Page 166 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

else—you will not rise. Your superiors will conclude that your point of
view is too narrow for a wider role within the organization.
Sometimes, you have to compromise in ways that will not make a
huge difference in your results but that will make a huge difference in your
leadership.

TRUTH IS A POWERFUL MANAGEMENT TOOL
You know that you’ve become powerful in an organization when you over-
hear people talking about you in the cafeteria, and they refer to you only
by your first name:“I saw David order the pizza.”It’s not necessarily a sign
of endearment that your last name is no longer necessary, but it is defi-
nitely a sign of power.
Unfortunately, there are costs to that power. People become increas-
ingly reluctant to bring you bad news. At the higher levels of organiza-
tional life, you spend a lot of time stretching for the truth—and if people
refuse to give it, the results can be disastrous.
For example, when I was at John
Hancock, we had a couple of renegade
IT’S NOT salespeople who were using our brand
NECESSARILY A to sell some other company’s viatical
SIGN OF settlements. Viaticals are the life insur-
ENDEARMENT THAT ance equivalent of reverse mortgages: A
YOUR LAST NAME salesperson finds old or terminally ill
IS NO LONGER people holding life insurance policies
NECESSARY, BUT IT who are desperate for some ready cash.
IS DEFINITELY A He buys their insurance policies at a
SIGN OF POWER. small percentage of their face value and

then collects the full value of the poli-
cies when these frail people die. It’s a product John Hancock would not
sell, a predatory product that is completely inconsistent with the John
Hancock brand.

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