Hack:
Chief Devil’s Advocate – company ombudsman of business interest

During an era of recession or slowing growth, in global corporations where operation is complex and influenced by different interests (typically at the sub-regional and regional levels), finding the right focus of management thinking and ensuring that management decisions are executed as they are meant is essential to hold companies on the right track.

The main challenge is to get the necessary, honest, constructive feedback; the challenge becomes more difficult the more senior the manager. This is the underlying reason for the three interrelated management issues in malfunctioning corporations.

The first issue is that too many contradictory interests influence the decision making process itself. The different stakeholders, especially at sub-regional and regional levels or between product lines or company functions, often pursue personal gain and do not mind if corporate ones come second or third (they have to take care of their buddies, “allies” on lower levels, as well). The second issue is the execution of tangled decisions, as this is the last chance for all affected parties to advance their hidden agendas by neglecting the actual decision or by disguising their agenda to make it look like the correct one in the light of a higher decision. The third issue is the defective or missing feedback loop. The defects of the feedback loop come from the above detailed motives. If there was a way to influence the decision for personal interest or to manipulate the execution with same personal gain in mind, the only thing to do in order to come clean and walk away is the fine-tuning of the feedback loop. Managers, top managers with hundreds of emails per day in their inboxes eat what they are fed with, until the bubbles burst. This is why fixing the feedback processes is the key to transparent and well functioning corporations.

Top managers are often lonely. Though teamwork and team spirit are emphasized and trained in multinational companies, in truth personal ambitions, goals, and hidden agendas are not off the table. Managers cannot share their doubts and fears with colleagues inside the company. Subordinates might see it as a weakness and would lose trust in their manager or may be motivated to supplant him. Sharing with subordinates may create a false “he is one of us” feeling that makes it even harder for the manager to motivate colleagues afterwards. Peers are mostly seen as competitors, sharing of fears, doubts, weaknesses and similar ideas is understandably not an option.  Also higher level bosses do regular performance evaluation of their subordinates; it is a delicate issue to share fears, doubts and real weaknesses with one’s superiors. This implies the need of an institutionalized function for managers supporting them with feedback, impartially.

There is lot of talk about the personality and personalization of corporations. If you look at companies as “persons”, you can see that they are lonely, as well.

Upon inspection it is evident that different, conflicting interests impact corporate governance and stakeholders often follow their own interests, not that of the company. Internal politics, especially for managers below CxO level, lessen the ability and likelihood to stand up for the interest of the company. In the U.S. whistleblowers have enjoyed great recognition; they were celebrated as the saviors of corporate America. This phenomenon shows the need for protection of corporate interests. If we assume that malfunctioning and ambivalences inside companies are just as frequent as anywhere else in life then the relatively low number of whistleblowers is also a proof of difficulties in coming forward with problems concerning corporate governance.