It is terrible to what extent the company tolerates abusive employees. I was shocked by that even when I first came here more than 10 years ago and I had a hard time adjusting. As far as that goes, nothing has changed.
It was very interesting to me that someone mentioned in one of the previous posts that Ford doesn’t have any big intentions to stop the abusive behavior of individual employees. I never understood why?
Elena Ford i wander if she did not have the last name if she even have a job at Ford? In my time at Ford I have had some really great bosses and some real bad piece of work bosses. As for a change in culture? Well they did that at Ford 2000 and look what that did to the company? Drove us to hire two outsiders to run the ship. Billy nor his family have no clue on how to run a company. In 06 his own cousins fired him. He has as much curisma as a blade of grass. I am sorry the guy does not have it nor anyone in his family. They were only lucky by way of gene pool. Ford was lucky with Allan but took a turn for the worst with the Hackett. Sorry Bill you maybe a nice guy but you are going to run the company into the ground.
It's old school Ford culture that goes back to the founding. The old boy network is alive and well. Alan was able to tamp it down for a few years but it never really went away. It's funny to me how Bill and the company love to shine their history and heritage, but one of ugliest legacies of the family history is how people in power abuse everyone below them.
DH and I were reminiscing over dinner about the woman who was the FC IT “change control coordinator” for years. Weekly we were treated to her tirades and abuse in the change control meeting. People stopped trying to help her because she had zero listening skills and non stop yelling, swearing and throwing people under the bus.
And oh my if there was a problem and we all had to gather on a conference call to resolve she would abuse everyone on the call, you didn’t even want to help fix the problem because she was so caustic. We use to bill double whenever we had to deal with her, and often sat on the problem solution for hours to just make her sweat. We referred to it as the axehat tax.
To hear the FC IT leadership talk she walked on water, I guess they admired her because they saw them selves reflected from her.
@1tkp+1bBYk13B Wow I had the same experience with 3 different LL6.
One of the LL6 conducted himself in the manner you described and two LL5 were in the meeting. I was stunned that the LL5 sat and allowed it. I finally spoke up and asked if we should reschedule the meeting when everyone was in a better mood. Several people snickered and finally one LL5 stated that the team should be more respectful of each other. After that the abusive LL6 started calling me a pxssy and my car had pxssy scratched on it.
Another LL6 got me called into HR because every time he was verbally abusive I hung up on him, or left the meeting. Apparently I was being respectful to him. The HR rep had no comment when I asked why she felt it was ok for the LL6 to be abusive.
The third LL6 abused people for over 30 years until he retired. It was a known problem and not a single LL5, LL4 or above addressed the problem.
I agree it starts with the top. Several in my team were verbally abused by Elena Ford. The Ford family may view abusive behavior as a sign of passion and energy. How else could Nasser have become CEO?
Bad behavior is tolerated to such an extent that it’s shocking. I had to interact with an LL6 from another team who was so abusive in meetings that people would stare at them in silent surprise. I’m talking about yelling, cursing and name calling. They used language that most adults wouldn’t use in a casual setting among close friends. After a few meetings like this I said I was going to end the meeting if we couldn’t have respectful discussions. I was the one who was called into my bosses’ office for a talking to and told to be more respectful to this person. I said “really, this person is abusive and vulgar and I get taken to task for respectfully asking for it to stop”. I wouldn’t choose friends who behave that way and I shouldn’t be expected to tolerate that behavior in a professional setting. It never came up again but it was surprising to see that behavior defended.
Why? Look no further than the top of the house. You don't get to those positions by being the best skilled, respectful, and talented. You get there by being narcissistic, willing to backstab, lie, throw people under the bus and steal their work and accomplishments. So once you are there, you see no problem with that behavior and view others that don't live that way as weak and less than. So in a twisted way they like the bad behavior and keep it going. It's just when they get caught and it's in the press it becomes a problem.