About this blog - 4

My last note prompted yet more questions of ‘how much longer can this go on for?’, ‘why doesn’t someone do something?’ and  ‘is senior management simply not interested?’ but I am afraid I cannot help with answers.  Ultimately, I will publish all relevant emails and you will see from them that I raised all the relevant points at every level possible.  I did my best, but could not generate any response.  As I said last time - it is indeed a unique situation.

I have also been asked to comment on specific individuals’ performances and their contribution to current problems in EG-IT but I do not think it would be appropriate for me to do that.  I will leave the scope of this blog as originally intended and just concentrate on facts and issues related to the termination of my contract.  In any event, I think it is clear to everyone which areas of EG-IT are not performing and it does not need me to highlight those responsible.

About this blog - 3

This blog has now had over 6,000 hits and I have received well over 100 comments, emails, etc.  Of these, two were anonymous comments along the lines of ‘good riddance’, another two anonymous comments were simply personal insults (though, given the style, these two could well be from the same person) and one named individual wrote twice.  First he questioned whether the blog was genuine, then he asked if I would promote a discussion on whether I was any good at my job or not (he felt I wasn’t!).  I reminded him that the purpose of this blog was to inform people of what actually happened to me, the issues as I see them in EG-IT and an attempt to avoid anyone else meeting the same fate that I did.  It was never intended to initiate a popularity, or otherwise, contest.  Although this individual initially said I could name him, he hasn’t confirmed this, so I won’t.

But all the other messages have been totally supportive and many have come from people who trust my assurances of anonymity and have been open about their identities.  I believe I have now responded to all messages that I am able to.  But it has been quite a challenge so, if I have missed you, please accept my apologies and give me a prompt.  I have had numerous requests regarding topics to be covered and most of these were already planned, so will be met in due course.  There seems to be a lot of interest in HR’s role in the proceedings, so perhaps I will publish that one earlier than originally planned.

There were some requests that I either will not, or cannot, meet.  Some people have asked for details of specific events that happened over the past few years but I would not be able to do this without breaching individuals’ confidentiality and I certainly will not do that.  Also, this blog is not intended to take on a ‘reveal all’ role (though someone did humorously suggest that I should rename it ‘TomiLeaks’!).  I have also received many questions about things that are currently going wrong in EG-IT and asking for more details, but I am afraid I can’t help - I don’t work there anymore!

Another regular question is the one ‘how did he get away with it, how does he continue to get away with it, how much longer can this go on for?’.  That is another one I cannot answer.  If I knew, I would probably still be working with you all!  I have to say that this is something I have never previously experienced.  Never have I seen such a disconnection between senior management and reality, never have I seen anyone fired without even a discussion, never have I seen anyone’s assessment go from box 6 to box 1 in any space of time (even years) let alone nine weeks, never have I seen company procedures so openly and brazenly ignored, never have I seen security guards summoned for someone who has been dismissed (regardless of the reason) and never have I seen such poor staff survey results as those from last year’s EG-IT survey.  It is indeed a unique situation.

I have not received a single challenge to anything that I have stated in any of my blogs thus far.  No-one has asked me to correct or modify anything.  As I said earlier, this blog is ‘open and honest’ and if someone feels that I have misrepresented anything I will either correct it, or openly record our difference of opinion.

Neither have I received any examples to support the reasons for my dismissal given in my termination letter.  That does not surprise me (as I know that there aren’t any) but I had hoped that, by now, someone would have had the moral fibre to withdraw that letter.  It is as wrong now as it was when Malini Johnson signed it over six months ago.  Malini failed to observe one of the golden rules of corporate life - ‘if something dodgy is going on, make sure you are not the most junior person in the room’.  There is no way that Patrick Naef would ever put his name to such a defamatory letter and I expect Malini found herself holding the pen with everyone heading swiftly for the exit, with reassuring words along the lines of ‘don’t worry, he’ll take the resignation option - they always do’ fading in the distance.

I have been asked to provide updates more regularly but I am afraid that is quite difficult.  We have been away a lot and have also been busy making amends with family and friends who we have neglected over the past few years.  And finding a new place to live has taken up a lot of our energies.  Anyway, there is no rush as time never alters the truth.  But, as those who promote them eventually realise, lies are far less durable.  I think the saying is ‘truth is the daughter of time’.

As for my challenge to anyone, anywhere to give an example of me ever ‘refusing to obey instructions’, I had just one response.  From my Wife.



         

Naefed in the back

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.”

Why EG-IT struggles

I do not think there is much wrong with the basic concepts of EG-IT’s organisation structure or strategies.  The problem has been the highly unrealistic expectation of rate of change and the almost total lack of flexibility of implementation in such a diverse group of companies.  Little, if any, account of the real world has been taken.    

