Episode Transcript
Lars Nielsen (00:01.91)
Welcome to... I'm just from here. I'm your host Lars. What we... What do you... Okay, we're gonna do it again. Shit.
Friday morning, I didn't get my coffee. Okay, three, two, one. Welcome to... Cultures from Hell.
I'm your host Lars. What do you do when the person at the very top is the source of a toxic culture? The warning signs of a difficult CEO are often there from the start, but they can easy... Okay, I am...
Okay, we're gonna do it one more time.
Lars Nielsen (01:03.51)
They can be easy to dismiss. Okay, I misread that so much. I can't hear Paulina.
Cannot hear you.
I can't hear you Paulina.
Lars Nielsen (01:32.777)
I cannot hear you.
Felix (01:35.897)
Yeah, me neither.
Lars Nielsen (01:40.617)
Lawrence, you're very low right now.
Felix (01:45.637)
Okay, just think what I can do. Is that better?
Lars Nielsen (01:50.434)
Yeah, that was a little bit better. So be as close to the microphone as possible.
Paulina (02:07.064)
Okay, how about now? Okay, okay. Funny, we never have any problems except when we have guests.
Lars Nielsen (02:08.297)
Now much better.
Paulina (02:18.272)
Murphy's Law in the making. Okay.
Lars Nielsen (02:20.123)
Mephysloyne Megan. Okay, let's do this. Final one.
Lars Nielsen (02:28.16)
Welcome to culture. my God.
Lars Nielsen (02:36.22)
Welcome to Cultures From Here.
I'm your host Lars. What do you do when the person at the very top is the source of a toxic culture? The warning signs of a difficult CEO are often there from the start, but they can be, they can easy be, whoa, I have to root, but they can be easy to, okay, final one.
Paulina (03:10.36)
can be easy they can be easy
Lars Nielsen (03:12.726)
There's something in that word setting that's just my tongue just...
Paulina (03:17.008)
One change or two that can easily be missed.
Lars Nielsen (03:23.778)
to me.
Lars Nielsen (03:30.752)
B.
missed.
Lars Nielsen (03:38.08)
Yes, that is going to resonate so much better with me. Okay, final one.
Lars Nielsen (03:52.48)
Welcome to Cultures from Hell. I'm your host Lars. What do you do when the person at the very top is the source of a toxic culture? The warning signs of a difficult CEO are often there from the start, but they can easily be missed. Today we are dissecting those signs. With me,
As always is my wonderful co-host and company culture expert Paulina from the Culture Code Foundation.
Paulina (04:32.174)
Thank you, Lars. As always, it's great to be here and talk about this very, very difficult and important topic.
Lars Nielsen (04:40.242)
Exactly. And actually today we are honored to have our guest Felix, who has bravely agreed to share his personal story of working under a CEO whose behavior created a culture of fear and intimidation. Felix, thank you very much for joining us.
Felix (05:04.175)
Thanks for having me. It's an important story to tell.
Lars Nielsen (05:08.01)
Yes it is. Felix, let's start at the beginning. You joined this company and very early on you encountered a major red flag involving the CEO's use of junior staff for his personal childcare. Can you kind of walk us through what happened and how did you handle this?
Felix (05:35.845)
So, as you said, I discovered that the CEO was using two of the most junior and youngest staff in the organisation to look after his children as childcare, to chaperone them to a gig. And I could tell there was a lot of discomfort and...
I unfortunately first heard about it through gossip and then I was able to verify that it was true and the fact that it was being talked about could only have come from those employees so showed straight away that they weren't comfortable with it. I went to speak to both of them and offered to make sure that this didn't happen, to put an end to it.
and they both declined, which again, I could see that really they didn't want it to happen, but they didn't feel comfortable with saying that. So I went to the CEO and said, okay, this happens tonight, but this can never happen again.
and he just couldn't understand.
