Page 199 - Executive Warfare

Outsiders with Influence

or management consultants, the investment bankers—from whom your
organization is buying brainpower and lots of other difficult-to-quantify
talents.
Nonetheless, you may find yourself wondering why it is that your
organization uses one particular consulting firm when there are dozens
of consulting firms in town that could do the work. Why are they sacred?
Treated like extended family?
Generally, there is a reason. Here is an example: When I was in the
advertising agency business, the CEO’s son was arrested for a DUI. The
CEO got a call in the middle of the night and, in turn, called the only
lawyer he happened to know, his corpo-
rate lawyer. So the lawyer roused the
right partner, who went to New Jersey WITH VENDORS,
and bailed the kid out. The partner han- THERE IS OFTEN A
dled the case so well that the kid got off CHIT SYSTEM
with just a slap on the wrist, and no OPERATING UNDER
whisper of the story ever appeared in THE RADAR
the papers. SCREEN, AND YOU
After that, the CEO paid full price to HAVE TO BE AWARE
that firm for all the agency’s legal work OF IT.
for years. It’s very hard to dislodge a
vendor who does something like that—
for example, a vendor who uses his connections to get a child into the right
college or uses his seat on a hospital board to get an ailing parent to the
right doctors.
With vendors, there is often a chit system operating under the radar
screen, and you have to be aware of it. It has nothing to do with graft or
bribery. It doesn’t mean that the vendor is not doing fine work, either. It’s
just that a personal favor was done someplace along the line that was so vital
to your boss or your boss’s boss that it transcends all other considerations.
If you’re connected at all in your organization, you will probably be able
to find out what the favor was, but you may not want to, lest the answer

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