Author Archives: Larry Janis

When leadership turns toxic: The fine line between being tough and being a bully

 

By Karlyn Borysenko

Shortly after Senator Amy Klobuchar announced her bid to become the next Democratic nominee for president, horror stories began popping up detailing years of consistent abusive treatment of her staff. The reports contended that her reputation made it difficult to recruit someone to manage her presidential campaign. In response, Klobuchar’s supporters argued that she was being targeted due to her gender and that a man in her position would be considered “tough” instead of toxic.

While it certainly is true that assertive women are much more likely to be viewed as bossy or unlikable than their male counterparts who engage in exactly the same behaviors, we can’t assume that just because someone is a woman, it means that her behaviors towards her staff are being wrongly characterized when charges of toxicity are made. According to the Workplace Bullying Institute, 30% of workplace bullies are women, and according to a recent study more than two-thirds of women have reported being a target of workplace bullying by a female boss.

So, how can you tell the difference between when your boss is being tough and when they’ve crossed the line into workplace bullying, regardless of the gender they identify with? Where is the line? Here are some differentiators to consider.

Tough bosses have bad days. Bullies are consistently bad.

According to Bartlett and Bartlett, workplace bullying is defined as “the experience of repeated and unwelcomed negative acts such as criticism and humiliation, occurring at a place of employment, that are intended to cause fear, distress, and harm to the target from one or more individuals in any source of power over the target, where the target has difficulties defending him or herself.” (more…)

Should I stay or should I go?

The topic of counter offers is an interesting one. I am sure you have seen articles and thoughts about the subject and they are usually one person’s perspective on the topic. For a somewhat different approach, we’ve reached out to people in our network to gain their thoughts and perspective on the topic.

 

 

We asked:

You have just received an offer to join a new firm. You are giving notice to leave your current position and your employer makes a “counter offer” to keep you from leaving. You start to think about whether or not to take that “counter offer.”

Why would taking a counter offer can cost you more in the long run?

You made a decision to leave your current company and pursue a job lead in the first place.  That’s never an easy decision.  Whatever motivated that decision hasn’t really changed.  It may change temporarily.  But it didn’t change for the right reasons or motivation.  If an employer didn’t make the adjustment based on your negotiation/needs without your imminent departure, then their motivation may be less than “righteous”.  What happens when their back isn’t against the wall?   You both will always know that you got what you needed because they were threatened with your departure and nothing more.  I have never in my career heard of a counter offer working out in the long term.  So as wonderful as it sounds to be wanted and needed, feel good about the complement and use the great energy to do an even better job in your role!

Amy Callister, Group Manager, Avanade

 

My view is accepting, or not accepting, a counter depends on the reason one is leaving.  If one is leaving because one was happy, but was approached for an outside role at a significant premium then accepting a counter is fine.  If one left for other reasons, unless those reasons are addressed by the counter, one should leave.  Otherwise, the hidden cost of accepting the counter is the fact that none of the reasons one looked at other opportunities have changed.

John Fafian, Director – Head of Strategy and Sourcing , PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

 

This actually happened to me about 16 years ago. I think it makes you look like you are getting leverage to get a better situation at your old company.

Which compromises your integrity and can severely tarnish your reputation in the marketplace.

You should always consider if there were something that would make you want to stay with your existing company and address that with them letting them know you are considering leaving.  But once you seriously engage new employers it is rude to lead them on and then not make a change (unless the offer was really cheap or the job you didn’t want).

I also actually have had a few people do this me as the hiring manager.  I went to bat internally to get approval the salary they wanted and then they didn’t take the job.  One of these people I will never hire or recommend as she is just not reliable based on what she was leading me to believe and walking away.  In the end it was a blessing she changed her mind for me but I still remember her and she is still in our marketplace and I will never recommend anyone hiring her –

Janie West, Vice President, Strategic Relationship Management at NGA Human Resources

 

We hope you find these perspectives interesting. If you would like to share your thoughts on this for future blogs, please let me know.

Larry Janis, Managing Partner, ISSG, janis@issg.net

Sales Opportunities

Our client is a 30-year-old mid-market IT services provider offering solutions in security, virtualization, cloud and managed services. They were taken private in 2015, have successfully completed a restructuring to add managed services to their existing VAR business. The company is now focused on the growth phase of their strategy and has been aggressively hiring experienced salespeople. The management team would like to accelerate the pace and are exploring the option of acquiring a complete and operational sales team.  The target is 5-7 members with a sales manager currently operating in the mid-west or northeast US.

