Corporate Cholesterol- The Killer of Productive Professionals
In common parlance, cholesterol clogs your arteries, not quickly, but very slowly. So slowly that you probably don’t even realise it’s happening. It’s even possible to appear quite healthy, but have arteries clogged to the point of near death.
Most of us are aware of what Cholesterol does. However, my topic of discussion is not about Cholesterol, but a concept widely used now- “ Corporate Cholesterol”. Based on my own experience & detailed interviews with some of private sector employees, I have understood that this plague is spreading across various organisations. To a larger extent, it is to do with appointment of wrong & incompetent people at apex/top level who are probably connected to top management/BOD.
These carriers of corporate cholesterol use their power & influence to take undesirable/not so business friendly decisions, are not collaborative, hire their connects/compliance at key positions, promote their preferred/blue eyed employees & support them in all manipulative/unethical acts.
These so called blue eyed compliances will create an environment of negativity & distrust within their department/team to have a better bargaining power. They would use the fear/threat of job loss in mind of their team members to get the things rolling in their favor. The team members who maintain status quo & favor/pamper these undesirable managers will get high increment, promotions & job enrichment.
Needless to mention that skill set/expertise of these employees are not even considered. On the other hand, some of competent employees who not only are better educated, highly skilled & carry quality experience, but also capable of replacing these blue eyed managers, face major havoc. These competent professionals question the status quo & are carriers of firm belief that one man can make the difference. The manipulative managers will do everything to protect their position & spoil career of these competent professionals. Even incompetent apex level managers will support their blue eyed compliances to maintain their false image & reputation.
Ultimately it is the Corporations that not only lose key resources & manpower, but also suffer from loss of credibility. If we analyse correctly, designing of ethical practices in corporations is more to do with deployment of hiring strategy & analysis of potential fit of a prospective employee with the corporation on key parameters such as corporate culture, background & mutually beneficial value creation perspective. Last but not the least, it is also important for corporations to understand that the way in which they formulate business strategies to maximise customer lifetime value, employee lifetime value is also an important KPI for overall growth & longevity of their business.
Author is a corporate professional turned entrepreneur & the article is based on his real time experience while working with previous organisation(s).