There’s No Crying in Business (and Baseball)

I always said famously to my former staff, “unless someone died, I had better not see you crying about something that happened at work”. Sound harsh? Maybe. But I said it for a reason. I have managed hundreds of people throughout my career, most of them women. Women have this beautiful quality to feel and express emotion at a very deep level. Men do as well, but it doesn’t often manifest itself into tears, particularly at work.

The perception can be that crying makes us appear weak or soft in a business environment. It’s a sad statement, but it’s what has evolved in our culture. And frankly, the other reason is that there is nothing that happens in an office environment that is worth shedding a sad tear over. By the way, it’s not that I don’t cry. I can be caught welling up at a well-crafted cellular service commercial or at just about any sappy, heart string tugging moment. There is always a place for tears of joy, sweetness and appreciation. And I certainly had many closed door meetings where tears were shed while staff would confide personal challenges at home to me. That’s different.

Many years ago, a consultant from the sister relocation management company was berating one of my counselors on the phone. We had an open floor plan so all of the employees could hear her side of the conversation and could tell things were going sideways. I was notified that I might need to intervene. So I walked out and stood next to my employee. She was on the verge of crying and I leaned down and said, “don’t you dare cry or she will have won”. She composed herself and got off of the  phone. You just can’t let bullies win, they will just keep coming back for the satisfaction of it all. That relocation management company consultant was famous for being incredibly awful to everyone. She would never be allowed to speak to a broker that way in today’s environment, but back then, we were scared of retaliation and let things slide that we shouldn’t have because we were fearful of losing business if we reported them. Thank goodness that unhealthy client/supplier relationship has changed.

So no matter how big the mess up or how rough the situation, I would always say, “No one ever died of real estate. It will be fine.”  And it was. Yes, we had to fix a few giant problems that were due to employee, vendor or agent error throughout the years, but we all made it out alive.  It’s just the cost of doing business. People make mistakes.

I also made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t be friends with anyone that worked for me. I couldn’t hang out with my employees. Now that I am not their supervisor, I enjoy staying in touch with them and often having dinner with many of them pre-COVID. I can truly call a lot of them my friends and I hope they would say the same about me. But there is a fine line when supervising people as to how you label your relationship. You can’t be friends with some and only a boss to others. Even if you think you can be a fair leader, if the other staff know that you hang out with one of their coworkers, they will assume favoritism and it makes it even harder to carry out tough decisions. It’s just better for everyone to stay on neutral ground.

I did enjoy friendships with leaders of other departments in our company and still have many of those close friendships to this day. Sometimes it made it tough when I had  a problem with a department they managed, but for the most part, it actually made it easier to resolve, because of our friendship. We all had a vested interest in a resolution.

But why is it when a man is really vocal or divisive about something he is called a passionate leader, but a woman may be called a bitch if she is aggressive or extremely vocal in her position. Isn’t that sad? But it’s true. So I learned early on I would have to create a bit of a hard shell in a large corporate environment. I had to do a lot of unpleasant things in the name of business like cutting budgets and terminating and laying off people throughout the years. It was hard, but necessary. I felt the pain of it but I had to tell myself that it was for the overall good of the business and it usually was. Even when I thought it was a dumb move, I had to toe the company line. It is a decision you have to make if you want to you move through the ranks of a big company. I was a good soldier. Just because I executed the task, doesn’t mean I didn’t privately kick and fight about the decision with my supervisor to make my point against it. But I would ultimately execute the decision in my own way or negotiate a more palatable solution.

So my ‘no crying in business’ mantra held true until I learned they were shutting down the bulk of what I managed along with many other departments, laying off over 250 people around the country, including me. I was told of my fate and my counterparts and employees in a very matter of fact, unemotional, thankless presentation in some nondescript hotel conference room in late September 2016. I went to my car and cried for ten minutes. I broke my own rule because, in fact, something was dying. The departments we had all worked so hard to build that generated so many millions of dollars in profit was deemed unnecessary. I had missed dance recitals and first steps for the company. It could be centralized into two regions and handled by lower paid staff.  

Only a couple of people on my staff were also made aware of the situation. We carried the burden of that secret until early December when it was announced to the staff that most of their jobs would be ending January 31, 2017.  I cried through the entire announcement as it was made to the affected staff and departments. I felt particularly bad for those few who retained their jobs because I know they felt enormous guilt.

So after that initial meeting, it was time for action. No more crying in front of them from me.  I had a lot of time to think about how I could help my employees in the two months before the announcement, so I prepared documents to help them with resume writing and how to improve their LinkedIn profile. I provided references for them and helped coach them on interview techniques even though I hadn’t been on a job interview myself in 30 years. I compiled contact information on all of the various relocation companies and real estate companies who handled relocation to help them all find jobs. We also strategized how we would make a smooth transition and destroy or store our documents and clean out the office space. It was a distraction that helped me from going crazy over the irrational nature of the decision. I had to be the voice of reason, in an unreasonable time.

In hindsight, my shedding of tears was justified at that moment. But if I knew then what I know now, I would have not shed one tear. My affected staff all went on to find great relocation and real estate roles or sought out completely new and different opportunities. But best of all, I was able to explore what I really like to do and help others develop new lines of business and generate new sources of revenue with what I learned throughout my corporate years.

“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”  ~ C.S. Lewis