Page 85 - Executive Warfare

Bosses

his protégé, Jamie Dimon, offers another good example. From the time
Dimon was 26, they’d worked side by side as Weill had built his empire. In
a 2005 interview with the New York Times, Weill reflected on their bond
and said he viewed Dimon “as close to a member of my family.”But by the
time Dimon reached his early 40s, things were growing tense.
In the autobiography he wrote with Judah S. Kraushaar, The Real Deal:
My Life in Business and Philanthropy,Weill describes a classic power strug-
gle between the generations:

By 1997, Jamie had become fixated on the notion that I hadn’t
recognized his contributions. He also exuded a sense of
empowerment . . . and increasingly challenged me to the point
of rudeness in front of other executives....In a surprisingly
short time,I felt Jamie had changed from being a loyal lieutenant
to running a company within a company, and I began to won-
der if he ultimately sought to push me aside altogether.

Then an actual family member—Weill’s daughter Jessica Bibliowicz—
left Citigroup, where she had run Smith Barney’s mutual fund business,
because Dimon wasn’t promoting her quickly enough. “Jamie’s lack of
follow-up infuriated me—Jessica might have ended up staying if only
Jamie had demonstrated his support for
her,” Weill writes. By 1998, this father-
son-like relationship was over. Dimon
MENTOR
was fired.
RELATIONSHIPS
If you want unconditional love, turn
OFTEN END IN
to your family, because you won’t get it
TRAIN WRECKS.
from a boss—or a protégé. Whenever a
boss said to me, “You’re like a son to
me” or “You’re like a brother to me,” it scared me. I’d feel like Fredo being
embraced by Al Pacino in The Godfather, Part II. I was afraid I was going
to be taken out in a boat.

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