As examples, (in no particular order):

• The idea of the MIT being the ‘CIO’ of business areas is a sound concept, but how many CIO’s of companies have so many constraints (imposed budget allocations, no control over resources, non negotiable standards, etc.) placed upon them?

• Of course standardisation makes sense, but why make it such a priority to the point of diverting scarce resources (people and money) away from more important projects which are desperately needed by the business?

• It was clear that IT projects needed much more governance, but internal customers are rightfully never going to be happy to have additional processes introduced unless they are sure that the overheads are justifiable.

• The idea of ‘pooled’ resources in a large IT organisation is certainly a good direction to take, but it does require a very mature organisation which is experienced at operating such a model and a customer base which has bought into the concept and, most importantly, feels that the benefits outweigh the down sides.  EG-IT has neither.

• A very flat project organisation, with managers having huge numbers in their teams, has obvious benefits on paper, but I have yet to work in any organisation where it actually worked.  This is mainly because the approach ignores the fundamental fact that IT departments are never awash with strong managers.

• Generating income from external sales and thus reducing direct internal IT costs is a great idea but needs to be very carefully managed, ensuring that its impact does not push up costs elsewhere or inhibit local business growth.  It is bizarre to actively allocate key and scarce resources to competitors’ initiatives.

• Internal (IT) audits can add value but, in such a fear dominated environment, it was inevitable that such audits would create divisions, encourage defensive attitudes and foster a blame culture.

• A ‘matrix like’ organisation and one based on a philosophy of ‘conflict by design‘ needs a high level of maturity and is hardly likely to succeed when audits abound and fear reigns supreme.

Naturally, it does none of these complex topics justice to just sum them up in a sentence.  I will endeavour to cover each one in much more detail in later articles.  I must stress that I was in broad agreement with the basis of our overall approach and strategies.  But the difficulties I had was with our apparent obsession to implement all of them fully, all together and at such speed.  Unfortunately, it was very difficult to get a debate going about balance and moderation without it being seen as ‘not in agreement’.  The MIT’s rightfully pointed out the difficulties, but this was dismissed as weakness (i.e. ‘not standing up to the business‘) or a lack of ‘buy in’.  My support of the MIT’s on the topic was taken by Patrick Naef as ‘blind’ and ’parochial’.

But there were some strategies that I never agreed with (though naturally always implemented after the appropriate debate) and one of those was regarding IT funding.  In many organisations, IT is pretty much an overhead and it makes sense to limit how much is spent on it.  The usual methods are as percentage of overall overhead expenditure or  turnover or profit, etc.  It allows for simply industry benchmarking and it most certainly makes sense in shrinking and/or struggling organisations, but I could not agree that it was the right approach for a growing and innovative group like ours. In any company where it is employed, it does carry the risk of becoming a dominant index and overshadowing true business needs.  Often an improvement in the figure is more important to the CIO‘s CV than to the organisation being supported.

In such a flourishing company, I never could see sense in restricting funds for new initiatives.  I feel that such companies should spend their money where they see the benefits and leave the IT department to simply advise on how that figure stacks up in the industry and, of course, spend it for the business in an efficient manner.  Of course, some of the core support areas of the group (Facilities, HR, etc.) should be allocated a ‘top down’ budget but there is no reason why all areas and businesses supported by EG-IT need to have the same common approach applied universally.  This is another topic which I will cover at another time.

Also I was never happy about our reliance on external consultants, particularly expensive ones.  I like the description of consultants - ‘they borrow your watch and then charge you for telling you the time.’  There are times when you need to bring in experience and skills from outside but, in my experience, the answers are generally under your nose.  If you have staff who are (and, very importantly, feel) involved, empowered and trusted then they will give you the answers.  More on this topic at another time.

And also worth a mention is ‘micro-management’.  Naturally, as a manager, you have to probe and sometimes get right into the detail.  But not all day, every day on every topic.  Such an approach stifles development, leads to staff expecting it (devaluing their responsibility) and the approach is simply not scaleable.  It can never be effective in a large organisation.  You have to give people full responsibility, sometimes even allowing them to make mistakes to aid their, and the company’s, development.

But all the above differences of opinion are very healthy for any organisation and certainly none of us has the monopoly on being right.  What I simply do not understand is why, suddenly, Patrick Naef wanted my differences of (his) opinion removed from the equation.  Over the past four years, these differences often led to pretty robust discussions which Patrick  always claimed to value (I certainly did).  After all, if you have a management team who totally agree with you, you don’t need a management team! 

