ere's a hypothetical business problem to
ponder: What do you do when your top executive, someone who has only been on the
job a short time yet has quickly revamped and revitalized the organization, has
a momentary moral lapse and gets involved romantically with a subordinate?
In America's 21st century business environment, there's an
easy, knee-jerk answer—you get rid of the executive involved, even if he (or she)
is doing a great job. That's what happened to American Red Cross president Mark
Everson, who resigned late last month after admitting that he had engaged in a personal
relationship with a subordinate.
For many, this is a cut-and-dried issue. After all, this is
not France. How can an executive, particularly the top executive, continue to command
the respect of the workforce after such a huge moral misstep? Wasn't the Red Cross
board right to call Everson on the carpet and force him out?
You might say yes, but surprisingly, a lot of America's business
press is seeing it a bit differently.
As The Wall Street Journal pointed out, "While CEOs sometimes
have relationships with subordinates, until recently it was rare for such behavior
to lead to a public dismissal." And The New York Times talked to Regina Rafferty,
a consultant to Red Cross donors, who was critical of the board's quick action.
"I'm sure there were sanctions," she told the Times, "that could have been
taken short of firing the man, which wasted the 18 months they spent searching
for him, any money spent on that search, and his six months' worth of learning."
Two experts on workplace romance, Stephanie Losee and Helaine
Olen, authors of Office Mate: The Employee Handbook for Finding—and Managing—Romance
on the Job, also questioned the seemingly precipitous decision by the Red Cross
board.
As they point out in an online column on the Huffington Post,
"The American Red Cross has been a troubled organization in recent years, and
more turmoil at the top is the last thing this worthy charity needs. …
Ironically Everson, who had only been on the job for six months, had won raves
for the agency's handling of this fall's California wildfires."
"If Everson was fired expressly for committing adultery with
a co-worker in spite of his objective success in his position, we'll be rather
disappointed with the Red Cross," Losee and Olen added. "People do stupid things at the behest of their
hearts. We don't need headline-making firings to serve as a modern-day version of
The Scarlet A," with a nod to Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel.
I can't believe I'm writing this, but I tend to agree with
the I authors that perhaps the Red Cross board was too hasty in pushing
Mark Everson out the door.
Yes, he showed terrible judgment here, but all reports say
that this was a consensual relationship between two adults who were married to others.
There's no threat of a lawsuit (according to the Times), nor are there accusations
of harassment or favoritism.
More important, Everson, a former commissioner of the Internal
Revenue Service, seemed to bring stability to the Red Cross, an organization that
had been through five chief executives in six years and was severely criticized
for its response to Hurricane Katrina. He "appeared to have brought a level of
stability to the Red Cross that it had not experienced in more than a decade,"
the Times wrote. "Even as he eliminated senior vice presidents and set what some
thought were overly ambitious fund-raising goals, employees said, he was
respectful of staff members and an ardent defender of the organization."
Leaders like that are hard to find. But more and more, it
seems that we prefer easy solutions to complex problems. Zero-tolerance policies
are just one example of how our society seems to prefer one-size-fits-all decision-making
that is preferable to actually thinking through an issue and weighing the consequences
of an action.
Relationships in the workplace are never easy, and they get
geometrically more difficult when there is sex involved. Everson made a bad decision,
but was it one that was so terrible that it should have cost him his job? I'm all
for decisiveness and strong leadership, but this seems like a hasty decision made
on the fly that the Red Cross board may ultimately come to regret.
Workforce Management, December 10, 2007, p. 58
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