Page 216 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

I remember a couple of guys from the dining side at John Hancock,
lawyers, smart guys, who wound up running a large and highly sophisti-
cated customer-service operation for us.
They certainly didn’t wait for the day that we’d say,“We have two open-
ings here. Are you possibly interested?”Certainly, nobody in top manage-
ment walked down to the fifty-fifth floor of the Hancock Tower and said,
“Hey, let’s grab a couple of lawyers to run this business.”
But they were given a chance to hunt because they’d asked for it ear-
lier. It was a risk for us, but we decided in the end that they had the man-
agement skill set required, so it just
might work.
IF YOU WANT TO Well, they went off and did a very
BEAT THE HUNTERS good job, energized the division’s
AMONG YOUR employees, and saved us a lot of money.
PEERS, DON’T Because they’d taken something totally
SIMPLY DRAG outside the role in which they’d been
HOME THE typecast, in the future they were con-
CARCASS. MANAGE sidered for many other different kinds
THE ENTIRE HUNT of jobs and did very well in the com-
WITH THE pany.
SOPHISTICATION OF Like these lawyers, I’d started at John
AN AMERICAN Hancock as a diner, as a communica-
INDIAN. tions person. I could have risen by tak-
ing on more staff responsibilities. But I
knew how to hunt from my previous life
in the advertising and public relations agency business—and I also knew
how much hunting was valued when it came time to pass out promotions.
So I made it very clear that I wanted revenue-generating responsibilities.
After 1987, I never took another staff job unless it had a substantial
revenue-generating portion. I also never gave up the revenue portions of
my job when I was promoted. I refused. I wouldn’t hand those opportu-
nities off to a competitor. And because I was in revenue-generating roles

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