Page 54 - Executive Warfare
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EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE



            These are not the kinds of pressures you face lower in an organization
         when you’re working for one person and your biggest challenge is getting
         a single project done on time. And nothing you’ve learned earlier in your
         career can prepare you for it.
            You naturally start to doubt yourself in a situation like this. I wondered,
         “Am I overreacting? Being too moralistic, a goody two-shoes? If we could
         settle for 30 cents on the dollar, wouldn’t that be better?” However, it had
         not been solely a moral decision. It also was a question of costs and ben-
         efits: Ultimately, what would hurt us the most?
            And it was clear to me that we actually could have put the entire enterprise
         at risk by fighting,because we would have eventually lost.We then would have
         had to pay out far more money and would have been far more severely pun-
         ished by our regulators.We would have hurt our brand,possibly permanently.
         And the whole process would have been paralytic to the company.
            I credit my boss for recognizing the enterprise risk here and allowing
         me to make my decision. But no real reward followed it. Not once did any-
                                       body pat me on the back and say,“That
                                       was a really smart thing to do. We’re
                 THE ONE RISK YOU
                                       glad you did it.”
                 MUST NEVER BE
                                         Then some of our competitors
                 WRONG ABOUT IN
                                       decided to fight rather than settle with
                 YOUR CAREER IS
                                       the class-action lawyers, and they were
                 ENTERPRISE RISK.
                                       lit up like Christmas trees.
                                         Prudential, for example, seemed to
         be battling the inevitable every step of the way. Even after the company
         agreed to settle, some of the relevant sales documents were carelessly
         destroyed. There was a reluctance to share documents with customers who
         had decided not to participate in the class-action settlement. Even those
         customers who did participate accused the company of foot-dragging,
         stonewalling, and making the paperwork deliberately confusing.
            The fight cost Prudential an astounding sum—according to court esti-
         mates, more than $3 billion by May 31, 2000. It also cost the company



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