Page 53 - Executive Warfare

Attitude, Risk, and Luck

with class-action lawyers. Listening to blistering inquiries from both
groups proved to be extraordinarily unpleasant.
It was also going to cost us some untold amount of money to make things
right,hundreds of millions of dollars.First,we had to pay for an enormously
expensive system to figure out fair compensation, customer by customer.
Then, not only did we have to rebate the premiums that our customers had
paid on “vanishing premium” policies, but we also had to give everybody
the products we had promised at the
price they thought they were buying
them at, which was often at a steep loss
THESE ARE NOT
for us. Not to mention the fact that we
THE KINDS OF
had already paid out millions to sales-
PRESSURES YOU
people in commissions on these policies,
FACE LOWER IN AN
many of whom were now gone with the
ORGANIZATION
wind.
WHEN YOU’RE
I made sure that some others were to
WORKING FOR ONE
follow. And none of this made me par-
PERSON AND YOUR
ticularly popular with the remaining
BIGGEST
salespeople.
CHALLENGE IS
Because of my decision to admit our
GETTING A SINGLE
wrongdoing, we also did not know
PROJECT DONE ON
whether or not the company or indi-
TIME.
viduals within it would be open to
criminal prosecution.
In short, with this decision, I was volunteering everybody at John Han-
cock for a long, long period of humiliation—not to mention lower com-
pensation as the company took the financial hit.
Remarkably enough, the CEO and the board supported me. So did a
few of my colleagues. Aside from them, the only people pleased with my
decision were the division heads in other parts of the company, who were
buying drinks for each other, delighted to see a competitor in such an
uncomfortable spot.

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