Sticking hands in people's face to stop them talking, intimating and aggressive, banging the table.
Sounds like an incompetent bully to me who should be nowhere near government.
OMG. Minister raises hand to stop someone talking so the minister can make a point. Jesus. That’s practically the Spanish inquisition
He’s a fucking minister. Democratically appointed. He’s meant to be the boss. Get things done. He’s allowed to interrupt when some idiot is waffling on
I was expecting to read stuff about him hurling chairs or sticking peoples heads down toilets. Not this bollocks
Nobody would survive that sort of behaviour at any workplace I have worked out, so why should Whitehall be any different? It’s a sign of deep incompetence as much as anything else, shutting people down, and preventing them from challenging you. Pretty much the definition of toxic leadership.
Gordon Brown used to throw fucking phones around. Did he have to resign for bullying?
Dominic Raab called some work “woeful”. He’s sacked for bullying
Gordon Brown was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as PM. Dominic Raab was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as DPM.
If bullying really worked might it be worth sacrificing the egos and mental health of a few civil servants for the greater good. Possibly, its a debate that could be had if bullying worked. But bullying doesn't work - you need to motivate staff to get results.
Personally I think you need both. Stick and carrot. Mainly carrot, but occasionally a boss needs to say, “ this work is utterly useless” - as Raab apparently did
It doesn’t even constitute bullying to my mind. It’s blunt and direct criticism. To be used sparingly for sure, but it’s part of the job of management
I’ve occasionally faced criticism like this. “Leon this is just lazy. It’s rubbish, and you know it”. The criticism was correct. I went away and did it better. I didn’t feel “bullied”
The report seems largely exculpatory, having skim read it, and fully read the conclusions.
That's true - but the one part that isn't exculpatory is enough to have made his position untenable.
No it’s not. He was a bit pushy and would call work “utterly useless”. Apparently that is “unconstructive criticism” and constitutes bullying
What a pile of pettifogging piffle
176 (2) (b): In reaching and implementing this management choice he acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual, which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have been aware.
You don't survive that in 2023.
Nor should you.
True. But 20 years ago it was possible to survive it - and much worse.
The report seems largely exculpatory, having skim read it, and fully read the conclusions.
That's true - but the one part that isn't exculpatory is enough to have made his position untenable.
No it’s not. He was a bit pushy and would call work “utterly useless”. Apparently that is “unconstructive criticism” and constitutes bullying
What a pile of pettifogging piffle
176 (2) (b): In reaching and implementing this management choice he acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual, which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have been aware.
You don't survive that in 2023.
Raab was occasionally an abrasive boss. That’s it. The civil servants are pitiful wankers
What Raab (and others) seem to have missed is the obvious point that Tolley didn't make up his own definition of bullying - he didn't "set the bar" anywhere, either high or low - but scrupulously followed the Ministerial Code and its interpretation by the High Court.
If Raab, as Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, hadn't bothered to acquaint himself with the relevant "pettifogging piffle", then he'd have been wiser not to state publicly in advance that he would resign if the report found against him.
Being a demanding boss is not the same as being a bully. But the behaviour of a demanding boss is very different. A good, demanding boss who wants high standards needs to motivate their workforce. They take the time to talk through the feedback they are giving, explain how they need things to be different next time, and address any concerns and (crucially) take on board feedback themselves. They act as mentor, not dragon.
The impression I get in this instance is Raab is hiding behind the “demanding boss” line but actually his leadership style was poor and demotivating.
The closest I’ve ever got to Raabing it was
1) interrupting someone in a meeting to ask him to stop speaking. Since what he was suggesting was criminal behaviour. 2) asking a couple Accenture clowns, in writing, to re-write a report in English rather than invented business speak. I had to do this twice. 3) exposing a couple of ex-civil service clowns in a meeting, I had said do A, they did B with disastrous consequences. All I did was pass to the chair a copy of my written instruction to do A, complete with reasons.
All done politely. I find a kind of icy, calm, ultra politeness the most effective.
I am also far from convinced that calling work “utterly useless” and “woeful” is ever a constructive or helpful contribution.
“The work did not do what I needed it to for reasons X, Y and Z” gives the message (and believe me the person receiving the feedback gets it loud and clear) but it actually helps deliver more positive outcomes moving forwards.
Sticking hands in people's face to stop them talking, intimating and aggressive, banging the table.
Sounds like an incompetent bully to me who should be nowhere near government.
OMG. Minister raises hand to stop someone talking so the minister can make a point. Jesus. That’s practically the Spanish inquisition
He’s a fucking minister. Democratically appointed. He’s meant to be the boss. Get things done. He’s allowed to interrupt when some idiot is waffling on
I was expecting to read stuff about him hurling chairs or sticking peoples heads down toilets. Not this bollocks
Nobody would survive that sort of behaviour at any workplace I have worked out, so why should Whitehall be any different? It’s a sign of deep incompetence as much as anything else, shutting people down, and preventing them from challenging you. Pretty much the definition of toxic leadership.
Gordon Brown used to throw fucking phones around. Did he have to resign for bullying?
Dominic Raab called some work “woeful”. He’s sacked for bullying
Gordon Brown was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as PM. Dominic Raab was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as DPM.
If bullying really worked might it be worth sacrificing the egos and mental health of a few civil servants for the greater good. Possibly, its a debate that could be had if bullying worked. But bullying doesn't work - you need to motivate staff to get results.
Personally I think you need both. Stick and carrot. Mainly carrot, but occasionally a boss needs to say, “ this work is utterly useless” - as Raab apparently did
It doesn’t even constitute bullying to my mind. It’s blunt and direct criticism. To be used sparingly for sure, but it’s part of the job of management
I’ve occasionally faced criticism like this. “Leon this is just lazy. It’s rubbish, and you know it”. The criticism was correct. I went away and did it better. I didn’t feel “bullied”
It’s about calling people out, in front of others.
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You have worked in an office/had a boss for 3 hours longer than me so collectively our wisdom about the workplace boss seems to be (to coin a word) unsurpassable.
PG Wodehouse is, as so often, the source of light. 1) Having a boss is generally to be avoided (Wodehouse passim) 2) If you have one don't choose Spode (Code of the Woosters etc) 3) Raab is Spode (take a glance, and think of Black Shorts)
Sticking hands in people's face to stop them talking, intimating and aggressive, banging the table.
Sounds like an incompetent bully to me who should be nowhere near government.
OMG. Minister raises hand to stop someone talking so the minister can make a point. Jesus. That’s practically the Spanish inquisition
He’s a fucking minister. Democratically appointed. He’s meant to be the boss. Get things done. He’s allowed to interrupt when some idiot is waffling on
I was expecting to read stuff about him hurling chairs or sticking peoples heads down toilets. Not this bollocks
Nobody would survive that sort of behaviour at any workplace I have worked out, so why should Whitehall be any different? It’s a sign of deep incompetence as much as anything else, shutting people down, and preventing them from challenging you. Pretty much the definition of toxic leadership.
Raab sounds like a complete fucking idiot who can't lead.
The report seems largely exculpatory, having skim read it, and fully read the conclusions.
That's true - but the one part that isn't exculpatory is enough to have made his position untenable.
No it’s not. He was a bit pushy and would call work “utterly useless”. Apparently that is “unconstructive criticism” and constitutes bullying
What a pile of pettifogging piffle
176 (2) (b): In reaching and implementing this management choice he acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual, which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have been aware.
You don't survive that in 2023.
Nor should you.
True. But 20 years ago it was possible to survive it - and much worse.
It is perfectly possible to "survive" all sorts of things we should not condone or encourage. Having survived it is important not to become part of a negative cycle where the bullied becomes the bully, which can and does happen.
Everyone who has had a job will have worked for a Raab at one time or another. They know what such people are like. Anyone defending him will look and sound totally out of touch.
Extraordinary… Dominic Raab accused the MoJ’s most senior civil servant Antonia Romeo of making up notes showing she had raised concerns with him about his behaviour
Sticking hands in people's face to stop them talking, intimating and aggressive, banging the table.
Sounds like an incompetent bully to me who should be nowhere near government.
OMG. Minister raises hand to stop someone talking so the minister can make a point. Jesus. That’s practically the Spanish inquisition
He’s a fucking minister. Democratically appointed. He’s meant to be the boss. Get things done. He’s allowed to interrupt when some idiot is waffling on
I was expecting to read stuff about him hurling chairs or sticking peoples heads down toilets. Not this bollocks
Nobody would survive that sort of behaviour at any workplace I have worked out, so why should Whitehall be any different? It’s a sign of deep incompetence as much as anything else, shutting people down, and preventing them from challenging you. Pretty much the definition of toxic leadership.
Raab sounds like a complete fucking idiot who can't lead.
What’s the line “His subordinates would not follow him, even out of curiosity” ?
Not a politician whose departure I much mourn - I didn't agree with anything he said, particularly when it came to the whole ECHR debate.
On a scale of bullying alegations, Raab's seem to be greater than those levelled at the Duchess of Sussex, but less serious than those levelled at Priti Patel and considerably less serious than the allegations that have been made in the past against John Bercow and Gordon Brown.
The TalkRadio taking heads who were happy to call Meghan a bully, if they want to appear to have any consistency, ought now to call Raab the same, rather than just call the accusers snowflakes. Needless to say those who formerly supported Bercow retaining his role as Speaker and wanted him elevated to the Lords are not on the strongest ground here either when accusing Raab of being beyond the pale.
I do have some sympathy with the argument that civil servants and politicians need to have what has generally been called 'firm and frank exchanges of views' in order to hammer out the best possible solutions to any given problem. But Raab is probably the least appropriate person to make this point right now and that doesn't seem to me what this story is about.
Raab’s departure is great for Sunak. It’s another barnacle off the boat.
I haven’t read the report, but from extracts it seems that even a whitewash job couldn’t quite cover over the nasty stains on Raab’s “management” style.
As other have noted, he achieved nothing after seven years as a Minister. Worse than nothing if you count the Afghanistan debacle. Good riddance.
And I speak as one of the few owners of his book “Assault on Liberty”.
Problem is that Sunak doesn’t have a great record of promoting anyone other than barnacles. It does give him an opportunity, but based on previous I’m not holding my breath.
Being a demanding boss is not the same as being a bully. But the behaviour of a demanding boss is very different. A good, demanding boss who wants high standards needs to motivate their workforce. They take the time to talk through the feedback they are giving, explain how they need things to be different next time, and address any concerns and (crucially) take on board feedback themselves. They act as mentor, not dragon.
