Grappling with the Gray
Are you ethical? Join Rabbi Yonason Goldson and his panel of thinkers as they grapple with a new ethical challenge each week. Only by contemplating all sides and every angle can we improve ethical decision-making, build more trusting relationships, and help create a more ethical world.
Grappling with the Gray
Grappling with the Gray #121: Race to the bottom?
What happens when employees perceive a scalpel as an axe?
That's the question that drives the conversation when Tom Gegax joins me to Grapple with the Gray and Kirsten Yurich sits in as cohost.
Here is our topic:
Employee performance, especially in large companies, is likely to follow the bell curve. A few superstars, a lot of solid performers, and a few underperformers. Amazon has developed an innovative way of dealing with the third group: it’s called the Pivot Program.
Employees who do not meet management performance expectations are given three options:
1) Leave with a severance package.
2) Accept entry into the Pivot program to help them “improve” and remain at Amazon.
3) If they fail to convince their manager that they have “improved,” then they can appeal.
At each stage the worker is offered a progressively lower severance payment in return for a release of claims and promise not to sue.
The consensus on Reddit is that the Pivot program is designed to coerce employees to quit while fabricating evidence to defend firing them if they don’t. It is described as humiliating for employees who go through it and toxic for employees who fear they might have to. The claim is that employees rarely, or never, pass the program.
Certainly, companies need to have some process for dealing with employees who are not meeting expectations. Is Amazon’s model intrinsically flawed, or are underperforming employees merely bitter? In general, how can leaders preserve employee dignity while maintaining performance standards?
On this special episode, I'm joined by Tom Gegax, former CEO of Tires Plus, Chairman of Gramercy Fund--a socially responsible venture capital fund--and focus of the film ‘Confessions of a CEO’: Blowing the Whistle on Corporate America,’ which features Robert Kennedy Jr., Deepak Chopra, and Blue Zones founder Dan Buettner.
Described as a pioneer, a renaissance man, and a real life Forest Gump, Tom narrates his personal transformation from a toxic CEO to a visionary leader advocating for healthier company culture and more responsible leadership in business and government. His campaign for personal responsibility and corporate accountability made him irresistible to me, and I feel privileged to have him as a guest.
As you will hear, Tom has vocal chord damage from radiation treatment for cancer. But his message is too important to let that get in the way.
Kirsten Yurich is an Organizational Performance Management Consultant, Peer Leaders Group Chair with Vistage Worldwide, Inc., and Adjunct Professor of Education at Felician University.