The Uber Case: VP-HR or CEO? Who is accountable for culture? Where the buck stops
Susan Fowler has opened the much needed can of worms. While it raises questions on the imminent future of Uber, there are other very fundamental issues it raises.
Culture.
There is lot of rhetoric around it. But anyone who has been within organizations, will know that the real test of commitment to culture is when the pressure for numbers are high. That’s the time we see culture thrown out of the window. Anyone close to the startup world knows that entrepreneurs are so focussed (personal aspirations) or bogged down (investor pressure) with getting the “scale” and “revenue”, and culture is really the last thing on their mind. I have met a couple of entrepreneurs who keep these aspects in mind, even at the start of the venture — but (a) those are far and few (b) these are most likely the ones growing a business for keeps and not to sell
Culture, irrespective of what we say at conferences, is mostly dealt with as a “feel-good factor” to be focussed on when times are good.
What the Uber case demonstrates clearly is that a neglected culture has its own way of coming around and hitting the business hard, where it hurts the most (and in case of Uber when it hurts the most).
Now here’s the question I want to reflect upon.
Who is accountable for culture? VP-HR or CEO?
Culture is usually put into the HR bucket, being the touchy-feely type of thing.
But culture is less the outcome of the “posters”, “value cards”, and the “recognition” that HR puts out, and more the result of actual behaviors, ways of working and decision-making of the entire leadership.
This includes:
- VP of Operations
- VP of Sales
- VP of Product
- VP of Finance
- VP of Supply Chain
- VP of Marketing
- VP of HR
- VP of Whatever else the organization has appointed
Guess who has control and influence over the behaviors of all the above? VP-HR or CEO? The answer is obvious.
HR may facilitate or enable some aspects of culture, or advice as subject-matter experts. But even there CEO has a role to play.
CEOs hire the kind of Head-HR suited to their purpose. So to the extent HR may influence culture, culture gets decided in the very hiring of the VP-HR.
And there are all kinds of VP-HRs. You have the competent, brave, critical thinking types. You also have the “yes-man” types.
HR is a strange function in some ways. It has no power of its own. But anyone who wants power in the organization, needs power over HR.
In organizations driven by fear, dominance and authority, control is driven through processes of performance management. Even in Susan’s case, in her blog, she mentions that finally her performance rating is manipulated, further impacting her eligibility to a sponsored education program. Performance Management, promotions, firing employees — are all HR functions — and hence CEOs interested in ‘controlling’ organizations rather than ‘leading’ it, tend to hire ‘weak’ HR heads. Sometimes, someone even doubles up (usually VP Marketing or Admin) as the Head-HR. The role may not even report to the CEO directly.
There are enough cases where competent HR-Heads are forced to move on, not despite being good, but because they were good.
(The same holds good for other leadership functions too)
There are some HR roles that even the best B-Schools don’t prepare you for, if you happen to get stuck in such an organization
And those are roles of playing a:
- Rubber stamp
- Shoulder over which dirty shots will be played
- Becoming the ‘small fish’ that gets slaughtered to save the ‘bigger ones’ when crisis strikes
Now do we sympathise with the VP-HR of Uber? If Susan Fowler’s reports are validated, absolutely not.
Professionals who lend themselves to a purpose that belittles human dignity are a shame to their profession and fraternity. That includes the VP-HR.
If someone wants to use you as a rubber stamp, or asks you to turn a blind eye, and you have agreed to play the part — you are accountable for that choice.
So for every time a complaint was brought to Uber HR, as an appeal body, and it was swept under the carpet or the complainant was actively discouraged or even put under stress, the VP HR is accountable.
However, there is one person who has even more difficult questions to answer. The CEO.
Let us take the Uber example. Some articles seem to be somewhat hailing the CEO for having responded fast. Seriously.. fast? How about these:
- If things were so bad, and for so long — how come the CEO has no drift of it? (Is that even possible)
- If no (I still find that almost impossible to believe) did the CEO have no interest in knowing about people matters? He was not in touch with his people? Did he never review any other ‘number’ apart from revenue? (Susan mentions the sudden and sharp dip in the number of women engineers — just that statistic should have raised alarm) And what do all these say about the kind of leader the CEO is? Even feigning ignorance of everything raises serious questions on the nature of leadership in Uber.
- If yes — well why did the CEO not do anything about it? And what does that say about the person and leader the CEO is?
A good example of what a leader committed to values will do in such case is that of Phaneesh Murthy’s termination from Infosys. He was sacked. Period. How many times did we hear VP-HR’s name doing the rounds in that case?
This was despite Phaneesh being one of the brightest minds of Indian IT, one whose exit was said to be a serious blow to Infosys, as per media reports. This is a stark contrast to the Uber Case as written by Susan, where blatant acts were ignored because some manager was a “good performer”.
Perhaps Travis Kalanick would have benefitted from taking some inspiration from Narayan Murthy.
Just that one termination, without flinching, sent a strong message out. “You could be good, and even close to the CEO, but some things are just not acceptable.”
At the start of the blog, when I said that culture is a result of behaviors, ways of working and decisions of leadership, this is one example of it.
In Uber’s case, it seems the PR story is around — it was a Human Resource problem, and the CEO somehow is getting kudos for “quick action”. Something’s amiss.
If VP-HR of Uber is found guilty, please sack the person, or whatever appropriate. But let that not divert attention from the person who has more serious answering to do; the CEO himself.
Because when it comes to culture, that is where the buck stops.
