Page 99 - Executive Warfare

Peers

I suggest that you pick the lesser of two evils and swallow the castor oil.
Not only will your boss respect your courage, but your staff peers will real-
ize that you’re willing to take responsibility for your own problems. This
builds a trust you cannot build in another way.
I can remember a quarter at John Hancock when there was going to be
a $15 million loss in my area that no one had expected. I asked the finan-
cial office not to tell the CEO and the president because I wanted to tell
them myself. The financial people were pretty surprised at that because
they are often the bearers of bad news. But they respected me for it and, as
a result, kept me highly informed about
what was going on in the organization.
NEVER ASK ONE OF
This is important because, as far
YOUR PEERS TO
as I’m concerned, the most valuable
CARRY BAD NEWS
weapon you can have in any contest for
FOR YOU.
the top is information. If I was going
into a general management meeting
and a rival was going to be there, I wanted to know as much as she did
about whatever she was going to talk about. Because I had created allies
among my peers, I generally got that information.
You need eyes and ears wherever you can win them, not to learn the
latest gossip, but to cross lines in terms of the business and find out what
you are otherwise not in a position to know.Your bosses are going to pro-
mote the person who is best able to grasp the organization as a whole, so
reach across borders whenever you can.
Get to know the people at your level in all parts of your organization.
Not only will they give you insights into what’s happening in the organi-
zation at large, they may even be key to your longevity.

DON’T CONFUSE YOUR BOSS’S ENEMIES WITH YOUR OWN
One of the most dangerous situations you can find yourself in is one in
which your boss is battling with a handful of his peers for control of an

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