The Work Wire - Unpacking Extreme Leadership Decisions and Their Impact

[00:00:00] Check out Career.Club for personalized help with your job search. Visit SHRM.org to become part of the largest human resources organization worldwide. Hi, everybody. This is Bob Goodwin and welcome to another episode of The Work Wire where I'm joined by my good friend, the president and CEO of SHRM, Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. Johnny, how are you doing today? I'm doing really well, man, and I'm better now that I'm talking with you. Ah, come on now, you're going to make me laugh.

[00:00:28] I mean that. I mean that. That's like really honest because I really like talking with you. Likewise, I get so much out of this in many, many levels. And I hope our listeners do too, by the way. But today, this is coming from the Truth is Stranger Than Fiction file. Like you just can't make this stuff up. And so in November of 2024, so not very long ago,

[00:00:52] there was a news story that came out where this CEO fired 90% of his staff on Slack and told him, get the F out of my business. Literally. Literally. It's just like, like I'm not making this stuff up. You can go Google it. But, but the, but the thing was that he had called an all staff meeting. I believe it's on a Monday morning at 830.

[00:01:20] And so he, he calls the meeting. However, he communicated that. And there's 110 people that work at this company. 11 people showed up for an all hands meeting. And this man lost his mind and jumped on Slack and said, if you don't care enough to be at this meeting that I called, then I don't want you here. You all can get the F out of my business. Wow.

[00:01:49] So just let that sink in for half of a second. And how'd that story strike you, Johnny? So I'm going to be, I'm going to try to see it from both sides. But the rest of the world, that will help as well. I'm not. But I also.

[00:02:12] feel the pain as a CEO. You are charged with, especially if it is a private company and it's money, every dollar counts. You need everyone working if you want this thing to be successful. You and I know 90% or so of companies fail, small and medium-sized businesses fail. So the odds are against you at the outset. And when I first read it, I had the same shock that all of us had like,

[00:02:41] oh, the headline, headline, headline. And yeah, I wouldn't have done that. That being said, I don't know if 90% of my staff didn't show up to my meeting. You knew what time it was. We use sports metaphors and sports jargon a lot. Imagine a head coach calling his 15 players at the NBA team to a meeting and 90% of them just blew it off after they were slaughtered the night

[00:03:10] before, right? Beaten by the team. Do you think it would be nice language? Probably not. So probably not. So I just think we have to, and we would celebrate the coach for skewering those people. How dare you not show? So again, I'm not justifying. I want to make sure the listening audience is hearing me, but I think two things can be true. Bad execution by the leader, the CEO, whatever.

[00:03:41] Really bad behavior by the employees. The level of disrespect for someone who has their own reputation, their own money, their own everything at risk trying to make this business work, and you can't show up to a meeting. And I mean, 90% is a big number. I mean, that's insane that 11 people thought it okay to show up on time for work. Now, I understand there are all sorts of nuances as I've read about the story. Some were contractors, some were this, some were that. But at the end of

[00:04:10] the day, if 90% of anyone doesn't show, of any group does not show up when the leader calls them, there's some leadership problems. That's what I want to talk about too. I know where you're going to go, but there are also some people problems because if I sign up for something, listen, if I'm at a company and I don't believe in the leader and I don't believe in the vision of the company, et cetera, then quit. But don't quit and stay. I hate that concept of people

[00:04:35] who stay in job and then underperform or non-perform until you are forced to fire them. And of course, you are the bad guy or the bad one, the leader, because you did that. So you get me? I know you're like, okay, here's the start. Just answer the question. It was a bad CEO. Bad decision. I'm not disagreeing with you, but I do think it worth drawing the analogy that if a coach

[00:05:04] of a team that was trying to win, my daughter plays, she's a 14-year-old, plays girls' basketball here and right outside of DC in the DC metro area, Virginia. And I can tell you if 90% of the girls, this is high school freshman basketball. If they didn't show up for their coach, he might fire them. He might bring another group in because if you don't, if you won't show the basic