The impression I get in this instance is Raab is hiding behind the “demanding boss” line but actually his leadership style was poor and demotivating.
All done politely. I find a kind of icy, calm, ultra politeness the most effective.
If I wanted to be a complete bustard I’d start off with “Help me to understand….” While smiling sweetly….
It looks as though Raab never knew the fundamental rule “Praise in public, criticise in private”.
We complain about the government being weak and useless - and they are - then when a minister works really hard (as the report makes clear), and pushes his civil servants to do better, he gets the sack for “bullying”
We are a pathetic nation
I read it a little differently. While it's clear form the report that any 'bullying' was generalised rather than persistently targeted behaviour, he sounds an absolute nightmare to work for.
The context for the 'hard working', driven; minister is that he achieved the square root of fuck all. And I suspect, though it's impossible to know for sure from the report, that much of the frustration which he visited on his civil servants (most of whose complaints were not considered by the report) was a result of his inability to be an effective minister despite all the furious activity.
We are a pathetic nation if we can't do better the Raab at the senior levels of government.
Yep, it sounds like he routinely used confrontation, hostility and intimidation as managerial techniques. No wonder he achieved absolutely nothing as a minister.
Former client in Romania won't pay invoices (comfortably 5 figures) until tax residency certificate is sent. After 2 months of faff from HMRC - including them sending them to the wrong address - I finally sent the certificate to Romania via Royal Mail tracked and signed last week.
3-5 business days.
Website has the letter scanned out of Aberdeen bound for Heathrow a week ago, And then? Nothing! Customer service lady apologetic, said after a recent cyber attack their scanning system is not working. So they are selling tracking, but can't actually track!
Said they don't get scan data from Romania anyway (despite selling it) so has no idea if it is in Romania or Heathrow but "should be". It isn't counted as lost for another month so they don't care...
I obtained 2 copies of my tax residency certificate. At this rate I will be on Ryanair to Bucharest with that copy...
Unsurprising. My mother's Radio Times is being delivered several days after it has become out of date.
Sticking hands in people's face to stop them talking, intimating and aggressive, banging the table.
Sounds like an incompetent bully to me who should be nowhere near government.
OMG. Minister raises hand to stop someone talking so the minister can make a point. Jesus. That’s practically the Spanish inquisition
He’s a fucking minister. Democratically appointed. He’s meant to be the boss. Get things done. He’s allowed to interrupt when some idiot is waffling on
I was expecting to read stuff about him hurling chairs or sticking peoples heads down toilets. Not this bollocks
Nobody would survive that sort of behaviour at any workplace I have worked out, so why should Whitehall be any different? It’s a sign of deep incompetence as much as anything else, shutting people down, and preventing them from challenging you. Pretty much the definition of toxic leadership.
Gordon Brown used to throw fucking phones around. Did he have to resign for bullying?
Dominic Raab called some work “woeful”. He’s sacked for bullying
Gordon Brown was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as PM. Dominic Raab was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as DPM.
If bullying really worked might it be worth sacrificing the egos and mental health of a few civil servants for the greater good. Possibly, its a debate that could be had if bullying worked. But bullying doesn't work - you need to motivate staff to get results.
Personally I think you need both. Stick and carrot. Mainly carrot, but occasionally a boss needs to say, “ this work is utterly useless” - as Raab apparently did
It doesn’t even constitute bullying to my mind. It’s blunt and direct criticism. To be used sparingly for sure, but it’s part of the job of management
I’ve occasionally faced criticism like this. “Leon this is just lazy. It’s rubbish, and you know it”. The criticism was correct. I went away and did it better. I didn’t feel “bullied”
If the boss is utterly useless, that’s a pretty shitty stick to endure. I imagine beneath the pulsing veined ego Raab was aware of the general opinion of him, which may have encouraged him to over compensate in the stick department.
Dom’s carrot is a concept one can only speculate about.
Sticking hands in people's face to stop them talking, intimating and aggressive, banging the table.
Sounds like an incompetent bully to me who should be nowhere near government.
OMG. Minister raises hand to stop someone talking so the minister can make a point. Jesus. That’s practically the Spanish inquisition
He’s a fucking minister. Democratically appointed. He’s meant to be the boss. Get things done. He’s allowed to interrupt when some idiot is waffling on
I was expecting to read stuff about him hurling chairs or sticking peoples heads down toilets. Not this bollocks
Nobody would survive that sort of behaviour at any workplace I have worked out, so why should Whitehall be any different? It’s a sign of deep incompetence as much as anything else, shutting people down, and preventing them from challenging you. Pretty much the definition of toxic leadership.
Gordon Brown used to throw fucking phones around. Did he have to resign for bullying?
Dominic Raab called some work “woeful”. He’s sacked for bullying
Gordon Brown was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as PM. Dominic Raab was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as DPM.
If bullying really worked might it be worth sacrificing the egos and mental health of a few civil servants for the greater good. Possibly, its a debate that could be had if bullying worked. But bullying doesn't work - you need to motivate staff to get results.
Personally I think you need both. Stick and carrot. Mainly carrot, but occasionally a boss needs to say, “ this work is utterly useless” - as Raab apparently did
It doesn’t even constitute bullying to my mind. It’s blunt and direct criticism. To be used sparingly for sure, but it’s part of the job of management
I’ve occasionally faced criticism like this. “Leon this is just lazy. It’s rubbish, and you know it”. The criticism was correct. I went away and did it better. I didn’t feel “bullied”
Criticism is fine, indeed its necessary to improve. How you criticise is one of the key differences between good and ineffective managers. If the being fired for being a bully riles you then just accept it as he has been fired for being shit at his job which is an equally valid interpretation.
Raab’s departure is great for Sunak. It’s another barnacle off the boat.
I haven’t read the report, but from extracts it seems that even a whitewash job couldn’t quite cover over the nasty stains on Raab’s “management” style.
As other have noted, he achieved nothing after seven years as a Minister. Worse than nothing if you count the Afghanistan debacle. Good riddance.
And I speak as one of the few owners of his book “Assault on Liberty”.
Problem is that Sunak doesn’t have a great record of promoting anyone other than barnacles. It does give him an opportunity, but based on previous I’m not holding my breath.
Apparently Oliver Dowden is front runner for DPM. I have no opinion of him whatsoever.
I do believe Rishi’s cabinet is largely unobjectionable. Unlike Johnson’s or Truss’s. However he appointed four notable shits/crooks: Williamson, Raab, Zahawi and Braverman.
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
Says the man who has already outlined his credentials in this debate.
Nobody is saying that bosses need to be "lovely emollient encouraging types". A boss does not need to be nice. He/she does not need to be liked. It helps if they are respected. Raab is clearly a jerk with no leadership or management skill, and probably isn't even respected by his mother.
Sunak, who it appears to me has both to some degree has ruthlessly fired him (through facilitating his resignation). It is a good call.
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
Being a demanding boss is not the same as being a bully. But the behaviour of a demanding boss is very different. A good, demanding boss who wants high standards needs to motivate their workforce. They take the time to talk through the feedback they are giving, explain how they need things to be different next time, and address any concerns and (crucially) take on board feedback themselves. They act as mentor, not dragon.
The impression I get in this instance is Raab is hiding behind the “demanding boss” line but actually his leadership style was poor and demotivating.
All done politely. I find a kind of icy, calm, ultra politeness the most effective.
If I wanted to be a complete bustard I’d start off with “Help me to understand….” While smiling sweetly….
It looks as though Raab never knew the fundamental rule “Praise in public, criticise in private”.
An architect I am employing sent a builder an email over a quote.
On the face of it, several paragraphs of old world politeness.
Parsed to actual meaning, it read “I’ll never recommend using you again, you corrupt idiot.”
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
Lol. I do love your style, even when you haven't got a clue what you are talking about
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
People may put up with abrasive bosses if the success (money, trophies) makes it worthwhile. That wasn't the case with Raab and I suspect isn't the case in 99% of instances.
We complain about the government being weak and useless - and they are - then when a minister works really hard (as the report makes clear), and pushes his civil servants to do better, he gets the sack for “bullying”
We are a pathetic nation
I read it a little differently. While it's clear form the report that any 'bullying' was generalised rather than persistently targeted behaviour, he sounds an absolute nightmare to work for.
The context for the 'hard working', driven; minister is that he achieved the square root of fuck all. And I suspect, though it's impossible to know for sure from the report, that much of the frustration which he visited on his civil servants (most of whose complaints were not considered by the report) was a result of his inability to be an effective minister despite all the furious activity.
We are a pathetic nation if we can't do better the Raab at the senior levels of government.
Yep, it sounds like he routinely used confrontation, hostility and intimidation as managerial techniques. No wonder he achieved absolutely nothing as a minister.
Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) Well, I was terrified. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.
2nd Interviewer: What did he do?
Vercotti: He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, pathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious.
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
Says the man who has already outlined his credentials in this debate.
Nobody is saying that bosses need to be "lovely emollient encouraging types". A boss does not need to be nice. He/she does not need to be liked. It helps if they are respected. Raab is clearly a jerk with no leadership or management skill, and probably isn't even respected by his mother.
Sunak, who it appears to me has both to some degree has ruthlessly fired him (through facilitating his resignation). It is a good call.
Bosses who think they are Alex Ferguson calibre are probably not Alex Ferguson calibre!
I generally have very little tolerance for bullying in the workplace, but reading the news summary, it seems very weak.
The report says outright that Raab did not target anyone in particular. Surely, that is the basic fundamental of bullying? The worst that can then be said about someone if that is true is that they were aggressive.
And as for being aggressive, the most inflammatory language being quoted is him calling work "woeful" or "utterly useless". It isn't my style to call people out in front of others, but those do not seem outrageous terms to me. And I could potentially use them if there was a repeated flaw that was done time and time again if feedback was not incorporated. Especially if I had a lot of people reporting to me, they were senior enough to be big boys, and I did not always have the time to do 1 on 1s.
And I say all this as someone that is in the top 10% for upwards feedback at my work. It really does seem like a Sir Humphrey style stitch up from the outside.
The report seems largely exculpatory, having skim read it, and fully read the conclusions.
That's true - but the one part that isn't exculpatory is enough to have made his position untenable.
No it’s not. He was a bit pushy and would call work “utterly useless”. Apparently that is “unconstructive criticism” and constitutes bullying
What a pile of pettifogging piffle
176 (2) (b): In reaching and implementing this management choice he acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual, which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have been aware.
You don't survive that in 2023.
Nor should you.
True. But 20 years ago it was possible to survive it - and much worse.
