Winning - Jack Welch [99]
In the end, there wasn’t a person left with any desire to spend political capital on him.
By contrast, take the story of Kevin Sharer, who started in the same business development program as James.
Before joining GE, Kevin had received a degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy, served a four-year stint on nuclear attack submarines, and worked for two years at McKinsey & Company. Without question, he was as smart as James in terms of IQ. He was also industrious and, like James, ambitious, the latter of these traits mitigated by his maturity. Kevin knew that GE valued teamwork; he was the ultimate team player. He showed up early, worked incredibly hard, and never looked for personal credit.
Kevin worked in business development for two years and spent the next three years in operations. By that time, he was so universally respected we made a huge bet on him by offering him a position as one of the company’s one hundred vice presidents, running our marine and industrial turbine business.
Unfortunately, the same day that we tried to promote him, Kevin told us he had decided to leave for a huge opportunity at MCI. We tried desperately to keep him, but he was determined to run his own show. He left MCI a few years later to become COO of Amgen, and in 2000 was appointed its CEO. In the years since Kevin joined Amgen, the company’s market capitalization has grown from $7 billion to $84 billion.
It was obvious from the beginning that Kevin was a star. He had everything going for him, starting with performance. And you can be sure no one ever had to expend a drop of political capital when they mentioned his name. No wonder his career has consisted of one promotion after another.
OTHER POLITICAL CAPITAL DRAINS
Along with transgressing company values, there is a related but more egregious way that you can use up your boss’s political capital. It has to do with character—that is, with the kinds of behaviors that can make people ask, “Hold on, can I really trust this person?”
Take lack of candor. As I mentioned earlier in the chapter on candor, I’m not talking about boldface lying, but a tendency to withhold information. That behavior is far more common, and it frustrates teams and bosses to no end.
We had a manager in one of our larger businesses whose results were quite good, but after several early promotions, his career hit a wall. The reason was whenever he was in a business review or a deal proposal session, we had to pepper him with about thirty questions to get him to explain what was really going on. And even then, we didn’t feel as if were getting the whole story. All we got was hemming and hawing and then a hesitant “It’s OK now” or a cagey-sounding “We’ve got it under control.”
At every HR review, I would ask his boss why this guy played his cards so close to the vest. “It’s his personality” was the answer. “He’s not a bad person. He just doesn’t like to open up.”
“What’s he hiding?” I asked. “Because when he withholds information the way he does, he just comes across as if he’s not telling the truth. And I know I’m not the only one who feels that way.”
“Yeah, that’s true. It bugs other people too. But he’s not lying. He’s just guarded.”
“But we need to talk about the business openly.”
“Yeah, I know it’s frustrating. I’ll tell him again.”
And back and forth like that.
Eventually his boss got tired of the routine, and soon thereafter, the too-cagey manager was demoted.*
The point is: Don’t make your boss ask the perfect question to get information from you. If you want your character to stand up for you and make life easy for your boss, open up and tell it like it is.
There’s another behavior that will also force your boss to use political capital because it really alienates people. It’s wearing your career goals on your sleeve.
With most people, ambition is a positive thing—it’s fire in the belly, it’s energy and optimism. It’s pushing yourself and the organization forward so that everyone wins.