Felix (07:02.211)
And you would think most people would understand straight away that that's just wrong, that it's deeply unfair, first of all, for the employees being asked to do this, that it's exploitative. It's incredibly unreasonable. It's an abuse of power. It puts them in a very difficult position. But of course, none of this, I knew none of that was going to resonate with
with someone who would do something like this. So I put it in a business context of look at the risks you are creating to the organization by doing this for employee retention, for employer reputation, for morale. And again, couldn't understand any of it, reacted as if it was a personal insult. And I think the...
The final thing that he said that really stuck with me was, we're all one big family here.
which is one of my favourite toxic culture red flag phrases.
Paulina (08:16.67)
Yes!
Lars Nielsen (08:21.538)
I was about to say that's an insane story, but I don't know if the word insane actually covers that. Like I said, it is like a major red flag. I think I've tried it a couple of times where everybody's like, come on Lars, we're one big family here. Get on with the program. Pauline.
hearing that, what does an incident like this signal from a leadership and culture expert's perspective? Is this just a quirky flaw or is it a sign of something more systemic? I don't know.
Paulina (09:00.998)
well, for sure. This is not just a quirky floor, Lars. I mean, we've heard that he did not see any reasoning behind Felix's approach and behind Felix's arguments and well done you for just turning it around and bringing it from the personal level to a more business level. And that that still doesn't didn't resonate with him. Just made it makes it so clear that he was absolutely.
incapable of taking criticism or of self-reflection to just think about what he's been doing and what signals he was sending to the employees and the whole organization. And Felix, you said it point blank. This is an abuse of power. It is a lack of boundaries and a very, very severe case. And it sets really dangerous precedent for exploitation.
And yeah, this is just wrong. So wrong.
Lars Nielsen (10:07.245)
You think?
Paulina (10:09.27)
Yeah. mean, Felix, I've said this to you before when I first told your story, I was like, okay, I keep thinking I've seen it all and I've heard it all, but this just blows my mind. Really blows my mind.
Lars Nielsen (10:24.35)
And Felix, of course we have like heard the story before or beforehand of the show and the issues don't stop there, right? That the CEO kind of then appoints a family member with no relevant experience to, let's say a powerful position with access to HR information. How did that move affect the team's trust?
and the company's culture.
Felix (10:57.751)
It did a number of things. It had a real chilling effect on the leadership team for sure. I think the leadership team could see a lot more of the problems. Not that the rest of the organization couldn't, but the leadership team naturally in any organization gets more of an insight into.
what's going on with the CEO and the people around him. And it was such a strong indication that what you have to say is not primarily going to be assessed either by the validity of what you're saying or by the relevant expertise and experience that you have to be authoritative on a given subject.
but through the lens of patronage and the personal grace and favour of the CEO, which naturally made for a very political environment and meant that conflicts had a tendency to escalate rather than be resolved productively and
meant that the way to win a conflict was to get the CEOs here rather than to be bright and bring data and bring a helpful collaborative perspective on how to move forward. And the second impact it really had was really chilling in terms of the wellbeing of the organization and the people within it because
This family member was put in a position where she acted as a barrier between the employees and their ability to access mental health care, amongst other things. She...
Felix (13:19.683)
deliberately set about winning the trust of individual employees throughout the organization and encouraging them to share all kinds of things with her.
under the guise of confidentiality, whilst in reality sharing every word of it with the CEO.
And so.
It put leaders in a very difficult position of if you have an employee who is struggling mentally.
Paulina (13:45.664)
Of course.
Felix (13:52.581)
which is often not unrelated to the presence of the leader at the very top and the working structure that that creates. You then have this family member digging around and with such an erratic CEO, you don't know if he's going to react sympathetically.
to hearing about these kind of difficulties depending on the day or say, well, we need to get rid of this person again, depending on the day and what mood he's in. And then your ability to manage that process, to access care, to support employees, it became very, very difficult. So a range of different problems and challenges for people in different parts of the organization.
Paulina (14:51.392)
It's, Lars, I know you want to react to, you want to react to, but it is just, mean, the guy installed his own internal KGB basically to spy on his own employees. It's flabbergasting.
