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It’s been a mixed week. On the one hand we’ve got some great advice from some of the brightest managers in tech, some reassuring tips on how you can manage stress, and an excellent practical step you can take in mentoring people. On the other, it’s been a difficult week for leaders at McKinsey and Microsoft as they navigated some awkward political dynamics (partly of their own making). We see what lessons can be learned there too.
Let’s get started.
At Kommon, we like learning from the experiences of other managers. Fortunately, last week it was LeadDev Live, a virtual event hosted by LeadDev, a fantastic community of engineering leaders.
There were various diverse, candid panels on all aspects of management, from an incredible range of companies. We learned a huge amount. We wanted to make sure you did too so put together some quick takeaways for our readers and their teams.
With a title like that, excuse us whilst we try and wrestle the lid back down on this giant can of worms.
Sorry to disappoint but we will not be spending the next paragraphs passing moral judgement on either of these two companies. Fun though that might be. But we are going to talk about some political PR pickles that both companies got into this week, and some lessons there for managers.
Before we get into detail, some useful background. It’s convenient that this week the Harvard Business Review chose to publish research from Bea Boccalandro, a consultant and lecturer at Georgetown University on ‘Why Your Values Belong at Work.’ She found that those who feel they have social purpose in the workplace are more satisfied, productive, calm, healthier and happier.
We don’t have the expertise to fully critique the research, but the conclusion that working with social purpose is better than slaving away for the dark gods of capitalism sounds about right.
Which brings us to McKinsey and Microsoft, who this week were confronted by issues which potentially undermined their claims to this kind of social purpose.
In Moscow, as opposition figures called for political demonstrations, the managing partner of the local McKinsey office sent an orwellian email to staff stating “McKinsey employees must not support any political activity either publicly or privately” and asking them to “stay safe, stay neutral, enjoy weekend” by staying away from the marches.
This was swiftly followed by a “clarification” email that “McKinsey supports its employees' rights to participate legally and in a personal capacity in civic and political activities across the countries we operate. The recognition of these rights is unqualified.”
The second email may have had something to do with the outrage from human rights activists, journalists, employees and even US Senator Marco Rubio. The two emails are below in full:
As for Microsoft, Maciej Cegłowski, a Polish-American entrepreneur and speaker, obtained a copy of President Brad Smith’s remarks from an employee meeting on 21 January about some of their corporate donations (following the leak, Microsoft also released the remarks in full).
Like many other companies, Microsoft has halted donations from its political action committee (PAC) to members of US congress whilst it works out a policy for whether or not it should give to those who voted against the certification of the 2020 US election results.
In his remarks, Smith mused on whether it was still important to even have a PAC. You can read his remarks but he essentially said yes, because without it, Microsoft wouldn’t be able to influence the political process in their or their employees’ interests. As many noted, this policy of helping elect politicians with whom you disagree so you can influence them might be improved by instead not helping elect them in the first place. Some employees were reportedly unimpressed.
Corporate actions like this potentially undermine the social purpose we discussed earlier (potentially making employees less satisfied, productive, calm, healthier and happier). Particularly when employers may have tried to previously heighten that sense of social purpose.
The tension can be seen in anonymous statements that various Microsoft employees gave to Judd Legum, an investigative journalist.
‘"Microsoft has done amazing work and contributed to so many worthy causes. But they're literally undoing their own work and undermining their own environmental and social justice initiatives with this pattern of donations"
One employee said Microsoft, in general, is "a great company culturally" but "the PAC is a major WTF."
Our management expertise extends to telling you that the less major WTFs on your team, the better.
Resolving political tensions between employees and their employers is complex and specific, and we’re not going to try and provide all the answers here. But...
Firstly, if you happen to be in a relevant decision-making role, you might see aspects of these events that you’d prefer to avoid and lessons to learn. But even if you’re not, these two incidents remind us of some of the basics that all managers can try and do in these circumstances.
For companies whose business entails engaging with governments, this will keep happening and there will be some muddling through when controversies clash with business objectives. There is potentially no better illustration of this tension than the Microsoft blog, which managed to arrange Smith’s remarks next to a call for more ethical business practices (on a separate issue!).
Clearly, there is room for compromise, and leaders will have to learn to manage it.
We’ll stick our necks out and bet that as a manager, at some point you or someone on your team has experienced stress.
It’s a generic and not particularly helpful term. We know what we mean when we say it, but it’s not always very clear what to do about it.
This week Dan Shipper, an entrepreneur and writer, published an article on stress drawing from the work of Robert M. Sapolsky, a stress researcher. Often articles like this are too general, and somewhat patronising (‘have you considered working less and sleeping more?’), but we were pleasantly surprised.
According to Shipper, Sapolsky’s work focuses on observing stress in animals - the title of his book is Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers - and then learning lessons for humans about whether stress is bad and what we should do about it. His answer:
“it’s great to push yourself—but you should be paying attention to the signs that tell you that you need a break. And it’s to give yourself plenty of ways to manage stress while you’re going through it, so that it doesn’t affect you as badly as it could… Stress isn’t mathematical. Expose the same person to the same stressor and they will have different stress responses based on their coping strategies.”
What we found really interesting was that the coping measures he suggested chimed with our experience of managing stress (even if we didn’t realise we were following scientific advice at the time). They’re a good reminder of practices you can observe and may be able to suggest to your team.
We’re often told that mentoring is a big part of being a manager. But it can be tricky to know what that actually looks like in practice and make a start.
We’re not going to give you a full guide to mentoring here (although we could do if you want - let us know), but we are going to highlight one thing you could do today. Use your network.
This was inspired this week by Leigh-Ann Buchanan. She’s a writer, strategist and community builder, who was interviewed by Sherrell Dorsey, entrepreneur and founder of The Plug. In it she spoke about the young leaders she works with through the Nyah Project and how she actively uses her network to connect them with relevant people who can help grow their career.
This is something we could all probably do more of. Do you know someone who a team member would benefit from having a conversation with? It doesn’t have to be life-changing. Just to provide some additional perspective and a new professional connection. We bet you probably do.
One of the (very small) silver linings of the past year, is that people have got more used to connecting professionally over video, and have been more willing to take a call. Combine that dynamic with your network and your team to see if you can create an opportunity for someone.
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