[00:05:31] respect of showing up when I convene a session, yeah, yeah. And he'd be angry and I'd like to think that he would use foul language for my kids, but he might. So I do, I do, you know, so you're right. I mean, if you do a little bit of homework on this story, many, many of these people are actually unpaid interns. What he was offering them was, you know, to get some real world experience that I think

[00:05:58] it's called Musicians Club and it's like an e-commerce thing for buying and selling musical instruments. So he's like, hey, if you want, because a lot of these people are like classical music majors or something. So like, if you want real world experience in, in the commercial side of music, like here's an opportunity, you know, so you can put it on your resume and you'll have things to talk about. Okay, fine. People, I mean, you know, unpaid internships is not a new idea and it

[00:06:24] does have value for somebody that, right? So you've actually got something on your resume and you can start to represent, I've had responsibilities, I've accomplished things, whatever, all good. It's just like, so, so there's, there's the integrity side of the employee. You signed up to do something. You gave a commitment, this man's counting on you to do whatever it was. And in return, he's going to give you a recommendation. He's going to allow you to use his company name on your CV,

[00:06:54] whatever. So there's an integrity thing there, but, you know, on the leadership side of it, forgetting how he executed, because that's just so over the top, we can talk about that, but that's exactly. But, but it does make you really wonder, like, this didn't just happen, you know, like volcanoes take a while to kind of come and then they go, and you're like, well, that just

[00:07:19] happened. That took a while to get to that. And this pressure was building, but my goodness, I didn't hear any humility, self-reflection on the part of the CEO of like, maybe I could have done something like, like what the heck was that all about? I think it's a huge, you know, indictment on his leadership style. Like, like, how did you get here that the next logical thing that happened

[00:07:45] was people kind of basically gave you the finger and said, I'm not going to your meeting. I don't care. Right. Yeah. That, that's it. You, you, you've heard me talk about my grandma who I quote a lot, but she oftentimes when you're pointing one finger at someone, look at the three that are pointing back at you, you know? So where, where did I get where 90% of my employees paid or unpaid

[00:08:11] had so little respect for me, the leader? I tell people you're only leading if people are following exactly. It's following. You're not leading. You're, you're, you're, you're an individual contributor. And so it is, and I hope that upon reflection, I can understand. And I'm going to say something that you sometimes will give me the look about. You made a mistake. Leaders make

[00:08:40] mistakes. Leaders are employees and we don't, you know, you can't hold even leaders to a perfection standard. Now I'm not in any way saying this guy's, um, what he exhibited was even close to professional behavior appropriate. So no one, please in the listening audience, Johnny's not saying that. What I am saying though, is let's just say he made a really, but it was a moment and we

[00:09:06] shouldn't be judged sometimes by the one thing that we do. He didn't kill anybody. He didn't, you know, those things, but, but I hope that the rest of us can look at this and reflect on how we want to show up as leaders and what are the real costs, not just to the people who let go, but what about the 11 people who stayed? And there's just so many lessons that we have. And that's why I'm excited to talk about it because yeah, it's extreme and it's insane. And I can't imagine that this happens very often

[00:09:36] anywhere. I can though, imagine that leaders feel increasingly more and more frustrated with, with, um, employees lack of commitment to them. Right. And you know, this conversation with you a lot where you want me to do everything for you as the employer, but you don't feel the obligation for this to be a mutual relationship where you also give me your all. And I remembered when the story popped

[00:10:06] up and you told me about the reason I knew about these being interns and things is my, one of my first professional jobs is I worked in Broward County, Florida, any Florida people out there shouting you out, Fort Lauderdale with the courts. It was, you know, the county court circuit court system. And I was an unpaid intern for the public defender's office. I was required to dress up. I had to be in the office every, and I'm

[00:10:31] dressing up and I'm 16, 17 years old. And I had to show up every day with a suit, a jacket, a tie and pants on a white shirt. Back in the day, you had a uniform. And I worked from 730 to call it 435, 30 unpaid all summer long. That was the most important experience for me. I learned whether or not

[00:10:56] I wanted to be a lawyer, what criminal law was versus civil law. I built a network so that when I applied for law school, many of those lawyers wrote my letters of recommendation. It was hard work. And then I had to get off at 430 and go bust tables so that I could actually make some money during the summer. I could pay for my school closing. So it was a very long day, a very long summer. But I can imagine and only imagine that the public defender, had I not shown up to his

[00:11:25] meetings along with his senior team at 730 in the morning, I would be fired as well. So bad that you did a group firing, but the result is still would be the same. If you're not going to, you know, engage with the leader, then you shouldn't be there. Yeah. No? No. I mean, and I totally agree with everything you said. And I actually didn't know that about your experience. I think that's great.