Lars Nielsen (15:07.522)
Yeah, I'm just sitting here laughing because it's like I'm listening to a made up story of some kind like a fairy tale or something like, yeah, it just blows my mind that this can happen in real life. yeah, unfortunately, I wouldn't say we have heard, we haven't heard anything as bad as this, but we have heard like similar stories or something down the same alley and so on.
Yeah. Felix, so this sounds like a pattern of blurring personal and professional lines, but you also witnessed extreme outbursts of anger, Can you tell us about one of those moments? What was it like to witness that, to see that?
Felix (15:59.993)
Yes, extreme outbursts of anger were a routine part of company life there. I would say every month there was something. It was that frequent and really depended largely on his mood.
To give one example, this is quite common in CEOs, but he really took it a long way, particularly founder CEOs. He was very comfortable overselling the product and over promising capabilities and had a very idealized idea of what the product could do already.
which was not entirely rooted in the realities of a scaling tech company. I know we've all worked in several of those. There's what you can do right now and there's your vision of what you can do. And those are often a long way apart.
Paulina (17:15.294)
Yes!
Lars Nielsen (17:17.374)
What? Big surprise!
Felix (17:19.301)
And one of the ways this manifested was customer demos. He was still very involved with speaking to prospective customers and current customers. And he was preparing for a particularly important prospective customer demo with a prestigious prospective customer. And he wanted a particular feature set.
So he went to the tech department while the most senior leader in that department was on holiday and said, I need this done. the answer he got from the team was, we're not ready to do that. This is going to take time.
we just wouldn't be able to guarantee the stability of the platform. The ability to keep it live during the demo and for this feature to reliably work would strongly advise that you talk about this as future state, not as current capability. And he overruled this and said, no, we have to have this. I've told you just get it done.
Paulina (18:16.27)
Mm.
Felix (18:38.917)
which as we all know is not how technology development works.
Paulina (18:44.012)
Again, big surprise here.
Felix (18:45.317)
And so the team attempted to follow his instructions with the predictable consequence that they forewarned him of that the platform went down and the feature didn't work. So he's in this demo with a prestigious prospective customer and the platform goes down. He can't get it back up.
He is deeply embarrassed, ashamed, etc. And rather than reflect on his actions which brought about this situation, he decides it is all the fault of the tech team. And so he organises a meeting with the majority of the leadership of the organisation in it, as well as the member of the tech team who has specifically told him that this wouldn't be possible.
Screaming, shouting and swearing at the top of his voice at great length about why this is completely unacceptable, I've never been more embarrassed in my life, etc etc. Just really really staggering behaviour.
Paulina (20:06.307)
Yes.
Lars Nielsen (20:07.866)
I am speechless. This doesn't happen very often to me. And again, pulling in from my own experience, I have of course had bad, bad leaders. Not one of them, Paulina. But I would say I've actually never tried somebody that actually screams and swears at me or the team.
Luckily, because I would scream back. I think that's my way to react. Paulina, if a leader is prone to what Felix describes as that extreme outburst of anger, how does a team even function? What is the psychological impact on employees when this happens?
Paulina (21:04.926)
I I don't, guess I won't ever fully grasp the width and the depths of the psychological and emotional detriment that this has on employees. But for sure, this kind of behavior from the top creates an extremely fear-based environment where people are afraid to speak up, where people are afraid of doing anything basically, because no matter what they do, it can.
they turned around against them. And if you don't even have the option to say, this won't work because you're just being overruled and your professional experience doesn't count whatsoever. This just put flashes psychological safety down the toilet immediately. And that we spoke about psychological safety time and time again. And clearly this is the
crassest example possibly what we've seen so far, but this will stifle innovation. will stifle honesty. Obviously it already did because people were very political about it. And in this specific case, I see two additional effects that are really, really bad for every level of the company because of this kind of extreme behavior.
especially among a team of mostly young employees and Felix you shared that at the beginning that there were a lot of junior people in the team and that will set the example that this kind of behavior or outbursts are not only okay in the workplace, but they could actually signal that this kind of behavior makes you successful. Since clearly that dude got the top spot, right? As CEO.
