Page 214 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

advertising, on computer equipment, on real estate, or on legal advice.
While they tend to be very smart, it’s easy for people to ignore their
contributions—even to be a bit suspicious of the money that flows out
through them.
And people are naturally inclined to pick the person who feeds them
as their leader, rather than the person who designs a new lure or finds a
new cave.
Of course, diners can rise on their own track to the highest level in their
area of expertise, becoming the general counsel, chief marketing officer,
or chief information officer. If they have any talent, they can be in those
jobs a very long time, and some people are satisfied with that. But when
it comes to running a large business, even the highest-ranked diners are
out of position.
Generally, they have no chance of making it to the top of the organi-
zation, except if the organization has a severe lack of hunters or a scandal
that temporarily makes other things, like reputation, seem more impor-
tant than meat. This clearly happened at
Citigroup in 2002 when the company
IT’S NOT was reeling from a series of scandals and
IMPOSSIBLE TO attracting the unwanted attention of
RISE TO THE TOP New York State Attorney General Eliot
OF AN Spitzer. Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill
ORGANIZATION AS decided it was time for a new head of
A DINER OR A the corporate and investment bank and
SKINNER. JUST turned to Citigroup’s top lawyer,
UNLIKELY. Charles Prince.
In his autobiography, Weill says that
Prince was “an unproven commodity,
having never run a line unit on his own.”But Weill wanted to take a chance
on him anyway:“If anyone could reason with the regulators, it was Chuck,
thanks to his long-standing ties with most of the principal players and his
ability to articulate our reforms.”

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