Nah. Absolutely not. I’ve been working as an employment lawyer since 2001. In 2002 (it was during the World Cup I recall) I acted for an employee in a successful constructive dismissal claim where his boss had behaved in a manner not dissimilar to the way Raab is reported to have. We won and the judgment from the Tribunal was utterly damning of the boss.
Have read the report in full and frankly the MoJ and the Brexit Dept stuff, though not edifying, should not have resulted in Raab's departure.
But that relating to the FCOD (para 152 and summary) is what did for him. Tolley does not mince words:
"45 (b) In reaching and implementing this management choice he acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual, which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have been aware.
Tolley also believes the Permanent Secretary's account and not Raab's.
Raab’s departure is great for Sunak. It’s another barnacle off the boat.
I haven’t read the report, but from extracts it seems that even a whitewash job couldn’t quite cover over the nasty stains on Raab’s “management” style.
As other have noted, he achieved nothing after seven years as a Minister. Worse than nothing if you count the Afghanistan debacle. Good riddance.
And I speak as one of the few owners of his book “Assault on Liberty”.
Problem is that Sunak doesn’t have a great record of promoting anyone other than barnacles. It does give him an opportunity, but based on previous I’m not holding my breath.
Apparently Oliver Dowden is front runner for DPM. I have no opinion of him whatsoever.
I do believe Rishi’s cabinet is largely unobjectionable. Unlike Johnson’s or Truss’s. However he appointed four notable shits/crooks: Williamson, Raab, Zahawi and Braverman.
Three are now gone.
It is hard to imagine Oliver Dowden as front-runner for any post but according to Wikipedia the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a Cambridge-educated lawyer with "expertise in the attacking form of political communications". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Dowden
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
Says the man who has already outlined his credentials in this debate.
Nobody is saying that bosses need to be "lovely emollient encouraging types". A boss does not need to be nice. He/she does not need to be liked. It helps if they are respected. Raab is clearly a jerk with no leadership or management skill, and probably isn't even respected by his mother.
Sunak, who it appears to me has both to some degree has ruthlessly fired him (through facilitating his resignation). It is a good call.
Bosses who think they are Alex Ferguson calibre are probably not Alex Ferguson calibre!
Alex Ferguson did things on a regular basis that are clearly 10x worse than the criticisms of Raab here. And being talented should not give more slack for abusive behaviour.
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
I think selecting Autobahns as the significant legacy of that individual is being somewhat selective. Maybe.
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
SAF balanced that abrasiveness with integrity, honesty, consistency and occasionally emoullience. Raab did not. He was just a nasty shit who was out of his depth.
The qualifications in the report are as interesting as the findings.
...In the course of his ministerial work, the DPM often encounters what he genuinely sees as frustrations in respect of the quality of work done, its speed of production and the extent to which it implements his policy decisions. it has not been necessary to make any finding as to whether any of those frustrations was well-founded in any particular case...
...The DPM often operates on the basis that once he has made a policy decision, it should not be revisited subsequently by civil servants. He refers to this, when it occurs, as ‘relitigating his steers’. Views can, however, reasonably differ as to whether an earlier policy decision (or ‘steer’) was truly final, particularly in light of new or additional circumstances which may arise. Civil servants have a duty to give informed and impartial advice and Ministers have an obligation (under paragraph 5.2 of the Ministerial Code) to consider it...
..The DPM tends to take a clear view of an issue, whatever it may comprise. This applies across the range of matters with which he deals, from policy decisions to the presentational format of papers. In the context of the investigation, this approach manifested itself in what I considered to be a somewhat absolutist approach in his response to certain points, such as whether a particular conversation had occurred, either at all or in a certain way. His responses were frequently put in ‘black or white’ terms, with no room for nuance even where nuance might reasonably be expected. I did not find this approach persuasive. However, I have in every instance of factual dispute considered what appeared to me to be the inherent probabilities, the evidence as a whole and the overall context before reaching any conclusion...
The Civil Service clearly could not cope with a Minister who made decisions and then expected them to be implemented.
Raab might be an arse - but he has been brought down by everything that needs to be rooted out and burnt in the Civil Service.
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
Says the man who has already outlined his credentials in this debate.
Nobody is saying that bosses need to be "lovely emollient encouraging types". A boss does not need to be nice. He/she does not need to be liked. It helps if they are respected. Raab is clearly a jerk with no leadership or management skill, and probably isn't even respected by his mother.
Sunak, who it appears to me has both to some degree has ruthlessly fired him (through facilitating his resignation). It is a good call.
Bosses who think they are Alex Ferguson calibre are probably not Alex Ferguson calibre!
It is also questionable as to how good a leader Fergusson was, because one of the most important aspects of leadership is succession, so when we look at how MU performed post departure it could be argued there was a strong failure of leadership on Fergusson's part
Have read the report in full and frankly the MoJ and the Brexit Dept stuff, though not edifying, should not have resulted in Raab's departure.
But that relating to the FCOD (para 152 and summary) is what did for him. Tolley does not mince words:
"45 (b) In reaching and implementing this management choice he acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual, which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have been aware.
Tolley also believes the Permanent Secretary's account and not Raab's.
Will you be having words with him the next time your paths cross?
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
Even if you put aside the evil, Hitler was a massive fuck-up who destroyed his country. He was a failure even in purely Machiavellian terms.
Have read the report in full and frankly the MoJ and the Brexit Dept stuff, though not edifying, should not have resulted in Raab's departure.
But that relating to the FCOD (para 152 and summary) is what did for him. Tolley does not mince words:
"45 (b) In reaching and implementing this management choice he acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual, which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have been aware.
Tolley also believes the Permanent Secretary's account and not Raab's.
Will you be having words with him the next time your paths cross?
The qualifications in the report are as interesting as the findings.
...In the course of his ministerial work, the DPM often encounters what he genuinely sees as frustrations in respect of the quality of work done, its speed of production and the extent to which it implements his policy decisions. it has not been necessary to make any finding as to whether any of those frustrations was well-founded in any particular case...
...The DPM often operates on the basis that once he has made a policy decision, it should not be revisited subsequently by civil servants. He refers to this, when it occurs, as ‘relitigating his steers’. Views can, however, reasonably differ as to whether an earlier policy decision (or ‘steer’) was truly final, particularly in light of new or additional circumstances which may arise. Civil servants have a duty to give informed and impartial advice and Ministers have an obligation (under paragraph 5.2 of the Ministerial Code) to consider it...
..The DPM tends to take a clear view of an issue, whatever it may comprise. This applies across the range of matters with which he deals, from policy decisions to the presentational format of papers. In the context of the investigation, this approach manifested itself in what I considered to be a somewhat absolutist approach in his response to certain points, such as whether a particular conversation had occurred, either at all or in a certain way. His responses were frequently put in ‘black or white’ terms, with no room for nuance even where nuance might reasonably be expected. I did not find this approach persuasive. However, I have in every instance of factual dispute considered what appeared to me to be the inherent probabilities, the evidence as a whole and the overall context before reaching any conclusion...
The Civil Service clearly could not cope with a Minister who made decisions and then expected them to be implemented.
Raab might be an arse - but he has been brought down by everything that needs to be rooted out and burnt in the Civil Service.
What decisions did Raab actually make? He achieved nothing.
It’s notable though that, now that Brexit is an obvious failure, the foaming tendency are turning their ire to the enemy within.
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You have worked in an office/had a boss for 3 hours longer than me so collectively our wisdom about the workplace boss seems to be (to coin a word) unsurpassable.
PG Wodehouse is, as so often, the source of light. 1) Having a boss is generally to be avoided (Wodehouse passim) 2) If you have one don't choose Spode (Code of the Woosters etc) 3) Raab is Spode (take a glance, and think of Black Shorts)
I've thought of Raab as more Alan B'Stard....
"If your IQ was any lower, you'd need watering...."
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
Says the man who has already outlined his credentials in this debate.
Nobody is saying that bosses need to be "lovely emollient encouraging types". A boss does not need to be nice. He/she does not need to be liked. It helps if they are respected. Raab is clearly a jerk with no leadership or management skill, and probably isn't even respected by his mother.
Sunak, who it appears to me has both to some degree has ruthlessly fired him (through facilitating his resignation). It is a good call.
Bosses who think they are Alex Ferguson calibre are probably not Alex Ferguson calibre!
Ferguson is one of the few exceptions which proves the rule. And I still think he's a tw@t, anyway.
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
Says the man who has already outlined his credentials in this debate.
Nobody is saying that bosses need to be "lovely emollient encouraging types". A boss does not need to be nice. He/she does not need to be liked. It helps if they are respected. Raab is clearly a jerk with no leadership or management skill, and probably isn't even respected by his mother.
Sunak, who it appears to me has both to some degree has ruthlessly fired him (through facilitating his resignation). It is a good call.
Bosses who think they are Alex Ferguson calibre are probably not Alex Ferguson calibre!
It is also questionable as to how good a leader Fergusson was, because one of the most important aspects of leadership is succession, so when we look at how MU performed post departure it could be argued there was a strong failure of leadership on Fergusson's part
It is also questionable how giod a leader was because, frankly, winning the league two times out of three shoukd only be about par when your resources are so much greater than everyone else's. It was notable that Man Utd's dominance waned rather as the extent to which its riches exceeded those of other clubs waned. Ferguson's biggest achievment was winning the ECWC with Aberdeen.
The more substantive complaint against Raab - as @Richard_Nabavi has pointed out - is that he was fairly useless and achieved little. That I can accept, not the “bullying” allegations which come down to him saying “woeful”
But then that raises the question of how he lasted so long as a minister and got as high as deputy PM. He must have been good at something - sly politicking? Blackmail? Plain dumb luck?
But I suppose you could make the same accusation of many ministers. What did Theresa May ever actually do? Other than introduce that insane Equality Act? She made it all the way to number 10….
The qualifications in the report are as interesting as the findings.
...In the course of his ministerial work, the DPM often encounters what he genuinely sees as frustrations in respect of the quality of work done, its speed of production and the extent to which it implements his policy decisions. it has not been necessary to make any finding as to whether any of those frustrations was well-founded in any particular case...
...The DPM often operates on the basis that once he has made a policy decision, it should not be revisited subsequently by civil servants. He refers to this, when it occurs, as ‘relitigating his steers’. Views can, however, reasonably differ as to whether an earlier policy decision (or ‘steer’) was truly final, particularly in light of new or additional circumstances which may arise. Civil servants have a duty to give informed and impartial advice and Ministers have an obligation (under paragraph 5.2 of the Ministerial Code) to consider it...
