Cave-in

So, we ran the case…the one to test whether what I had done was right or wrong…and lost.  Big time.  It could cost the organisation tens of millions…And now I feel it’s all my fault.  Trying to keep breathing.  Trying to forget, really…and not doing such a bad job of that.  I know there were plenty of others involved, that I need a balanced perspective or I WILL end up wearing the blame, and others who were there, pushing, making bad decisions will find me an easy target.

The Directors went ballistic, as did Dumb Boss.  I had a meaningful discussion with one of DB’s colleagues about being prepared to go – for a price.  Dreams of my year off were reinvigorated.  Budgets prepared for up to 2 years without a job.  A friend offered to buy my house.

Dumb Boss called me to a meeting – was this to be it?  Apparently not.  He was calm and understanding.  No sign of being got rid of yet, however much I might want it.  Why is he reasonable when I least want him to be?

Got word today that a couple of nasty individuals in the industry are spreading rumours that I should be fired…this is people who have barely met me!  But people who wanted my job.  Life is funny, eh?  Oddly, at the moment, I could care less.  Just get on with it.  Keep doing your job, I say to myself, and pray this doesn’t blow up to be any bigger than it is already. 

I can’t believe that doing my job is costing me my reputation…it seems so unfair, esp being judged by people who couldn’t cope even half as well in a crisis, whose integrity is questionable at the best of times.  For some reason, I am seeing my career as if an observer – this is the crossroads for me.  Will I stay, or will I go?

I could really do with the time off.  To renew myself and find my way.  I can’t stay much longer in this den of nastiness.

The final showdown?

Sorry I’ve been so quiet.  Encountered a technical problem on my blog, for one thing.  But really the issue is that I think I’m heading into the final showdown with Dumb Boss.

He has reverted to bullying me, and using any negative thing someone says as fodder for my under-performance.  He has even committed this to writing – in emails, which he is particularly patronising and belittling in.

The core of the issue is that, after the transfers of funds, I was asked my view by the internal auditors.  So I told them I thought there were risks with the transactions.  He went ballistic, became threatening and now I’m not allowed to raise a risk issue unless he agrees with me.  This includes to the auditors.  He reckons that I’ve been running my own agenda, but all I’ve done is express concerns about a transaction that (a) the regulator is sniffing around, and (b) I warned them not to do in the first place.  Being the General Counsel, THAT’S MY JOB!

Yet again, he’s also let another Senior Exec complain about some advice we gave – and even though I tried to brief him on the issue more than once (he declined) he is not interested in hearing my side of the story and is slamming me in my performance review.  I have said I want an independent person to review what was done, as I stand by our conduct and the advice given.  He says he doesn’t want to “re-litigate” it – “there’s no point”.

He also has given me no credit for working around the clock for 3 months to sort out all sorts of disasters that were going on.  Instead, I got criticised for making decisions instead of letting the business do so – problem was, there was no-one from the business around and, when they were around, they were unprepared to make the decisions…leaving a massive and dangerous gap given the complexity and speed with which things were moving. 

He also failed to actually meet the promises that he made to me in our half yearly discussion – that he would meet with me every 2 weeks, and we’d discuss issues and he would raise any negative feedback in a timely manner so that we could discuss it.  He has done that twice.  No more.  And now he’s raising issues without notice or interest in my version of events in my performance review.  I feel like I’m suffocating.  I can’t move.  There’s no room – it’s his way or the highway, and I have no way of knowing his way until well after the event.  Naturally, since I can’t get in to meet with him, I can’t work out what he’s thinking…he now tells me he has no time to meet with me.

So, I am now pondering how to deal with him.  Do I:

(a) resign – in an environment of GFC crap where I may not get a job

(b) formally respond and go all “legal” on him

(c) roll over – but compromise what I regard as the core part of my role, for which I will be criticised if I don’t do it!  (he is asking me to stop being concerned about whether the Boards are meeting their legal obligations, and focus on assisting management.  My working assumption is meant to be that management knows what it’s doing and will never cause the boards to be in breach of the law…except I know different.  Few people in this business seem to know or understand their legal obligations, and there have been numerous things done that compromise the Boards…how can I ignore this when it’s my job to help people navigate through it?