Looking back, there was a clear signal that Patrick no longer wanted my view.  At the time I thought it was a one off, but now it seems not.  It concerned the acquisition of the company tikAERO when I was not included in any of the evaluation work.  I had big concerns about the impact such an acquisition would have on our ongoing operation  (in particular on our internal customers) and I told Patrick so.  My status on the project was then moved from ‘not included’ to ‘excluded’!  This really frustrated me as I knew I had a lot to offer.  I am not saying I am more clever than anyone else, but I do have a lot of experience with mergers and acquisitions.  I worked on many in my previous company and I learnt a lot, particularly from people who were much more experienced than I was.  I learnt two major things:  Firstly, just like used cars, companies are never quite as good as they first seem to be.  The longer you look at them and the more loyal experts you involve to look at them, the more faults you will find.  Secondly, a company’s IT department (especially its Data Centre) is normally a fair reflection of the company itself.  Find a safe, secure and risk managed Data Centre with robust contingency plans and you will find a safe, secure and robust company. 

Only time will tell as to whether this acquisition was good for the Group or not but, as an experienced Data Centre manager, I am convinced that, had I been involved, far fewer nasty surprises will subsequently emerge.

   

About this blog - 2

This blog has been quite popular.  It took just three days before over a thousand hits were recorded against the latest update and not much longer to reach 2000.

I hope the initial offerings did not give the impression that I am feeling sorry for myself.  These things happen and Margaret and I have already ‘moved on’ and are making our plans for the future.  We were lucky that our personal circumstances (such as no children in local schools) made leaving the country relatively straightforward.  And we are both very fortunate to be enjoying good health and recognise that our little mishap is nothing compared to the challenges many others face. 

My motives for doing this are very simple.  Given Patrick Naef’s terse (and crass) note announcing my departure it was not surprising that some people wondered if I had been involved in some financial irregularities.  Indeed, a number of company stalwarts told me that the company has never previously removed a senior manager from site immediately unless some serious financial misdemeanours had been committed.  I am happy to have been able to put the record straight. 

Notwithstanding that, I wanted everyone to know the truth about what happened.  Before we left town, I bumped into a number of colleagues (from all areas and at all levels of EG-IT)  and was given the same message - disbelief that I had suddenly left and concern about the direction EG-IT was taking.  At least everyone can now understand how I left and I hope no-one else will ever be treated in the same way.  I also hope that I can do something to get someone somewhere to take an interest in what is going on in EG-IT.  The current direction is not in anyone’s interests - neither its customers nor its staff.  All those people deserve better.

Someone spotted that publish dates thus far have been a month apart, but that was co-incidental.  You will see additions appear probably every three weeks or so.  This one does not count, so expect to see another one around the 20th.    

I have had a huge response but no-one has, as yet, asked me to publish the specific comments that they have sent to me.   As I stated before, I will be happy to do so without edit as long as I am requested to do so.  If you so wish, please include your email address so I can confirm authenticity before I publish.  In such case no email addresses will be published, but your name will.  Of course, all other comments will remain confidential with me.

I have received a number of requests to publish my email address, so I have set up a new one for such initial contacts.  It is tomb80 at hotmail dot co dot uk.  But now to the big conundrum . . .

A number of people want to be able to add comments in the future for all to see, but are concerned about being traced.  This presents a problem.  As I stated earlier, this blog will be “open and honest”, so I am not going to publish anonymous comments.  But the brutal truth is that you cannot safely be open and honest in EG-IT - look what happened to me!  Even the option of me moderating comments and confirming authenticity will not work because it could leave me open to accusations of selection and/or editing.  This is a big challenge - the answer to anyone in EG-IT who wanted to share something confidentially with impunity used to be “go and talk to Tom”, but I am not a lot of use now!  There are a number of Senior Managers in the department who I know are trustworthy, but I would hardly be enhancing their careers by naming them here!  Neither can I recommend that you confide in HR so I am afraid the only thing I can suggest is that, if you really want to share your concerns, you might want to talk to people you know and trust in the Business.  At least that way, your thoughts and concerns may possibly filter through.

This is truly a sad state of affairs.  I was totally committed to changing EG-IT into an organisation where anyone could raise any issues with anyone at any time.  I clearly failed.

Why was I fired?

In early summer 2010 Patrick Naef placed me in box 6 (high performer with potential - yes, even at my age!) and said how much he valued me and enjoyed working with me.  Just nine weeks later I walked into what I thought was going to be a regular one to one meeting and found him flanked by senior HR Managers and heard him tell me that he “. . . had to move me out of my job.”  This was a total shock to me as at no time had Patrick ever even hinted that there was such an issue.  There was never any warning (either verbal or in writing) nor was any aspect of the established company disciplinary or performance management process followed.  Subsequently, I was dismissed - unfairly.  The company has, in effect, acknowledged that I was unfairly dismissed by making two attempts to entice me (with financial incentives) to declare that I had resigned.  I did not pursue those offers.

