I started at Midland Bank in 1986, working for their Overseas Systems Support (OSS) department, originally as an analyst/programmer then later as a project manager. I remember OSS as a protective environment: although I was criticised - after all, who isn't? it was always done in a supportive way. Looking back on it now, OSS seems like a haven. But then in many ways it was a department of "misfits". The senior management team had a policy of recruiting people who in one way or another were perceived as "difficult", because it kept staff costs down. But they also invested heavily in training and development, including personal skills training, precisely because of the management challenge that their recruitment policy created. Of course I didn't know all of this at the time: I know now because although OSS has long since disappeared - along with Midland Bank - my boss there has remained a personal friend, and over the years we have talked about all of this.
The particular problem that I created stems from a very difficult childhood and adolescence, some of which I have written about elsewhere. I don't propose to go into that here. Suffice it to say that OSS took on someone who, in the words of my younger brother, "didn't know how to behave". Perhaps I am being hard on myself: but I really did have problems with interpersonal relationships. I could be very hard on people, critical of those who didn't think as fast or as clearly as I did and intolerant of people who didn't work as hard as me. And I was insensitive towards people's emotional state and unaware of their personal concerns. I know now that my own emotional "noise" was getting in the way and preventing me from hearing others....but it has taken me a a very long time to learn that.
OSS management sent me on assertiveness training, and provided supportive management. And I gradually became better at dealing with people, though it didn't come naturally. By the time OSS was restructured in 1990, I was a successful project manager with full lifecycle experience. So when I was invited to join a huge Group Asset & Liability Management (GALM) project in Midland's Finance Systems department, it seemed like a wonderful opportunity.
It turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. The project was a joint venture between Midland Finance and Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). I was to manage part of the project, reporting to a programme manager from Andersen who reported to a programme director from Midland (who was my line manager), with a team made up of a mixture of Midland Finance staff and Andersen consultants, none of whom actually reported to me or even worked anywhere near me. It was an unbelievably complex matrix management structure, and the team was dispersed - team members were all based in different areas, many in their own departments. To get any of them to do anything, I had to go through their respective line managers. And it soon became apparent that there was a history of bad relationships between some of the Andersen consultants and the Finance staff. I had no idea how to manage this cats-cradle of apparent and hidden relationships, and I made some bad mistakes, especially in my handling of Andersen staff. I am by no means proud of my dictatorial style of management at that time, but I had no idea how severe the retribution for my mistakes would be.
Early on, I was censured for publicly criticising a member of my team - an Andersen consultant - for ignoring the objectives that I had set him. That consultant was removed from the project and replaced, and the replacement's line manager - who was the Andersen programme manager - supervised her closely. This caused increasing friction: I felt I was being undermined as a project manager, while the Andersen programme manager complained that by trying to direct my Andersen staff as I saw fit I was interfering with the line relationship. It was an impossible situation. Something had to give.
One day my line manager called me in for a meeting, and informed me that I was being removed from the project. Apparently both the Andersen programme manager and the line manager of the Finance staff had complained about my treatment of their staff. He accepted their complaints at face value, and executed me.
I was devastated. And I was unemployed. Or rather, I was still employed, but I had nothing to do. For several weeks I forced myself to come into the office every day, knowing there was nothing to do when I got there. And every night I cried myself to sleep, unable to bring myself to talk to my husband about what I was going through. We had only been married a few months.....
Had my line manager investigated, he would have found that the truth was rather different from what had been presented to him. But I suppose because of the mistakes I had made in my dealings with the Andersen consultants who supposedly reported to me, he had already been primed to expect trouble. And in the end, the project was more important than me. I have no idea whether he ever found out about the distress his decision caused: although he was my line manager, I was physically located in a completely different department several floors below. The manager of that department knew about the situation and was concerned: I was doing an MBA at the time, so she gave me permission to study openly in the office....but I knew everyone around me resented the fact that I was reading books while they were working.
I was dreadfully unhappy. I considered looking for a job, but I lacked the confidence to blag my way into another job, especially as I now believed I was a failed project manager. Anyway, it was the 1990 recession and the jobs market was terrible. And Midland were part-sponsoring my MBA: I couldn't leave without forfeiting the sponsorship. I felt I was trapped.
What hurt most of all was being told that the finance team manager had complained that I had upset his staff. It was far too close to comfort to being punished for "upsetting people", without further explanation, as had happened all too often in my childhood. And I was pretty sure it was untrue. A short while before my removal from the project, in a one-to-one meeting, one of the young accountants in my team had become very upset. I don't handle tears very well, but I did my best. I asked her outright what the problems were that were causing her so much distress, and whether it was something I had done. She said it wasn't me: the Andersen team leader who was directing their work was being persistently rude and unpleasant to her and to the other young accountant involved, setting them impossible deadlines then criticising them when they didn't achieve them, refusing to answer their questions, hanging up the phone on them. That Andersen team leader supposedly reported to me, so after the meeting I asked her about it. "Oh, they're useless", she said. "They are completely unfocused". I said that her personal opinion of them didn't justify being unpleasant to them, and asked her to treat them with more respect. Unknown to me, she told her line manager about our conversation. Her line manager was the Andersen programme manager..... My dismissal from the project followed a few days later.
I did not discover for quite some time that the complaint about me came entirely from Andersen Consulting, who had claimed the support of the finance team manager for their complaint when he had not given it. It transpired that they had never wanted me, or any other Midland staff, on that project, so were systematically setting us up to fail. The emotional abuse of the young finance staff by the Andersen team leader was deliberately done to engineer their removal from the project. I suppose I was a bit more difficult to shift, being a direct report of the Midland programme director. But my Achilles heel was my interpersonal skills, so that's what they attacked. Their aim was to secure 100% Andersen staffing for the project, and they didn't care who got hurt in the process.
This was the first time I discovered just how vicious office politics can be. But it was certainly not the last, nor even the worst. To this day I remember that time at Midland, bad though it was, as less painful than either SBC Warburg or Charities Aid Foundation (CAF). I think SBC Warburg was probably the worst place I have ever worked, but CAF runs it close - which may be surprising to people who believe that big banks are bad, small banks good and charities wonderful. Give me a big retail bank any day. As employers they are far better than either investment banks or pretentious charities.
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