C-Suite as Misery Makers?

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Nintendo, like all big companies, is far from perfect. However, they historically have not made life miserable for employees just to please investors for short term gain, and that is a refreshingly different way of thinking than the ideas embraced by typical spreadsheet driven leaders. Copycat, short sighted, perhaps even cowardly, big tech C-suite leaders might want to learn something from Nintendo.

Nintendo recently gave all their full time employees raises! Why would Nintendo do this with a 20 percent drop in revenue, when many other companies in similar situations went the mass layoff route? “‘It’s important for our long-term growth to secure our workforce,’ Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said during the company’s earnings report. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata once said: ‘If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease. I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world.’” This long term way of thinking makes a lot of sense if you genuinely believe people are THE source, more than just a resource.

And it’s not just the mass layoffs, it’s how these companies did it too. From the Wall Street Journal: “The message, sent to his personal inbox, directed him to a website for newly laid-off Google employees and told him to set up an account. He went to check his work email and found he was locked out. The news was real: Mr. Joslin, a 20-year company veteran, had been laid off with a template email…’ one of roughly 12,000 workers Google’s parent, Alphabet, eliminated.

The email’s generic tone felt ‘like a slap in the face,’ Mr. Joslin says, after his two decades at the company. Afterward, he says, neither his now-former manager nor HR contacted him for follow-up conversations. He has contacted colleagues via LinkedIn to say goodbye and ‘get some closure,’”

These fat companies are mostly cash rich, and there is no real survival threat to their long term financial performance (recession or not). So mass layoffs by impersonal emails was a clear short term profit and/or stock maximization choice, that blindly follows moldy business school thinking.

So if you’re a formal leader in a company committed to a transactional, quarterly driven, profit-first relationship with employees, DO NOT FAKE the idea of creating a great culture. STOP using insincere terms like “family.” You just add to the cynicism and make it harder for genuine purpose/profit driven firms to actually invest in creating a great culture. Honestly declare a transactional employee arrangement, state that employees come third after shareholders and customers. Simply get your operating HR lackeys to focus on developing a fair severance package to minimize litigation. Help people get a fair exchange for a job well done.

If you’re an employee in this type of work environment, make sure you give your best for the compensation and care you’re getting, with the full understanding you’re expendable by email at any time. DO NOT sacrifice your well being and time with your loved ones for this kind of company. It’s not worth it and even if you make a lot of money, you will never get that time back. Do you really want to work 14 hour days because someone like Elon Musk commands or expects that you should?

HOWEVER, if you are a C-Suite that truly is committed to creating an extraordinary culture, this is a time to do so for competitive advantage. You will attract and retain the best talent.

If not, relish your command and control power to be a misery maker when institutional investors squeal. Just make sure YOU get your millions in short and long term performance payouts. After all, it’s just business and not personal.

Think Big, Start Small, Act Now,

- Lorne

One Millennial View: People seem to be starving for honesty and transparency. Even if you’re genuinely a jerk, and ideally you try not to be, at least there are no swindles or surprises. If you’re convinced that being a devil is the best route in leadership, which would be a disappointing choice, at least as the saying goes, it’s better if you’re the devil we know than the one we don’t.

- Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis

C-Suite as Misery Makers?

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