(d) ask him to change my position description to remove the things that he doesn’t want me to do - things that are crucial for a General Counsel, like ensuring compliance? 

(e) something else – report him to the regulator?  Sue him? 

So, we have another meeting tomorrow.

Clearing the mist

10 days of feeling sick to my stomach seemed enough.  It left me tired and drained.  Part of the problem was that, over the Christmas break, I just couldn’t get anything of any use done.  Stressing and worrying seemed the only constructive thing to do.

On Monday, though, it was back to work.  As I drove the long drive from our (brief) holiday venue to the office, I remained weighed down by the drama I had created – the complexity and expense and potential liability – at a time when the Company needed it the least.  I felt drained of energy and no closer to resolving things.

In my car, a revelation struck: I could either remain under this guilt, or I could release myself.  Because if I didn’t I would be no use to anyone, least of all myself.  What would I as a leader expect of someone in my team who had made a mistake?  Well, if they’d made the mistake for the right reason (ie they were not being sloppy or lazy) then I’d want them to learn from it.  To own up to it.  To face it head on and fix it.  To not let it destroy them or their confidence.  And that was what I needed to do.

By the time I arrived at work, I was back.  The Company needs me on my game now more than ever.  If I can’t recover from this, then what do I have?

Sure, there will be more times where I need to tell people (like the CEO) about the issue.  I have to acknowledge the error and apologise – and try to help non-lawyers understand how obscure the rule is that tripped us up so I don’t come across like a total idiot.  To gently remind others of the pressure we were under at the time, and the exhaustion that prevailed.  But most of all to be ready to fight on another day and be the General Counsel they need to get through this time.

Roosters to Feather Dusters

The fall from grace can happen all too quickly.  The sound of the falling and then the landing reverberate through my being, deep deep in my soul.

I have screwed up BIG TIME.  You know how me and my team were working all hours of the day and night to try and save the day for the Company?  Well, it appears that, in all the frenzy and exhaustion, I made a boo boo.  We set up some delegations from the Board that, in the cold hard light of day, may not have worked.  Now someone outside the organisation is challenging what we did.

It was always a house of cards: the speed and desperation to quickly fix an issue creates a risk of its own.  I pointed this out at the time – to the CEO, the Executive, the Board, Dumb Boss…but now my prediction has come true and I’ve blown it.

As the sad tale unfolds and I have to tell each new Executive or Director affected, it becomes more and more stressful.  Dumb Boss is in denial.  He doesn’t want anyone in his area making a mistake,  He will deny it for a while, and then his true colours will shine: will he fire me or remember the stress we were all under?  If he readies himself to fire me it will send the most awful message to my team and the world: don;t kill yourself for the organisation for they won’t stand behind you.

But regardless of the future, the sick feeling in my stomach means I haven’t managed to relax at all this holiday.   Instead, I have had to pull executives together, some from their holidays, to tell them of the error and its repercussions.  The silence on the end of the phone is thick with disappointment.  When I apologise, I hear “No, we are where we are, let’s just deal with it.”

Our outside law firm, who worked with me on the document, feels the same.  After I gratefully accepted their wisdom and guidance, their litigation partners now tell me of the potential conflict that they have, since the mistake may have been theirs (no admissions, you understand).

I don’t know how this will end.  I just know we need to get through it and it’s my job to pull the Company out and not wallow too obviously in my own guilt and regret.  It’s my job, though, to pull them out of these messes, not to cause them.  No doubt there will be some  nasty characters who enjoy this; those people who see only the worst in others and criticise them behind their backs.  I could name them now.

All of this points me to one end: get out of this corporate lunacy.  Its rewards are nowhere near worth the downsides.

Love at last!

