Page 129 - Executive Warfare

Rivals

Act quickly, before her paranoia has a chance to flower, because
dawdling is dangerous.Your boss has more access than you do to the CEO
and the board. She could easily plant so much kindling wood under you,
it would make Joan of Arc look like a marshmallow roast.
But if you have done a good job with the people above your boss, and
you sense that your boss is just gliding, and you also sense that people at
the top know it, make your move.

IF YOU LOSE TO YOUR RIVAL, EITHER LEARN
TO LIKE EATING CROW, OR GO
I’ve never believed in being overly friendly with my rivals—or even terri-
bly polite. Civil, yes. Friendly, no. And that’s because by the time I reached
the middle levels of organizational life, I saw no reason whatsoever to
curry favor with my competitors.
I’d already made the decision that I wasn’t going to work for any of
them. I’d leave first, because I didn’t want to stay in the organization hav-
ing lost the race.
If you do stay on as a loser,you generally either have to find another place
to go within the organization that offers you another chance to rise, or wait
out your rival’s tenure—five years, seven years, ten years—for a second shot
at the job you wanted. That is a lot of
time if you are in your 40s or 50s.
Even if you do wait it out, getting the MOST RIVALRIES
job will be that much harder on the next ARE SIEGES.
go ‘round. First, you have already been HOWEVER, IF YOU
found lacking once.And second,the rival DECIDE THAT YOU
who won the job now gets to influence ARE GOING TO TAKE
who comes in after him. YOUR BOSS’S JOB
Still, sometimes the people who wait FROM HER, THAT IS
it out do get second chances. Less than A COUP.
two years after Andrea Jung was passed

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