Page 119 - Executive Warfare

Rivals

hunting accident, and suddenly you have a chance at the job you’ve always
coveted. This actually happened to me. And no, I wasn’t hunting that day.
Or somebody is abruptly done in by a scandal or wakes up one morn-
ing finally ready to open that B&B in Vermont. Somebody else intends to
retire in three years but is done in by a heart attack. One extra slice of pep-
peroni can alter your entire career. So start building a reputation for lead-
ership today.
On the other hand, be aware that races for the top handful of positions
in any organization are, generally speaking, long—three, five, seven years.
They’re not tomorrow. It’s far better to
be a steady incremental player who
wins, in the end, by impressing people
IT’S FAR BETTER TO
all along the way than to be the kind of
BE A STEADY
hothead who tries to force a quick cul-
INCREMENTAL
mination.
PLAYER WHO WINS,
The less intelligent among your rivals
IN THE END, BY
will do just that. They will destroy their
IMPRESSING
chances long term in order to beat you
PEOPLE ALL ALONG
today.
THE WAY THAN TO
Those rivals who are openly political
BE THE KIND OF
definitely fall into this category. They’re
HOTHEAD WHO
throwing darts at you at meetings, whis-
TRIES TO FORCE
pering in your boss’s ear. The political
A QUICK
players are relatively easy to defeat
CULMINATION.
because they almost always overplay
their hand and do themselves in.
Others may actually be dumb enough to undermine the goals of the
business in order to beat you. I remember working with a really ambitious
information technology executive who was in line for the same job I was.
Let’s call him Tom. Tom was probably second only to payroll in terms of
the amount of money he controlled. So I had a hundred projects in his
shop at any given time, and it was like working with a general contractor

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