Page 105 - Executive Warfare

Peers

The most dangerous enemies among your peers,however,are not the ones
who would prefer somebody else as their boss, but the ones who just don’t
want you. They can be both desperate and difficult to pick out of a crowd.
They may work against you simply because they resent not having the
courage or talent or opportunity to be real contenders. Or because they
know you have their number and are afraid that if you wind up as the
boss, you will diminish or fire them.
Whatever their motivation for trying to block your rise, your ene-
mies will probably not show their hand openly. Only rarely have I seen
someone openly blast a peer. Once in a senior meeting, I witnessed a
U-boat attack that came out of
nowhere and instantly exploded. Let’s
THE MOST
call the aggressor Ned—and his
DANGEROUS
intended victim Paul. “You said you
ENEMIES AMONG
were going to deliver this on that day,”
YOUR PEERS ARE
Ned suddenly hissed at Paul, “and you
NOT THE ONES
failed to do that, even though I have
WHO WOULD
three memos here that said you
PREFER SOMEBODY
would.” Then there was cursing, there
ELSE AS THEIR
was shouting, there was name-calling.
BOSS, BUT THE
This was about the time that I started
ONES WHO JUST
looking around and wondering, is there
DON’T WANT YOU.
any more lemon Danish in the room?
Because nothing good can come out of
participating in a public argument like that.
I’ll admit that Paul handled the attack in a very classy way. Instead of
becoming defensive, he said, “I would be happy to discuss any and all of
these issues, but I’m not doing it here and not doing it now because it’s
simply inappropriate.”
Paul was right. Even if Ned was correct in principle, he did pick the
wrong place, the wrong time, and the wrong tone for it. Far from doing
Paul in, Ned dealt his own career a negative and unnecessary blow.

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