Page 234 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

I’ll never forget the first time I had to go up to the executive floor there.
I was waiting in my best suit and shirt when a couple of the company’s
most senior people walked in, in hunting gear, with shotguns and dead
fowl over their shoulders. There was a forest near headquarters, and the
top executives would hunt there together.
The guy I was going to meet with threw his dead birds on his secretary’s
desk and said, “Have the kitchen clean these.”
I found this very odd indeed. What kind of people go hunting on a
weekday and then walk through the lobby carrying shotguns? Worse, what
kind of people send out memos about being an equal opportunity
employer for women and then throw bloody ducks on a secretary’s desk?
Yet these were the people telling me what to do.
Another time, the company suddenly anointed a long-time employee
without a strong background in marketing as worldwide head of market-
ing and sales. I’d never met the guy. Let’s call him Fritz and speculate that
he got the job because he was an old jousting pal of the king’s—and pos-
sibly smart enough to fall off the horse at the first tip of the king’s lance.
Since this firm had been buying so many companies and combining
them, the leadership decided to take over a golf resort for two weeks, have
a series of sales and marketing conventions there one after another, and
just roll people through them. And Fritz would display himself in his new
role there.
At the first of these conventions, there was, as usual, a grand parade of
dull speeches made by people justifying their existence, with the poor slide
makers working long into the night making slides for them, and the audi-
ence suffering through every excruciating minute.
It was 95 degrees outside, but we were all buttoned up in suits and ties
and perpetually nursing the hangovers from hell because the company
always scheduled a big dinner event and kept us up drinking long into the
night. Then the first presentation of the day was always at 7 a.m., to ensure
that the meeting had enough business content to be tax-deductible—but
still allow the whole afternoon for golf.

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