..The DPM tends to take a clear view of an issue, whatever it may comprise. This applies across the range of matters with which he deals, from policy decisions to the presentational format of papers. In the context of the investigation, this approach manifested itself in what I considered to be a somewhat absolutist approach in his response to certain points, such as whether a particular conversation had occurred, either at all or in a certain way. His responses were frequently put in ‘black or white’ terms, with no room for nuance even where nuance might reasonably be expected. I did not find this approach persuasive. However, I have in every instance of factual dispute considered what appeared to me to be the inherent probabilities, the evidence as a whole and the overall context before reaching any conclusion...
The Civil Service clearly could not cope with a Minister who made decisions and then expected them to be implemented.
Raab might be an arse - but he has been brought down by everything that needs to be rooted out and burnt in the Civil Service.
What decisions did Raab actually make? He achieved nothing.
It’s notable though that, now that Brexit is an obvious failures, the foaming tendency are turning their ire to the enemy within.
Raab achieved a great deal
He screwed up the final part of the Afghanistan evacuation.
He's managed Justice to the extent that some criminal cases that occurred in 2018 are being scheduled for court dates in late 2024. By June we should be seeing cases scheduled for 2025 hearings...
And that's just the 2 departments I can think about without checking where else he was.
So add on doing nothing memorable elsewhere as well.
"He may be a bit of a bully, but he's nowhere near as bad as Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson or Adolf Hitler".
Ferguson is a genuinely interesting one, the other two are silly. Fergie was undoubtedly a bully at times and undoubtedly successful with longevity.
But, lots of Premier League clubs tried to replicate him, indeed by 2011 there were 7 managers from Glasgow. The likes of Malky Mackay, Billy Davies and Alex McCleish were disasters leading their clubs to long term decline.
It is not impossible to manage successfully with that style in certain contexts but the winners are very rare.
The more substantive complaint against Raab - as @Richard_Nabavi has pointed out - is that he was fairly useless and achieved little. That I can accept, not the “bullying” allegations which come down to him saying “woeful”
But then that raises the question of how he lasted so long as a minister and got as high as deputy PM. He must have been good at something - sly politicking? Blackmail? Plain dumb luck?
But I suppose you could make the same accusation of many ministers. What did Theresa May ever actually do? Other than introduce that insane Equality Act? She made it all the way to number 10….
He made it to Deputy PM because Sunak appointed his loyalists to key offices. Simple back scratching.
His bullying tendency has been known for years. Maybe we’ll eventually find out about him that superinjunction he is rumoured to be involved with.
The qualifications in the report are as interesting as the findings.
...In the course of his ministerial work, the DPM often encounters what he genuinely sees as frustrations in respect of the quality of work done, its speed of production and the extent to which it implements his policy decisions. it has not been necessary to make any finding as to whether any of those frustrations was well-founded in any particular case...
...The DPM often operates on the basis that once he has made a policy decision, it should not be revisited subsequently by civil servants. He refers to this, when it occurs, as ‘relitigating his steers’. Views can, however, reasonably differ as to whether an earlier policy decision (or ‘steer’) was truly final, particularly in light of new or additional circumstances which may arise. Civil servants have a duty to give informed and impartial advice and Ministers have an obligation (under paragraph 5.2 of the Ministerial Code) to consider it...
..The DPM tends to take a clear view of an issue, whatever it may comprise. This applies across the range of matters with which he deals, from policy decisions to the presentational format of papers. In the context of the investigation, this approach manifested itself in what I considered to be a somewhat absolutist approach in his response to certain points, such as whether a particular conversation had occurred, either at all or in a certain way. His responses were frequently put in ‘black or white’ terms, with no room for nuance even where nuance might reasonably be expected. I did not find this approach persuasive. However, I have in every instance of factual dispute considered what appeared to me to be the inherent probabilities, the evidence as a whole and the overall context before reaching any conclusion...
The Civil Service clearly could not cope with a Minister who made decisions and then expected them to be implemented.
Raab might be an arse - but he has been brought down by everything that needs to be rooted out and burnt in the Civil Service.
Not how I read that bit of the report.
To take a hypothetical example, all of that could have been written about a minister who insisted that all the grass in Britain be dyed orange. And got frustrated when civil servants wanted to revisit the decision.
That he's achieved absolutely nothing in every department he has been in suggests which one of us is closer to the truth.
Sticking hands in people's face to stop them talking, intimating and aggressive, banging the table.
Sounds like an incompetent bully to me who should be nowhere near government.
OMG. Minister raises hand to stop someone talking so the minister can make a point. Jesus. That’s practically the Spanish inquisition
He’s a fucking minister. Democratically appointed. He’s meant to be the boss. Get things done. He’s allowed to interrupt when some idiot is waffling on
I was expecting to read stuff about him hurling chairs or sticking peoples heads down toilets. Not this bollocks
Nobody would survive that sort of behaviour at any workplace I have worked out, so why should Whitehall be any different? It’s a sign of deep incompetence as much as anything else, shutting people down, and preventing them from challenging you. Pretty much the definition of toxic leadership.
Gordon Brown used to throw fucking phones around. Did he have to resign for bullying?
Dominic Raab called some work “woeful”. He’s sacked for bullying
Gordon Brown was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as PM. Dominic Raab was an ineffective manager of people and it cost him his job as DPM.
If bullying really worked might it be worth sacrificing the egos and mental health of a few civil servants for the greater good. Possibly, its a debate that could be had if bullying worked. But bullying doesn't work - you need to motivate staff to get results.
Personally I think you need both. Stick and carrot. Mainly carrot, but occasionally a boss needs to say, “ this work is utterly useless” - as Raab apparently did
It doesn’t even constitute bullying to my mind. It’s blunt and direct criticism. To be used sparingly for sure, but it’s part of the job of management
I’ve occasionally faced criticism like this. “Leon this is just lazy. It’s rubbish, and you know it”. The criticism was correct. I went away and did it better. I didn’t feel “bullied”
It’s about calling people out, in front of others.
Absolutely right - I've had frank conversations about conduct and quality of work with people I've managed, that have been along exactly those lines. They've been ultimately constructive and the conversations always end in agreement and resolution.
Saying this in public, in front of colleagues and peers, is not about calling out poor quality work - it's about an angry and frustrated man shaming and belittling his juniors (most likely for errors and failings he is probablyt ultimately responsible for).
The more substantive complaint against Raab - as @Richard_Nabavi has pointed out - is that he was fairly useless and achieved little. That I can accept, not the “bullying” allegations which come down to him saying “woeful”
But then that raises the question of how he lasted so long as a minister and got as high as deputy PM. He must have been good at something - sly politicking? Blackmail? Plain dumb luck?
But I suppose you could make the same accusation of many ministers. What did Theresa May ever actually do? Other than introduce that insane Equality Act? She made it all the way to number 10….
Theresa May massively cut unskilled non-EU migration.
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
I think selecting Autobahns as the significant legacy of that individual is being somewhat selective. Maybe.
Besides Auotobahns predated the hanging on hooks stage of the Hitler 'success' story by the best part of a decade. Hooks were more a compliment to the having your civlian population, infrastructure and industries bombed to shit while turning Germany into a byword for the ultimate degeneracy of the state stage of the narrative.
The qualifications in the report are as interesting as the findings.
...In the course of his ministerial work, the DPM often encounters what he genuinely sees as frustrations in respect of the quality of work done, its speed of production and the extent to which it implements his policy decisions. it has not been necessary to make any finding as to whether any of those frustrations was well-founded in any particular case...
...The DPM often operates on the basis that once he has made a policy decision, it should not be revisited subsequently by civil servants. He refers to this, when it occurs, as ‘relitigating his steers’. Views can, however, reasonably differ as to whether an earlier policy decision (or ‘steer’) was truly final, particularly in light of new or additional circumstances which may arise. Civil servants have a duty to give informed and impartial advice and Ministers have an obligation (under paragraph 5.2 of the Ministerial Code) to consider it...
..The DPM tends to take a clear view of an issue, whatever it may comprise. This applies across the range of matters with which he deals, from policy decisions to the presentational format of papers. In the context of the investigation, this approach manifested itself in what I considered to be a somewhat absolutist approach in his response to certain points, such as whether a particular conversation had occurred, either at all or in a certain way. His responses were frequently put in ‘black or white’ terms, with no room for nuance even where nuance might reasonably be expected. I did not find this approach persuasive. However, I have in every instance of factual dispute considered what appeared to me to be the inherent probabilities, the evidence as a whole and the overall context before reaching any conclusion...
The Civil Service clearly could not cope with a Minister who made decisions and then expected them to be implemented.
Raab might be an arse - but he has been brought down by everything that needs to be rooted out and burnt in the Civil Service.
He didn't make decisions - unless you mean turning our Justice system into a complete Joke of injustice.
Remember Justice delayed is often justice denied. A 2018 rape case being heard in 2024 isn't justice by any normal means. In many countries a case brought that late would be rejected as out of time.
"He may be a bit of a bully, but he's nowhere near as bad as Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson or Adolf Hitler".
Ferguson is a genuinely interesting one, the other two are silly. Fergie was undoubtedly a bully at times and undoubtedly successful with longevity.
But, lots of Premier League clubs tried to replicate him, indeed by 2011 there were 7 managers from Glasgow. The likes of Malky Mackay, Billy Davies and Alex McCleish were disasters leading their clubs to long term decline.
It is not impossible to manage successfully with that style in certain contexts but the winners are very rare.
The hairdryer thing may also be overstated, and may well have been an aberration. While it doesn't excuse it, it was probably balanced with other non-jerk like behaviours. It doesn't sound much like Raab has any mitigations, except a rather stupid defence from Jacob Rees Mogg, which is a bit like having a character reference form Hannibal Lecter
May was a quietly effective Minister in the most politically toxic of offices: Home Secretary.
She had a few mild policy reforms, but her greatest achievement was simply to stifle controversy.
Hunt almost managed something similar in Health, although it’s now clear he also presided over a gross misallocation of funding away from capital investment.
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
Says the man who has already outlined his credentials in this debate.
Nobody is saying that bosses need to be "lovely emollient encouraging types". A boss does not need to be nice. He/she does not need to be liked. It helps if they are respected. Raab is clearly a jerk with no leadership or management skill, and probably isn't even respected by his mother.
Sunak, who it appears to me has both to some degree has ruthlessly fired him (through facilitating his resignation). It is a good call.
Bosses who think they are Alex Ferguson calibre are probably not Alex Ferguson calibre!
