Do What You're Told
2022 Reflection: As I look back at this particular case at Nortel, I see now that it draws a direct line back to the Anderson case. It was The Boulder writ large. Without even thinking about it, I was determined to be a reformer, to do some whistle-blowing in the face of powerful interests. I would take on the Man. The U of M had rebuffed me and others. It had even punished good people for attempting to do the right thing. But here I was, in the middle 1990s, faced with an ethical . . . or even legal . . . challenge that was probably even bigger than the Anderson case at the U of M. Not bigger in the sense of how many people were affected; but bigger in terms of how an entire system, including a lot of my trusted friends, combined to put people like me down. All I did was ask some questions. I pointed to policy, to ethics, to best practices. I asked for advice. But I got roundly abandoned, in the end, by everybody. The system, the hierarchy of Nortel Networks, circled the wagons and protected itself from a lowly middle manager (me).
This is the pattern that I noticed in my own limited spheres. The problem of wrong being tolerated, embraced, and enabled, by large masses of people, was becoming very clear to me now.
The Nortel case would be another loss for me. It would be followed by a series of smaller engagements, but all along the same lines. And I would lose. Every time.
It didn't take long for me to be faced with my first ethical challenge, and it was a big one. By attempting to do the Right Thing, I communicated across the board, to all the stakeholders. I pursued consensus. My solution to the problem resulted in the early termination of my career in Corporate USA. It had a rippling effect, with unfortunate consequences in every area of my life.
It was the state of our culture in the 1990s, where high ethics were not valued and rewarded. It was the root of frustrations across the board. Combined with countless similar situations throughout our society and economy, it occupies a point on a straight line heading directly to the problems of 2020.
In 1994, I was offered one of the best assignments of my career: To be the US Manager of Nortel's Marketing Leadership Development Program. This was the program that hired me in to the company. I would be responsible for recruiting, hiring, and then developing new Marketing management employees, directly from strategic MBA programs.
I reported into Bertha Bartra, a Director of Strategic Marketing Programs. She was based in Raleigh, North Carolina. I remained in Atlanta. I had staff in Atlanta, Raleigh, Nashville, and Dallas. I directed two successive recruiting cycles over two years, and put together employee orientations for my hires. I hired according to diversity best-practices. I paid no attention to any written requirements regarding hiring. I hired for diversity because it's the right thing to do, and good for business.
I completed a one-week management training program, in Toronto, along with a couple dozen new managers from throughout the world. The objectives of this course included a half day on managing for civil rights and diversity. A representative from Human Resources was brought in to present this topic.
She made a statement which is one of the couple of things that I remember distinctly, twenty-five years later. She said that, when it comes to Civil Rights law in hiring and management, especially in the US, that if we got ourselves into any kind of trouble in Civil Rights, it was the company's policy not to defend us. We would be completely on our own.
Of course this idea stuck with me. So, it was possible to be set-up by a co-worker, or disappointed job candidate. If senior management wanted an easy way to get rid of an employee with a good record, things could be manipulated to show them the door, via the very sensitive area of civil rights and employment law.
And I had a good record. Bertha gave me two excellent performance reviews, two years in a row. I exceeded my objectives, completed my assignments. The company awarded me $500 of stock options.
In late 1995, I was wrapping up a successful recruiting season. I had hired something like seven very good new MLDPs. All of my targets were hit. But there was one very good candidate from UCLA, that ardently wanted to work for Nortel. He had a great record. He had worked in Telecom prior to receiving his MBA. He did all the right things. He followed up professionally. Provided everything that we requested, and more. He was cordial and competent.
He was African American.
I tried to get approval to hire him. But I had exhausted my salary budget for that year. I placed a call to him, and said that I was sorry, I simply did not have the budget to hire any more new candidates. I wished him all the best.
And moved on.
But, about a month later, I received a call from a high level Senior Vice President in Sales, from Nortel. He was the lead Sales Executive for the GTE Strategic Account. They were trying to close a huge deal for the company. He directed me, point-blank, to hire a certain daughter of one of the GTE executives, into the MLDP.
We had just completed our program policy manual, which stated clearly that we only hired from a set of strategic colleges. We only hired MBAs. Our recruits would have superior grades. They would have some experience in a technical field. A BA in engineering or business was preferable. And they had to have a Marketing emphasis in their MBA.
This employee's daughter had a GPA below a 3.0. She only had a BA, and it was from a secondary college that was not on our list. She also added very little to us in terms of our diversity goals. She was a family member of a major customer. That's all.
I stalled, and balked. I told the SVP that I could not hire this person, because we had no budget and I just turned down a qualified minority candidate. I asked him, perhaps foolishly, why didn't he just hire her into his organization? He called Bertha, my manager. He called her manager. He called his manager. A handful of other high-level leaders contacted me. They wanted me to hire her.