So he is role modeling to young people that extreme aggressiveness and lack of empathy can be success, success, success, success factors. I have it. And sure, of course, not everybody will fall for this, but it does have a huge impact on future careers for people, especially for those who have not seen anything else in the workplace before. And secondly, and
Paulina (23:24.896)
Felix, you, you already touched on this before, a CEO that behaves absolutely erratically, leaves people in complete freefall, right? They will never know what to expect and whether anything they do might cost them their job, get them humiliated in front of others or get them rewarded because it's just, there is just no consistency. And consistency is so crucial for many of us.
to create a sense of belonging and safety and security in the workplace, in the private life as well. And obviously the CEO shows no signs of self-reflection, of self-criticism, of going back around his own decisions and potentially learning from them. So that is just a behavior that
is really, really bad role model and a sign of very weak leadership if, from my perspective. And in this kind of environment, high burnout rates, sick leave rates, turnover rates would not just not surprise me. I would actually expect that in that kind of environment because you just can't really settle in at all. Yeah.
That's my take on this.
Lars Nielsen (24:56.29)
Thank you very much Pauline. I would agree with you when you say that you would expect a high burnout rights or sick leave and so on. Again, pulling from my own experience, I've seen this happen when you have bad leaders that people like...
They stay away or they call in sick. I also have maybe this is a story for another episode, but I have an actual situation in a previous workspace where I was, was confident with a couple of people and then they just said like, but hey, I'm calling in sick tomorrow or next week or something like that. Cause I just need to.
to stay away because this leader is really, really bad for me. And this is, this is, this is, yeah, it's just so bad. I can't even describe it. I, blows my mind why leaders are like that and they don't have more self-insights. Okay, back to the topic. I'm just like...
Paulina (26:03.64)
Well, just let me add one thing here. because that is also a proven, scientific fact that there is no other occupation in the world that attracts more psychopaths than the CEO role. So, no, actually, Lars, we need to cut this out. We need to cut this. Sorry.
Lars Nielsen (26:05.697)
Yes.
Lars Nielsen (26:25.398)
We're gonna cut it out.
Lars Nielsen (26:30.07)
So we're not going to mention that at all.
Paulina (26:31.754)
No, because if I could insinuate that I'm saying that this CEO is a psychopath, which I am insinuating, but I don't want to put this... Yeah. And I also don't want to put it on a recording that I'm insinuating that this guy is a psychopath.
Felix (26:40.293)
You
Lars Nielsen (26:40.532)
You don't want to put it on all CEOs.
Felix (26:50.361)
Yeah, not just. If you want to go into a psychological diagnosis, there's a lot more I could say, but say, I'm recording.
Lars Nielsen (26:51.254)
Fair point.
Paulina (26:57.548)
You
Lars Nielsen (27:01.482)
Okay, back on track then.
Lars Nielsen (27:06.101)
Felix, you mentioned that after this huge outburst with the failed demo, manager who was berated actually stayed with the company. Why do you think that was? What does that say about the power dynamics at play?
Felix (27:25.497)
really interesting question. I think there's several things going on at once there. I think one of the things that has been a feature of the last three years in tech since the venture bubble crashed in 2022 is that the tech labor market is not a very pleasant place and it's much, much harder to find jobs than it was.
really at any point in the previous 20 years, barring a few months in the worst of the COVID pandemic. That definitely has an impact and has emboldened some of the worst leaders who think that that means they don't need to worry about retention. But I think there's a number of other things too. And it's often the case in tech companies that you're building something
Paulina (28:02.2)
Hmm.
Felix (28:24.579)
which is an attempt to change something about the world and about how it works and comes with an ambitious mission, big growth plans and people rightly buy into that, get excited about that, want to contribute towards it and so it's hard to step away. And then I think the third thing is the complex interpersonal dynamics because despite
really bad CEO. There were some very, very good leaders in that company. I saw over time that although there was conflict, there became an increasing consensus against the CEO among the leadership team. And the specific executive leader who was responsible for the technology department was very, very skilled at
protecting his team within the constraints he had from above. So that meant taking responsibility for everything, always owning the timeline, always owning any mistakes, portraying the team's mistakes as his own, shielding them from all of the deliberations until there was an actual decision. He also...
