Claw Your Way To The Top

by Dave Barry

  How To Act Like An Executive

  As you gradually work your way up through the organization over the course of, let’s say, a week, you’re going to have to change. You’re going to have to become an executive. This means showing maturity, integrity, and leadership. It means having the foresight to know what needs to be done, and the courage to do it. It means not picking your nose in group situations.

  Did you ever see Lee Iacocca pick his nose? Or, for that matter, anybody’s nose? Of course not. Lee Iacocca didn’t get to be one of the top executives in the history of the world by publicly engaging in personal nasal hygiene. He got there by wearing sharp clothes and smoking expensive cigars. He got there because he had executive style. You need to get hold of some, too.

  I do not mean to suggest for a moment that all it takes to be a top executive is a custom-tailored European suit. You also need the correct shirt and tie. And for women executives, there is the whole issue of hosiery. This is why I have devoted an entire chapter later in this book to the crucial matter of your wardrobe. But for now we’re going to talk about the human side of the executive’s job, by which I mean the side where you use humans for various purposes.

  Dealing With Your Subordinates

  Always remember this: your subordinates are not machines. They are human beings, with the same needs, the same wants, and the same dreams as you. Okay, maybe not all the same dreams. Probably they don’t have the one where you’re naked in a vat of Yoo-Hoo with the Soviet gymnastics team.

  But they want to get ahead, just like you do. They, too, are part of the Carnival of American Capitalism. Like you, they want to reach out from the Carousel of Hard Work to grasp the Brass Ring of Success. And when, after riding ‘round and ‘round, they finally get their shot at realizing this dream, your job, as a caring and concerned superior, is to give them that extra shove they need to pitch forward off their horses and land headfirst among the Discarded Candied Apple Cores of Failure. Because there are only so many Brass Rings of Success, and you sure as hell don’t want a bunch of subordinates barging past you and snatching them all.

  So the trick, with subordinates, is to keep them happy, productive, hopeful, and—above all—subordinate. Here’s how you do this:

  1. MAKE THEM THINK YOU’RE THEIR FRIEND. The way you do this is by engaging in casual office banter with them to indicate that you are just a Regular Person Who Really Cares for Them as Human Beings. Keep a little file with a three-by-five card for each subordinate, on which you’ve written personal details such as the subordinate’s nickname, hobbies, sex, etc. Review these cards regularly, then go out and make personal remarks to your subordinates:

  YOU: Hello, “Bob.”

  SUBORDINATE: Hello.

  YOU (glancing at your three-by-five card): So! You’re still a white male with an interest in photography, eh, “Bob”?

  SUBORDINATE: Yes sir.

  YOU: Ha ha! Good. Let’s engage in casual office banter again sometime soon, “Bob.”

  SUBORDINATE: Yes sir.

  YOU (moving along to next subordinate): Hello, there, “Chuck.” I am very...

  SUBORDINATE: Excuse me, sir, but my name is Mary. Chuck left last year.

  YOU (testily): Not according to this three-by-five card, he didn’t!

  SUBORDINATE: Yes sir.

  YOU: As I was saying, “Chuck,” I am very sorry your wife, Edna, died on October 3, 1981.

  SUBORDINATE: Thank you, sir.

  2. GET RID OF THEM IF THEY START COMING UP WITH IDEAS. Remember the old saying: “A subordinate capable of thinking up an idea is a subordinate capable of realizing that there is no particular reason why he or she should be a subordinate, especially your subordinate.” This is why dogs are so popular as pets. You can have a dog for its whole lifetime, and it will never once come up with a good idea. It will lie around for over a decade, licking its private parts and always reacting with total wonder and amazement to your ideas. “What!?” says the dog, when you call it to the door. “You want me to go outside!!? What a great idea!!! I never would have thought of that!!!”

  Cats, on the other hand, don’t think you’re the least bit superior. They’re always watching you with that smart-ass cat expression and thinking, “God, what a cementhead.” Cats are always coming up with their own ideas. They are not team players, and they would make terrible corporate employees. A corporate department staffed by cats would be a real disciplinary nightmare, the kind of department that would never achieve 100 percent of its “fair share” pledge quota to the United Way. Dogs, on the other hand, would go way over the quota. Of course they’d also chew up the pledge cards.

  The point I’m trying to make here, as far as I can tell, is that you want subordinates who, when it comes to thinking up ideas, are more like dogs than like cats. Ideally, you should determine this before you hire people, by giving them a test, as explained below.

  Test To Find Out If A Potential Employee Is The Kind Of Person Who Thinks Up Ideas

  Show the person three forms, marked A, B, and C. Tell him that part of his job would be to fill out the three forms, then throw Form B away. Stress that this is company policy. If he nods and says, “Okay,” or if he asks you a question like, “How can you tell which one is Form B?” hire him. But if he says something like, “Gee, it seems kind of inefficient to fill out a form you’re just going to throw away,” get rid of him. This is the kind of person who will eventually, no matter how much training you give him, come up with an idea.

  You should also check the person’s references for telltale statements like: “Ellen comes up with a lot of good ideas.” Or: “Ellen is a real innovator.”

  What these people are trying to tell you is: “Ellen will get your job, and you’ll wind up on the street licking the insides of discarded chicken gumbo soup cans.

  How To Fire People

  This is the most painful part of being a supervisor, except for the part when you slam your finger in a file drawer. You never want to fire anybody, but sometimes you have an employee who has done something totally unacceptable, such as stealing, or drinking liquor on the job without sharing it, or coming up with an idea, and you have no choice but to let this person go.

  There is no good way to fire an employee, but there are some things you can do to make it easier. You can have compassion. You can have understanding. You can have two large security guards named Bruno standing next to you and holding hot knitting needles. Call the employee in and say, “Ted, your performance has been unsatisfactory, so I’m afraid these two Brunos are going to have to poke out your eyes with hot knitting needles. I hate to do this, but the only alternative is to fire you.” At this point, Ted will beg you to fire him. He may well confess to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.

  That about covers how you should behave around your subordinates. Now for the really important issue, which is:

  How You Should Behave Around Other Executives

  Years ago, corporation executives tended to be middle-aged white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males with as much individuality, style, and flair as generic denture adhesive. Today’s corporations however, thanks to a growing awareness of the value of diversity and of avoiding giant federal lawsuits, have opened their executive ranks to people of all races and sexes, provided they are willing to act, dress, and talk like middle-aged white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males. This is what you need to learn how to do.

  List Of Topics That Middle-Aged White Anglo-Saxon Males Talk To Each Other About When They’re Not Talking Business

  1. SPORTS.

  As we can see from the above list, if you want to get along with the other executives, you have to learn how to talk about sports. This is pretty easy, if you know certain key phrases, as shown in the chart.

  Chart Of Key Phrases To Use When Talking About Sports

  SPORT SEASON KEY PHRASE

  FOOTBALL July to February “They got some really bad calls.”

  BASEBALL March to October “Some of those calls they got were really bad
.”

  BASKETBALL August to March “I can’t believe some of those calls they got.”

  ICE HOCKEY Eternal “Can you believe some of those calls they got?”

  To you, these phrases may not seem to have a whole lot of meat on them, but believe me, middle-aged white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males can use them to keep a conversation going for hours.

  Here’s an interesting Ethical Question you might care to think about: if you go to a meeting of executives, and just by chance it happens that not a single one of you is a middle-aged white Anglo-Saxon Protestant male, do you still have to talk about sports? Or could you, in that one meeting, without telling anybody else, switch over to another topic, such as the theater? (“I can’t believe some of the reviews they got!”)

  My personal feeling about this is, it’s not worth the risk. Somebody might report you.

  Joining A Club

  At some point, if you really want to make it to the top, you have to join a club. Actually, you have to join two clubs: one should be in the city, and it should be very old and have big dark drafty rooms where deceased members sit and read the paper all day. It should also have really bad food. The idea is, when you want to make a deal with an important client, you take him to your club for lunch, and eventually he realizes that unless the two of you reach an agreement, you’ll take him to your club again, so he gives you whatever you want.

  The other club is your country club. This is a place where during the day you can relax by putting on ugly pants and golfing with other executives, and at night you can hold social affairs where you give each other golf trophies and, if everybody is in a really funky mood, dance the fox-trot. This is called “networking,” and it is very valuable because in the business world, a golf trophy creates a lifelong bond between two people.

  Of course most clubs have certain requirements regarding who they will allow to become a member. I don’t mean to suggest here that they don’t admit minority groups. Ha ha! Don’t be ridiculous! After all, these are the eighties! Today’s clubs are more than happy to admit any minority person whatsoever, provided this person is also a member of the U.S. Supreme Court. But even if you don’t fall into this category, you should apply for membership. What’s the worst they can do? Laugh at you? Blow their noses on your application? Foreclose your mortgage? Have you fired and see to it that you’ll never again get a job, anywhere in the country, better than Urinal Cake Replacer? Don’t be intimidated! Go before the Membership Committee and explain to them that you really, sincerely want to join, and that you will work hard to be the best darned member they have ever had, and that you have photographs of them entering and leaving rooms at the Out-O’-Town Motor Lodge and Motel in various interesting groups of up to six people and two mature female caribou. They’ll welcome you with open arms. Don’t let them kiss you on the lips.

  Computers In Business

  You won’t last long in the modern business world if you’re not comfortable with computers. Computers are involved in every aspect of business from doing the payroll to running the elevators, and if they don’t like you, they can make your elevator drop like a stone for 20 floors, then yank it up and drop it again until your skeletal system looks like oatmeal. So you damn well better read this chapter and get comfortable with them and become their friend.