[00:11:49] And all the benefits that you derived out of that. And again, we don't know all the facts, but clearly something had kind of created this pressure point. And I think from a leadership perspective, it's like, you know, were you listening? Was there a level of tone deafness that was happening on this guy's part that sort of building to this, you know, because he's clearly

[00:12:18] an emotional person, at least that, that, that created emotional, very emotional response on his part. But, but I don't want to, to skip past what you're saying, which is if you signed up to do a job, paid, unpaid, if you gave your commitment, that's what you did. You went and sweated your butt off in Broward County, wearing a jacket, a white shirt, and everything else. Right? Because it was a summer job.

[00:12:42] No, I heard that. And so, and similarly, if you signed up to do something, then do it or quit, you know, and give notice and do whatever you need to go do, because that's not the right place for you. That's okay. But I think it doesn't reflect well at all on the 90% of people who sounds like they probably got together a little bit and said, Hey, let's, let's screw this guy and not show up to

[00:13:11] his meeting and see how he likes that. Well, I don't think that's a great life lesson for them either on how you conduct yourself in the workplace. But let's pivot to the leadership. Cause I think you're, so I just, it was really important. A few of the articles and comments that I saw, you know, were, were in any way constructively critical of the, of the employees, interns who didn't show up. And so I just, I wanted us on the

[00:13:41] work wire to make sure that this is, that was a conversation that needed to be had as well. Not showing up in time to your, to work is not cool. Period. Okay. But now I think you're right. Let's pivot to what happened to this leader. I think you start with, and you've alluded to it. There were a lot of things that were going wrong before, right? This is like you, you typically when you wake up and you've had a catastrophe, it's because a lot of things went wrong.

[00:14:10] Clearly some of it was, and most of it was, you have a leader who is really wound tight, has reached the point of, and so this is where am I going with this particular point. We as leaders are human beings. And so, you know what, sometimes you have to step away. If you know, I'm not talking forever. I'm saying for a day, like breathe and think today,

[00:14:36] something happened that made me very angry, justified or not. My actions right now are going to dictate a whole bunch of subsequent actions. So I have to step away and say, breathe, think about with a significant other, with your kid, even if you're right, you can be wrong just because of how and what you do. And this is an instance where I think the real lesson, and I know you're going

[00:15:03] to go deeper into the past, what led to it, but in the moment when something bothers you so much, you feel so disrespected, so unvalued, et cetera, you've got to learn to not react in the moment because the consequences are huge. To your point, there are people who've committed to never buying anything from this guy's company and they didn't even work there. Like they're so offended by his behavior that he's actually hurt his business. That was dumb. You know, talking about cutting off

[00:15:31] your nose and spite your face, that was dumb. And you also have now a group of former employees now who will forever take this around and be able to talk about this for the next century. And so these are things that net, net, you didn't factor in as a leader. And I would say to anyone listening, you too will have those moments where an employee is going to push you right to the brink. Yeah, you might win because you fired them, but you will have caught, there will be significant costs

[00:15:58] associated to you and to your brand, to your company by you not being thoughtful and stepping back and de, uh, sort of deescalating in your own mind before you respond. Yeah. So great points. And, and what I think about as a, as an entrepreneur is, okay, this is this man's money that he's betting, right? And so somebody says, but Bob, he's not paying those people. Yeah, but he's got a lot of

[00:16:26] other, uh, investments and expenses associated with getting this thing off the ground. And as an entrepreneur, you can get pretty consumed by your baby and right. And paying the bills and, you know, trying to hit numbers and do everything that you're trying to do to get this business on the ground and stable and healthy. And, and so it can be very consuming and you can get fairly myopic in that. Having said that,