I'm pretty sure he eventually encouraged them to ignore messages from the CEO and just route it all via him, which the CEO got very upset about when he found out, but completely the right decision in that context. So there were a number of different things.
Lars Nielsen (30:20.633)
Do you want to say anything, Paulina?
Paulina (30:22.316)
Yes. I love to hear that there was such a strong leader in the, or multiple really strong, good leaders in that company. It's wonderful that this can coincide and coexist. And thank you so much for breaking this down for us, Felix.
Lars Nielsen (30:39.978)
Yeah, and from my end, I'm just happy to hear that there were leaders in the company that was protecting their employees and really, I would say, basically doing their job. I'm not saying this in quotation marks, like just doing their job as a great leader, saying like, I need to protect my team, because that is one of the responsibilities of a good leader.
you have to protect the team and you own it. I'm just glad to hear that. So we have a volatile leader and kind of blurred boundaries. How did this behavior from the top shape the day-to-day interactions between colleagues?
Felix (31:30.405)
So it was a mixed picture. There was a lot of leadership time taken up with trying to manage the erratic decision making of the CEO, with trying to put processes in place that would make decisions properly, with input from relevant stakeholders.
rather than unilaterally without discussion by the CEO. Some of the time that was successful, some of the time it wasn't. There was also, so there were some very good bits to that response, but there were also some direct problems created by it for sure. There was,
Definitely a situation where promotions were earned by at leadership level, promotions were earned by ingratiating yourself with the CEO who had a real affectation for C-level titles.
in an early stage company which did not need lots and lots of C-level leaders. So you can imagine the dynamics of leaders earlier in their careers who see the prize of a C-level title and everything that means moving forwards. So there was that dynamic. But the other thing that was worse than that was how conflict was handled.
I think everyone in every tech company knows and it's not specific to tech either. This happens in other industries, but I think the conflict is, or potential for conflict is sharper in tech because of the pressure to grow. There's a natural tension between the technical side and the go-to-market side.
Paulina (33:50.698)
Never experienced that before.
Felix (33:52.101)
Lars Nielsen (33:55.724)
And I would also say, hearing your story, Felix, like my question back to both of you is, does this remind us of a current world leader at the moment?
Felix (34:05.817)
hahahahah
Paulina (34:08.808)
Not just one, to be honest. Not just one.
Lars Nielsen (34:10.944)
Yeah, okay. Maybe that's more than one, but that's one in particular. But okay, let's move on.
Felix (34:16.517)
You would be unsurprised to learn that this CEO was a very big fan of a particular world leader who remained nameless.
Paulina (34:28.406)
Yes, I-
Lars Nielsen (34:28.808)
Really? Really? I'm sitting here, I'm so surprised.
Felix (34:32.876)
I'm
Paulina (34:33.107)
Yeah, but we're...
Lars Nielsen (34:37.292)
Paul Ida. So if a CEO wanted to kind of guarantee that they would fail at building a healthy culture, what would they do? Based on Felix's story, it kind of sounds like this is the perfect case story of failing anything,
Paulina (34:56.75)
Yeah, exactly. mean, I don't really need to say anything here. No, but because that's not just not a healthy culture. This is like...
If it wasn't for the other leaders, I guess the company would have had big, big trouble, even though Felix shared the specifics of the current labor market situation. But it would be very difficult to attract any talent if it wasn't for the other leaders, I guess. And this is also a very extreme example. And I would like to mention a couple of more subtle ways to
F things up as a CEO, when it comes to culture, I mean, obviously you can F other things up too, but when it comes to building a great culture, three main topics will make that very, very difficult. the first one is performative leadership. And by that, don't mean leadership that is focused on performance. mean, a leadership that is driven by ego or image.
