Reading Response - Week 2: Poor Boss
Oh man, oh man, did Neal Patterson ever screw up. Even if Patterson's "stinging" e-mail hadn’t caused a stock plummet it would have caused his managers to have at least some sort of ill will towards him. The article is exactly right when it says that you never send that sort of mass message via e-mail. You need to be specific of you are going to be that harsh, so he either needed to verbally address his managers or send that e-mail to people that he KNEW to be the issue. In fact, I don't think Patterson even knew which managers needed this kind of kick-in-the-ass since his only information came from the fullness of the parking lot. Come to think of it, if the CEO of my company is spending his time watching the parking lot, methinks it's time to find a new company to work for.
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I agree that Patterson definitely screwed up. He had to have acted on a whim and with a lot of emotion to send that email. This very public example does a good job showing us what not to do. You definitely need to make sure you have all the information before sending out a mass email, especially in a case like this. I agree that he should have verbally talked to managers before addressing a larger crowd. A talk with managers could have found the true problem and possibly found a solution that wouldn’t have hurt the company. The mistakes of others, especially this one, remind us to take the time to review a situation before acting.
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I think it’s extremely true that Patterson acted on a complete whim. If there is a need to be aggressive with managers then there is a different way to do it, even if it is through e-mail. There also has to be more substantial evidence than the parking lot not being full. The parking lot not being full could be an indication of efficiency too. IT could mean that staff is so efficient that they don't need to stay beyond 5 p.m.
I think this is a wake up call to everyone in the corporate world to be respectful of other people and not use e-mail in situations where someone needs to be spoken to aggressively.
The CEO messed up
I agree with all of your arguments. First of all the fact that someone would send that harsh of an e-mail worries me. The e-mail can easily be forwarded and documented so that it can be used against him. Next I agree with the fact that his e-mail did nothing but harm the work environment. I believe it would only cause frustration with the managers doing their job. Lastly the fact that the CEO has nothing better to do than watch the parking lot is my biggest worry. The CEO of a large company has many complex jobs that he must complete and watching the parking lot is not one of the.
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That's a good point. The CEO of large corporation should have much better things to do with his time than watch the parking lot. And before sending out a mass email to the managers of the company, he definitely should have done more investigating. He should have looked into finding out which specific managers were causing the problems, if there even were any. Most people don't react well to being called out in front of other people, so the results of the situation don't surprise me. The CEO could have spoken individually with each manager to avoid wrong accusations.
Think Before You Email
I’m right there with you… the CEO did not think this one through very well. If I were a manager for his company I would have been severely pissed off by something like this email. It did not seem like Patterson had a whole lot of hard evidence on his claims. If he would have sent a strong well written email, along with a report of workers’ hours and which departments were having the large issues, the employees probably would have taken this differently. This also can be an example of how technology is growing and I don’t think everyone fully understands its capabilities.
It’s true he made a huge
It’s true he made a huge mistake by sending that email and I agree with you with the idea that sometimes people don’t fully understand how far technology can go. I don’t think I would have done what he did, but in any other case I might have sent an inappropriate or very informal e-mail without considering the possibility that someone will upload it on the web. I would send it as confidential! It would have never crossed my mind that that could happen. His experience became a lesson for me too.
Response
I agree with you in that it is very unnessary for the CEO of a company to send out a mass email thinking that it will motivate several hundred people to "saddle up" and work harder even if it was not their fault in the first place.
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i think what Neal Patterson did was completely out of hand and not good for his business. Sending a mass email and being very harsh on the email was a bad idea. I agree with you when you said that if he wanted to shout and teach his managers a lesson he should called them up personally and talk to them and tell them how they should improve. Writing a big email and being very hot tempered on it wouldn't really help anything but a downward sloping graph for your company. This article regarding the email being sent out, just shows us that the business world is full of surprises and anything can happen any day.
reading response week 2
Sending mass emails can surely be a huge mistake. Making an email that would incorporate everyone in the mailing list is hard to insure.