[00:16:54] and I think this applies to entrepreneurs and otherwise is as leaders, we need to be able to absorb some pressure and not just be conduits of pressure to the people under our leadership. Right. So to be able to exhibit poise and, and to be able to, you know, yes, I'm feeling all these things, but that's what I signed up for. That's right. Right. As a leader, if I'm going to get,

[00:17:24] you know, I think I want this payoff or I'm making a lot of money in my current job, if I'm a corporate employee or whatever it is, that's part of what you signed up for was to take more pressure. And when you're just sort of like this, I'm using this word conduit again, but just like there's no filter between the pressure you're feeling and what you're putting out to your folks. That's not leadership. That's not what parents do that for their children all the time. Right. The kids don't know what's

[00:17:52] going on in the checkbook or in the marriage or with mommy or daddy's work. They don't know any of that stuff and they don't need to know all that stuff. That's what a leader is. That's a big part of what being a leader. So people can just focus on their role, what you've asked them to do, to be fully engaged. Again, something went very sideways in this situation, but I think it happens

[00:18:15] all the time. Right. And maybe not as public, just right. Or maybe not as large 90%, but if 30%, if you find 30% of your staff, that's a problem. Your business is wrong. Your people are wrong. Something's really, really wrong if you got to do that. And then, you know, if people listen to the prior episode, we were talking about flattening of middle management. You had kind of at the end

[00:18:41] alluded to red carpet in, red carpet out. But this was like nuclear carpet out. I don't know. I see cold and got from underneath you, right? But we've talked about this before, but we've seen numerous examples of you need to make a hard business decision and then they just completely dropped the ball. Listen, I thought about the situation that you're describing, right,

[00:19:07] that we're all talking about now. And how amazing, if he just decided that 90% of these people are drag in my organization and I'm so offended, da, da, da, da. A very nice, I call it a dear John letter. For the 11 people that are there, appreciate you all a lot. We're going to proceed with this meeting because it's also not fair to you for me to cancel a meet, but let's go have the meeting. If you've already decided that the other 90% are gone, I would have written a very nice letter,

[00:19:36] dear John. And it would have gone to every individual, not to a collective. This morning, you know, we had a call at 830, didn't hear from you, et cetera. Let me tell you how important this is. I've mortgaged my home to build this business and your absence impacts it. So I'm not sure this is good for you or for me. I mean, there's so, he could have written a very

[00:20:02] nice, respectful letter that you wouldn't mind seeing online because undoubtedly that's where it was going to go and say, wishing you the best, but you're clearly not committed to my goals and the goals of this organization. Likely would have been a story anyway, but no way he would have been taking the hit. So it is the how, not as much, I'm not in and of itself. I'm not bothered with the idea that if

[00:20:30] 90% of my employees show me and tell me that they don't care about my business, then they do need to leave. The question is the how. Yes. And so again, I'm going to guess, and this is probably why this thing erupted the way that it did. There was a lot of hows that didn't go really well. And this was just sort of the final straw that was this atomic explosion that he had. But again,

[00:20:57] you talked earlier about like employee engagement and things like that. And obviously people completely lost whatever engagement that they had and as leaders, you know, how we can keep our finger on the pulse of what people are feeling. What do we have now, Johnny? Seven generations in the workforce.

[00:21:20] Six generations in the workforce. Yeah. And they're all different. And the vast majority of these were college students, right? Right. Which is a very different demographic with different needs, different expectations. And, you know, if this person is trying to lead them in a style that doesn't, you know,

[00:21:43] comport, if that's the right word, with how they can be addressed and be spoken to, then there's this sort of asynchronous communication that finally just led to everybody hanging the phone up on him like, dude, I'm out. Like, I don't care what you're saying. So my point being is that, again, as a leader,

[00:22:03] as an executive, having the emotional intelligence to understand how do I need to communicate back on the how. It's there's the what for sure. But the way that I need to communicate why this is important, why your role matters, why I need you to be here, how you're making a difference, not just in the business, but in the customers that we serve because it's about music. I mean, you can get very