It is also questionable as to how good a leader Fergusson was, because one of the most important aspects of leadership is succession, so when we look at how MU performed post departure it could be argued there was a strong failure of leadership on Fergusson's part
It is also questionable how giod a leader was because, frankly, winning the league two times out of three shoukd only be about par when your resources are so much greater than everyone else's. It was notable that Man Utd's dominance waned rather as the extent to which its riches exceeded those of other clubs waned. Ferguson's biggest achievment was winning the ECWC with Aberdeen.
Eh? He established Man Utd as dominant from being not far from the equivalent of Spurs today. It was in no sense gifted to him. Liverpool were dominant, and Man Utd not ahead of Arsenal or even Everton at the time. He maintained it for two decades, re-inventing the team repeatedly.
"He may be a bit of a bully, but he's nowhere near as bad as Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson or Adolf Hitler".
Ferguson is a genuinely interesting one, the other two are silly. Fergie was undoubtedly a bully at times and undoubtedly successful with longevity.
But, lots of Premier League clubs tried to replicate him, indeed by 2011 there were 7 managers from Glasgow. The likes of Malky Mackay, Billy Davies and Alex McCleish were disasters leading their clubs to long term decline.
It is not impossible to manage successfully with that style in certain contexts but the winners are very rare.
Successful chefs are supposed to be often very toxic managers. I've worked in a few kitchens and found the light-touch approach works best. But I've never worked with anyone like Michelin star winning chef. Has anyone got any experience of this?
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
Even if you put aside the evil, Hitler was a massive fuck-up who destroyed his country. He was a failure even in purely Machiavellian terms.
That’s a ridiculous black and white way of looking at Hitler. Yes, the Holocaust was bad - I don’t think there are many on here, besides @Dura_Ace who would really try to defend it. For the very good reason that it’s indefensible. You can’t gas six million people and blame it on human error or a good idea gone wrong. It was simply - to my mind - wrong. I make no apology for using blunt words. WRONG
However Hitler must be taken in the round. The fact is, if he hadn’t been a pretty “abrasive” man manager the Germans would still be driving around on B roads
The more substantive complaint against Raab - as @Richard_Nabavi has pointed out - is that he was fairly useless and achieved little. That I can accept, not the “bullying” allegations which come down to him saying “woeful”
But then that raises the question of how he lasted so long as a minister and got as high as deputy PM. He must have been good at something - sly politicking? Blackmail? Plain dumb luck?
But I suppose you could make the same accusation of many ministers. What did Theresa May ever actually do? Other than introduce that insane Equality Act? She made it all the way to number 10….
The cream always rises to the top so the saying goes, but it is also true that sometimes shit floats. I imagine his bullying tendency was mistaken by some naive folk to be an indication of someone who gets things done. In politics it seems you can fool enough of the people most of the time.
The qualifications in the report are as interesting as the findings.
...In the course of his ministerial work, the DPM often encounters what he genuinely sees as frustrations in respect of the quality of work done, its speed of production and the extent to which it implements his policy decisions. it has not been necessary to make any finding as to whether any of those frustrations was well-founded in any particular case...
...The DPM often operates on the basis that once he has made a policy decision, it should not be revisited subsequently by civil servants. He refers to this, when it occurs, as ‘relitigating his steers’. Views can, however, reasonably differ as to whether an earlier policy decision (or ‘steer’) was truly final, particularly in light of new or additional circumstances which may arise. Civil servants have a duty to give informed and impartial advice and Ministers have an obligation (under paragraph 5.2 of the Ministerial Code) to consider it...
..The DPM tends to take a clear view of an issue, whatever it may comprise. This applies across the range of matters with which he deals, from policy decisions to the presentational format of papers. In the context of the investigation, this approach manifested itself in what I considered to be a somewhat absolutist approach in his response to certain points, such as whether a particular conversation had occurred, either at all or in a certain way. His responses were frequently put in ‘black or white’ terms, with no room for nuance even where nuance might reasonably be expected. I did not find this approach persuasive. However, I have in every instance of factual dispute considered what appeared to me to be the inherent probabilities, the evidence as a whole and the overall context before reaching any conclusion...
The Civil Service clearly could not cope with a Minister who made decisions and then expected them to be implemented.
Raab might be an arse - but he has been brought down by everything that needs to be rooted out and burnt in the Civil Service.
Raab was just too good? One wonders why Sunak didn't fight to keep such an asset.
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
Even if you put aside the evil, Hitler was a massive fuck-up who destroyed his country. He was a failure even in purely Machiavellian terms.
That’s a ridiculous black and white way of looking at Hitler. Yes, the Holocaust was bad - I don’t think there are many on here, besides @Dura_Ace who would really try to defend it. For the very good reason that it’s indefensible. You can’t gas six million people and blame it on human error or a good idea gone wrong. It was simply - to my mind - wrong. I make no apology for using blunt words. WRONG
However Hitler must be taken in the round. The fact is, if he hadn’t been a pretty “abrasive” man manager the Germans would still be driving around on B roads
The more substantive complaint against Raab - as @Richard_Nabavi has pointed out - is that he was fairly useless and achieved little. That I can accept, not the “bullying” allegations which come down to him saying “woeful”
But then that raises the question of how he lasted so long as a minister and got as high as deputy PM. He must have been good at something - sly politicking? Blackmail? Plain dumb luck?
But I suppose you could make the same accusation of many ministers. What did Theresa May ever actually do? Other than introduce that insane Equality Act? She made it all the way to number 10….
The cream always rises to the top so the saying goes, but it is also true that sometimes shit floats. I imagine his bullying tendency was mistaken by some naive folk to be an indication of someone who gets things done. In politics it seems you can fool enough of the people most of the time.
@Dura_Ace probably refers to the Holocaust as TFS.
The qualifications in the report are as interesting as the findings.
...In the course of his ministerial work, the DPM often encounters what he genuinely sees as frustrations in respect of the quality of work done, its speed of production and the extent to which it implements his policy decisions. it has not been necessary to make any finding as to whether any of those frustrations was well-founded in any particular case...
...The DPM often operates on the basis that once he has made a policy decision, it should not be revisited subsequently by civil servants. He refers to this, when it occurs, as ‘relitigating his steers’. Views can, however, reasonably differ as to whether an earlier policy decision (or ‘steer’) was truly final, particularly in light of new or additional circumstances which may arise. Civil servants have a duty to give informed and impartial advice and Ministers have an obligation (under paragraph 5.2 of the Ministerial Code) to consider it...
..The DPM tends to take a clear view of an issue, whatever it may comprise. This applies across the range of matters with which he deals, from policy decisions to the presentational format of papers. In the context of the investigation, this approach manifested itself in what I considered to be a somewhat absolutist approach in his response to certain points, such as whether a particular conversation had occurred, either at all or in a certain way. His responses were frequently put in ‘black or white’ terms, with no room for nuance even where nuance might reasonably be expected. I did not find this approach persuasive. However, I have in every instance of factual dispute considered what appeared to me to be the inherent probabilities, the evidence as a whole and the overall context before reaching any conclusion...
The Civil Service clearly could not cope with a Minister who made decisions and then expected them to be implemented.
Raab might be an arse - but he has been brought down by everything that needs to be rooted out and burnt in the Civil Service.
So what has happened here is that if a government minister wants a policy the Civil Service doesn't like, you can repeatedly find new reasons for redebating the policy, slow walk the work and, when you are called put for it, get your boss sacked for bullying.
I am very happy to change my mind if new information is presented, but a boss calling work "useless" - not the person, just the work! - is not bullying! Especially when you weren't targeting anyone in particular!
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
SAF balanced that abrasiveness with integrity, honesty, consistency and occasionally emoullience. Raab did not. He was just a nasty shit who was out of his depth.
I blame the BBC.
Mostly because watching The Apprentice is as close as most of us get to seeing how top business works, and we don't know enough to recognise that it's a comedy show really.
Actually, the BBC seem to think that The Apprentice is how top business works, too;
More @BBC LR #HungerGames “We were given 60 seconds to save our career and had to treat it like a speed date. We were timed with the stop watch but not shown the clock. It all felt so degrading, I was timed as 2 seconds out. It’s honestly been worst 6 months of my career”
The more substantive complaint against Raab - as @Richard_Nabavi has pointed out - is that he was fairly useless and achieved little. That I can accept, not the “bullying” allegations which come down to him saying “woeful”
But then that raises the question of how he lasted so long as a minister and got as high as deputy PM. He must have been good at something - sly politicking? Blackmail? Plain dumb luck?
But I suppose you could make the same accusation of many ministers. What did Theresa May ever actually do? Other than introduce that insane Equality Act? She made it all the way to number 10….
He made it to Deputy PM because Sunak appointed his loyalists to key offices. Simple back scratching.
His bullying tendency has been known for years. Maybe we’ll eventually find out about him that superinjunction he is rumoured to be involved with.
Yes - it's loyalty. And it was rewarding loyalty, rather than talent or achievement, that allowed Truss to get to a self-evidently-ludicrous point where she could be elected as party leader.
My main takeout from today is that I actually have a little more respect for Sunak's politics than I did yesterday. He's binned off a useless minister - and his deputy, let's not forget - hitherto bound by an unfortunate loyalty pact, and successfully scapegoated the civil service for it (even convincing some people on here, who ought to know better).
"He may be a bit of a bully, but he's nowhere near as bad as Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson or Adolf Hitler".
Ferguson is a genuinely interesting one, the other two are silly. Fergie was undoubtedly a bully at times and undoubtedly successful with longevity.
But, lots of Premier League clubs tried to replicate him, indeed by 2011 there were 7 managers from Glasgow. The likes of Malky Mackay, Billy Davies and Alex McCleish were disasters leading their clubs to long term decline.
It is not impossible to manage successfully with that style in certain contexts but the winners are very rare.
Successful chefs are supposed to be often very toxic managers. I've worked in a few kitchens and found the light-touch approach works best. But I've never worked with anyone like Michelin star winning chef. Has anyone got any experience of this?
Actually yes. As a travel writer for the Gazette I’ve met a lot of chefs and been in a lot of kitchens and heard a lot of gossip about really famous cooks
The rumours of bullying in kitchens are generally true. Some really celebrated chefs are absolute wankers. I’m talking direct physical abuse and outright humiliation. Not nice. Makes raab look like st Francis of Assisi
I hasten to add I do not approve of any of it. But that culture definitely exists - even now
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
SAF balanced that abrasiveness with integrity, honesty, consistency and occasionally emoullience. Raab did not. He was just a nasty shit who was out of his depth.
I blame the BBC.
Mostly because watching The Apprentice is as close as most of us get to seeing how top business works, and we don't know enough to recognise that it's a comedy show really.
