendency to challenge others, regardless of rank and status. Maybe this is the reason?
One of the differences between Patrick and me centred on the basic philosophy of how a management team should operate. My approach is that you simply get on and do the job together with an open, continuous and constructively critical approach, without paying much attention to rank. Over time, the ups and the downs help galvanise a true team spirit with meaningful relationships all round. When things become difficult between individuals you both have to step aside and resolve them. And when things get really difficult, the boss has to step in and provide genuine leadership.
Patrick’s approach is very much ‘conflict by design’ with him not only being hands off, but sometimes actually fuelling the conflict. I understand the approach and it certainly keeps people on their toes, but in such a fear dominated environment as in EG-IT, it inevitably leads to people simply protecting their patch and naturally provides a regular queue of ‘informants’ at Patrick’s door. Often you would hear the words ‘I didn’t raise it myself, but it came up in conversation with Patrick the other day . . .’ Translated, they really meant, ‘In order to protect myself, I have just dropped one of your team members in it.’ For some reason, Patrick seems to value material from informants much more highly than from the horses’ mouths. Of course, you would hear the same story direct from Patrick soon after - he would even name his source.
Then, every few months with tensions running high, the next stage of the process is for the ‘team’ to lock themselves away in an hotel somewhere and, facilitated by (expensive) consultants, kiss and make up via some team building exercises. Two days later the team would then emerge all back in love with each other, only to start the divisive process again. (More about these hotel events in a later edition.) But, in my opinion and experience, this approach places fear as a cornerstone of the organisation and only generates negative practices throughout it.
I recall a response I made to an ex colleague a couple of years ago when he asked “what is it like out there?”. I supplied a list of superlatives that applied; to the city, to the company and to the department. Regarding the latter I said that I was privileged to work with what was clearly the most dedicated and committed workforce I had ever come across but appalled at the ambience generated by Patrick at the senior management level. I have never worked in such a fear dominated environment and where the general atmosphere was so greatly and negatively influenced by the presence of the boss. It was never difficult to tell when Patrick was away on leave or duty travel.
But, back to the word trust, I will leave you with my favourite quotation from 2010. Patrick Naef said to me “I want you to promise me that you won’t stab me in the back.”
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