Page 106 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

If somebody attacks you head-on, you simply have to handle yourself
with aplomb. However, your more sophisticated enemies understand that
assaulting you openly may mean career suicide for them.
At this level, the smart ones understand that they are not cutting down
a sapling, but a mature oak that can’t be done in with one swing of the ax.
So they tend to use a series of small, strategic cuts over time that drain
your vital sap and damage you just enough so that you are no longer the
strongest choice for the job you want.
What you really have to defend against are campaigns, water-cooler
campaigns, rumors that make the people in power uncomfortable with
you.And generally, if your performance
is good, these rumors will focus on your

YOUR MORE personal qualities.
SOPHISTICATED For example, one of my peers once
ENEMIES made an issue out of my “callous lack of
UNDERSTAND THAT commitment” to United Way, which, by
THEY ARE NOT the way, I was not committed to. I just
CUTTING DOWN A wasn’t callous about it. Now, United Way
SAPLING, BUT A is clearly a good cause, and it supports a
MATURE OAK THAT lot of very fine organizations. But I did-
CAN’T BE DONE IN n’t like the system in some workplaces
WITH ONE SWING that participated in United Way, includ-
OF THE AX. ing my own.
We managers were supposed to ask
our employees to contribute a regular
portion of their paychecks to United Way’s limited list of charities—and
we competed with each other to see who could raise more money. Well,
that seemed to me extraordinarily coercive and unfair. I was not going to
pressure people dependent on me for every raise to change their giving
patterns just so I could win some corporate do-bee contest. Giving should
come from the heart, not from the coldness of a corporation’s required
programs.

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