Actually, the BBC seem to think that The Apprentice is how top business works, too;
More @BBC LR #HungerGames “We were given 60 seconds to save our career and had to treat it like a speed date. We were timed with the stop watch but not shown the clock. It all felt so degrading, I was timed as 2 seconds out. It’s honestly been worst 6 months of my career”
The Local Radio cuts might be the next saucepan of shit to boil over. Yes, it's Local Radio, but its listeners are older people in the provinces.
I hate The Apprentice with a passion. Anyone who thinks that the interview stage is an effective way to evaluate someone is completely out of touch. It is a cringing embarrassment to anyone in business along with "Dragon's Den"
The more substantive complaint against Raab - as @Richard_Nabavi has pointed out - is that he was fairly useless and achieved little. That I can accept, not the “bullying” allegations which come down to him saying “woeful”
But then that raises the question of how he lasted so long as a minister and got as high as deputy PM. He must have been good at something - sly politicking? Blackmail? Plain dumb luck?
But I suppose you could make the same accusation of many ministers. What did Theresa May ever actually do? Other than introduce that insane Equality Act? She made it all the way to number 10….
He made it to Deputy PM because Sunak appointed his loyalists to key offices. Simple back scratching.
His bullying tendency has been known for years. Maybe we’ll eventually find out about him that superinjunction he is rumoured to be involved with.
Yes - it's loyalty. And it was rewarding loyalty, rather than talent or achievement, that allowed Truss to get to a self-evidently-ludicrous point where she could be elected as party leader.
My main takeout from today is that I actually have a little more respect for Sunak's politics than I did yesterday. He's binned off a useless minister - and his deputy, let's not forget - hitherto bound by an unfortunate loyalty pact, and successfully scapegoated the civil service for it (even convincing some people on here, who ought to know better).
Yes, also my reaction. Sunak has gone up a quarter inch in my estimation. He’s still wee, though.
Sticking hands in people's face to stop them talking, intimating and aggressive, banging the table.
Sounds like an incompetent bully to me who should be nowhere near government.
OMG. Minister raises hand to stop someone talking so the minister can make a point. Jesus. That’s practically the Spanish inquisition
He’s a fucking minister. Democratically appointed. He’s meant to be the boss. Get things done. He’s allowed to interrupt when some idiot is waffling on
I was expecting to read stuff about him hurling chairs or sticking peoples heads down toilets. Not this bollocks
Nobody would survive that sort of behaviour at any workplace I have worked out, so why should Whitehall be any different? It’s a sign of deep incompetence as much as anything else, shutting people down, and preventing them from challenging you. Pretty much the definition of toxic leadership.
Gordon Brown used to throw fucking phones around. Did he have to resign for bullying?
Dominic Raab called some work “woeful”. He’s sacked for bullying
Well Brown's behaviour was also terrible. But today's report was not about Brown, it was about Raab.
Extraordinary… Dominic Raab accused the MoJ’s most senior civil servant Antonia Romeo of making up notes showing she had raised concerns with him about his behaviour
Except the two of them have never met, have never spoken, and the whole interview was generated using ChatGPT and speech tools to mimic their voices. Sounds scarily realistic.
"He may be a bit of a bully, but he's nowhere near as bad as Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson or Adolf Hitler".
Ferguson is a genuinely interesting one, the other two are silly. Fergie was undoubtedly a bully at times and undoubtedly successful with longevity.
But, lots of Premier League clubs tried to replicate him, indeed by 2011 there were 7 managers from Glasgow. The likes of Malky Mackay, Billy Davies and Alex McCleish were disasters leading their clubs to long term decline.
It is not impossible to manage successfully with that style in certain contexts but the winners are very rare.
The hairdryer thing may also be overstated, and may well have been an aberration. While it doesn't excuse it, it was probably balanced with other non-jerk like behaviours. It doesn't sound much like Raab has any mitigations, except a rather stupid defence from Jacob Rees Mogg, which is a bit like having a character reference form Hannibal Lecter
He treated different players quite differently too (as did Brian Clough, another notoriously shouty manager). David May could well respond to a good bollocking, but he also knew that Cantona would not - so he didn't.
Mind you, he was also a character witness for Ryan Giggs, so the jury's probably out on Fergie as a truly good judge of character.
Biden sees spike among Dems who say they would back him in 2024
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3962461-biden-sees-spike-among-dems-who-say-they-would-back-him-in-2024-poll/ ...Over 80 percent of Democrats said they would likely vote for President Biden in 2024 despite a minority saying the want him to run for reelection, according to an AP-NORC poll released Friday, improvements on earlier figures. The poll found that just 26 percent of Americans overall and 47 percent of Democrats want Biden to run for reelection, many citing his age. Biden is expected to announce his 2024 campaign officially at an event as early as this week, and comes as the president’s approval rating slips below 40 percent this month in a different poll, down from 42 percent last month. Despite sliding approval, the reelection numbers are improvements from January, when 38 percent of Democrats said they would want Biden to run. Biden’s support is weakest among younger Democrats, with just 25 percent of those under 45 saying they would “definitely” back the president compared to 56 percent of older Democrats. 51 percent of young Democrats said they would “probably” vote for Biden, according to the poll. The unfavorable figures still put Biden in a better position than GOP frontrunner former President Trump. The same poll found that 65 percent of Americans would not vote for Trump in 2024, including 53 percent saying they definitely would not...
I haven't read the report - but this situation highlights one of my chief worries about our system - that is, how can a minister enact a policy that his civil servants fundamentally don't want to do?
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
Even if you put aside the evil, Hitler was a massive fuck-up who destroyed his country. He was a failure even in purely Machiavellian terms.
That’s a ridiculous black and white way of looking at Hitler. Yes, the Holocaust was bad - I don’t think there are many on here, besides @Dura_Ace who would really try to defend it. For the very good reason that it’s indefensible. You can’t gas six million people and blame it on human error or a good idea gone wrong. It was simply - to my mind - wrong. I make no apology for using blunt words. WRONG
However Hitler must be taken in the round. The fact is, if he hadn’t been a pretty “abrasive” man manager the Germans would still be driving around on B roads
That's just bullshit though. Every northern European culture has built motorways. Germany was of course going to do it, being a particularly high productivity, innovative and efficient national culture. Hitler actually overspent to deliver his big projects, and the financial losses at the macro level were only kept afloat as long as they were via plunder. Which required a war that got Germany pummelled into the sand.
Even completely ignoring the Holocaust, Hitler was a drug-addled fuck-up that ruined his country and had to top himself as a quivering wreck in an underground basement.
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
SAF balanced that abrasiveness with integrity, honesty, consistency and occasionally emoullience. Raab did not. He was just a nasty shit who was out of his depth.
I blame the BBC.
Mostly because watching The Apprentice is as close as most of us get to seeing how top business works, and we don't know enough to recognise that it's a comedy show really.
Actually, the BBC seem to think that The Apprentice is how top business works, too;
More @BBC LR #HungerGames “We were given 60 seconds to save our career and had to treat it like a speed date. We were timed with the stop watch but not shown the clock. It all felt so degrading, I was timed as 2 seconds out. It’s honestly been worst 6 months of my career”
The Local Radio cuts might be the next saucepan of shit to boil over. Yes, it's Local Radio, but its listeners are older people in the provinces.
I hate The Apprentice with a passion. Anyone who thinks that the interview stage is an effective way to evaluate someone is completely out of touch. It is a cringing embarrassment to anyone in business along with "Dragon's Den"
Dragon's Den itself is an embarrassment, but, well, it's showbusiness.
The actual decision on investment is taken long before the interview, and through the usual scrutiny of business plans, financial models and due diligence reports and takes up to a year.
A good friend of mine went through it a few years back.
Dominic Raab is both incompetent in his work and a highly unpleasant colleague to deal with, and doesn't have anything much going for him. We know that already. Is he vindicated because the report doesn't have a smoking gun in it, or should he never have been the Deputy PM in the first place?
Alex Ferguson was an abrasive boss. He would famously give under performing players the “hairdryer” treatment
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
Says the man who has already outlined his credentials in this debate.
Nobody is saying that bosses need to be "lovely emollient encouraging types". A boss does not need to be nice. He/she does not need to be liked. It helps if they are respected. Raab is clearly a jerk with no leadership or management skill, and probably isn't even respected by his mother.
Sunak, who it appears to me has both to some degree has ruthlessly fired him (through facilitating his resignation). It is a good call.
Bosses who think they are Alex Ferguson calibre are probably not Alex Ferguson calibre!
It is also questionable as to how good a leader Fergusson was, because one of the most important aspects of leadership is succession, so when we look at how MU performed post departure it could be argued there was a strong failure of leadership on Fergusson's part
It is also questionable how giod a leader was because, frankly, winning the league two times out of three shoukd only be about par when your resources are so much greater than everyone else's. It was notable that Man Utd's dominance waned rather as the extent to which its riches exceeded those of other clubs waned. Ferguson's biggest achievment was winning the ECWC with Aberdeen.
Eh? He established Man Utd as dominant from being not far from the equivalent of Spurs today. It was in no sense gifted to him. Liverpool were dominant, and Man Utd not ahead of Arsenal or even Everton at the time. He maintained it for two decades, re-inventing the team repeatedly.
But that's only where they should have been, given how much richer they were than every other club. They had the resources to buy all the best players: no great surprise that they are then the best team. I'm not saying that Ferguson was a bad manager - just that leading the richest club to success isn't necessarily a massive test.
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
Even if you put aside the evil, Hitler was a massive fuck-up who destroyed his country. He was a failure even in purely Machiavellian terms.
That’s a ridiculous black and white way of looking at Hitler. Yes, the Holocaust was bad - I don’t think there are many on here, besides @Dura_Ace who would really try to defend it. For the very good reason that it’s indefensible. You can’t gas six million people and blame it on human error or a good idea gone wrong. It was simply - to my mind - wrong. I make no apology for using blunt words. WRONG
However Hitler must be taken in the round. The fact is, if he hadn’t been a pretty “abrasive” man manager the Germans would still be driving around on B roads
That's just bullshit though. Every northern European culture has built motorways. Germany was of course going to do it, being a particularly high productivity, innovative and efficient national culture. Hitler actually overspent to deliver his big projects, and the financial losses at the macro level were only kept afloat as long as they were via plunder. Which required a war that got Germany pummelled into the sand.
Even completely ignoring the Holocaust, Hitler was a drug-addled fuck-up that ruined his country and had to top himself as a quivering wreck in an underground basement.
