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So, what happened…

About 6 months into Natasha’s tenure with Powerband, I received a call from the HR Director. Major problems had surfaced with Natasha who had persuaded the MD to drastically ramp up production of one of Powerband’s energy products being sold in big retailers. She convinced the MD that retailers would place huge orders for the product if they were offered discounted prices.

When push came to shove it transpired that Natasha had completely miscalculated. Retailers did not have the shelf space to accommodate Powerband’s production. Orders were only talk and speculation – nothing had been put in writing. Natasha was completely amiss in thinking that she would be able to talk the retailers into signing orders. As a result, Powerband sat with a huge stockpile of unwanted product that it could not off – load anywhere.

This had a knock – on effect. Powerband began to run out of warehousing for its full range of products because of the space being taken up by Natasha’s “orders”. Consequently, additional warehousing had to be rented at considerable cost to Powerband. A substantial percentage of Powerband’s cash was tied up in unwanted products. Over time, the situation spiraled due to the warehousing and cash bottleneck, and Powerband began to run into cash flow problems.

Eventually Powerband had no choice but to permanently shut down the manufacturing lines that were producing for the large retailers. Most of the stock had to be written off and dumped, and quite a large number of staff had to be retrenched. The entire exercise cost Powerband millions, not to mention significant reputational damage, problems with unions as well as a huge dent in company morale.

The HR Director wanted to know from me, whether I had picked up anything in Natasha’s assessment that would account for her behaviour in this matter. I drew her report and saw that I had alerted Powerband to all of the risks associated with Natasha’s profile.

Why did this happen…

This disaster was perfectly explainable in terms of both the MD and Natasha’s emotional capabilities.

The MD’s profile clearly pointed to a strong tendency to lack vigilance, to be over – optimistic, too self – confident, only see the best in others, and willingness to act independently without consulting. This really was the root of the problem and are the reasons why he made Natasha an offer on the spot without following the normal HR protocols. He accepted everything that she had told him hook, line and sinker without exercising any due diligence. He was absolutely convinced and taken in by her highly persuasive and convincing “self – sell” which was to be expected from her profile. She completely played into his blind spot – being over trusting, overconfident, over optimistic and gullible, and we are always caught out by what we don’t know about ourselves. Gwede was no fool. He scored exceptionally well on his cognitive tests. He was extremely well qualified and a highly experienced manager and businessman.However, as we have pointed out, emotional capability regulates much of our behaviour and also how we use our cognitive abilities, knowledge, skills and experience.

An MD with similar cognitive capabilities, experience, skills and knowledge, who was cautious, circumspect and vigilant, would have handled Natasha’s recruitment completely differently. We would expect such a person to follow the usual HR recruitment protocols and in the process the risks that Natasha posed to Powerband would have been identified and she would not have been appointed.Natasha’s behaviour was hardly surprising considering her emotional capabilities. Being so outgoing and persuasive she seemed absolutely credible and convincing at face value. She was a natural seller through and through. She first sold herself to Gwede, and then she sold the idea that retailers were ready to buy up masses of Powerband product to the management team. It was all smoke and mirrors though. Her derailers showed her to be someone who was not only overly – optimistic, but also highly disinclined to base her decisions in facts and careful research. If she had a “feeling about something” well that was as good as fact to her. Being opportunistic she was also happy to take short cuts – take the retailers at their word rather than pinning them down with substantive orders – that could be sorted out later. Being absent – minded and head in the clouds she leaned towards generating ideas, not working out how to implement them in practise or whether they would work in practice. She had huge potential to over – promise and under – deliver.

She was the victim of her own blind spots – you can’t escape what you don’t know about yourself – and so she was absolutely convinced in herself that everything was going to work out. The real danger with her though, was that because she had such excellent natural selling ability and such a forceful personality, she was able to overcome all resistance by members of the management team to her ideas, and that they therefore all bought into them, little realising that there was very little practical substance to them.

The combination of Gwede and Natasha’s emotional capability counterproductive behaviour and derailers led to the perfect storm which did long term damage to Powerband.