Ask a Manager: I manage the CEO’s horrible nephew

[minoanmiss]

I’m a first-time manager dealing with a difficult employee, “Felix.” Felix has been at my company for five years now. He also happens to be the CEO’s nephew. His performance was never good, but it’s gotten steadily worse in the time I’ve been here. His work frequently has mistakes and he is unreachable for large stretches of the day. What’s worse is that he and I do not have a good relationship (we were peers before I was promoted) and he pushes back on any feedback I give him. At one point, he yelled in my face when I pointed out a repeated problem with his work, saying that he “didn’t respect” my feedback.

I’ve documented these issues extensively. My boss, “Rachel” (Felix’s former direct manager), had similar issues managing him. I’ve talked to her repeatedly about putting him on a PIP or even terminating him outright. She says that Felix is unhappy and actively job-searching and that she will work with him directly to set an end date. I’ve also talked to HR after he put in a complaint about me, but they’ve largely been useless.

Things came to a head at the end of last year, during Felix’s performance review. I gave him poor marks on attitude, work quality, and communication (all of which he gave himself top marks for in his self-review), and he once again yelled at me and told me that my review was unfair and said that the whole team thought I was a jerk. With Rachel on the call. Who again told me that he was probably going to leave soon on his own.

What should I do now? Should I keep pushing to fire him? Should I just deal with it? Look for a new job? I like my job, even though my company is dysfunctional in a lot of ways. I also care about the rest of my team, and don’t want to leave them in the lurch. I’ve been trying to make it work, but I’m at the end of my rope.



You should indeed keep pushing to fire him, pointing out that his behavior over time will destroy any accountability on your team (since other people will see what he’s getting away with — the yelling alone is unacceptable) and also noting that it’s not reasonable to ask you to manage someone who believes he can be a jerk to you with impunity.

But also, it sounds like Rachel might not feel Felix can be outright fired since he’s the CEO’s nephew. The may or may not be correct; sometimes people think that about nepotism hires, when in fact the CEO would be fine with the nephew being fired if they knew what was going on. But either way, it’s time for a conversation with Rachel about what really can and can’t be done. If you absolutely cannot fire Felix or put him a PIP, she needs to come out and tell you that. And if that’s the case, the two of you need to decide how to manage around that situation to minimize the impact on you and the rest of your staff. Is she willing to follow through on this “end date” conversation? If so, by when? If not, what does she propose since she’s tying your hands? Or — can you explore the option of letting him go despite his ties to the CEO? Is she just assuming that’s a no-go or does she know for sure? If it’s off the table, can you just stop giving him work?

Basically, it’s time to push this out of the realm of “Rachel will talk to him,” point out that that hasn’t worked, press for a different solution, and talk honestly about what is and isn’t possible. Then you can decide from there if you’re willing to live with that or not. (But if you did leave over it, that wouldn’t be leaving your team in the lurch! People leave jobs. Your team might even appreciate you taking a stand.)

Comments

[minoanmiss]

If I were LW I would get another job, and then in my exit interview talk about all the problems with Felix. I'm not certain if even then I would let the CEO know.

The problem is that the risk of the CEO being protective over Felix goes beyond having LW fired immediately or managed out slowly. Depending on the industry, LW could find their career destroyed well beyond this company. Many people will do anything for their families, except ask them to behave better. The CEO might, possibly, be a decent person, but the LW has far too much to lose if they're not.

(Plus, if the CEO wanted to avoid nepotism, wouldn't they keep an eye on how Felix is doing and tell him to stop making their family look bad?)

[xenacryst]

I feel like Alison's advice here is "technically" correct, but leaves out from the equation the potential harm to LW's career and mental health of staying and trying to make things work (or, at least, glosses over that a fair bit). Yes, trying to shape up the nephew either by PIP or firing is the "right" thing, but sometimes the right thing is not the best thing for the person who has to carry the weight of the shaping up. LW mentions that the company is dysfunctional in other ways and HR is limp at best, and to me that sounds like doing the right thing will mostly be spitting into the wind - nothing of consequence will happen, and LW will take a pretty big personal toll from trying to make it happen.

So my advice to LW is: stay if you want to, but know that the likelihood of your success is low, your own well being (personal and professional) will take a hit, and it's not your job to fix all the broken people in the world.

Also, LW doesn't state their gender, but I feel very strong vibes of both disrespect for women managers and women will nurture and fix broken people/companies/processes at cost to themselves coming off this letter.

[jadelennox]

This is my nasty suspicious mind talking now, but.. Felix clearly thinks he's untouchable. He yells at his manager and says he doesn't respect them, outright. And he's this far correct: he is untouchable, even if it's only because people are worried to escalate.

Felix is also an asshole and is taking advantage of his feelings of invulnerability: yelling in LW's face; being "unreachable for large stretches of the day."

I don't trust Felix.

CEO might be great! Who knows, maybe everyone else is just afraid to escalate to CEO. But Felix thinks he can get away with just about anything. If LW's team is working non-remotely, I would not want anyone else on my team, especially women, to be alone with him. I wouldn't trust him around other people's unlocked desks. I wouldn't trust him around private personal information. I wouldn't trust him not to try to yoink a project out from another team member to get the credit for it. I wouldn't trust him not to backstab every other member of the team, especially the most vulnerable ones.

If LW can't ditch Felix, then they need to get out. And honestly, that probably goes for everyone else on the team, as well.

[green_grrl]

but leaves out from the equation the potential harm to LW's career and mental health of staying and trying to make things work

This right here. Usually Alison is better at picking up the subtle clue LWs drop. LW is seeing all the reasons she needs AND wants to leave, but she’s still deep in the sunk cost fallacy. Alison should have shown her that she is well on the road to wanting to GTFO, and so should invest more time/energy in job searching.