In a somewhat  unexpected twist, it appears that Dumb Boss is dashing around the building, telling all who will listen how wonderful my team and I are.  He apparently thinks that we are doing the most amazing job with all these funds, and ain’t afraid to say it.

He has also confirmed that he is NOT splitting up my team.  He pretends that this is about cost savings (ie a central team is able to better share work and thus minimise costs), but I know the truth: from my chats with his peers, it appears most of them never wanted lawyers in their business units to begin with.  Dumb Boss’s lies exposed!

Naturally, since he and I are now practically engaged, I do not raise this.  I smile, and thank him, and tell my team we will stay together.  They are overjoyed.

Buffett is right

So, you know how the old Legend of Omaha has said “It’s when the tide goes out that you find out who’s been swimming naked”?  Well, guess what…it’s Dumb Boss that might just have been caught without his duds on.

The last few weeks have been mad at work.  I returned and managed to wander about in a daze for a couple of weeks, but then got sucked into the Credit Crisis vortex, perhaps never to be seen again.  As you know, Dumb Boss is the CFO, and it seems that he hasn’t really been paying enough attention to our regulatory capital.  Whoops, it’s been invested in funds that are exposed to other institutional investors, as well as money the Company manages for others…

While the tide was up, the regulatory capital was in the black.  However, the past 3 weeks has been spent madly trying to unravell a bunch of cross-investments where we’ve mixed our own money with that which we manage for others.  Makes for an interesting legal conundrum when you have to battle with conflict of interest laws and act in the best interests of others.

So, we were busy working through the labyrinthian sets of investments, trying to make sure we protected everyone involved.  In one trust, we had the Company’s own dough, plus plenty of investor money.  Gee, what to do?  I said I could theoretically get it all out, but felt better about pulling only some out now and getting the rest later – to not do so would open us up to massive reputational risk, especially since there was a good chance we’d soon have to freeze the trust we were exiting to protect investors!

So, the CEO and head of the Business Unit agreed but I did ask the innocent question: is any of the remaining money regulatory capital?

Apparently, behind the scenes, all hell broke loose.  The CEO grabbed Dumb Boss, who hadn’t realised he had $135m in the trust, and the next thing you knew he was calling urgent meetings and sending unfortunate emails to the world, panicking about getting the Company’s assets out of the trust.

So, we had to remove it but I left it to DB and his cronies to justify it.  I gave massive warnings about the reputational risk, and sat back.  On Thursday, I updated the Board on this and their HEADS EXPLODED.  It was great.  I just told them I’d outlined the risks but the CEO and CFO made the call, so go talk to them.  The Board was reconvened the next day, after DB frantically began reinventing history by claiming not to have been warned about the risks, and quoting all sorts of so-called “pre-existing reasons” to pull the money out.  On Friday, there was another Board meeting and, as he spoke of all the reasons to get the money out, he was warned by one of the Directors that he was the CFO not only for the Company, but also this subsidiary.  This, bizarrely, was big news to Dumb Boss, who looked quizzically at me as I nodded to confirm the Director was right.

Meanwhile, 2 of DB’s peers were in the meeting and all 3 of us were exchanging looks of disbelief at DB’s massive and unrelenting stupidity.  It was great.  A true highlight.

Fingers crossed that he’ll unravel like a cheap pair of tights.

Return from Paradise

So, I’m back.

Just a quick post with a few updates. More detail in future updates:

1. Dumb Boss has struck, actually recruiting someone for my team while I’ve been away.  This is despite his agreement with me when I joined that I had full control of hiring and firing for my team.

2. The good news is that we have received the results of our latest culture survey, which shows Legal is as engaged as the rest of them.  No longer do we lag behind – rather, in the leadership scores, we have the best results in the company.

3. I did take the plunge headlong back into that relationship with my Greek man.  Maybe more about that later

Ciao for now.

