Bogota, Collateral Damage

A 150 year old private club, 30 foot swaying plantation palms, heavy wood panelling, white gloved waiters, and incredible salsa. Often called Latin jazz, coming from a ten piece band of old school, tuxedoed musicians. It just rolls and rolls, endless.

Downtown Bogota, Colombia, five days ago, Saturday, I attended a wedding. Fabulous food, great wines, and some guests in tuxedos. You’re right, I won’t wear a tuxedo. We danced till dawn, at midnight more food came out—for strength, I’m told. The masquerade masks came out and the music went mini carnival. Samba, mindless, endless samba. Amazing.

But this story is really about the trip to the wedding. Imagine Bogota traffic, (think Cairo rush-hour). Two lane roads with four lanes of cars, trucks, busses and motorcycles squeezed into them. Tight. We’re barely moving, - then an explosion. Darn, my kids told me I shouldn’t go, and now they’re right.

Our host froze. His wife, who hadn’t stopped talking for five days, - suddenly stopped talking. I knew we had problems. When a Latino woman stops talking, something serious has happened. All the drivers around us reacted. The cabbie ahead stuck his head out the window. Another driver got out, lowered himself behind his car and checked out where the sound came from. The bus driver looked around and reached for his phone, (I think it was his phone). The entire scene was hundreds of very anxious, edgy, stressed, worried motorists wondering if Bogota had returned to the old cartel days. Ten years ago they had a bomb every week. They had not forgotten.

I’m Canadian, I have no clue. To me it’s a car that needs a tune-up, backfiring. What, me worry? It took my brain a couple of cycles to compute what had happened, the idea that everyone first thought bomb, etc.. Two cars back we saw a steam geyser coming out of Renault four. Blown radiator.

Later that day I thought about the effect bad managers have on companies. Bogota hasn’t really had drug bombings for ten years, but the memory won’t go away. When companies have bad managers, long after they’re gone the memory won’t go away either. Companies don’t change just because the bad guy got axed.

If you have a bad manager fire him today because you’ll be dealing with his residual damage for the next ten years. Employees and company culture stays the same for a very long time after bad managers leave. Shorten your recovery time line, deal with the problem today. Fire somebody.

Travelling to Bogota and attending this wedding might just be one of the highlights of my life. Salsa dancing at 2:00 am, with a hundred other revellers. I’ll not forget it.

Since I wasn’t kidnapped our May seminar is still on. Don’t wrinkle your nose at the title. The book made New York times bestseller business book status, was featured in Harvard Business Review. And yes, the subject is, “The No As*hole Rule.” About bad people at work and how to deal with them.

Be there, I’ll bring some old salsa to play before the seminar.

See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang

P.s. Why not wear a tuxedo? A couple of reasons.

First, you should never look like somebody helped you get dressed. That goes for any kind of clothing. If you’re wearing a tux, everybody knows you had help.

Secondly, men don’t wear tuxedos. Tuxedos always wear the man.

Third, the idea behind tuxedos is not to make you look good but to keep the usual ten idiots who would normally dress like a 70’s weatherman, from ruining the look of the party. Herringbone, yellow tweed jackets on brindle diaper brown pants, with a lime green tie. You know the type. The tux is not for you, it’s for the socially challenged.

How Linkedin is Threatening Old Boy Favouritism.

A feral mind is only interesting at first. I was thinking about Linkedin. Is their objective to connect everybody in the world to everybody else? To get everyone saying good things (recommendations) about everybody else? I thought that was Oprah’s job.

I suspect Linkedin is the e version of business going bad. Isn't the whole "friends deal with friends" the problem with India and the rest of the third world? The Commonwealth Games 2010, (Delhi) cost $13 billion dollars, a quarter of which is said to have gone as payoffs to officials and those involved in administrating the contracts. That's the LinkedIn business model, where friends buy from friends.


The Delhi bridge structure collapsed, because someone's brother in law got the contract. It happens brother in law doesn't believe in rebar, but so what, he’s family. LinkedIn wants us to buy from people we know, even if they don't use steel rebar. They’re from our LinkedIn family!

If I recommend you on LinkedIn, does that make you good? The forerunner to LinkedIn was called bribery and nepotism. That seemed to work well, why change it? LinkedIn took it online and is now charging you to give and receive recommendations, taking favouritism to a whole new level!

A problem difference between how the first and the third world do business is our desire for competence vs. favouritism. A good manager hires for skills and experience, not nepotism or old boy network status. LinkedIn is taking us backwards, but they're using technology to do it. How clever.

March 16th, join me and 120 great feral managers. You might not agree with everything, but you will become a better manager!

See you for breakfast,
Wolfgang

p.s. With the exception of sales and business owners, sure why not. I have a LinkedIn page also; it's just one more brochure. It's another web presence. The idea of recommendations and connections, or to read when people are leaving Kansas, (via Tripit) is Twitter territory. (Avoiding the inane when discussing social media is getting tougher.)