Because that, and that is something that we also see here in Felix's story, that clearly creates a brittle culture because employees can feel it when leadership isn't authentic or if they are not people focused, which will erode trust and stifle innovation, especially in a high pressure tech environment. That's not what you, that's never what you want, stifle innovation. Second, and we've spoken about this before as well.
Poor communication. Poor communication actually will compound a performative leadership because CEOs may talk about values of vision, but fail to embody or clarify them. And that will leave everyone feeling confused and disengaged. And third, the obsession with short-term results, which is something that we see a lot, especially in these trying times.
Paulina (37:04.494)
that this focus often leads to decisions that harm morale. Because they are overlooking team cohesion, they are sacrificing well-being of employees, or they're rewarding individual output over collaboration. I think we've coined the term brilliant jerks before that matter more in such organizations than actually collaborating and
pulling on the same thread together. And therefore these kind of more subtle ways or mistakes that a leader can make are all interlinked. A leader who chases the optic, so the performative leader, is unlikely to communicate with depth and consistency because the performative goals will shift and he will then communicate about the changing goals.
And one who's overly focused on short-term metrics will rarely invest in cultural resilience and long-term collaboration.
Lars Nielsen (38:14.738)
Very good points. Thank you very much for that, Paulina. Thank you. That kind of breaks it down. good. Felix, it all came to kind of a clash with how the CEO handled terminations, right? He would kind of threaten them, but avoid the conflict. And ultimately, you came into direct conflict with him over it. What was the incident that became the breaking point for you?
Felix (38:43.077)
So this was a repeated pattern throughout my time at the company that he would, in a fit of anger, threaten to fire people either directly to them in some instances or more commonly tell other people that that's what he was going to do. Sometimes quite a large number of other people within the organisation.
so that it would obviously filter back to them. But then not follow through and not do it. Some employees who did this with again and again and again, extremely strange behavior that speaks to a lot of the flaws we've already discussed, but also a strange fear of conflict on his part as well, despite the aggression and anger. But this came to a head.
over a project which he felt, which was very important for the company, which he felt a high level of personal ownership of. And the entire leadership team was clear that what he wanted to do just would not work and would be very damaging to the company. And there was an attempt to discuss this through and reach an alternative agreement. He railroaded this.
in a fit of anger and then this anger just continued for weeks and weeks and weeks and he was threatening to fire the entire leadership team and in the end he didn't do that although he did send a series of very long emails dressing down individual members of the leadership team but he decided to fire the two newest members of the leadership team and he did so in
really the worst way imaginable, which was he made this decision unilaterally, not discussing with anyone, including even any of the other leaders. And then in implementation, he didn't do the standard things that you would, or any of the standard things you'd expect in firing someone of.
Felix (41:07.769)
looking at the reasons why, is there a performance issue, how do we address this, the long checklist of things that you need to look at, the legal process, etc. He just went straight to executing the decision and in executing the decision he didn't even speak to these employees, he just cut off their access to all their systems and then went and told the team that they were
gone. When I asked him how has this happened, this is not how we do things, like what's the plan here, he reacted with extreme anger. And that's when it came out that they had not even been told. One of them was calling IT, like, my access to my, I can't get into my systems, my password isn't working, can you help me? And even at this point,
He wouldn't take any responsibility and actually speak to either of them. He ghosted them completely when they were asking him what was going on. And he asked me to go and break the news and explain to them that this was the situation and that they had been terminated without severance.
Lars Nielsen (42:30.754)
It blows my mind. I can see Paulina for everybody who's just listening to the podcast. We are doing this on video and I can just see on your faces like even though you heard the story before, you're sitting there like you don't know what to say. It is insane. This is an insane story. And then thank you very much, Felix, for sharing the story with us. I think it's going to be a...
Paulina (42:33.57)
Mm-hmm.
Paulina (42:43.778)
Yes
Yes.
Lars Nielsen (42:57.282)
eye opener for a lot of people out there. Paulina, so feeling mentions that the CEO didn't even inform the affected people directly. You've mentioned you've been seen something similar. How common is this abduction of responsibility in terminations and why is it so damaging?
