Leadership Lessons from Bill Lumbergh

The cult classic, Office Space, was released to VHS and DVD 20 years ago this month. It came out in theaters earlier in 1999, but hardly anyone saw it then. It only became popular after the home video release, so it seemed timely to commemorate that event with a set of blog articles reflecting on the quintessential lessons therein.

In late 1999, I was early in my professional IT career. Like Peter Gibbons, I was fixing the Y2K bug, working in a cubicle, and putting cover sheets on my own versions of TPS reports.

Two weeks ago, I explored the leadership lessons that can be gleaned from the Bobs. Last week, I examined Peter’s redeeming qualities of personal leadership. If you haven’t had a chance to read those yet, go back and read them, then continue on here.

This week is the grand finale. We are going to see what modern technology leaders can learn from the great and infamous Bill Lumbergh.

I am Lumbergh

Before I get into it too much, I need to start with a stark realization. 20 years ago, when this movie came out, Bill seemed like an old, out of touch executive. I recently re-watched the movie and noticed a few things that bothered me. First, Bill Lumbergh is 41. How do I know that? By the birthday cake they cut up, passed around, and give to everyone but Milton. The cake clearly had a 41 one it. I turn 41 in two months.

Second, Lumbergh’s title is Vice President of Initech. I’ve been recently given the title of Vice President. I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow over the past 20 years I’ve gone from Peter Gibbons to Bill Lumbergh. Watch out people!

Now’s let’s get into the leadership lessons:

Hello Peter, what’s happening?

This was Lumbergh’s preferred opening greeting. He never left any open space for there to be an answer to that question, which clearly indicated that he wasn’t interested in small talk, nor was he interested in actually finding out what was happening.

Good leaders take the opposite approach. Sometimes, as leaders, we get very focused on getting our stuff done. It’s usually our drive that makes us good leaders in the first place, but often, we risk being too driven for our own good. We need to pause to do two things:

First, ask what’s happening, and wait for a response. Variations on this are: how are you doing? or how was your weekend? Yes, it’s small talk, but it’s a good way to show some personal interest and develop a rapport.

Second, Lumbergh would have benefited greatly by finding out the answer to his question, “what’s happening?” Lumbergh didn’t have a clue what was going on in his company. Leaders need to be humble enough to ask questions of their team members to find out what is working and what isn’t. Lumbergh never bothered to find out, which is one of the reasons his company burned to the ground, literally.

Ummm, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday…

In the world of enterprise technology, weekend work happens. Nights too. It’s part of the deal. The business expects technology to function during business hours, so that leaves short windows during nights and weekends for maintenance and deployments, not to mention on-call support at any hour of the night. 

The remarkable thing here isn’t there is work to be done on Saturday, it’s that Lumbergh needs to make Peter do it. Lumbergh doesn’t ask. He states the need and ends with the rhetorical “mmm kay” which isn’t the same thing as asking, “is this okay with you?” and waiting for a response. Lumbergh makes the demand, ends it with “mmm kay,” then walks away.

I’ve led a lot of teams that work hard to get the job done. Often that requires extra time outside of normal working hours, just because that’s what is needed. The key is, I’ve never had to walk around the office on a Friday afternoon, looking for unsuspecting victims to assign to weekend work. I’ve never done it. Not even once.

In fact, I have the exact opposite problem.

My teams are very committed the success of our business and our customers. So much so, that they often have a hard time unplugging and handing things off. They see a gap and they stand in it, because that’s what committed professionals do. I have entire teams of professionals that do this every day because that is what the work demands.

I have the job of telling my team members not to work at night. Stop working on weekends. Unplug, take your PTO, recharge, hand it off to someone else and get some rest. Ummm, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and NOT come in on Saturday…

Is this good for the company?

Lumbergh led off a staff meeting with this statement to his team: “So you should ask yourself, with every decision that you make, is this good for the company?” On the surface, this seems like a reasonable expectation to set with your staff, but there are several problems with it. Ultimately, the fact that this conversation is even necessary exposes a failure of a much larger magnitude.

The job of the leader is to create a compelling cause and enlist the team members in achieving that worthy cause. This is the act of meaning-making. It’s hard to do, but that is the calling of a leader.

So really, “is this good for the company?” is actually the wrong question. The right question is this: “What awesome cause does my company stand for, and how can I contribute to it?” Leaders and team members should seek fresh answers to this every day.

I am quite fortunate to work at CHS. I connect with our purpose to create connections that empower agriculture. It’s a worthy cause. I know my role on the team. I build teams that build technology that makes this possible. We simply cannot realize our purpose without people like me in the company. It’s nice to be needed.

When I know that, I don’t need someone to tell me to ask myself “is this good for the company?” In the ideal state, the question is irrelevant because I’m on a mission.

Hiring the Bobs

Bill Lumbergh had no idea how to run his company, so he hired the Bobs to assess the company and make some recommendations. I’ve worked at several companies and have seen various versions of the Bobs floating around at all of them.

As a leader, leveraging consulting is a delicate balance. On one hand, you can go it alone, and rely exclusively on your own experience. The downside of this approach is that you may be doing things for the first time and are possibly missing out on the body of best practices that exist outside of your enterprise.

On the other hand, you can over-rely on outside help. You do this if you are incompetent, or find it convenient to have someone external to blame if the advice doesn’t work.

Finding the right balance is the art of leadership. As far as I can tell, Bill Lumbergh took the extreme path because he was incompetent. This path disempowered the leadership and disempowered the team. In the end, everyone looked like shmucks while the consultants cashed-in.

At CHS we’ve struck the right balance. We have competent leadership and empowered staff. We avail ourselves of temporary outside perspective when it makes sense. This is the only way to lead.

I almost forgot, I’m also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too.

This blog series could go on for weeks, but it is time to draw this to a conclusion. Office Space is a fun movie that pokes fun at the worst aspects of our work life. By now, you can see that there is a better way. If you are living in perpetual Office Space, then do something to improve your situation.

If you are a leader like me, then you clearly know what not to do, and hopefully, I’ve given you a few tips on how to approach these situations in a better way. What are your Office Space moments and how have you overcome them? Please share your leadership experiences in the comments below.

Like Office Space and my blog? Please share it with your colleagues.

Read this article on my blog site: https://zachonleadership.com/leadership-lessons-from-bill-lumbergh/

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