Page 60 - Executive Warfare

EXECUTIVE W ARF ARE

Good luck often takes the form of having the right skills at the right
moment. Parsons, who is famously diplomatic, took over Time Warner at
a moment when the Time Warner people were so bitter about their merger
with AOL—and the subsequent decline in the value of their company
stock—that civil war threatened. A diplomatic personality was just what
was needed.
I certainly got lucky at John Hancock. The two CEOs before me were
actuaries, and two of the finest executives I ever worked with. However,
you couldn’t find a personality or back-
ground more different from the actuar-
LUCK WORKS THE
ies than mine. They were numbers
OTHER WAY, TOO.
people, I was a marketer. But Hancock
SOMETIMES WHEN
needed top-line growth, and I was one
YOU ARE PASSED
of the few people inside who had
OVER FOR A
demonstrated the ability to drive top-
PROMOTION, IT
line growth.
AIN’T BECAUSE
Now, had I planned that there’d be
YOU WEREN’T
two actuaries ahead of me? No. Had I
GOOD ENOUGH,
planned that the company’s biggest
AND IT AIN’T YOUR
need in that era would be top-line
FAULT.
growth? No.
And if the opposite had been true—
that we had plenty of top-line growth but were having trouble making a
profit on it—would I have been picked? Probably not.
Often you get the brass ring not because you reached so deftly for it,
but because the brass ring smacked you in the nose. Little things can tip
the balance. Somebody remembers a kindness that you paid them seven
years ago or remembers something they read about you. And suddenly
you’re in.
Luck works the other way, too. Sometimes when you are passed over
for a promotion, it ain’t because you weren’t good enough, and it ain’t
your fault. It happens in politics all the time. Very capable people are

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