Executives can be judged on many qualities…

Executives can be judged on many qualities, but high on my list is how well they hire. Insecure managers invariably chose weak, non threatening subordinates. Confident managers hire the best people they can find, aware that improving overall performance will ultimately reound to their credit.

–Michael Eisner

Your Team

(30005)

No matter how competent you are, you’ll need to assemble a team around you. These people will become vital parts of what you have to offer, so choose them astutely.

To reach the upper echelons of organization, you need to attract good talent and then handle that talent productively. The type of people you attract is watched and evaluated very carefully by those who make the senior management hiring and firing decisions. This is a key indicator that you’re ready for bigger and better things.

If you hire fools or nutters, pretty soon the senior management team will start worrying about your own judgment. If the people you hire turn out to be strong performers, there will be confidence that you have good people skills and judgment. This is especially true when you bring in outsiders. Be very careful and do lots of due diligence beforehand so you don’t get caught out bringing in someone who is obviously a bad fit for the organization.

When it comes to putting together your own team:

Insist on making your own picks: don’t get lumbered with somebody who was a favorite of your predecessor, or who is friendly with someone on the board of directors. The stakes are too high for that. Insist that you need to pick your own team and stick to your guns.

Don’t build an army of clones: but hire people who have strengths in areas you are weak in. If you only pick people you like, your team will have some pretty big gaps and others won’t take you seriously. Diversity may be uncomfortable, but it’s necessary.

Be prepared to do some horse-trading with your rivals: poach a few of their best people and be philosophical when the same thing happens to you. Just make sure you get something in return if you end up being forced to trade one of your top-notch team members.

If you do have to fire someone, do it gracefully: which essentially means you make sure they are going to another employment position that will better suit them.

When you are promoted to senior management, my advice is to celebrate the night before you start the job, because there is no celebrating afterward. Just because you’ve been made a field general and given a spiffy new uniform with epaulettes doesn’t mean that you won’t have battles to fight. And let’s admit the truth: Some of the people judging you will inevitably be mean, power-mad, incompetent, or just plain crazy.

–David D’Alessandro & Michele Owens

If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure

If you think your teacher is tough, wait until you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.

–Charles J. Sykes

Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so

Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.

–Bertrand Russell

Rivals

(30004)

The boss will watch how you interact with those who are going for the same job you are. Handle your rivals intelligently and you signal that you have superior abilities as a leader.

Whenever you decide to go for some senior position in your organization, you’ll be amazed at how many rivals will emerge from the woodwork. Basically everyone who has come to the attention of the CEO or the board of directors will be your rival, including outsiders who consider that they have been “drafted’ into the race. That’s the reality of the situation.

Start with an awareness that the race for most top executive positions gets decided over a period of three to five years rather than overnight. That means you’ve got to have siege mentality rather than expecting dramatic overnight developments. Your priority should be to accrue a steady track record of achievements. Let some of your rivals come across more like hotheads while you keep on impressing people with one solid achievement after another. Time is on your side, so act like the leader you want to become.

What you must do is patiently prove you are better over and over again. It’s very smart if you avoid attacking your rivals directly and instead just make certain you always look good by comparison. That’s a very astute way to get ahead, but it does require that you’re always on your game. If you can ask some probing but pertinent questions whenever your rivals make a presentation, you can both raise the bar and open up lines of inquiry that can keep coming up over and over.

When dealing with rivals:

Only make a show of aggression if you have the power to get your rival fired: otherwise bite your tongue, sit back and wait for them to make their inevitable mistakes.

If you cannot resist using a show of force, make sure it’s permanent: do something that will get your rival fired. If you merely inflict a little pain and wound your rival, they will come after you with everything they can muster. Obviously, it’s better to avoid this.

If someone who works for you tries to make an end run and goes to your boss, you really have no choice but to fire them: but you’ll have to be smart about how you do that. Instead of terminating their employment outright, eliminate that job or split it in two. Do this quickly so he or she won’t have time to launch a defense. And conversely, if you’re trying to take your boss’s job, strike quickly. Make your move and then live with the consequences.

If you do lose out to a rival, it’s decision time. You can either stay or head off to greener pastures. If you decide to stay, you’d better be prepared to eat lots and lots of crow, figuratively speaking. You’d better be prepared to take orders from your former rival if you stick around, and keep in mind that even if you wait out your rival’s tenure, it will still be that much harder to get the job next time around. Your rival will have someone he or she wants to get the job once they move on and will be working hard behind the scenes to smooth the waters for their designated successor. Of course, you may want to wait around in the hope that your rival will end up shooting themselves in the foot and you’ll be able to become the knight in shining armor, but realistically that’s going to be a long shot.

To other point to remember is that once you’ve missed the job the first time around, your people will get a bit listless as well. They won’t have quite the same degree of respect for you they once did. Working for a former rival is just very hard on the ego at all kinds of levels, which is why more people tend to choose to leave their organization rather than do this. If you get into this position, think through all these issues carefully and deliberately.

If you are fortunate enough to win the job you’re after and you’d really like your former rivals to stay, treat them with respect. Give them great assignments and make sure their successes get rightly attributed to them. Don’t lord it over them, but minimize the amount of reporting they do to you. Make it clear that you value their efforts, that the past is done and buried and that you’d like to move forward on a positive footing. Some will respond and perform impressive deeds, while others will not. That’s the reality of the business environment.

Not even the most powerful or ambitious person can force lightning to strike. But you can maneuver yourself into a position where it’s more likely to strike. Figure out how to stand tall in an open field as soon as you can.

–David D’Alessandro & Michele Owens

The best of your real rivals are as impressive as you are. Don’t forget it when you’re running against them, and don’t forget it when you win.

–David D’Alessandro & Michele Owens

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