One thing I’ve noticed in the leadership is the constant comparison to companies doing something worse.
Employees raise concerns about losing remote work after years of proving it can be successful.
Response: “Other banks require five days. We’re only asking for three.”
Employees worry about office consolidations.
Response: “Other banks only have two or three hubs. We have twenty-two.”
Employees express concerns about outsourcing or layoffs.
Response: “Other banks outsource more.” Or “Other banks have bigger layoffs.”
But that’s a strange way to measure success.
If your defense for a decision is, “Someone else is doing something even more unpopular,” you’re not actually addressing the concern. You’re just choosing a different point on the same spectrum.
It’s the corporate version of, “Sure, I set your house on fire, but my neighbor burned down the whole block.”
Being less bad than someone else isn’t the same thing as being good. I’d rather hear the actual business case, the data, and the reasoning than be told I should feel grateful because another company made an even harsher decision.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. They just create two different versions of the same problem.