Bertha said to do what I thought best, and that she would watch my back.
I thought about the company's policy regarding Civil Rights. I thought about the outstanding UCLA MBA student. I thought about my own sense of personal ethics. I thought about my life goal: to be the conscience of a large corporation. I thought about my first-born child, that was then only months old. One November day, in Georgia, as I was out mowing my one-acre lawn with a push mower, it occurred to me, to do what my Dad would do. I would make a decision, using my own instincts. I would do the right thing. My wife forcefully urged me not to make the nepotistic hire.
The next month would be engaged in finding a solution to this problem.
NEXT: The Solution
It was the state of our culture in the 1990s, where high ethics were not valued and rewarded. It was the root of frustrations across the board. Combined with countless similar situations throughout our society and economy, it occupies a point on a straight line heading directly to the problems of 2020.
In 1994, I was offered one of the best assignments of my career: To be the US Manager of Nortel's Marketing Leadership Development Program. This was the program that hired me in to the company. I would be responsible for recruiting, hiring, and then developing new Marketing management employees, directly from strategic MBA programs.
I reported into Bertha Bartra, a Director of Strategic Marketing Programs. She was based in Raleigh, North Carolina. I remained in Atlanta. I had staff in Atlanta, Raleigh, Nashville, and Dallas. I directed two successive recruiting cycles over two years, and put together employee orientations for my hires. I hired according to diversity best-practices. I paid no attention to any written requirements regarding hiring. I hired for diversity because it's the right thing to do, and good for business.
I completed a one-week management training program, in Toronto, along with a couple dozen new managers from throughout the world. The objectives of this course included a half day on managing for civil rights and diversity. A representative from Human Resources was brought in to present this topic.
She made a statement which is one of the couple of things that I remember distinctly, twenty-five years later. She said that, when it comes to Civil Rights law in hiring and management, especially in the US, that if we got ourselves into any kind of trouble in Civil Rights, it was the company's policy not to defend us. We would be completely on our own.
Of course this idea stuck with me. So, it was possible to be set-up by a co-worker, or disappointed job candidate. If senior management wanted an easy way to get rid of an employee with a good record, things could be manipulated to show them the door, via the very sensitive area of civil rights and employment law.
And I had a good record. Bertha gave me two excellent performance reviews, two years in a row. I exceeded my objectives, completed my assignments. The company awarded me $500 of stock options.
In late 1995, I was wrapping up a successful recruiting season. I had hired something like seven very good new MLDPs. All of my targets were hit. But there was one very good candidate from UCLA, that ardently wanted to work for Nortel. He had a great record. He had worked in Telecom prior to receiving his MBA. He did all the right things. He followed up professionally. Provided everything that we requested, and more. He was cordial and competent.
He was African American.
I tried to get approval to hire him. But I had exhausted my salary budget for that year. I placed a call to him, and said that I was sorry, I simply did not have the budget to hire any more new candidates. I wished him all the best.
And moved on.
But, about a month later, I received a call from a high level Senior Vice President in Sales, from Nortel. He was the lead Sales Executive for the GTE Strategic Account. They were trying to close a huge deal for the company. He directed me, point-blank, to hire a certain daughter of one of the GTE executives, into the MLDP.
We had just completed our program policy manual, which stated clearly that we only hired from a set of strategic colleges. We only hired MBAs. Our recruits would have superior grades. They would have some experience in a technical field. A BA in engineering or business was preferable. And they had to have a Marketing emphasis in their MBA.
This employee's daughter had a GPA below a 3.0. She only had a BA, and it was from a secondary college that was not on our list. She also added very little to us in terms of our diversity goals. She was a family member of a major customer. That's all.
I stalled, and balked. I told the SVP that I could not hire this person, because we had no budget and I just turned down a qualified minority candidate. I asked him, perhaps foolishly, why didn't he just hire her into his organization? He called Bertha, my manager. He called her manager. He called his manager. A handful of other high-level leaders contacted me. They wanted me to hire her.
Bertha said to do what I thought best, and that she would watch my back.
I thought about the company's policy regarding Civil Rights. I thought about the outstanding UCLA MBA student. I thought about my own sense of personal ethics. I thought about my life goal: to be the conscience of a large corporation. I thought about my first-born child, that was then only months old. One November day, in Georgia, as I was out mowing my one-acre lawn with a push mower, it occurred to me, to do what my Dad would do. I would make a decision, using my own instincts. I would do the right thing. My wife forcefully urged me not to make the nepotistic hire.
The next month would be engaged in finding a solution to this problem.
NEXT: The Solution
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