[00:22:32] emotional about kind of purpose and mission and vision and all this other stuff. And it was none of that happened. It's a it's a huge missed opportunity for this man in this business. But it does serve, I think, as a very strong object lesson for leaders in general. Bob, can I go all the way back? I think yes, yes, yes. And double click and retweet. Everything that you've said, but I think some of this gets

[00:23:01] back to recruitment. Maybe and I'm going to I'm going to do something really far out there. But maybe this is who this guy is. Maybe he's bombastic. Maybe he's mercurial. Maybe he's whatever. When we recruit people, you've got to tell people what type of organization or what kind of leader they're coming to

[00:23:24] work with for. And part of the problem is like I've worked and I won't name, but I've worked in some environments where the leader was pretty emotional. And I think all of us have either heard of or personally experienced working with someone who's perhaps emotional in their response. And you do get that volcano eruption every once in a while. But you should know that you're walking into

[00:23:49] that. All leaders aren't smooth Bob and smooth sometimes Johnny, but they're like, I do think that this goes back to the recruitment process. In the process, perhaps you, you know, screen for people who are sensitive to time and who will show up on time. Ask those questions during the recruitment process. Tell them what's expected. Because this sounds like something really, really went wrong when that many

[00:24:18] people didn't understand the why from a mission standpoint, like the value of what they do didn't fully embrace whether they were paid or unpaid that a meeting at eight o'clock means a meeting at eight o'clock. Something went wrong way deeper. And I would submit to you as an HR professional that we also have a problem with expectations. Were people told on the front end what was expected of them and what

[00:24:45] the culture was. I think that's actually the start of this. And so part of this leader exploding could be totally his fault. You didn't tell people that notwithstanding the fact that this is an unpaid job, I expect you to show up as if it were paid. You didn't tell people, right? There's so much that we don't disclose to people on the front end of the hiring process. And we don't use to screen out people

[00:25:10] who say, well, wait a minute. I've got a, Johnny described working all day from 730 in the morning until 330, 430 at the public defender's office, and then going to bus tables or wait tables in the afternoon. Maybe these people thought this was a kind of drop in when you can, because it's unpaid. You're not expected to be here. Now the restaurant in the afternoon, it was very clear that I was expected

[00:25:35] to be there at a time. So maybe that's a lot of this is it as I reflected because I was trying to figure out how in God's green earth could this situation happen? It's like unbelievable. And I think I have to believe that part of this is on the front end from a talent acquisition and recruitment state. Well, yes. And if I could double click on your point is predicated in what you said was

[00:26:02] that you know your culture, you know your values, you know those things, and you can articulate them in a clear way that somebody who doesn't know your company would understand what Johnny is talking about. So, you know, if we said that accountability is really important here, punctuality is really important to us. I need if I if I call a meeting, I need whatever it is. But if you haven't even examined for yourself what those things are, all I know is I want to sell a bunch of trumpets.

[00:26:31] That's all I know. That's what this business is, I want to sell a boatload of trumpets. And I need people to fill orders and do whatever. Okay, then you shouldn't be super surprised that you've attracted people that aren't aligned with something that you weren't even able to articulate in your own mind, except you just want to sell a bunch of stuff. And so I think this this point of because it's

[00:26:59] sometimes it sounds fluffy. And, you know, why are we going through all this sort of, you know, values and whatever exercise, because at the end of the day, it really, really matters to have these non negotiable North Star kinds of things that we can, you know, hold ourselves accountable to and then to your very well made point, recruit for and screen out against people that aren't in alignment with those.

