Page 41 - Executive Warfare

Attitude, Risk, and Luck

need three things to make the most of the chances you are given: the right
attitude, a willingness to take calculated risks, and dumb luck.
Let’s take these deciding factors one at a time.

ATTITUDE: The Boss Within
It’s incredibly important to get your own head in the game if you intend
to rise. If fear or sloth rules your psyche, you’ll never do what you need to
do to stand out from the crowd. If you are bossed around by your own
greed, arrogance, or childish lack of discipline, you will give people rea-
son to doubt you, and you will undermine yourself.
Let’s talk about a handful of things you need to do to appear to be
material for higher management.
First, though it sounds obvious, learn how to present well. Meetings are
the stage on which you rise or fall, thrill or flop—so make sure that you
know how to express yourself there. Quietly take lessons, if you need to,
at your own expense.
Second, study, study, study. Not to master your own art, not to master
the art of knowing what everybody else knows, but to master the art of
knowing what nobody else has even considered.
I used to make sure that I had a staff person who spent a lot of time
analyzing the company I worked for as a whole, helping me to understand
what was really going on in all the areas
outside my own. And I would be
MASTER THE ART
briefed, three times a week, on their
OF KNOWING WHAT
major initiatives.
NOBODY ELSE HAS
That way, if something came up in a
EVEN CONSIDERED.
meeting, I’d be prepared. For example,
I once learned that my company was
thinking about investing in a joint venture with the Colombian govern-
ment. So I put in the time required to learn about the political climate in
Colombia.

21