Respect goes both ways.
Prior to Charlie, I have been fortunate to work for CEOs who knew how to inspire and unite teams around a common vision. These were CEOs who knew how to bring out the best in people, who were emotionally intelligent and humble enough to treat their employees with respect and trust. It felt like we were all working together on the same team.
Is Charlie on our team??? Whose team is he on???
To hide his incompetency and insecurity, Charlie uses the tactic of ‘divide and rule’ to conquer and suppress his subordinates. His first action was to remove the notion we were team members. He destabilized us through the never-ending threat of layoffs and lack of information. He devalued us through offshoring, stack ranking, and generalizing job descriptions to make us all interchangeable.
Charlie has negatively impacted entry level employees all the way up to senior management. A well-known quote comes to mind, “Either you’re with us, or you’re against us.” Charlie is evidently against Wells Fargo employees and I believe I could successfully argue that Charlie is against Wells Fargo.
Charlie is counting on us to not take action. He needs us to remain silent and submissive, to think our individual actions can’t make a difference, to fear the risk of challenging the new status quo.
Charlie is one person. There are 230,000 of us.
- We have the Power of Expertise (Charlie is not an IT expert, nor an Investment Banker, a Research Analyst, or a Bank Manager)
- We are necessary to carry out the daily work which keeps the bank up and running. See above. Charlie’s fragile illusion of “power” goes right out the window without us.
- We should know our value in the marketplace. We can network and seek other job offers. We can take our skills elsewhere, and then recruit talent away from Wells.
- We hold all the institutional knowledge (These new execs are flying blind.)
- We have built strong relationships with our customers, and therefore control a respectable percentage of the bank’s assets. (Financial Advisors, Bankers, Relationship Managers)
- We have the power to document the details when things are not right.
- We have the power of Social Media.
- We have extensive contacts and influence within our communities
- We are on the frontlines, directly interacting with and affecting the experience of the bank’s customers
- We have Legitimate Power (vs Positional Power) - We have earned the trust, admiration and respect of those around us, as opposed to some of these new dweebs from another company and located half the country away. Use this to exert influence, to stand up for yourselves and to stand up for your coworkers.
- We have Group Power - “the collective capacity of a group of people to create influence.” The power to organize, protest, unionize to lead change.
- We have the power of Whistleblower Protection laws. Employees are the best sources of information regarding corruption, discrimination, se-ual harassment and fraud (all of which Wells Fargo is no stranger to).
- Know your rights under Federal and State Employment Laws. (Wells Fargo would have you believe everything they do is “covered legally”. Don’t take their word for it. This place is crawling with arrogant leaders who either don’t know the laws or think the laws don’t apply to them. Also “unconsciously biased” leaders, out-of-date leaders, classic bullying leaders, inept leaders, and chauvinistic leaders who have long been proud members of The Old Boys Club)