Island Paradise

It’s 3 weeks into my 5 week trip, and I am feeling great.  Thoughts of Dumb Boss have receded, and my main priority is making sure I find the best restaurants wherever I am so I don’t waste a single meal in this fabulous country.  Greek food is so clean and healthy (yeah, some of it’s deep fried, and there is a lot of cheese involved, but it makes you feel on top of the world).  Salads and grilled fish and meat are standard – makes you wonder what people who have the discipline to eat like that all the time feel like…maybe I should give it a shot instead of backsliding into take-away hell when I return.

I got a quick update from the office – Dumb Boss has apparently undertaken that he will not restructure the team by putting the lawyers into the business units if the team violently opposes it…we’ll see if he’s still singing that same song when I rock back into the office, all tanned and clear-minded.

Speaking of clear-minded, I did entertain the cheeky idea of resigning by a text message.  This manoeuvre would surely catapult me into legend status within the company, my industry…the world!  Luckily, sanity gripped hold of me (and the fact I didn’t have the idiot’s cell number) and I kept my trigger thumbs busy doing other things.

But, let me tell you about Greece!

I have been island hopping, starting on Keffalonia, the island of Captain Corelli fame.  I rented a car, and drove around most of the island on day 1, ending up in a tiny village on the west coast, called Assos.  It was magic – probably the defining experience of my trip.  The fabulous taverna on the tiny town square served up the most fabulous Greek home cooking, day after day.  Not to mention the BEST EVER eggplant dip, which I had religiously each day on the island.  To top it off, the plain accommodation was only 25 euros per night.  Magic.  I would go back in a second.

Then it was onto Sifnos, a lovely place in the Cycladic group.  Even though I arrived there on 26 September, the island had mostly shut down due to the tail end of the tourist season.  Met by a little bit of rain, but enjoyed it anyway – a quiet getaway.

Moved on to Paros, which seemed a lot busier at the first impression.  Stayed in a great fishing village called Naoussa, which was home to the best fish tavernas I have been to all trip.  I became the customer that sidled in each day asking “what is good today?” to be presented with a fabulous array of fish and salads from an overworked waiter.  The family that owns the restaurant has a number of caiques, which go out each day and bring the catch in for serving up at the restaurant.

Now, I am on Crete, the grand daddy of all the islands – its sheer size dwarfs all the others.  My first 3 nights were an indulgence: at the Blue Palace, the no 1 spa in Greece.  It was AB-SO-LUTE-LY SPECTACULAR I DIED AND WENT TO HEAVEN.  If you are going to Crete, and can afford the price (trust me: the accommodation is dwarfed by the cost of the food), I highly recommend it.

Moving on to Chania, a gorgeous town with a Venetian Harbour, and massive charm.  Now I am in Rethymno (a little ordinary, but I have been spoiled) and move to Iraklio tomorrow to see the Palace of Knossos (read: old Minoan stuff, tarted up by a rich archaelogist dude) and then to fabulous, heavenly, spectacular Santorini for 5 nights.  Pray that the seas are calm – most of the ferry ride over here was a disturbing attempt not to feel any sicker than I needed to.  “Stare at the horizon” I repeated to myself as the crew member handed out the company-branded sick bags.  Oddly, when the pretty American blonde threw up across from me, I started feeling better…go explain that.

Old friends in Athens

It’s 19 degrees and raining here in Athens (hey! when I looked last week it was balmy and sunny – what happened?).  I seem to have had no jetlag, which seems impossible given how long it took to get here and how many time zones I am away from home.  I attribute it to being upgraded to First Class (blisssss) and taking plenty of herbal sleep stuff like melatonin.

Since this is my third visit to Athens, I have made friends here so I am in the process of catching up with them.  It has proved a little more eventful than even I imagined!  First is Anastasia.  Anastasia is about my mum’s age – 70? – and her hobby is languages and travelling the globe.  She is a serious go-getter, and I first met her on the plane on the way to Athens on my first trip.  I looked up from my “flight thoughts” to discover her staring and smiling at me.  We struck up a conversation, and it turns out she was returning home from a South American adventure.  We met a few times for dinner, and she joined my friend and I on the gorgeous island of Hydra, where Anastasia dragged us out of the standard tourist trap half way around the island to have the BEST meal I had in my entire Greek sojourn.   It was one of those classic tales: local taverna, with the fisherman reclining on a seat.  A trip into the kitchen revealed fresh red mullet (the “King of Fish” according to the Greeks).  We had it flash fried with the most amazing taramosalata (caviar dip), fries and salad.  Just magnificent.