Paulina (43:24.238)
Hmm.
I don't even know where to start. what I find insane is that it's such weak leadership in every sense possible, We're rating the employees in written form so that they actually have legal basis to sue potentially. They have it written down, it's documented. He has no concern about labor laws or any...
legal actions that might result from that. Not that I know all of the ins and outs of the UK system here, but I've seen this in Germany as well, where the labor laws are very, very strict and very clear and very straightforward. And people just don't pay attention to the labor laws. They're just like, I don't give a... I just want this done, so get it done no matter the consequences.
and on the other hand, on the other hand, not, not showing up in the hard moments yourself and terminations are, and Felix, I'm sure you will agree with this, are among the hardest moments in a work life. You're just point blank, not fit to be a leader.
I mean, clearly my judgment wouldn't be this harsh if it was a young, fresh leader off, just off the bats who's never led a team before and they got support to, to handle termination, right? But a CEO or a seasoned leader simply has to step up and do the dirty work himself or herself. This is just non-negotiable from my perspective. And, um,
Paulina (45:16.428)
What I've actually seen more of than this complete application of.
yeah, of handling the determination is the other opposite. I've seen more CEOs or C-level executives who will step over their direct reports and fire their team members without telling the middle manager. So that is something that I see happening much more often than the story that Felix has described. And both are just insanely damaging.
And you have asked why it is so damaging.
And especially in the context that, so in the other extreme, right? This is just, I don't care about the middle managers. I want to make a decision. I'm egotistic. I'm just doing it because I think it's the right thing to do. And that is something, that's a common theme in what Felix has shared because the CEO didn't speak to the HR department or anything. He made the decision unilaterally and he just bulldozed through it.
So you'd have definitely have that part of it also in Felix's story. But in that scenario, you also have incredible cowardice, just cutting off people's access, not talking to them in person and asking somebody else, in this case, Felix, to handle the difficult conversation. It's just, it's just cowardly, right? so.
Paulina (46:59.746)
The CEO has used every situation he could to portray himself as a really tough guy, but then he chickens out when it really matters and had Felix handle the fallout. And I'm pretty, pretty sure that this cowardice will be copied by others in the business over time, at least, because it's getting to be seen as appropriate or acceptable behavior.
Lars Nielsen (47:31.198)
And just to kind of let's summarize Felix's story here. So we see how exploitation can escalate to nepotism, public outbursts and a company-wide culture of fear. And this ultimately leads to grossly unprofessional actions that push good people out the door, which is...
something we see every time we hear these kind of stories, right? Felix, looking back on this whole, let's call it an experience, I'm going to do that in quotation marks again, this whole experience, what is the single biggest lesson you've learned that you would kind of like to share with our listeners?
Lars Nielsen (48:22.69)
We're done!
Felix (48:26.765)
I'd say there's two things. It's a flippant comment about leaving, but that always has to be part of your thinking process when you encounter something so extreme. think I've seen it in myself. I'm so much happier for not being there anymore. Even lots of friends and family have commented to it to a similar effect, you which
is a sign that probably it's a bigger effect than even I thought at the time. And I realize that's not straightforward for lots of people for some of reasons we've discussed, but also people with big mortgages, people with young children, different personal situations. But I think there's times where you can have an impact to change an organization and there's times where you can't.
and the more powerful the people who causing a big problem are, the harder it is going to be to change. And that's got to be part of the calculation. And the big thing we tried to do to contain the problem was create really, really good processes about decision making. And I learned a lot from that on what great process looks like and
how to work across departments and all this sort of thing. But of course, that only works if people are willing to follow the process. And when you have someone who will railroad all of it in the most powerful seat in the company, it's very difficult.
Paulina (50:14.296)
for sure.
Lars Nielsen (50:14.696)
And Paulina, for all listeners who might be in a similar situation and fingers crossed that it's not too many, but anybody who's in a similar situation right now, what is one piece of advice you will give them on how to navigate it?
