Who do you confront when an organization has hired the wrong Vice President? [kinda long]

In My Humble Opinion
1

I work in a world where I find myself popping into and out of various large organizations as a consultant - I love the work because I can advise and strengthen organizations from the top-down or bottom-up.

Recently, I have been working with a large organization [300+ employees] and they have recently hired a VP that on paper looked amazing; she is in her mid-50’s, supposedly a very good fundraiser, and leader. Some drawbacks on paper were that she had little management experience, although she raised 25M for a capital campaign over the last 3 years, and she had never worked for an organization like this one [with a spiritual bent] . She was head-hunted, and moved across the country with her husband and adult son. Now, 4.5 months into her tenure at this new institution she has not been performing at all - she is in mediation with another woman [said woman has been working for this organization for 3 years] and has already brought her team into a retreat to help them transition into a new culture - far from what they have been used to for 2 decades.

I’ve worked for many, many organizations and have consulted on issues relating to board structure, governance, fundraising, marketing even office design. Recently, one of the managers in the department I have been consulting with wrote me a very long email detailing that the new hire has alienated her department from the upper-level senior officials, is forgetful to the point of missing very important meetings and deadlines, and is not paying attention to very serious inquiries into her departments performance.

I am consulting on a few things that she is responsible for, and as an outsider looking in I can clearly see her staff is suffering under the new rule. Personally, I have found this individual to be cordial and nice, and when in a meeting setting relatively quiet. Having known the manager who I just recieved the email from for more than 5 years, I have no reason not to trust him; he is not vying for her job but he is trying to keep the department out or chaos … unfortunately it appears he is doing this in vain as they are faltering.

It is not my job to consult on anything outside of what my contract details, and I have told the person who emailed me that this is the case. Now he is asking me for my unofficial opinion. This seems to be a rock and a hard place for me, but I genuinely want to help the people who are affected.

I hear all kinds of things when I am sitting with the department in a meeting, mostly off the cuff remarks on the new VPs ineptitude. To me it seems the upper echelon are waiting to see how the new VP is performing, but the word on the ground is that she is failing. I have certainly seen some things in the numbers that would indicate that, but again, this is far outside my contract and I am not going to compromise that.

What would you do [hypothetically]?

Should they wait and just let her fall?*

The man who emailed me has a great relationship with the Pres. of this organization and with the #2 in charge…one of the things he mentioned is having a sit-down with them to chat about it. My sense is that would not be a very good idea and could backfire.

*the staff at this organization came up with a plan to set the new boss up for success, to help the new boss learn the ropes and learn how to talk about the company. All of that was scrapped because the new boss did not want to learn from her staff, she only wanted to learn from people above her.

2

I don’t think that you, as an outsider, can do anything about this at all, unless you get a specific contract to consult with them on this issue.

It might help if the people reporting to this VP raised their concerns with whoever she reports to – but it might not, because they might be seen as “disloyal”. I suspect that the people above her are aware of the problem, and (if they have any sense) know that she is responsible for it. However (again because of “loyalty” issues) they won’t say anything until she’s asked to resign – and probably not even then, because that would be admitting they they made a mistake in hiring her.

It sounds like a very difficult situation, but I don’t think you can do anything positive to help.

3

I agree, and it pains me because I can clearly see how this person is affecting everyone around her.

4

Well, they’re shit out of luck, I’m sorry to say. I’ve seen this before, where there’s a new upper management hire who doesn’t pan out. The new person refuses to listen to anyone beneath him/her, screws around, and basically leads everyone towards the edge of a cliff. Upper management knows there’s a problem and doesn’t do squat, other than gossip among themselves and/or wait for the new hire to finally do something that can’t be ignored. Og forbid they admit they mistake in hiring the person, so much better to have the company fail than admit a mistake

From what I’ve seen, this ends one of two ways:

  1. The entire department under New Hire is fired/laid off because Management Is Always Right, but the one who screwed up is kept on and given a new staff to screw over, or

  2. Everyone is fired, including New Hire, because it’s the staff’s fault they couldn’t compensate for incompetent management.

Don’t bother to talk with the higher ups in the company. Tell anyone you have any concern for in the affected department to polish their resumes and look for another job, because no matter what they are screwed. American executives never take responsibility, and never suffer consequences.

5

I’m not sure about who this manager is. Is he somebody in the corporation who does have a legitimate role in evaluating this woman’s job performance? If so, then it’s legitimate for him to seek out information from informed and impartial people like you and present it to the board and it’s legitimate for you to provide that information when asked for it.

6

Is there any disadvantage in you providing your off-the-cuff opinion to the person who asked you? Call me blind, but I’m not really seeing a reason why you can’t tell this guy what you think is going on. Is it just that you don’t think it’s part of your job? Or that you’re worried you’ll be telling the wrong person? Are you worried that you’ll lose your job if upper management finds out you talked to him?

7

I’ve been hired to turn their board into a fundraising entity - yes, this is a large non-profit - and to work with their development department to stream-line operations and assist in helping them raise more money.

The manager has been with them for 3 years and is basically next in-line under the new VP. He does not have a role in evaluating her performance, but then, he would be the next logical person to ask how she is doing - outside upper management. I have known this guy professionally, for quite a while.

**Broomstick **- this is a non-profit, not a giant global conglomerate. I know what you are saying, but some of these staffers have been in pace for a long time and know what they are doing. I’d like to think the ego involved in the scenarios you mention is not a real problem, but in the end, it might be. Tho I doubt everyone will be fired…that would be a media catastrophe that no one wants including the hire-ups. Yes, they hired her, but if she does something egregious I don’t see why they wouldn’t fire her.

I am not going to say anything because I have a reputation for being impartial and I hold that in relatively high regard. Right now, I think this person is inept enough to most likely screw-up and be laid off, even though some of the things she is doing baffle me, I have a feeling she will do it to herself.

8

I’m pretty sure there’s nothing to worry about. Rumors are that Obama is planning on dropping Biden in the 2012 re-election campaign. I would just let it play out.

9

If Bush didn’t dump Quayle in '92, there’s no way Obama is going to dump Biden in '12.

10

Really as a consultant, I don’t think it is your place to advise on the inner politics of your client’s management structure (unless of course that is what you are being paid to consult on).

Broomstick - One problem in corporate America IMHO is that you cannot simply interchange managers and executives into positions and expect things to instantly work like you are swapping out a hard drive. It takes time to build a relationship with your team and figure out how everything in the organization works. And 4 months is not a lot of time for this to happen.

11

If a new manager refuses to listen to the old and experienced staff that new manager will never adapt. You can’t be an effective manager if you give orders but refuse all feedback, expecting people to obey like mindless robots. That’s not “building a team”, that’s being a jerk.

Even worse if the orders are incompetent.

Being a non-profit is irrelevant - I’ve seen the exact same behavior there as in for-profit companies. Bad management is bad management.

12

This is exactly what appears to be happening right now. I’ve met with this woman on several occasions to go over next-steps and strategic plan - more than once in the conversation I felt I was losing her and that she did not have a grasp of what I was saying. To me, this blatantly points to there be a discrepancy between what she put on her resume and what she is demonstrating to her staff.