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Note: Going through the back catalog of what I have written over here at Techwag, this one really popped out, because I never did find a solution for my friend. The incident of bad mouthing stopped after about 120 days, but there was so much bad blood after that between my friend, the company, and the old boss that I don’t think they will ever speak well of the company. I know she never talks about the company, and will divert business to other companies at every chance she gets. 

Interesting thought that a friend of mine posted on one of the social networks, I won’t mention the name or the situation but the comment is:

I’m totally P.O.’d as an old boss is trying to F#%# with my livelihood, bad mouthing my design to the client Source: Best not mentioned really

We are all familiar with bosses and companies suing employees for bad mouthing the company or the boss. We are also familiar with employees getting fired for bad mouthing bosses and companies online and getting fired. Those two are fairly common and a lot more common that anyone would like to admit, but what happens when an old boss starts badmouthing former employees? This is a new wrinkle on the old adage of watch what you say, it might come back to haunt you. See your old boss is coming from a position of strength, and while HR rules might preclude them from doing anything other than verifying your employment at a company, online maybe not so much.

Everything cuts both ways, and having your boss post online that you were the worst employee, or could not meet target dates, or never finished a product, or otherwise might all be considered legitimate in the viewpoint of the boss. Of course we are all going to beg to differ, we might have not hit a deadline for one reason or another, or we might have been caught playing a video game over lunch break or shopping for the holidays while at work. We might have even been caught out doing something perfectly reasonable at the time and circumstance but looks hokey in perfect 20/20 backwards vision.

Is there recourse, of course we can always sue, but we have to make sure that we can afford the lawsuit. I do not think that there has been any kind of lawsuit like this yet, and if there is feel free to let me know where it can be located so I can read the case file and court submission.

The part that strikes me the most interesting is that bad bosses abound and might need to take their vengeance further than is normal past firing. This would be a response to be expected if you are working for a truly controlling personality, they will attempt never to let you go, or realize the thoughts in their head “you’ll never work in this town again” kind of vindictiveness.

Personally I would seriously contact a lawyer, I have seen a similar situation where I was teaching a hacking class at a school, and someone from work called the school to tell them I was teaching hacking to students. Of course I was, it was a hacking class in a controlled environment with huge safeguards built in. But when they called the local CISSP group for sanctions that was when the problems really started, and took some interesting processes to make sure that no one got hurt in the process. They were voicing a legitimate concern, but hadn’t bothered to check out all the facts. This kind of problem is also more common than we would like to admit, it happens, we clear it up and move on, but the emotions remain behind.

If you think your old boss is trying to make sure you never work in this town again, and is stating things that meet the legal guidelines for slander, then by all means do what you think best. But engage a lawyer, they are the only ones that will be sure, and can see if you even have a case. The one thing I do know for sure is to remain the adult in the room, never get upset, but explain yourself clearly and succinctly if you are dealing with an interview, new client, or new job. The only way to truly prove you are what you think you are is to live it, be it, and enjoy it.

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An Innovation Competence Process Coming From Knowledge Management (Photo credit: Alex Osterwalder)

Innovation is hard; innovation also goes against the grain of entrenched interests in a company. Innovation can be scary, disruptive, and crosses departmental lines with stunning abandon. Innovation in a stove pipe or overly hierarchical company is not going to happen because Innovation is one of the scariest things that a company can do. If you hired people to innovate, seriously get out of the way and let them go do good things. The problem is that the modern mega corps and many companies regardless of size, general innovation is a dream, not a reality.

I do advise companies on a great many things about how to be more successful. Over the last 20 some odd years as employee, manager, adviser, and general cheerleader I have come up with some rules that I use as a check list of the companies temperament. While the rage is on right now for innovation, we need to innovate our way out of the recession, we need to have that one big win and everything will be OK, you might want to look at a company’s roots and culture before you think you are going to go in there and innovate. If the company does not have the culture to support innovation, no amount of management support for innovation is going to happen, and it might be best to go somewhere else to innovate.

Rule Number 1 – What is the range of employee service times? If you have a lot of managers who have been at a company for 20+ years (and yes you will still find them), and a lot of people who have been hired on in the last three years, with few people in service between 3 and 20 years, this might be a problem.

Why is this a problem? What ends up happening is that new people are hired in to do stuff to help the company, but often run into the political realities of people who are happy the way things are. The broader the gap between old and new employees especially if there is a big gap in the middle shows that new people who were hired on eventually left because they were unable to do what they were hired to do. About year 2 people get disillusioned, and once disillusioned they tend to leave around year three or four. This also depends on the economy, how badly someone needs their job, and how hard it is to find a new job.

Rule Number 2 – When was the last round of layoffs, what is the turnover rate? Turnover speaks volumes about a company and how it is running. Few other indicators tell of the health of the company than high turnover. If half the staff left in six months, this is an issue. If there are always rounds of layoffs then people go into survival mode, boat rocking is not going to happen.

Why is this a problem? Fear of being fired or a high turnover rate speaks of frustration. This is also dependent on where the turnover rate is happening in the organization. Is it happening between years 3 and 8 then people might tend to be frustrated. Is it happening earlier in the process then this speaks of fear. Fear and Frustration are two of the biggest killers of innovation out there.

Rule Number 3 – How many layers of management are there between people who actually do the work that the company relies on, and the CEO? The more layers of management the greater chance that anything innovative will be killed or caught up in political games.

Why is this a problem? The more political the structure of a company, the higher the chance of good marketable ideas being killed in the process of delivering those ideas to market. The more layers of management, the greater chance that political issues will overtake anything like a good idea and delay or obfuscate the good marketable idea getting to market. Companies cannot help this, we are by nature political people, and we tend to gravitate into political structures regardless of the size of the company. It is far too easy with many layers of management to stifle or kill innovation and good ideas.

Rule Number 4 – What are the employees talking about in private away from managers ears?

Why is this a problem? It is a temperature index for the company and ties into rules 1 and 2. People will always complain, but what are they complaining about? While you have to be careful of politics in this because some complaints can be wound deeply into the political structure of a company, if employees are complaining about paperwork, support, or even getting the job done then there might be an issue. Did the company cut too deeply into bone, do people feel empowered to solve local issues is the company stable enough to bring great ideas to market. People’s comments on their jobs and issues with their jobs are a wonderful eye opening look at a company.

Rule Number 5 – Does the company engage in Lottery or Wishful Thinking rather than bring great ideas to market?

Why is this a problem? The odds of winning the lottery are small; wishful thinking often leads to bad decisions. If we are using “what should be” or “I just need one big win” to determine the direction of the company, then we are not dealing with the market “as-is”. The markets are harsh and unrelenting, if the company is not dealing with them, then no amount of innovation or even soul searching will help them. The more wishful thinking, the more lottery style decisions the more money a company is wasting on a house of cards.

These five rules can help someone when they decide to go work at a company. I have seen successful innovation come out of some very large companies but wither as those good ideas died in inter company politics. Some successful innovation products, good ideas brought to market, have had to come out of “company skunk works” where the people involved report directly to the CEO, rather than to any other group in the organization. I have seen a lot of good projects die, and a lot of companies simply ride out the market waiting for something to magically happen.

If the company is engaged and open then innovation is a matter of careful thought over what people need or want, and the products or services the company is providing. Innovation will have management support, and as few layers of management as possible to help make good things happen. The wider the gap between old thinking and new thinking, the harder it is to innovate. The more layers of management there are, the higher the probability that something will become political and killed or fought over until it is dead.

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