The management style of “Shorty”

The national media and particularly the New York media have been busy covering the trial of Joaquin Guzman “El Chapo” or Shorty as he is known. This individual is alleged to have run a drug empire over many decades. Last weekend, The Wall Street Journal ran an article by Sam Walker of the Captain Class column examining Shorty’s “management” style gleaned through the court proceedings. see –Help ! My boss is El Chapo. Since I am the world’s (unofficial) number one management expert, I read that column. There have been other good recent articles from Sam Walker, such as Why Superstars Make Lousy Bosses and Goodbye Swaggering CEOs; Hello Mr. Rogers.

The Shorty guy reminded me of the biggest U.S.-based drug runners from the ’80s and ’90s, The Boys, Willie Falcon and Sal Magluta. Their first trial, in ’90s Miami, ended up in an acquittal. If I remember correctly the star prosecutor in that case went to a strip club after the verdict and bit a stripper on the arm after buying an expensive bottle of champagne. (archive link)

”
On a makeshift gravel runway near the Mexican city of Durango, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, better known as El Chapo, climbed out of his damaged Cessna 206 feeling lucky to be alive.
He already knew one thing for certain. Miguel Angel Martínez, the inexperienced young pilot he’d recruited to transport cocaine from Colombia, wasn’t working out.

Two months earlier, a plane Mr. Martínez was co-piloting ran out of gas on approach and broke its landing gear. This time, he’d touched down so ineptly that the propeller struck the ground.
The boss gave Mr. Martínez an impromptu performance review. “Mr. Guzmán told me that I was a really bad pilot and that he didn’t want me to continue working for him as a pilot,” he said. The larger question, of course, was what El Chapo planned to do next. ” -WSJ

So what do you think Shorty did with the inexperienced pilot at the time ?

He promoted him, rather than having him eliminated. He even asked and got to be godfather to his newborn son. The takeaway: unconditional loyalty was the prime directive in the management style of Shorty.

Sam Walker says the “leadership lesson here is a murky one.” Walker doesn’t believe “loyalty first” management and treating close employees as family works best after all.

Here is what I think, and that relates to most, if not all, high-powered executives

1. Giving a lowly employee a chance is automatically embodying loyalty to the N-th degree. But that offer has to come from you, not from the employee, to be fully appreciated. Otherwise it will be seen as acquiescence. Here’s how it usually happens: the boss “entrusts” X with a “secret” to see if it leaks out. If the probe-secret leaks out, then how can you trust that employee ? Bosses do “tryouts” like this for a reason.
2. Loyalty to a person or circle is always higher than loyalty to an organization.
3. Keeping tabs on employees communications is a good habit. Most bosses do that through automatic software and the compliance department: email and phone call monitoring is common nowadays.
4. A system of rewards-for-performance has to be in place. It appears that becoming “family” as rewards-points -employed by Chapo- may have lengthened employment in a notoriously short-lived career such as the one chosen by these people. Good, bad ? In my humble opinion, making family of closed associates is both good and bad. They don’t get fired (or X-ed) but at the same time they’re too close and can bring about a downfall.