Patrick Naef insists that he regularly told me that he had concerns about my performance.  He did not.  I have asked him repeatedly to provide evidence to support his claims.  He has failed to do so.  He has not even been able to identify times when he made any such verbal statements.  Those of you who have worked closely with Patrick will be aware of his ability, in times of dispute, to produce documents to support any statements he has made.  This process often takes just seconds!  Yet, many months on, he has yet to produce any evidence to support any of his claims about my performance.  He has no such evidence.

But it actually gets worse.  Below (in italics) is my termination letter (signed by Malini Johnson) . . .

I am writing to confirm what was discussed with you at our meeting today.


There has been a complete breakdown in the relationship between yourself and your Divisional Senior Vice President, which has been caused by your intentional refusal to obey his reasonable instructions, your insubordinate behaviour towards him while he sought to address your performance issues, and your continuing refusal to accept that there are any performance issues worth addressing, all of which has been undermining the smooth functioning of the Emirates Group IT Department and cannot continue.


Accordingly, as a result of the irreparable breakdown in working relationship with your line manager arising out of his loss of confidence in your ability to perform your duties to the standard expected of a Senior Vice President, it is with regret that I am writing to confirm that the decision has been taken to terminate your Contract of Employment.

(The rest of the letter was admin related.)

First of all the letter starts of with an inaccurate statement.  The topic of my so called ‘intentional refusal to obey his reasonable instructions’ was not discussed, nor had it ever been raised before.  At this termination meeting, the only statements made by Patrick about my performance were “. . . your customers are unhappy with you” and “DSVP’s have complained about you.”  But neither of these statements were backed up with any details, not even who was ‘unhappy’ or who had ‘complained’.

More fundamentally, the claims made in the letter are simply not true.  I challenge anyone who has ever worked with me, right back to my first job as a newspaper delivery boy when I was 13 years old, to cite any examples of me intentionally refusing to obey instructions.  One of my mottos at work has always been ‘do what you are told to do’.  Despite numerous requests, no-one in the company has been able to give me any examples of such so called ‘insubordination‘, yet the company has been happy to terminate my contract based on such misinformation.  During the ‘appeal’ process (more about that later) I gave specific examples of me carrying out Patrick Naef’s instructions with total (outward appearing) conviction, despite fundamentally disagreeing with him.  As part of a management team, I always take the view that, once differences are aired, a decision has to be made and fully supported.  The basic problem is that Patrick Naef is not comfortable with people airing differences to his opinions and sees it as ‘insubordination’.

The letter is nonsense and therefore I have rejected it.  I have not been properly dismissed and, by denying me my rightful benefits, the company is in breach of its contract with me.  I have adhered to every aspect of that contract, the company has not.

Since the letter above was given to me, I have not had the opportunity to discuss it with Patrick Naef.  Despite being my immediate line Manager, he has made no attempt to communicate with me in any way.  He has said just one single word to me - “Hi”, when our paths unexpectedly crossed when I went to EGHQ for visa cancellation, but he did not have it in him to stop and even ask how I was.

I guess that says as much about what he has done to me, as it does about the man himself.

About this blog

I have kept very quiet over the past months.  What happened to me was wrong, not only for my family and me, but for the organisation (EG-IT) for whom I have been, and remain, passionate about.  Despite it becoming increasingly clear that I was banging my head against walls in trying to get those in power to review their decision to terminate my contract, I was always reluctant to take any action that I felt would not have been in the best interests of the organisation.  I considered many options, but decided to keep a low profile and just communicate with those directly involved. 

But, as it is patently clear that no-one in my management chain, nor in HR, has had any desire to discover the truth, I have decided to set out here what actually happened to me and what the real issues are in EG-IT.  This will enable anyone who is interested to discover the truth.  Please pass on details of this blog to anyone who you think will be interested in it.  To avoid a deluge of information in one go, articles are set to be published every few weeks or so.  You can follow if you wish - your details will be hidden.

The blog will be open and honest.  If anyone has any problem with what I write, at their request I will publish their concerns without edit.  If anyone wants evidence to support what I have written, I will provide it.  I will not publish any comments made about my blog unless specifically asked to do so.  In covering past events, I will not breach any confidentiality, nor will I embarrass or name anyone, except . . .

I believe that anyone who has a ‘P’ in their job title should be publicly accountable for their actions and statements, particularly when (in my opinion) they are guilty of, at best, unprofessional behaviour through to, at worst, total dereliction of duty.  Regarding such people, I shall be totally open.

I will start with a summary of what actually happened to me and then, over the coming weeks and months, will cover areas such as my working relationship with Patrick Naef; why EG-IT’s structure, policies and priorities are never going to meet the needs of the group without a serious overhaul;  why I was escorted from office and banned from returning;  how the IT Executive operates;  how the HR department operates; etc.

Any feedback will be more than welcome.