Debate, Comment | Tipping out top managers for millions – no wonder it boils on the floor

Today must we talk about one of the most difficult of all in working life, viz the unwanted boss.

A condition which can create deep wounds, and potentially be completely devastating for a workplace. With declining performances, a poor working environment and skills flight as possible consequences.

The is impossible to give a single answer to why certain managers end up as the unwanted boss.

It was hectic activity until the end for the municipal director

Straight and simply because there is not one, but many – and often complex – underlying causes:

• Disagreement with owners about road selection and priorities.
• A workplace with an inherited difficult working climate.
• Unrealistic expectations of how major changes will be implemented.
• Wrong person in the wrong place (read: read deficient or failing leadership skills).

Exactly what is the explanation(s) that the county’s largest workplace ended up with an unwanted boss, we don’t know. There is probably not one, but several truths here either. The only thing we know for sure is that the board (ie the political majority) no longer had confidence that Nina Tangnæs Grønvold (54) was the right person to lead Fredrikstad municipality’s 7,000 employees.

Thus smoke she out the doors of the town hall, after agreement with the mayor that it was best that way. Sunday was her last day of work, but she will still receive salary from the municipality for another twelve months.

But it was hectic activity until the end for the municipal director. One of the last things she did was to put in place a final agreement with one of her closest allies for the past three years – organization director Mette Strand Leistad (49). She will receive six months’ back pay, as well as help to cover legal expenses of up to NOK 50,000.

Total price tag for taxpayers’ money: Somewhere between NOK 700,000 and 800,000. If we add the 1.8 million that goes out of the municipality’s coffers as severance pay to Grønvold, it is no wonder that things are quickly boiling over both in the comments section and among employees in the municipality.

For this therefore happens at the same time that the individual on the floor is asked to stretch further, be willing to adapt and manage with less money.

Strangely enough – or carefully planned, depending on how you choose to see it – the municipality announced the news first after that Grønvold had been thanked by the municipality. Instead, it was her temporary successor, Ole-Henrik Holøs Pettersen, who on the first day of his new job received the assignment with announcing the news of yet another leader exit at the town hall.

It has been many heavy roofs in Fredrikstad municipality recently. The politicians have delivered two orders that put the entire great organization to the test, and where hardly anyone is unaffected by what is happening.

• The entire organization is to be renewed and streamlined, with overall fewer managers and fewer steps from top to bottom.
• The municipality will reorganize and cut services for around NOK 400 million.

Green violence and Leistad have been central to this work. Whether the outcome will be successful, in the form of a more sustainable economy and better organisation, we do not yet know. The only fact we have so far is that both have ended up as the unwanted boss each with their own final agreement.

The one unwanted by the political leadership, the other with rather bad excuses from the employees’ own representatives.

Deserved or undeserved. Okke that Fredrikstad municipality now finds itself in a restructuring of historic dimensions – at the same time that three of seven top managers have disappeared in six months. And where a fourth actively sought refuge a short time ago.

It is Not a lucky situation to say the least. It requires stability and good leadership to carry out major upheavals in a workplace. Right now, it is far from the opposite that characterizes Fredrikstad municipality, with bosses on their way out the door and temporary solutions.

There will be one thing or another to puzzle over for whoever is hand-picked as her successor

The top floor at the town hall does not seem to be a particularly harmonious place at the moment.

And now stands Mayor Arne Sekkelsten and the position parties face their biggest challenge since the election victory last autumn. They are the ones who must recruit replacements for the top manager they chose to shut down. One superman or superwoman, which, among other things, can fix the following:

• Strong deterioration of the municipality’s finances.
• Alarming man-year development.
• Lack of progress on important urban development projects such as Cicignon Park, Værste and Arena Fredrikstad.

Therefore; the official reasons given for a lack of confidence in Nina Tangnæs Grønvold.

One thing is at least certain: There will be one thing or another to puzzle over for whoever is hand-picked as her successor.

ARCHIVE VIDEO: That’s why Nina Tangnæs Grønvold left: