Is it only hardwork that takes you to the top? Or maybe, it is the right combination of looking good and knowing the right people that does the trick
Sitting atop Boston, hogging 20,000-square-foot of rarefied air, commanding the best aerial view his millions can buy, Jack Welch and his trophy wife Suzy, junior by two-dozen-years, wrote Winning and won accolades from those who pontificate that anyone can make it to the top provided he follows Jack’s formula of corporate climb.
Jack sees success through a rose tinted glass and glamourizes the “American dream”, titillating all with his ‘you can do it’ pop philosophy, say the ‘little guys’ who think the retired General Electric CEO is glossing over the truth.
Voices of disgruntlement are from the middle 70 per cent of corporate America. These unhappy people are unable to break into the top 20 per cent, where they would get more respect; a window office; their own parking space; unlimited expense account and freebies like attending conferences that are more of a vacation than work. The families go too. And for all this ‘slog’ they take home a six-digit paycheck!
Never calling the shots; never given any recognition; never made to feel valuable; always toeing the boss, always being ordered around by supervisors; banned from policy-making, decision-taking activities, this unfortunate mass of nonentities are simply the proletarians of capitalist America.
“Hard work doesn’t get you anywhere,” says Ellen, a mousy mid-level accounts executive who has reached a dead-end, “what counts is who you are, which club do you belong to, how many important people do you go out with for lunch and who indeed are your contacts...”
The problem with Ellen? She has no contacts whose names she can pebble around, nor any networking skills to butter the high ups in the office hierarchy.
Eight magic steps for managers to handle their subordinates detailed in Jack Welch’s book Winning in my last week’s column, provoked many like Ellen to dismiss the whole premise.
Ellen recalls the last Christmas party thrown by her bank.
“There was I, all dressed up in a $200 party dress with designer shoes and bag making the right kind of fashion statement, hoping to get noticed by my seniors — those crusty old fogies — who make it a habit to see through me whenever I pass them by in the hallway or bump into them in the elevator”.
Her bank had rented an expensive restaurant: champagne and food and lots of glitter. But there were two large rooms — side by side: one for the bosses, the other for ‘low levels’ like Ellen.
The invisible line of segregation was fully marked and nobody dare cross the divide. “I was fuming...my self esteem was really hurt, but there was nothing I could do. What a waste of time, money and effort.”
Ellen hates the apartheid-like discrimination in her office, but she is stuck in its viciousness, aware she would get the same treatment were she to quit: her new bosses in her new work environment would be the same: all jerks!
Why?
Because Ellen will never shoot up vertically given her lack of qualifications for becoming a manager.
“I concede I’ll never become a manager, but does that mean I be made to feel a zero, a zilch, an insect who doesn’t count...?”
Offices everywhere are crawling with ‘insects’ like Ellen. The corporate culture bypasses them, silent on their ill-treatment. “I think it’s mighty unfair”, she says, shaking her head.
Jeff is Jewish and went to Princeton to study medicine. He dropped out, when he realized he had made a mistake in the choice of a career. His dad got him a job with a large corporation in Manhattan manned by mostly Jews.
“I ain’t going nowhere...my manager knows that I was hired not for my qualifications but for my contacts...still I have oodles of talent, energy and hunger to climb up, if my manager was to utilize my creativity and genius...now don’t you think I’m bragging...I certainly could contribute to this organization and also make something of my career.”
Fed up with being pigeonholed, Jeff is determined to give medicine one last try and is going back to school to become a doctor. “At least I’ll be in my own league and not have some stupid egomaniac control me.” Jeff whispers to me in his shabby little cubbyhole. “I feel so suffocated and simply can’t wait to get out.”
Jack Welch in Winning refers to the Human Resource (HR) people in any organization as the backbone, that critical mass which “manages people...has the power and primacy to build leaders and careers...they are the pastors and the parents in the same package.”
“What b.s!” declares middle-aged Anne, who is quitting her job at a fancy hotel because her boss, a fresh graduate, just out of college, has boxed Anne into a corner, making sure she never comes out of it.
“Christine (her boss) got hired because she charmed the sales manager (a man) with her youth and voluptuous figure and successfully managed to camouflage her upper storey which is empty.”
Anne has been working in a non-supervisory role in that hotel for five years and has picked up the ropes. “But I am not young any more, nor flamboyant...so this chit of a girl (Christine) keeps me away from the clients, getting me to do only clerical work.”
Disgusted, Anne marched off to the HR office to complain and give in her notice. The so-called “pastors and parents” heard Anne out for as long as she wanted to ventilate and then told her firmly: “Christine is the boss, she’s been hired to do a job and while we recognize that you feel frustrated not being allowed to meet the clients upfront, we think your job (typing, faxing and filing) is equally critical to the hotel.
“But if you think you don’t want to do this anymore, then you are quite welcome to leave!”
A shocked Anne returned to her desk, typed out her resignation and left for the day. Her two week notice is nearing an end and she has told me that she will give a stinging criticism of her boss when the HR formally ask her the reason for quitting during an exit interview. “Everything will be on record.”
But do you think your honest appraisal of managers will change the thinking at the hotel?
“Never. Gold diggers like Christine know how to please their bosses and as long as their curves are in the right places, they will thrive...”
Gripes of the ‘low lives’ of corporate America aside, here is one tale of a topnotch big boss, who grins when I tell him what Jack Welch has to say about hiring and surrounding people who are better and smarter than the chief himself.
“Is he crazy or what? Do you think I’d be so naove as to hire a smarty pants? Or tell him that he certainly is better than me so I value his input?” says the chief, trashing Jack’s advice peremptorily.
In this dog-eat-dog world, the chief is right. If he were to follow Jack’s wisdom, then he’d soon be saying goodbye to his CEO chair, because the board of directors at the company and the shareholders at the annual general meeting will sack him when they see better and smarter subordinates surrounding him.
It’s common sense — every corporation in America is looking for a deal, wanting to make more, and yet more money...so why would it not appoint the best CEO, instead of suffering the second best or the third best or the last!
Disclaimer: the names and identities have been changed for fear that these Les Misirables don’t get beat up any more than they already are at the hands of their corporate czars.
Is it only hardwork that takes you to the top? Or maybe, it is the right combination of looking good and knowing the right people that does the trick 