Mate, I’m joking. It’s a comic riff. It might be a shit comic riff but it’s certainly not meant to be taken seriously
I’m just in a benign mood. It’s almost gin o clock in Bangkok and the night is sultry indeed
Former client in Romania won't pay invoices (comfortably 5 figures) until tax residency certificate is sent. After 2 months of faff from HMRC - including them sending them to the wrong address - I finally sent the certificate to Romania via Royal Mail tracked and signed last week.
3-5 business days.
Website has the letter scanned out of Aberdeen bound for Heathrow a week ago, And then? Nothing! Customer service lady apologetic, said after a recent cyber attack their scanning system is not working. So they are selling tracking, but can't actually track!
Said they don't get scan data from Romania anyway (despite selling it) so has no idea if it is in Romania or Heathrow but "should be". It isn't counted as lost for another month so they don't care...
I obtained 2 copies of my tax residency certificate. At this rate I will be on Ryanair to Bucharest with that copy...
DHL / FEDEX or equivalent should give you properly tracked delivery for high value documents.
"He may be a bit of a bully, but he's nowhere near as bad as Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson or Adolf Hitler".
Ferguson is a genuinely interesting one, the other two are silly. Fergie was undoubtedly a bully at times and undoubtedly successful with longevity.
But, lots of Premier League clubs tried to replicate him, indeed by 2011 there were 7 managers from Glasgow. The likes of Malky Mackay, Billy Davies and Alex McCleish were disasters leading their clubs to long term decline.
It is not impossible to manage successfully with that style in certain contexts but the winners are very rare.
The hairdryer thing may also be overstated, and may well have been an aberration. While it doesn't excuse it, it was probably balanced with other non-jerk like behaviours. It doesn't sound much like Raab has any mitigations, except a rather stupid defence from Jacob Rees Mogg, which is a bit like having a character reference form Hannibal Lecter
You give me the opportunity to tell my SAF anecdote, via Leyton Orient.
Their current manager, Richie Wellens, was a young star at Man Utd is his youth, but it all came to an end when he was done for drink-driving. He was duly summoned to appear before SAF at 9am and was expecting a paint-blistering bollocking. Instead, the great man was perfectly calm and sympathetic, but brutally honest.
Wellens resumed his footballing career with modest success elsewhere. The managerial skills he learned from SAF have been evident recently at the O's, who won promotion to Div 1 this week.
I think we can safely say his managerial style is more SAF than DR.
Dominic Raab is both incompetent in his work and a highly unpleasant colleague to deal with, and doesn't have anything much going for him. We know that already. Is he vindicated because the report doesn't have a smoking gun in it, or should he never have been the Deputy PM in the first place?
What a weak sauce argument. Someone should be fired for bullying despite a complete lack of examples of bullying in the report? This is the usual bollocks of moving the goalposts by partisans on here.
FYI, this comment is far more aggressive than any of the allegations so far listed against Raab. I suppose you feel bullied?
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
I think selecting Autobahns as the significant legacy of that individual is being somewhat selective. Maybe.
Besides Auotobahns predated the hanging on hooks stage of the Hitler 'success' story by the best part of a decade. Hooks were more a compliment to the having your civlian population, infrastructure and industries bombed to shit while turning Germany into a byword for the ultimate degeneracy of the state stage of the narrative.
IIRC autobahns predate Hitler - his contribution was, essentially “more of that”
"He may be a bit of a bully, but he's nowhere near as bad as Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson or Adolf Hitler".
Ferguson is a genuinely interesting one, the other two are silly. Fergie was undoubtedly a bully at times and undoubtedly successful with longevity.
But, lots of Premier League clubs tried to replicate him, indeed by 2011 there were 7 managers from Glasgow. The likes of Malky Mackay, Billy Davies and Alex McCleish were disasters leading their clubs to long term decline.
It is not impossible to manage successfully with that style in certain contexts but the winners are very rare.
Successful chefs are supposed to be often very toxic managers. I've worked in a few kitchens and found the light-touch approach works best. But I've never worked with anyone like Michelin star winning chef. Has anyone got any experience of this?
Actually yes. As a travel writer for the Gazette I’ve met a lot of chefs and been in a lot of kitchens and heard a lot of gossip about really famous cooks
The rumours of bullying in kitchens are generally true. Some really celebrated chefs are absolute wankers. I’m talking direct physical abuse and outright humiliation. Not nice. Makes raab look like st Francis of Assisi
I hasten to add I do not approve of any of it. But that culture definitely exists - even now
I watched Boiling Point recently; beyond the virtuoso single take thing, it did strike me as a pretty good representation of a posh restaurant's kitchen and the dynamics between the staff.
Dominic Raab is both incompetent in his work and a highly unpleasant colleague to deal with, and doesn't have anything much going for him. We know that already. Is he vindicated because the report doesn't have a smoking gun in it, or should he never have been the Deputy PM in the first place?
Being a demanding boss is not the same as being a bully. But the behaviour of a demanding boss is very different. A good, demanding boss who wants high standards needs to motivate their workforce. They take the time to talk through the feedback they are giving, explain how they need things to be different next time, and address any concerns and (crucially) take on board feedback themselves. They act as mentor, not dragon.
The impression I get in this instance is Raab is hiding behind the “demanding boss” line but actually his leadership style was poor and demotivating.
It's also important to respect hierarchy: Raab is quite entitled to shout at senior staff. But he shouldn't be shouting at underlings of underlings.
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
Even if you put aside the evil, Hitler was a massive fuck-up who destroyed his country. He was a failure even in purely Machiavellian terms.
That’s a ridiculous black and white way of looking at Hitler. Yes, the Holocaust was bad - I don’t think there are many on here, besides @Dura_Ace who would really try to defend it. For the very good reason that it’s indefensible. You can’t gas six million people and blame it on human error or a good idea gone wrong. It was simply - to my mind - wrong. I make no apology for using blunt words. WRONG
However Hitler must be taken in the round. The fact is, if he hadn’t been a pretty “abrasive” man manager the Germans would still be driving around on B roads
That's just bullshit though. Every northern European culture has built motorways. Germany was of course going to do it, being a particularly high productivity, innovative and efficient national culture. Hitler actually overspent to deliver his big projects, and the financial losses at the macro level were only kept afloat as long as they were via plunder. Which required a war that got Germany pummelled into the sand.
Even completely ignoring the Holocaust, Hitler was a drug-addled fuck-up that ruined his country and had to top himself as a quivering wreck in an underground basement.
Mate, I’m joking. It’s a comic riff. It might be a shit comic riff but it’s certainly not meant to be taken seriously
I’m just in a benign mood. It’s almost gin o clock in Bangkok and the night is sultry indeed
I’m self employed and have worked in an office once for about 3 hours. But if the descriptions on here of UK office life are correct - a boss must not even raise a hand to interrupt someone speaking - then it is not surprising the country is going down the shitter. What a tsunami of snowflakiness
You just said it all @Leon. You have no experience of working in an office. As you are not easily offended I must put up my hand and tell you to shut up because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Are you still feeling motivated to work hard for me?
Look at Hitler. If you fucked up on the job with Adolf he would have you hung very slowly on hooks so you took hours to die then he would watch the film of the killing later
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
Even if you put aside the evil, Hitler was a massive fuck-up who destroyed his country. He was a failure even in purely Machiavellian terms.
That’s a ridiculous black and white way of looking at Hitler. Yes, the Holocaust was bad - I don’t think there are many on here, besides @Dura_Ace who would really try to defend it. For the very good reason that it’s indefensible. You can’t gas six million people and blame it on human error or a good idea gone wrong. It was simply - to my mind - wrong. I make no apology for using blunt words. WRONG
However Hitler must be taken in the round. The fact is, if he hadn’t been a pretty “abrasive” man manager the Germans would still be driving around on B roads
That's just bullshit though. Every northern European culture has built motorways. Germany was of course going to do it, being a particularly high productivity, innovative and efficient national culture. Hitler actually overspent to deliver his big projects, and the financial losses at the macro level were only kept afloat as long as they were via plunder. Which required a war that got Germany pummelled into the sand.
Even completely ignoring the Holocaust, Hitler was a drug-addled fuck-up that ruined his country and had to top himself as a quivering wreck in an underground basement.
I know we like a tangent on this site, but 'motorways as happy by-product of genocide' wasn't what I was expecting as an immediate outtake of the Raab imbroglio.
"He may be a bit of a bully, but he's nowhere near as bad as Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson or Adolf Hitler".
Ferguson is a genuinely interesting one, the other two are silly. Fergie was undoubtedly a bully at times and undoubtedly successful with longevity.
But, lots of Premier League clubs tried to replicate him, indeed by 2011 there were 7 managers from Glasgow. The likes of Malky Mackay, Billy Davies and Alex McCleish were disasters leading their clubs to long term decline.
It is not impossible to manage successfully with that style in certain contexts but the winners are very rare.
Successful chefs are supposed to be often very toxic managers. I've worked in a few kitchens and found the light-touch approach works best. But I've never worked with anyone like Michelin star winning chef. Has anyone got any experience of this?
Worked as an F&B manager a couple of decades ago, nowhere near Michelin star but restaurants and and function rooms. Plenty of food and equipment sent flying across the room, by the senior chefs. Not every day, not even every week, but every so often the lid would blow on the pressure cooker.
AIUI, at the very top, there are way more Gordon Ramsay types, than Heston Blumental types.
Comments
It doesn’t even constitute bullying to my mind. It’s blunt and direct criticism. To be used sparingly for sure, but it’s part of the job of management
I’ve occasionally faced criticism like this. “Leon this is just lazy. It’s rubbish, and you know it”. The criticism was correct. I went away and did it better. I didn’t feel “bullied”
As Clive James said about TV series Bouquet Of Barbed Wire "by the end, everybody had been to bed with everybody else except the baby"
I guess with all those strikes and power cuts there just wasn't much else to do...
If Raab, as Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor, hadn't bothered to acquaint himself with the relevant "pettifogging piffle", then he'd have been wiser not to state publicly in advance that he would resign if the report found against him.
1) interrupting someone in a meeting to ask him to stop speaking. Since what he was suggesting was criminal behaviour.
2) asking a couple Accenture clowns, in writing, to re-write a report in English rather than invented business speak. I had to do this twice.
3) exposing a couple of ex-civil service clowns in a meeting, I had said do A, they did B with disastrous consequences. All I did was pass to the chair a copy of my written instruction to do A, complete with reasons.
All done politely. I find a kind of icy, calm, ultra politeness the most effective.
Such characters are rare, though.
It’s a mistake though to think that visionary leaders must be bullies. Most bullies are fucking useless managers and destroy productivity and morale.
