I ran across this article this morning. It kind of shows where things went wrong at the Company I worked at. Go read it, then come back here to see how my old company matched up.

I won't copy and paste all of the main points, but I'll post the titles and a brief description of where my ex-Bosses went wrong.

Be inclusive: In the beginning the non-swedish members of our team were included in planning/decisions about the network and systems. But after awhile it was a swedish only affair. We were 'mushrooms' which means, kept in the dark and fed shit.

Mission, not just money: We never really knew what our mission was, mainly because we were understaffed all the time and always in reactive mode. We never really had time to be proactive and work to make things more stable for the end-users. So we spent most of our time just maintaining the status quo. Also considering the non-swedish teammembers were all paid below the minimum for our job functions according to multiple salary sites, we didn't even have that going for us.

Nothing to fear but fear itself: This was about one of the only positive things our old bosses had going for them. Rarely, did any of us fear for our jobs...although at the end we all hoped for a layoff/firing so we could get the hell outta there and collect unemployment while looking for a new job.

Don't just lead — coach: Not much I can think of to say here, except I wish our old American "coach" was still there.

It's their careers, too: I think I've beaten this to death, but we all knew since we weren't swedish, our careers were stuck in neutral and a lot of times felt like it was going in reverse. Every swede in the group (notice I don't say team) was a manager. When they would whine and complain about not making enough money, bingo! Raise! When any of us would make the same request we would get some song and dance. We used to joke how soon we'd end up mopping the bathroom floors and emptying peoples trash...yeah those were times of high morale ;)

Made, not necessarily born: Our old American boss was in my opinion a little of both. I remember he was a good leader in the beginning, yet he would often sit me down and ask my advice about the way he did things, so he could improve. Our swedish Direct-boss, started out well, but slowly faded over time. Granted, he still may be a good leader...to the swedish members of the group, but since I'm American, I'll never know.

posted by WarWolf at 5:23 PM 0 comments

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