D. Murali

Chennai: When everybody is smart, hard-working, and able to show results, what set you apart are the relationships you build with people of influence, says David F. D’Alessandro in ‘Executive Warfare’ (www.tatamcgrawhill.com).

The old rules are all right for success in the middle, but when you reach a certain level, the game is for grown-ups, the author explains. “The odds are against your rising higher, and there are more and more people standing in your way.” This is when you no longer have just one boss to please; you now have a complex, hazy matrix of hundreds of bosses, he adds. “And you cannot rise without impressing a good number of them.”

Therefore, a grim advice from D’Alessandro is that when you are promoted to senior management, you must celebrate the night before you start the job, since 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 watch out: “Some of the people judging you will inevitably be mean, power-mad, incompetent, or just plain crazy.”

Developing any sense of entitlement doesn’t help, observes D’Alessandro. “You can be rising happily within an organisation for two decades, only to find the rug pulled out from under you in an afternoon.”

So, better develop the ability to improvise after all, he counsels. “The higher you go, the more nimble you have to be… Intelligence, imagination, and cunningness are all required here – but not underhandedness.”

The author highlights the need “to learn how to acquire the global perspective your peers lack, when and how to deliver bad news, when to take a shot at your rivals and when to be gracious, and most important, how to handle the many new influences on your trajectory.”

According to D’Alessandro, the most influential bosses are three, viz. attitude, risk, and luck. Attitude is what makes you appear to be material for higher management. That means you should present well at meetings, “the stage on which you rise or fall, thrill or flop.”

Also, it is important to study – “not to master your own art, not to master the art of knowing what everybody else knows, but to master the art of knowing what nobody else has even considered.” By learning as much as you can about the organisation as a whole, you are able to show dimension and prove that you belong in a broader role, the author reasons.

How should you approach risk? “Slice it, dice it, and if it looks good, eat it for breakfast,” reads a simple diktat in the book. Higher management is all about handling risks intelligently and in a calculated fashion, D’Alessandro notes.

However, the one risk you must never be wrong about in your career is enterprise risk – that of putting the entire organisation in jeopardy – as exemplified in many of the recent mega business collapses that he cites.

The worst sin, the author avers, is not to be able to understand the risks you face, either because you are so risk-averse that you say ‘no’ to everything or because you have no risk filter whatsoever.

About the third boss, luck, a key lesson he offers is that good luck often takes the form of having the right skills at the right moment. Don’t lose heart, therefore, if you are passed over for a promotion, despite being good and skilful.

In such situations, make your own luck, urges D’Alessandro. “Get assigned to task forces that cross divisions. Do whatever you can to be exposed to different disciplines. Contribute in new ways. Make sure you do all that you can to prove yourself, and then make it known that you’re available to run a bigger show.”

A book that can ably equip your armoury to the hilt to help tilt the corporate battle in your favour.

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