  Glossary Of Standard Computer Terms

  BUG: A cute little humorous term used to explain why the computer had your Shipping Department send 150 highly sophisticated jet-fighter servo motors, worth over $26,000 apiece, to fishermen in the Ryuku Islands, who are using them as anchors. DATA BASE: The information you lose when your memory crashes. GRAPHICS: The ability to make pie charts and bar graphs, which are the universal business method for making abstract concepts, such as “three,” comprehensible to morons like your boss. HARDWARE: Where the people in your company’s software section will tell you the problem is. SOFTWARE: Where the people in your company’s hardware section will tell you the problem is. SPREADSHEET: A kind of program that lets you sit at your desk and ask all kinds of neat “what if ?” questions and generate thousands of numbers instead of actually working. USER: The word that computer professionals use when they mean “idiot.”

  How Computers Work

  The first computers were big clumsy machines that used vacuum tubes. By today’s standards, they were extremely primitive. For example, they believed the sun was carried across the sky on the back of a giant turtle.

  But the modern computer is much more sophisticated, and far smaller, thanks to a device called the “micro—chip,” which, although it is less than one-thousandth the size of a moderate zit, is capable of answering, in a matter of seconds, mathematical questions that would take millions of years for a human being to answer (even longer if he stopped for lunch).

  How does the computer do this? Simple. It makes everything up. It knows full well you’re not going to waste millions of years checking up on it. So you should never use computers for anything really important, such as balancing your personal checkbook. But they’re fine for corporate use.

  How To Use Computer-Generated Pie Charts And Bar Graphs To Make Abstract Concepts Understandable To Morons Like Your Boss

  Let’s say you have to write a Safety Report. The old-fashioned, pre-computer way to do this would be something like this:

  In March, we had two people who got sick because they forgot and drank coffee from the vending machine. Also, Ed Sparge set fire to his desk again. Ed has promised that from now on he will put his cigar out before he dozes off.

  But now, using the graphics capability on your computer, you can produce a visually arresting and easy-to-understand report.

  Chapter Five. Business Communications

  No modern corporation can survive unless its employees communicate with each other. For example, let’s say that Stan, who works in Building Administration, notices that the safety valve on the main steam boiler is broken. If he doesn’t communicate this information to Arnie, over in Maintenance, you are going to have little bits and pieces of the corporation spread out over three, maybe four area codes. So communication is very, very important. It should not, however, be confused with memos.

  What Makes A Good Business Memo

  Ask any business school professor, and he’ll tell you a good memo is clear, concise, and well organized.

  Now ask him what his annual salary is. It’s probably less than most top executives spend in a month on shoe maintenance. What you can learn from this is that in your business correspondence, you should avoid being clear, concise, and well organized. Remember the Cardinal Rule of Business Writing (invented by Cardinal Anthony Rule, 1898-1957): “The primary function of almost all corporate correspondence is to enable the writer to avoid personal responsibility for the many major bonehead blunders that constantly occur when you have a bunch of people sitting around all day drinking coffee and wearing uncomfortable clothing.”

  There are big balloons of blame in every corporation, drifting gently from person to person. The purpose of your memos is to keep these balloons aloft, to bat them gently on their way. This requires soft, meaningless phrases, such as “less than optimal.” If you write a direct memo, a memo that uses sharp words such as “bad” to make an actual point, you could burst a balloon and wind up with blame all over your cubicle.

  Standard Format For The Business Memo

  1. ALWAYS START BY SAYING THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED SOMETHING, AND ARE ENCLOSING SOMETHING. These can be the same thing. For example, you could say: “I have received your memo of the 14th, and am enclosing it.” Or they can be two different things: “I have received a letter from my mother, and am enclosing a photograph of the largest-known domestically grown sugar beet.” As you can see, these things need have nothing to do with each other, or with the point of the memorandum. They are in your memo solely to honor an ancient business tradition, the Tradition of Receiving and Enclosing, which would be a shame to lose.

  2. STATE THAT SOMETHING HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO
YOUR ATTENTION. Never state who brought it. It can be virtually any random fact whatsoever. For example, you might say: “It has been brought to my attention that on the 17th of February, Accounts Receivable notified Collections of a prior past-due balance of $5,878.23 in the account of Whelk, Stoat, and Mandible, Inc.” Ideally, your reader will have nothing to do with any of this, but he will think he should, or else why would you go to all this trouble to tell him? Also, he will get the feeling you must be a fairly plugged-in individual, to have this kind of thing brought to your attention.

  3. STATE THAT SOMETHING IS YOUR UNDERSTANDING. This statement should be firm, vaguely disapproving, and virtually impossible to understand. A good standard one is: “It is my understanding that this was to be ascertained in advance of any further action, pending review.”

  4. END WITH A STRONG CLOSING LINE. It should leave the reader with the definite feeling that he or she is expected to take some kind of action. For example: “Unless we receive a specific and detailed proposal from you by the 14th, we intend to go ahead and implant the device in Meredith.”