Page 218 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

in demand when the board and the CEO go looking for someone for a
big job.
In other words, they are looking for judgment as well as strength. The
rap on hunters is that they’ll try to sell anything, they have no vision,
they’re reckless. So to rise to the top, you
will have to demonstrate some restraint
and stay out of the wrong businesses.
DINERS AND
I was in an organization once where
SKINNERS CAN
we had this fantastic person driving
WOUND GREAT
sales. Let’s call him Andy. It was almost
HUNTERS. SOME OF
a foregone conclusion that Andy was
THEM MANAGE TO
going to be CEO. But he did not become
RISE PRIMARILY BY
CEO because of a woman named Rita,
BEING CRITICAL.
who learned how to make money for
the company through her own skills as
a skinner. She dropped expenses dramatically, developed relationships
with clients that made those clients more profitable for us, and showed
good judgment for the kinds of ventures we should pursue.
Slowly, she demonstrated the breath of wisdom that overcame the most
formidable hunter.

BEWARE THE PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVES
Even those diners and skinners who are not nearly as effective as Rita can
wound great hunters. Some of them manage to rise primarily by being
critical. They show that the hunters are making so many mistakes, the
only safe thing to do is to appoint people who won’t make mistakes—
namely, them.
If you’re a hunter, you can be undermined by an ambitious lawyer who
questions your ethics or by an ambitious human resources person who
questions your leadership skills. But the skinners are particularly danger-
ous in that they have all the numbers at their disposal.

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