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She fought for us, when there was an issue she cared and sought to understand, she understood that family comes first before work (and lived the example), she p
by stevetursi 8y ago
She fought for us, when there was an issue she cared and sought to understand, she understood that family comes first before work (and lived the example), she protected us from the politics of the large organization, and she did whatever she could to obtain the resources we needed to do the job (a nearly impossible task at that company.) She had a 100-200 people on her staff yet she always made time to meet with whoever wanted to meet with her, and proactively scheduled quarterly skip levels with each person.
When the company's executives forced her to fire 95% of her staff, I can only imagine the turmoil she went through. She fought like hell to keep it from happening and then they overruled her and made her do the dirty work. She was also tasked with making sure we trained our replacements - IBM consultants in India. In doing so she gave us everything we needed (ie time to go on job interviews or take online courses) and was very clear that she was on our side, likely in defiance of company brass.
As a result, before the layoffs, we were good - easily the most advanced, innovative, and best performing group in the company. We really pushed the envelope despite strong forces outside our group pushing the other way. We were strapped for resources but we always made things work. She refused to take credit for it - "It's because of you guys; I'm really lucky to have an amazing team" but we knew better. We were really lucky to have an amazing boss.
I was always appreciative of her but after that experience of being laid off which was in early 2016 I feel such a strong sense of loyalty to her that if she got a job running a trash dump I would not hesitate to quit my current job (which is great) and go work for her picking through shit for minimum wage, just to be on her team again.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- bentoscher 8y ago“Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone. Kindness in another's trouble, Courage in your own.” - Adam Lindsay Gordon
- roystonvassey 8y agoThat’s a beautiful stoic+ thought
- stopyellingatme 8y agoThat is a beautiful quote. Thank you.
- bentoscher 8y agoYou are most welcome.
- bane 8y ago> She fought for us That seems to be the theme with me as well, all of my best managers and supervisors shared this trait even if I disagreed with them in other ways.
- dharmab 8y agoA good manager in a large org is like a representative in a legislature; they have a responsibility to represent their teams interests in the wider org.
- siruncledrew 8y agoIt's good to see an altruistic manager fight their bosses in order to keep their subordinates happy. That's the kind of representation you want. Other managers could have said "Well, sucks for them", and just let everyone get fired in order to stay in good favor with the company's executives.
- ospider 8y agoNo offense, but I was thinking that does good manger always lead to a better result? I mean, as far as the CEO concerned, good mangers should give better results.
- stevetursi 8y agoI don't know if it's always the case, but she believed it was. It's probably no coincidence that her team always did whatever it took to produce exceptional results.
- andrei_says_ 8y agoThank you for this. Shows how toxic large organizations can get and how much (but also how little) influence a manager can have. Corporations are by design inhumane but humans can change this, often resulting in better performance. So, being inhumane is lazy and bad roi :)