MEET THE NEW BOSS, SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

The new boss comes in to change things, to do what the old boss couldn’t do.

Whether it’s changing the order of operations, the culture, or cutting expenses, it’s a job someone has to do.

If you’ve worked in a place during the transition from the old ways to new, you know what happens:

People take sides when there isn’t a choice to be made.

Change from old to new happens every day in every corner of the world.

Like a marriage vow, the results come in for better or worse.

Better means the boss might stick around; worse means there’s been a mistake.

It gets dicey when the old boss feels like they weren’t given a fair shake.

Things take a turn for the worse when the old boss is an icon in the community and the new guy feels threatened.

What happens when you take over for the guy who built a beloved local institution into a world-class success?

First, identify your allies. Hopefully the new guy knows better than to suck up to those who hired them.

You’re already hired, buddy, now get to work and take the staff along on your journey.

Share your vision so it can trickle down from top to bottom.

Loyalty and respect will follow with the buy in.

Instead of reminding everyone who you are, find ways to join them in their work on an ongoing basis.

You learn about them, they learn about you.

What you want them to learn is how capable you are, that with their help you’ll all get better.

A good company is staffed with people who know they’ll get better too, as in ‘a rising tide lifts all boats.’

 

New Boss Sends The Right Message?

Let’s remember that workers usually know change is coming, then it’s here.

They don’t need constant reminding, and if they do they might need to find a different line of work.

Whether it’s a new executive director, department head, or shop foreman, the new guy has no way of telling who to trust.

It’s either trust no one, or trust everyone.

Trust no one if the search committee who hired you didn’t give a heads up on how much the old guy was ingrained into the company that reflects his values.

The old guys in their old ways can trust everyone because they hired everyone.

If the new guy has emotional stability, they can win the staff over to their side.

If they are unstable, they might withdraw instead of opening up.

They might hide away when they should be visible.

That’s when every question becomes a challenge to their authority, and they respond in kind.

Trust everyone if you come from an environment that promotes innovation and achievement.

Build that trust and you’ll have great results.

 

When The Old Boss Loses Trust

From the National WWII Museum:

 

“The man who once boasted that he was going to restore the glories of ancient Rome,” wrote the Times, “is now a corpse in a public square in Milan, with a howling mob cursing and kicking and spitting on his remains.”

Indeed, the scene was grisly: the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci dangling upside down by their heels in front of a gas station in Milan’s Piazzale Loreto.

He called himself the Duce, from the old Latin word dux (“chief” or “boss”). He had a party behind him, of course, the Fascists, and he could call on squads of tough guys in blackshirt uniform (Camicie Nere) to beat down his opponents.

He built up an elaborate cult of personality around himself. News photos regularly showed him in a position of command, riding on horseback, flying an airplane, or driving a high-performance race car.

He would strip to the waist to address farmers in the hot sun or pose wrestling with a lion cub.

It was even forbidden to publish a picture of him smiling or to print the word DUCE in anything but uppercase letters.

A simple slogan summed it up: “Il DUCE,” the Italian people were told, “ha sempre ragione!” (“The Duce is always right!”).

Unlike traditional dictatorships, which demanded passive obedience, Mussolini’s total state demanded constant involvement, even enthusiasm, for the regime.

And if you failed to look enthusiastic enough or failed to conform in any number of ways, there was an all-seeing secret police force, called the OVRA, lurking in the background, arresting, beating, and killing opponents of the regime.

 

This describes the top picture in this section:

 

A maddened crowd howling epithets of hatred and derision. Cursing. Spitting on the corpses.

A woman stepping forward and pumping five bullets into his body—“for my five dead sons,” she said.

Some of these same folk had probably chanted “Duce! Duce!” once upon a time, perhaps not so long ago. 

 

If the old or new boss screws up beyond all expectations, they don’t deserve this treatment.

It is barbaric and wrong to treat people like a side of beef hung up to ‘cure.’

My wish for humanity is that no one should be abused, whether alive or dead.

 

100 Years Later?

History is unforgiving.

Things happen, people write about it, and it’s called history.

What happens when individuals try and manipulate history more to their liking?

“This is what happened because I say it’s what happened and that’s all you need to know.”

What happens after that?

Some dusty old fart lifts the curtain to show what happened, not what some goofball says happened.

As a writer, a blogger, I enjoy the heck out of peeling back the layers of misinformation and wishes for better outcomes.

My baby boomer history has plenty of gaps millennials fall into.

Once they get a taste for bullshit, without checking sources, it’s easier for some nefarious character to spoon more onto their plate.

To which to the proper response is, “Thank you sir, may I have some more?”

Nooo, the proper response is making a note of the topic so you can look it up on your own, so you can look it up on your phone.

You don’t need to gag on what you know is false. Don’t take it that far.

If something looks wrongs, smells wrong, and it comes from an unreliable narrator, go ahead and find the curtain and give it a lift and see for yourself.

 

PS: In order for wrong messaging and outright lies to land in their intended places you need a mouthpiece, a skilled media man in a high place of authority, to engage the disengaged who are more than willing to believe anything issued by their hero.

 

PSS: There’s a somber reminder for the price of loyalty when the hero is turned out and the media man, the Minister for Public Enlightenment, dies with his wife after poisoning their six children. Some people say that’s going too far.

 

It is going too far, way too far, when suicide is a viable retirement option.