[00:27:27] Right. You say all the time, and I'm a good disciple of this now, you know, except for illegal and immoral, there aren't good and bad cultures. It's just fit you. And if this guy is a hey, I call spontaneous meetings, just so you know, and I expect you to be Adam. Oh, I don't want to be part of that because I don't like that. That's cool. Don't work at musicians clubs in Bob. Okay, that's right. So great, great point. Looks like you're looking something up. No, I'm looking up a little research

[00:27:56] on this story. That's what I'm doing right now. I'm trying to figure out if they told like, is this something that's happened before? And I don't see stories like I went back to pull our people saying so fun, she caught me. I was like, all right, did they say that this guy had erupted before? Like, that's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm perplexed in live time. What happened here? Yeah. So, so yeah, again, I think what's so fascinating about this story,

[00:28:25] it is like looking at a train wreck and you're like, Oh, yeah, that was wild. And it is. But there, I do believe in you, you just made some really good points on what are things that we can learn in terms of self reflection, humility, what could I have done better? What could we have communicated in the recruiting process? What was going on previously from an employee engagement perspective

[00:28:49] that would have been huge red flags, that people are starting to distance themselves from the business, they just haven't quit yet. And then obviously, the lack of professionalism that he exhibited when he blew up. And so I think, again, as extreme as this example is, there's definitely lessons that we can all learn. So that can I please let me just give you to interrupt you because it's so

[00:29:16] I had to go look at this, his quote to them in his slack, he actually wrote a memo. So when I talked about a memo, he did, believe it or not think about this and wrote a note that says, you failed to do what you agreed to, you failed to complete your part of the contract, and you failed to show up for the meetings you were supposed to attend and work for. I gave you an opportunity to make your life better,

[00:29:41] to work hard and to grow. Yet you have shown me that you don't take this seriously. Interesting. Which is probably true on some level. My point to Mr. Odson would be, Yep. Would be what was in your leadership style in your culture that led to a mass revolt? Because

[00:30:10] there's no other way to say it. It's like Daffy Duck, when the thing explodes in your bill gets blown to the back, like, like you did something wrong, that this thing blew up the way that it did. And so he doesn't make, you know, illegitimate points. Just you signed up for something that you didn't do. Right. But at the same time, there's the mutuality of this thing. No, I think that's right. He then, what I also found in the results looking up the story was,

[00:30:38] I was like, maybe upon reflection, and this kind of gets to what you're talking about, I think that he said, Okay, maybe I reacted. Well, one, he actually followed up with a note. So even upon reflection, this is where he landed. And then the note that he wrote, Stan says, quote, I stand by my decisions and the values we uphold. Firing those individuals is the right move for our organization, and we are stronger than ever. So yeah, there's a lot going on there. I am hard pressed to believe,

[00:31:08] and this is the point that I was hoping to land on. Leaders have to have humility and have to admit when they've made mistakes. There is, I don't know how any reasonable leader thought that this outcome, the how, was a good decision. You can't reflect it. Like, I may stand by my decision, but even I, if I did something so preposterous, I'd say, Hey, but I could have done it differently. Just to say I stand by it, I stand by

[00:31:37] not only the decision, but how I did it speaks volumes about the leader. Yes. Now, again, I can hold the employees accountable for what they did or did not do, but it does speak volumes about a leader who can't, upon reflection, look at this and say, could have done some things different. Well, Johnny, the new cycle is never short on topics for us on The Work Wire, and I am sure in our next episode, we will find something else that's going on that will be, you know, illustrative of lessons that we can

[00:32:05] all learn to be better employers, better leaders, better employees, and just, you know, generally enjoy work and feel like we're making a contribution in a meaningful way. Well, I know you may cut this from the, from the story, but I really hope Washington DC is going to be really interesting given the shift in government. You know, the focus on making government employees come back into the office, the focus on finding efficiency in government. We're gonna have a lot to talk about in 2025

[00:32:34] as the government, one of the largest employers in our country is going to go through some significant workforce shifts. Johnny C. Taylor, Jr., a pleasure as always. Listeners, viewers, thank you so much for investing just a few minutes of your day. If you've got ideas or you see things in the news, please email me at bob at career.club. We love your feedback. We love your suggestions for topics and we hope that you enjoyed this episode and we wish you well. Johnny, thanks so much. I'll see you soon. Thank you. You're welcome. Bye-bye.

[00:33:05] Check out career.club for personalized help with your job search. Visit shrm.org to become part of the largest human resources organization worldwide.