THE ACTRESS JOAN CRAWFORD ON PROGRESSIVE DISCIPLINE
The next time some top manager proposes termination rather than uses progressive discipline on an employee think about showing the oral reply official the wire hanger scene from Joan Crawford’s Mommy Dearest film. It is a spot-on visual description of precisely what the CEO-as-executioner is doing. If you have seen the film, you will remember a wild-eyed Joan rampaging and ranting through her house destroying thousands of dollars because her child violated one of Joan’s peccadilloes, i.e., she used wire rather than wooden clothes hangers. Obviously, in Joan’s world what she wants is not only more important than anything else, but deserves termination with extreme prejudice, the guillotine, the full Vlad-The-Impaler package, etc. if slighted. Given the harm “termination without previous discipline” does to the employee, their family and sadly at times our communities, this CEO preference for extermination is more than the executive’s ego or even hubris. It is far closer to a megalomania, i.e., a delusional obsession with self-importance. Continue reading →