So Much For Self-Awareness

I work for a software company headquartered on the west coast of the US. The company acquired a smaller company and merged my business unit with the acquisition. The acquired company was located in the South, and the owner and founder was an ex-Navy good-old-boy with a tough, no-nonsense demeanor. He was put in charge of the merged business unit as a VP, but he continued to try to run it as though he were still a big fish in a small Southern pond.

At one meeting that he flew out for, he proceeded to tell us that his local second-in-command was a man he hired because he bought a used car from him and liked his style, and he used that as an illustration of how people don’t always conform to their stereotypes. Then, he proceeded to inform several people in the meeting that he was happy about how they didn’t conform to their ethnic stereotypes.

This apparently filtered up to Human Resources, and shortly thereafter, HR dragged all of the VPs leading business units into diversity awareness training. 

Our new VP learned a lesson from the training, but we were not sure he learned the right one. Soon afterward, he flew out for another meeting with us. He let us all know that he had heard that there had been some problems in our group about people being made to feel unwelcome. Well, he wasn’t going to stand for that, so he made point of telling us all that if there was any discrimination going on, we could skip going to HR and come directly to his assistant, who would bring it to him, and he would personally deal with it.

I don’t think anyone ever took him up on that offer. I know I was definitely glad when my function got moved out from under that business unit.