Page 124 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

Was that polite of me? It was barely within the rules of engagement.
And it did not endear me to my rival. But I’d asked where the beef was,
and nobody in a position of power ever forgot it. They went home that
night worrying,“We just approved something where we’re spending a fifth
of our competition. Are we five times as smart?”
After that moment, every time Sean came to a meeting and said how
well his business was doing, the president would ask, “Well, how’s our
competition doing?” That question was now omnipresent. Sure enough,
when the business began to falter a year
or so later, I got credit for having pre-
dicted it.
WITH ONE SHARP,
With one sharp, pertinent question,
PERTINENT
you can raise the bar for your rival,
QUESTION, YOU CAN
open up a new line of inquiry that he
RAISE THE BAR FOR
will now have to face persistently, and
YOUR RIVAL, AND
begin to control the dynamic in man-
OPEN UP A NEW
agement meetings.
LINE OF INQUIRY
And you’ll probably have the field all
THAT HE WILL NOW
to yourself in this game, since most of
HAVE TO FACE
your rivals won’t avail themselves of a
PERSISTENTLY.
similar opportunity to ask questions
about your work. They will be too lazy
or too busy worrying about their own world to demonstrate any interest
in what you’re doing. Or they will lack the fundamental courage to ques-
tion you, or they will think it’s just poor form.
My reaction to the form issue is that as long as you’re not overly aggres-
sive and obviously trying to poke at a rival, it’s okay. You don’t ask too
embarrassing a question, and you don’t ask too personal a question.
Instead, you ask a business question that demonstrates your breadth of
knowledge about the organization—and the degree to which you have the
organization’s best interests at heart. You don’t do it every time by any
means, just now and then.

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