Corporate Autonomy and My Best Friends’ Boyfriends
I sat in a bar in New York with my best friend, discussing the lack of autonomy given to product managers in Big Tech companies. You’d think conversations with best friends would go otherwise, but for some reason, they don’t. ‘CEOs are so controlling and untrusting of their managers who are clearly skilled enough to make their own decisions,’ she argued. I paused, took a sip of my drink, and responded, ‘well that’s probably because CEOs are answerable to boards and investors and need to be able to rationalize each decision.’ We debated for a while longer, a tug of war between the leader and the manager, until her boyfriend slipped into the booth next to her and stole her attention for the rest of the evening.
The analogy was uncanny, and I sat there, taking more sips from my drink, wondering how humans became so goddamn untrusting.
In the business world, CEOs are ousted by stakeholders, people who say ‘we need to stay updated with Gen Z-ers and can’t have someone with grey hair at the top.’ It’s sad, because sometimes this person started off with a head full of jet-black hair (you’re picturing a man, I know, but try picturing a woman), brimming with ideas relevant to the current times and with enough energy to plow through the night. But they don’t delegate, they hold their cards too close to themselves, and they play favorites — ugh, what I would do to become a favorite.
They are replaced with someone who doesn’t know where the printer is, doesn’t know what their employees like to do on Friday evenings, and wants to get coffee with everyone and ‘get to know them better’ (heavy air quotes usage). It’s annoying and no one likes this new person…until they do.
My female best friends are my entire existence. The straight ones of them have both gained and lost boyfriends in the past 5–7 years, and the episodes have been depressing, harrowing, and evolutionary. But my sole job is to protect them until a new, more ‘current-to-the-times’ individual swoops in and wants to ‘get to know them better’.
I have been ousted. Out with my tiny wisps of grey hair.
CEOs are vetted, prepped, and background checked for months on end before publicly announcing them to the public, lest the investors go cray cray. But this lovely little boyfriend and his nickname which is basically the first half of his name ending with a ‘u’ is introduced oh so suddenly, and becomes the resident expert on when my bestie’s period begins. How dare he.
How does he know what to do when she’s sad? How does he know what her guilty pleasure movie is and that she will order the biggest size of ice cream and eat two bites and leave the rest to you? How does he know what her parents call her, or that she doesn’t really call her parents anymore and that’s something he’ll just have to live with?
HOW DOES HE KNOW?!
Oh, he will learn.
The journey of trusting someone you are inherently biased against trusting is a complex one. It involves understanding your own role — activist investor? scary dad? bff of 20 years such that you mostly only have pre-pubescent pictures with each other and none recent?
But when you love someone as fiercely as I love my female best friends, you will find a way to.
Leaders are untrusting of managers because, in part, they are afraid that managers know more than the leader themself does. They are insecure of how much power is being given out, diluting their own control, making them feel small and insignificant.
Like I did in that booth in that bar in that New York. Like I do every time I am introduced to a boyfriend and I stare him down, wondering whether this is the one for her or not, awkwardly not knowing whether to shake his hand or hug him (I’m not awkward, he is).
But then the new CEO gains the trust of their people, figures out where the printers are, and makes friends who they go dancing with on Friday evenings. They finally memorize the company’s vision and mission and know which clients like sports games and which ones like fancy wine. Some things they adapt to, and some things they change — perhaps for the good, perhaps not. But it is a process of transition, and it is one we must undeniably face.
Suddenly, one day, you will find your best friend cooking in the kitchen with this boyfriend she is now about to marry, laughing about something dumb. And this will make all those tears shed over previous boyfriends worth it, and the fact that you weren’t ready to trust him make you realize how important this whole situation even is.
You let go, you learn to trust. And if anything goes amiss, you’ll have the biggest size of ice cream and High School Musical ready in case there’s a knock at your door.