I have zero tolerance for bullies in the workplace.
“The work did not do what I needed it to for reasons X, Y and Z” gives the message (and believe me the person receiving the feedback gets it loud and clear) but it actually helps deliver more positive outcomes moving forwards.
PG Wodehouse is, as so often, the source of light.
1) Having a boss is generally to be avoided (Wodehouse passim)
2) If you have one don't choose Spode (Code of the Woosters etc)
3) Raab is Spode (take a glance, and think of Black Shorts)
Adam Tolley KC wasn’t convinced by Raab’s claims
https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1649369771672993792
On a scale of bullying alegations, Raab's seem to be greater than those levelled at the Duchess of Sussex, but less serious than those levelled at Priti Patel and considerably less serious than the allegations that have been made in the past against John Bercow and Gordon Brown.
The TalkRadio taking heads who were happy to call Meghan a bully, if they want to appear to have any consistency, ought now to call Raab the same, rather than just call the accusers snowflakes. Needless to say those who formerly supported Bercow retaining his role as Speaker and wanted him elevated to the Lords are not on the strongest ground here either when accusing Raab of being beyond the pale.
I do have some sympathy with the argument that civil servants and politicians need to have what has generally been called 'firm and frank exchanges of views' in order to hammer out the best possible solutions to any given problem. But Raab is probably the least appropriate person to make this point right now and that doesn't seem to me what this story is about.
He was also one of the most successful club managers of all time
The idea that all good bosses must be these lovely emollient encouraging types is nonsense. Different management styles can be equally effective
It looks as though Raab never knew the fundamental rule “Praise in public, criticise in private”.
Dom’s carrot is a concept one can only speculate about.
I do believe Rishi’s cabinet is largely unobjectionable. Unlike Johnson’s or Truss’s.
However he appointed four notable shits/crooks: Williamson, Raab, Zahawi and Braverman.
Three are now gone.
Nobody is saying that bosses need to be "lovely emollient encouraging types". A boss does not need to be nice. He/she does not need to be liked. It helps if they are respected. Raab is clearly a jerk with no leadership or management skill, and probably isn't even respected by his mother.
Sunak, who it appears to me has both to some degree has ruthlessly fired him (through facilitating his resignation). It is a good call.
Result? Autobahns.
Raab’s problem was being too WEAK with his underlings if this facile report is anything to go by
On the face of it, several paragraphs of old world politeness.
Parsed to actual meaning, it read “I’ll never recommend using you again, you corrupt idiot.”
xx
"He may be a bit of a bully, but he's nowhere near as bad as Gordon Brown, Alex Ferguson or Adolf Hitler".
Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) Well, I was terrified. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.
2nd Interviewer: What did he do?
Vercotti: He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, pathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious.
The report says outright that Raab did not target anyone in particular. Surely, that is the basic fundamental of bullying? The worst that can then be said about someone if that is true is that they were aggressive.
And as for being aggressive, the most inflammatory language being quoted is him calling work "woeful" or "utterly useless". It isn't my style to call people out in front of others, but those do not seem outrageous terms to me. And I could potentially use them if there was a repeated flaw that was done time and time again if feedback was not incorporated. Especially if I had a lot of people reporting to me, they were senior enough to be big boys, and I did not always have the time to do 1 on 1s.
And I say all this as someone that is in the top 10% for upwards feedback at my work. It really does seem like a Sir Humphrey style stitch up from the outside.
But that relating to the FCOD (para 152 and summary) is what did for him. Tolley does not mince words:
"45
(b) In reaching and implementing this management choice he acted in a way
which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently
aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting. It also involved
an abuse or misuse of power in a way that undermines or humiliates. He
introduced an unwarranted punitive element. His conduct was
experienced as undermining or humiliating by the affected individual,
which was inevitable. It is to be inferred that the DPM was aware that
this would be the effect of his conduct; at the very least, he should have
been aware.
Tolley also believes the Permanent Secretary's account and not Raab's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Dowden
Raab might be an arse - but he has been brought down by everything that needs to be rooted out and burnt in the Civil Service.
He achieved nothing.
It’s notable though that, now that Brexit is an obvious failure, the foaming tendency are turning their ire to the enemy within.
"If your IQ was any lower, you'd need watering...."
And I still think he's a tw@t, anyway.
Ferguson's biggest achievment was winning the ECWC with Aberdeen.
But then that raises the question of how he lasted so long as a minister and got as high as deputy PM. He must have been good at something - sly politicking? Blackmail? Plain dumb luck?
But I suppose you could make the same accusation of many ministers. What did Theresa May ever actually do? Other than introduce that insane Equality Act? She made it all the way to number 10….
He screwed up the final part of the Afghanistan evacuation.
He's managed Justice to the extent that some criminal cases that occurred in 2018 are being scheduled for court dates in late 2024. By June we should be seeing cases scheduled for 2025 hearings...
And that's just the 2 departments I can think about without checking where else he was.
So add on doing nothing memorable elsewhere as well.
But, lots of Premier League clubs tried to replicate him, indeed by 2011 there were 7 managers from Glasgow. The likes of Malky Mackay, Billy Davies and Alex McCleish were disasters leading their clubs to long term decline.
It is not impossible to manage successfully with that style in certain contexts but the winners are very rare.
His bullying tendency has been known for years. Maybe we’ll eventually find out about him that superinjunction he is rumoured to be involved with.
To take a hypothetical example, all of that could have been written about a minister who insisted that all the grass in Britain be dyed orange.
And got frustrated when civil servants wanted to revisit the decision.
That he's achieved absolutely nothing in every department he has been in suggests which one of us is closer to the truth.
Saying this in public, in front of colleagues and peers, is not about calling out poor quality work - it's about an angry and frustrated man shaming and belittling his juniors (most likely for errors and failings he is probablyt ultimately responsible for).
Remember Justice delayed is often justice denied. A 2018 rape case being heard in 2024 isn't justice by any normal means. In many countries a case brought that late would be rejected as out of time.
She had a few mild policy reforms, but her greatest achievement was simply to stifle controversy.
Hunt almost managed something similar in Health, although it’s now clear he also presided over a gross misallocation of funding away from capital investment.
However Hitler must be taken in the round. The fact is, if he hadn’t been a pretty “abrasive” man manager the Germans would still be driving around on B roads
I am very happy to change my mind if new information is presented, but a boss calling work "useless" - not the person, just the work! - is not bullying! Especially when you weren't targeting anyone in particular!
Mostly because watching The Apprentice is as close as most of us get to seeing how top business works, and we don't know enough to recognise that it's a comedy show really.
Actually, the BBC seem to think that The Apprentice is how top business works, too;
More @BBC LR #HungerGames “We were given 60 seconds to save our career and had to treat it like a speed date. We were timed with the stop watch but not shown the clock. It all felt so degrading, I was timed as 2 seconds out. It’s honestly been worst 6 months of my career”
https://twitter.com/NickyHorne/status/1647332069217845253
The Local Radio cuts might be the next saucepan of shit to boil over. Yes, it's Local Radio, but its listeners are older people in the provinces.
My main takeout from today is that I actually have a little more respect for Sunak's politics than I did yesterday. He's binned off a useless minister - and his deputy, let's not forget - hitherto bound by an unfortunate loyalty pact, and successfully scapegoated the civil service for it (even convincing some people on here, who ought to know better).
Larry Elder enters 2024 presidential race
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/04/20/larry-elder-2024-race-00093218
Who ?
The rumours of bullying in kitchens are generally true. Some really celebrated chefs are absolute wankers. I’m talking direct physical abuse and outright humiliation. Not nice. Makes raab look like st Francis of Assisi
I hasten to add I do not approve of any of it. But that culture definitely exists - even now
Sadly lots of bullies go unpunished. Crikey – that is pretty lowdown behaviour. Accusing the PS of falsifying evidence.
Dear me.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=meu0CoYv3z8
Except the two of them have never met, have never spoken, and the whole interview was generated using ChatGPT and speech tools to mimic their voices. Sounds scarily realistic.
Mind you, he was also a character witness for Ryan Giggs, so the jury's probably out on Fergie as a truly good judge of character.
Biden sees spike among Dems who say they would back him in 2024
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/3962461-biden-sees-spike-among-dems-who-say-they-would-back-him-in-2024-poll/
...Over 80 percent of Democrats said they would likely vote for President Biden in 2024 despite a minority saying the want him to run for reelection, according to an AP-NORC poll released Friday, improvements on earlier figures.
The poll found that just 26 percent of Americans overall and 47 percent of Democrats want Biden to run for reelection, many citing his age.
Biden is expected to announce his 2024 campaign officially at an event as early as this week, and comes as the president’s approval rating slips below 40 percent this month in a different poll, down from 42 percent last month.
Despite sliding approval, the reelection numbers are improvements from January, when 38 percent of Democrats said they would want Biden to run.
Biden’s support is weakest among younger Democrats, with just 25 percent of those under 45 saying they would “definitely” back the president compared to 56 percent of older Democrats. 51 percent of young Democrats said they would “probably” vote for Biden, according to the poll.
The unfavorable figures still put Biden in a better position than GOP frontrunner former President Trump. The same poll found that 65 percent of Americans would not vote for Trump in 2024, including 53 percent saying they definitely would not...
Even completely ignoring the Holocaust, Hitler was a drug-addled fuck-up that ruined his country and had to top himself as a quivering wreck in an underground basement.
The actual decision on investment is taken long before the interview, and through the usual scrutiny of business plans, financial models and due diligence reports and takes up to a year.
A good friend of mine went through it a few years back.
I'm not saying that Ferguson was a bad manager - just that leading the richest club to success isn't necessarily a massive test.
I’m just in a benign mood. It’s almost gin o clock in Bangkok and the night is sultry indeed
Objectively Raab was very bad at his job, with an abrasive style.
He should have resigned for being shit, not just for being a shit.
Their current manager, Richie Wellens, was a young star at Man Utd is his youth, but it all came to an end when he was done for drink-driving. He was duly summoned to appear before SAF at 9am and was expecting a paint-blistering bollocking. Instead, the great man was perfectly calm and sympathetic, but brutally honest.
Wellens resumed his footballing career with modest success elsewhere. The managerial skills he learned from SAF have been evident recently at the O's, who won promotion to Div 1 this week.
I think we can safely say his managerial style is more SAF than DR.
FYI, this comment is far more aggressive than any of the allegations so far listed against Raab. I suppose you feel bullied?
AIUI, at the very top, there are way more Gordon Ramsay types, than Heston Blumental types.