Anastasia seems to be slowing down a little, at least in body.  Her spirit is lively, though, and we will have dinner tonight.

Another friend is Laura, who I met in a jewelry store in Athens.  I bought so much stuff there that we became friends, and we have had a meal or 2 each time I have visited.  After arriving yesterday evening, I hot footed it straight to the jewelry store and – lo and behold! – no Laura.  The owner, Costas, who I know from previous visits, just blinked at me when I asked where she was.  “She has left”.

So, I grabbed her number and will get all the goss tomorrow night.

My third friend is a little different.  George.  Giorgos in Greek.  On my first visit we had something of a fling.  On my second, we didn’t see each other (he protests that he rang and came to find me but no luck).  So, we have reconnected on this trip.  We have just met for coffee.  He is as hot and heavy as ever.  Oh dear.  Now I have to work out if, in the cold hard light of the Acropolis, whether I feel the same way.  It’s all good and well to fantasise about him from a distance, but when he’s right there in flesh and blood, one has to make choices…

The last thing I want is to make the wrong choice here and then realise that my life is completely in the toilet.  Dumb Boss, shit time at work PLUS completely wrong choices in men.  Bloody hell, it’s bad enough that world financial markets are going mental…leaving me contemplating the harsh reality that walking out of my job (even with a tidy pay out) may not be an option…

Now, how did having an affair with a Greek dude get back to Dumb Boss?

Anyhow, I’ll try and update you as I go, but I didn’t bring my laptop (travelling light, don’t you know – not enough warm clothes, as it turns out…).  This seems like it will be one interesting trip.

Rainy Saturdays

I used to love a rainy Saturday, but now they just seem to make me feel depressed.

Two weeks ago, one of my management team told me that the team wanted to nominate me for a senior leadership award, but they were worried that I wouldn’t want it in the current political climate.  The team is going well.  There are still a couple of drama queens, but things have improved out of sight.  I am really chuffed that they want to nominate me: Lord knows, though, I won’t win if the Exec Directors that are aligned with DB have anything to do with it.

But how do I deal with this overwhelming feeling that I have no ability to do my job as General Counsel properly?  The feedback from DB has been whirling through my head for 3 weeks now, and I still can’t make head nor tail of most of it.  Much of it contradicts itself.  How do you address issues when you don’t even understand them?

There are two issues here:  one is my ego.  How can I be subservient to Dumb Boss when he is so patently such a fool?  This folly is a well known fact; but my hopes that the new CEO would pick it up quickly have been dashed.  I was approached by the Regional CEO, who is the CEO’s boss, and a supporter of mine.  He told me I would need to fit the regime because, while he could say words of support, the CEO would take time to work Dumb Boss out.  How long will this be?  And would I be one of the sacrifices that would eventually expose him?

Can I live with checking everything with him?  He now wants to see the questions in our customer survey, and the list of people being surveyed.  He always reviews my papers for the Board, often adding himself in as a contact person.  He doesn’t let his direct reports nominate their own staff for leadership opportunities, or even consult with them; instead, he takes these decisions on his own.

So, even if I can live with it: swallow my pride and shut up at the right times, is that what a General Counsel should do?  Will I speak up at the right time, or will he just break my spirit?

My managers are worried that I will leave.  For, if I do, they will follow.  So much is at stake.  But the Company seems so full of backstabbing and blame – do I really want to be here?

I have a holiday to Greece ahead…I will be in Athens in 2 short weeks.  Although I fear a crisis while I am away, I need this break to consider my future.