Chapter 15: Losing Faith in the System

Overview

In an era of corporate scandal, CEO indictments, and accounting crimes, losing faith in the system is a passage that reflects the time in which we live. If you talk to associates and employees in most large companies today, and they are candid (as they tend to be during leadership development programs), you will quickly discern a higher degree of skepticism, even cynicism. Not only are they cynical and skeptical about the business world in general but they feel that way about their organization and its leaders, specifically. At some point, these individuals cross the line from uncertainty to a lack of faith, and at this point they are in a predictable, intense passage.

We’ve listened to many senior leaders talk about their companies and about why they’ve lost faith in the system, and we have heard something along the following lines:

I’ve worked seventeen years for this company in a variety of roles and made a huge commitment to the organization. I’ve traveled, relocated, worked weekends, cut short or cancelled vacations. I made a commitment to this company because I believed in what it stood for. Now I wonder whether what it says it stands for and what it really is all about are two different things.

People who lose faith feel betrayed for reasons that can vary from witnessing a single unethical act to enduring a whole series of disillusioning events. The CEO may have communicated one course of action and then reversed course. The Wall Street Journal may have reported an SEC investigation, or the FDA may be undertaking a regulatory action. It may be that senior leaders announced that acquisitions have been ruled out as a growth strategy, only to have a large acquisition announced several months later.

It is also possible that the sense of betrayal is the result of a relationship-driven promotion system. Or perhaps promotions are politically based rather than based on obvious merit. People can also lose faith because of the way individuals are treated. An accumulation of personal upsets may include such incidents as the easing out of an executive with long service shortly before she is eligible for retirement or the abrupt termination of an employee who has received nothing but glowing performance reviews throughout his career. Less than honest communication to avoid litigation can also create wariness and cynicism about those who convey ambiguous messages.

In all these cases, a disconnect appears between how people want to perceive their companies and how they actually experience them. They assume them to be ethical but continually observe examples in which senior leaders use data to support preconceived decisions. Or they learn about their CEO’s pay package while working on his assignment to implement rigid cost controls throughout the company. People lose faith in the system when management doesn’t practice organizational values, or top leaders are seen to act in ways they themselves would not.