Paulina (50:31.694)
First of all, I want to command you a few links for sticking this out for finding ways to influence a little bit change within the company. And I'm really happy to hear that you're happier now. I'm not surprised, happy that you are happier now that you are out of there. So congratulations on surviving that and getting out. Because I honestly don't think there is a
good way to navigate a situation like this. And Felix, you said it yourself, leaving is definitely something that has to be on top of your mind when you are in this kind of environment. considering the constraints that people have around leaving, you also mentioned that Felix, I can only say if you are in a similar situation and you feel like there is something valuable to learn or to impact, just as Felix said.
As long as you can do this within the specific company without, harming your mental health, or as then, or then stick it out, stick it out for a while, learn what you can learn and, just make sure that leave as soon as either of these points aren't true anymore. So either if you have to sacrifice your mental health or if you're not learning anything else anymore, or if you know that you can't impact it anymore.
So if either of those three points comes into play, run, run. Because leaders and especially CEOs that behave like that should never hold power over you. Actually, I believe they should never hold power over people, but that's a decision that we can't make. and another, another very important piece of advice for me, please never, ever, ever think.
that this kind of behavior, if you copy it, will make you more successful. It will only make you more hated and less respected.
Lars Nielsen (52:40.638)
Exactly. And then, yeah, when you said, Felix just a couple of minutes ago, the only picture or movie that's kind of playing in my head is when you see Forrest Gump running, right? This is the thing that goes on in my head all the time now.
Paulina (52:53.454)
You
Paulina (52:57.453)
You
Lars Nielsen (52:58.914)
Felix, thank you so, so much for your courage in sharing this story with us. It is very appreciated. It's been incredible, insightful. And Pauline, thank you as always for your expert perspective on things. Where can listeners go to learn more about your work and the Culture Code Foundation, and especially if they're in a situation like Felix and they need your advice, how can they get in contact with you?
Paulina (53:28.534)
get to that in a bit. just also wanted to really thank you Felix, not just for the courage and sharing the story, but also you've taken it apart yourself so well already that there was very little for me to do today. So thank you so much for your expert opinion on this topic. You're so true with everything you've said. And yeah, if you want to, if you want to find out more about the Culture Code Foundation, which, sole purpose it is,
to create strong, positive, value-driven workplaces. You can find us on LinkedIn. You can find us on our website, thecultrcodefoundation.com. And Lars will also put my personal LinkedIn profile and my Instagram handle in the show notes. So you can also reach out to me personally, not just for if you want to.
work with us, but also if you want to share your story, maybe in this podcast, as always, we love to share personal stories in an anonymous way and hope that we can impact people's work lives out there.
Lars Nielsen (54:42.338)
100 percent.
Felix (54:42.607)
Thank you both. I've really, really enjoyed it and good speaking to you and appreciate all the good work you're doing with the podcast every week as well.
Lars Nielsen (54:51.766)
Thank you very much, really. actually means a lot to us because like when you're doing these podcasts, right, you of course get people to get your like that that writes to you or say, hey, we appreciate this and so on. But just knowing and getting somebody to voice that we actually making a difference that is really nice.
Paulina (54:51.822)
Thank you so much, Felix.
Paulina (55:12.812)
Absolutely. That's why we're doing this.
Lars Nielsen (55:15.51)
That's why we're doing this. And as Paulina said, I will link to the Culture Code Foundation in our show notes. I'll link to her LinkedIn, Instagram, my Instagram, and so on. And thank you very much for listening to Cultures from Hell. If today's story resonates with you, please subscribe and share it with someone who needs to hear it. And we'll be back next week with another story.
Paulina (55:41.358)
Thank you, Lars. And Felix, do you have any last words that you want to share?
Felix (55:47.769)
I think we've covered a lot, but just say thanks again, really enjoyed it and I'll be listening again next week as always.
Paulina (55:59.15)
Wonderful. It was great having you. You were a fantastic guest, Felix. Thank you so much.
Felix (56:03.461)
Thank you.
