Machiavelli had nothing on this guy

No need to wait until January on this award. The clear winner of 2021’s worst Leader of the year is Vishal Garg, chief executive of mortgage firm Better.com. You may have heard of him recently; he’s the guy that just fired 900 people via a Zoom call. Yup, that’s what I said; he got 900 of his “team members” on a Zoom call and told them, “If you’re on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated. Effective immediately.”

Wow! Just, Wow.

Mr. Garg also implied that the employees he was firing were somewhat to blame as “staff performance and productivity” were part of the reason for the layoff. You can perhaps see his point on this one given that this is the same CEO that previously wrote an email, uncovered by Forbes magazine in the fall of 2020, wherein he said to company employees; “You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS and…DUMB DOLPHINS get caught in nets and eaten by sharks. SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME.” So, any employee that didn’t leave after that little motivational note clearly must be to blame for their termination. It couldn’t possibly be the narcissistic, temperamental, fickle, self-centered CEO that is the problem, could it?

Given that this is not the first time Mr. Garg has attacked his employees, blaming them for the company’s poor performance, you have to wonder the root cause of this horrendous leadership. The answer can only lead to one place, the Board of Directors. When Companies like Activant invest in leaders like Garg, and put board members in place, they invest in a vision and, in many cases, the brilliance of a CEO. But they are all too often oblivious to the impact of these horrendous leadership behaviors or simply turn a blind eye because the firm they’ve invested in is close to a “monetization event.” They don’t want to put the big payoff at risk.

Investors most certainly fail to recognize is the negative impact of this behavior on the entire ecosystem. If it is true that the fish rots from the head, it must also be true that better.com is infested with “mini Gargs” throughout the organization that amplifies this behavior and further destroys the creativity, innovation, and drive of the team. This behavior and the resulting attitude most certainly spread to frontline employees that interact with customers and can be observed by consumers when the behavior ends up above the fold on every news feed on the planet.

It’s a relatively short trip for consumers to assume that if this is the way he treats his employees, he most certainly can’t be treating his customers any better, they will vote with their wallets and shop elsewhere. Let’s hope they do.

12/7/21: Footnote: more background on Mr. Garg from The Daily Beast. Apparently arson as a management tool is on trend in startups.

12/8/21: This one keeps rolling on. Yesterday Mr. Garg apologized for blundering the execution of his layoff plan. Blundering the execution? What? He blundered as a human. Words mean nothing, his employees should listen to what he dose.

Be well,

Ron

Partner, Valize

For resources or help figuring out your growth strategy and transformation process visit us at www.valize.com. You can follow me on Twitter @ronboire and ronboire on LinkedIn

About Ron:

Ron is a globally experienced organizational transformation specialist sought out by boards to help them navigate some of the toughest operating environments within the consumer products, technology, and retail sectors. He has held C-level roles as CEO of Barnes & Noble, Sears Canada, and Brookstone, as well as senior leadership positions at Sony, Toys R Us, Sears Holdings, and Best Buy. He also coaches CEOs and C-suite leaders but wouldn’t waist a lot of time on this one.