The Executive

Diane was an intelligent petite neatly dressed woman in her early thirties with an air of no nonsense efficiency about her. Apart from some redness around her eyes there was little to indicate any emotional distress. She announced that she had been suffering from depression that had developed four months previously and she required a repeat of her antidepressant medication.
A quick scribble would have sent her on her way. I asked her if she was sure she had depression.
Yes she said she had looked it up and had been to see her GP. She had all the signs and symptoms. I thought I might just sound her out a bit more just to get some more information for myself.
This was the first time in her life she had experienced depression but she had finally she realized she was ill and needed treatment.
I asked her to tell me how it began and the following extraordinary tale unfolded.

Diane was from the UK of a middle class family. Her mother taught at University and her father was a respected businessman of renown. She had gotten good marks at School and had gone on to get a degree in Business with 1st Class Honors. She had been sought after to help in the reorganization of the British Health System in London and had acquitted herself well.

So well in fact, that she had attracted the attention of the NZ Ministry of Health. She had been head hunted by the Ministry to advise in the transformation of a Hospital Board to a Crown Health Enterprise. This was a big step but she thought overseas experience could only assist her career, especially if she acquitted herself well.

She was recruited to advise a team of managers, all male, in the setting up of the CHE (Crown Health Enterprise), a job that was to take two years and her salary was commensurate with theirs.

Right from the start she had some misgivings about the rather simplistic ideas she thought her male colleagues had. But she gave them the benefit of the doubt.
Her unease grew as the months passed as she began to realize they were serious about their ideas.
She voiced her doubts in one of their meetings. She was respectfully and politely listened to and then ignored. They went on as if she had said nothing. As she listened to the terms of reference, and the magnitude of the job ahead, she realized would take a lot longer than two years, way beyond the expected end of her's (and their) contracts.

She took the floor and outlined her case. Again they listened but pointed out that her version would take a lot longer than the two years they had at their disposal. Once again she was ignored and they went on with their own solutions.
Again she sat back listening. This time she began to realize that their management plans were not only simplistic but had no possibility of working. She commanded the floor in one of their meetings, and spoke her mind. There was some embarrassed smiling around the table. She flushed, aware all eyes were upon her.
Her statements that their solutions were completely unworkable, fell on deaf ears. She had at least expected that they might argue with her her and enter into some dialogue but they did not. She felt embarrassed, not used to being ignored in such a flagrant manner. They simply heard her out with faint condescending smiles on their faces.
Afterward they asked if she was OK. They thought she was upset.

She thought to herself that maybe she had got it wrong so she took some work home re re work her own solutions. But no. She could find nothing the matter with her plan. Even putting the best frame around their plans they were still unworkable.
She went back into the meetings determined once again to have her say. Again they ignored her and this time she lost her temper. Through angry tears she told them their plans would not work in two years if then, that she had been hired as a consultant and was determined to have her say.

There had been an uncomfortable silence, she recalled. They had all stared at her. One apologized for his indifference to her plight muttering that he hadn’t realized how upset she was. They asked that perhaps it might be a good idea for her to have some time off and again apologized for not noticing how upset she was earlier. Someone wondered about her fitness for the job.

With a sinking feeling she rose and left the meeting. Nothing in her past had trained her to deal with such condescending patronizing circumstances. She began to doubt herself. Perhaps she had got it all wrong. She again went over her work waking in the night thinking about the problems. No, there were no mistakes. Surely they must know they were wrong she thought. No one could be that stupid. But she was completely outnumbered and outvoted by her all male counterparts. She decided to just listen in subsequent meetings.

As she did so she began to realize that the were fully aware of what they were doing. The occasional sly smile, the odd conspiratorial look between them. And slowly the penny dropped.
They were all on contract and the payment bonus for finishing the job on time in two years was substantial. They were not interested in their plans being actually workable. They were interested in finishing in 2 years, by which time they would have all fulfilled the contract, collected their bonuses and someone else would have to clean up the mess they left behind! Anything that even hinted that what they were doing would not work would be disastrous.

Nothing had prepared Diane for this assault on her integrity. If she confronted them she would be ignored and her mental health and emotional capability questioned. It had already been alluded to in the meeting. If she went along with them she would have to live with herself afterward and her reputation as a consultant would be in tatters.

Being new to NZ she had few friends here and she had thought of returning to the UK but that would have meant leaving the job half done admitting failure on her previous unblemished career, returning with her tail between her legs. She felt she was in a blind alley with nowhere to go. She began to wake up at night worrying, and she began to lose some weight. Maybe they were all right about her after al she thought. She was not emotionally up to the job. She was becoming depressed. She looked up depression and found she had many of the symptoms. She saw a GP who started her off on antidepressants.

Being an executive manager she had managed to hold herself together. She had convinced herself that she would just have to resign herself to the fact that she was a depressive and would probably not be able to cope with the future she had planned in business.

It was in these resigned circumstances that I saw her.

To say I was appalled was an understatement. I had heard about the managers she was working with. Several were brash young executives with their new MBA’s under their belt newcomers to health, out to make big money. I had seen others who had been intimidated by their power hungry disenfranchising maneuvers and arbitrary methods. They thought that ‘adequate consultation with all staff’ meant giving orders.

What to do?
Because I had dealt with similar cases in the past said, “I don’t think you actually do suffer from depression. I think you have been deliberately shafted. You have been taken down, and deliberately ignored.”
She let out an explosive breath of relief. “You mean I don’t really have depression?” she asked.

“Well all I can say is that I have seen other folk exactly like you who have been treated in the same contemptuous way by similar managers and they couldn’t sleep, lost weight and thought that they were depressed. I think this has got to stop.”

“Really!” She said. And then she talked of all the slights she had received, their patronizing offhand comments about women in business, what she had done, and how her indignation seemingly had been translated into her having an ‘emotional problem’.
Her story happened to coincide with the histories of others who had come to see me with similar stories about the same individuals.

I asked her if she had some documentation of what had happened in the meetings. She said yes she had. She had written notes of times dates and meeting agenda’s to re scrutinize where she had possibly gone wrong and what she might learn. However no matter what she did she had realized she was outnumbered, and out voted and no matter what she said or did they would continue with their unworkable agenda.

She explained that her immediate Bosses were the Ministry of Health. Complaining to them would almost surely result in their canvassing the rest of the team and the outcome would almost certainly be a vote from the others that she was mentally unstable.

I suggested she write out a full summary of times, dates, and plans, what she had said, what they had said, the outcome of votes cast up until the present leaving out emotional reactions any interpretations as far as possible. Could she do that?
Then I said we would meet again to go over the details and see what might be done.
Yes of course she said. (She was after all an accomplished manager.)

A couple of meetings later we discussed the issues.

She seemed to be transformed.
She had been very busy. She said that after our meetings she thought of what she might do. She had decided to return to the UK. She had then written a comprehensive report of everything that had happened to her with the times, dates and the minutes including who had said what, of all the meetings she had attended. To this report she attached her resignation stating exactly what had happened and her reasons for her abrupt departure. She had sent it by registered mail to the Ministry that had employed her.

She booked a flight back to the UK and thought that her experience in NZ would form the basis for a thesis for a doctorate.
I asked her what about the antidepressants?

“Oh those,” she said. “I don’t need them. I don’t think I really needed them in the first place.”

Some months later I heard via the grapevine that the management project had been disbanded by the Ministry and its members made redundant.