The financial structure is unique and unusual: up-front compensation in exchange for a multi-year commitment, along with a base (not a draw), benefits, and substantially above-market payments on Gross Profit sold. The team must have a demonstrated track record in selling managed services deals in the $500K to $5 million range and be free of non-compete constraints.

This is an exceptional opportunity for the entrepreneurial-minded team: grow your franchise on an established, high-performance platform under a compensation plan that rewards both past as well as future performance.

Please contact us if you and your team are in a position to join our client at such an exciting time in their history.

If you are interested in exploring this opportunity, please let us know!!!

Jeff Bruckner,  Phone:(973) 761-5613 E: bruckner@issg.net 

Larry Janis,  Phone:(516)767-3030   E: janis@issg.net

Vice President- F&A, Procurement and OTC

The candidate must have leadership experience in spend analytics *strategic sourcing *operational procurement *contract management/recovery

This experience should span multiple industries and technology platforms in complex, global environments. The candidate will be a “forward-thinker” who will advance our capabilities and increase the value proposition for our clients. This includes experience and thought leadership with emerging technologies and solutions in areas such as spend analytics, market intelligence, automation and blockchain. The candidate must have strong client-facing experience in a business process outsourcing role.

Responsibilities to Include

  • Leadership Product Development Thought Leadership Development
  • Sales Collateral Development Solution Development / Proposal Development
  • Technology Requirements Development Client Partner and Sales Training
  • Delivery Assurance Partnership

Required

  • Minimum of 10 years of experience, or equivalence, in a procurement role including OTC and F&A with extensive strategic governance sourcing experience and increasing levels of responsibility.
  • Experience in strategic procurement and governance within complex spend categories including but not limited to; large capital equipment, professional services
  • Strong negotiation skills.
  • The ability to interact with executives and stakeholders at all levels of organization and deliver effective presentations.
  • Proven ability to manage competing agendas and priorities, and translate complex information across internal and external audiences.
  • Skilled at coaching, mentoring and developing staff.
  • Familiarity, experience and comfort level working closely with third party providers, consultants and contracted resources.
  • Strong financial acumen with consultative, analytical and problem solving skills
  • Some knowledge of business process outsourcing practices and experience managing contracted service provider deliverables, timelines and outputs against SOW and established KPI’s.

Professional Skills

  • Thorough understanding of the supplier landscape and interpretation of market trends within the identified categories listed above.
  • Demonstrated success with clients
  • Ability to develop and frequently refresh category market intelligence and insight tools to support internal sourcing teams and educate external client stakeholders
  • Ability to apply insights to customer’s situation for meaningful impact
  • Ability to influence and persuade senior level stakeholders
  • Effective coaching skills and ability to develop others
  • Ability to adapt to the varied corporate cultures and organizational structures of our customers
  • Ability to interface with customers and suppliers via strong written and verbal communications skills
  • Existing positive relationships within industries related to the identified categories listed above.
  • Strong sourcing knowledge to be able to translate category to sourcing strategy
  • Well-developed, solution-oriented selling skills
  • Proven ability to work creatively and analytically in a problem-solving environment
  • Ability to drive transformational change
  • Solid multi-phase project management skills
  • Strong ability to effectively manage in a matrix organizational structure working with multiple internal stakeholders
  • Exceptional track record of building relationships with stakeholders or customers that have resulted in high customer satisfaction

If you are interested, or know someone who might be, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Larry Janis

Managing Partner I Integrated Search Solutions Group

P-516-767-3030 I C-516-445-2377

ISSG I Twitter I LinkedIn

 

How Leaders Can Maximize Their Impact

by Henrik Bresman, INSEAD Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, and Deborah Ancona, Seley Distinguished Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

 

Effective leaders need to know whether their ‘people hat’ or ‘P&L hat’ fits most comfortably.

A leading supermarket chain in an eastern European Union country feared an 8 percent drop in sales as discounting giant Lidl was about to enter its market. So, in collaboration with researchers, it decided to run a randomised controlled experiment. The goal was to reduce its costly personnel turnover problem, in a bid to improve quality and operational efficiency. Selected store managers received a letter from top management, encouraging them to do something about the 90 percent yearly staff turnover. It worked: Over the next three quarters, the monthly quit rate fell by 20 to 30 percent. However, surprisingly, this vast improvement led to no discernible effect on the predefined performance metrics (sales and value of perished food). In interviews, the researchers found the explanation. As store managers focused more on HR issues, they spent less time interacting with customers (to increase sales) and dealing with the flow of goods (to reduce food wastage). (more…)