A few weeks back one of my old friends told me how he was victimised and fired due to politics inside his company.
He was a senior designer in that company and quite good at his craft. Only the problem was he openly criticized his colleagues (even CEO) if he didn’t find something good. He is a sort of a perfectionist and cannot compromise with his work.
As you can understand such people are not easily accepted in a political culture where bureaucrats want to run affairs according to their suitability.
So, as expected in such situations, he was fired and insulted in front of his juniors.
I tried to sympathize with him by saying such things happen in a mediocre organization where bureaucrats are insecure of experts and politically incorrect people.
But he was disturbed. He didn’t expect such a kind of exit for a senior employee. Moreover, he was worried about how he would feed his family and pay monthly instalments of home and car loans. His livelihood was dependent on his fixed salary.
I wondered why nobody came to support him. He was working for a long time in this company and had some good friends in different departments.
Then he told me one incident which made me angry.
A few months back, the chairman of the company, who is living a retired life, called a meeting with some senior employees to understand why the company is going into losses.
Out of these senior employees, three had huge respect inside the company because of their expertise in their respective fields.
The worried chairman asked employees that recently he heard some complaints about favouritism, corruption, dirty politics inside the company. So, what were their views?
He specifically asked these three gems of the company to tell honestly without any fear what’s going on inside the company.
Sadly, these three senior employees, who are working for more than 10 years and consider this company as their family, gave wrong feedback.
The first employee said, “Well, I don’t see any problem inside the company. I never saw any kind of bad behaviour, mismanagement, groupism, biasing, etc.”
The second employee said, “I never heard any complaints from any of my colleagues. Not even a slight bitching. Everyone is very sweet to me.”
And the third employee said, “How do I know what’s going inside the company? I just do my work, never involved in any gossips, and speak to very limited people.”
Listening to all this made me furious because the company missed the golden chance to bring some reforms which could change the environment, bring some positivity, and increase the morale of mid and lower level employees.
But these three selfish corporate monkeys who are working for a long time tried to play safe. I’m not sure how long they can survive by acting dumb, deaf, and blind.
I sincerely want these corporate monkeys to remember this famous quote:
“He who does not oppose evil commands it to be done.”
– Leonardo Da Vinci
Click here to join my monthly newsletter Persuade and Grow Rich.
Vibhor Asri
Publisher & Editor
Persuade and Grow Rich
