Okay, let’s talk nuts and bolts. In most corporations and organizations, a person gets promoted via a five-step procedure:
1. He works diligently and competently at his job for several years.
2. His superiors gradually start to notice him.
3. Somebody above him in the organization dies, retires, leaves, or is promoted, thus creating an opening.
4. His superiors, after carefully considering all the qualified candidates, promote him.
5. An announcement of the promotion is put up on bulletin boards throughout the building, and his co-workers gather around and pound him on the back
(many of them aim for his kidneys).
This procedure is all well and good for most people, but you are not “most people.” You are a highly motivated individual who wants to be on the fast track, and you cannot afford to fritter away valuable time working diligently and competently at your job. So your best bet is to skip over steps 1 through 4 and go directly to the only really essential step: the bulletin board announcement. Type it on a quality typewriter, using the format shown here.
I am very pleased to announce that (YOUR NAME) has been promoted to the position of (NAME OF POSITION YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE PROMOTED TO) and will henceforth receive a much larger salary. He will report to me, in the unlikely event he ever has anything to report.
(NAME OF RANDOM VICE-PRESIDENT) post
That’s it! All you have to do now is put it up on the bulletin boards and wait for the congratulations to pour in from your co-workers. Don’t let them circle around behind you.
Okay, I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking: “Dave, doesn’t this particular method of career advancement carry with it a certain element of risk?”
Yes, it does. For one thing, you have to be very careful about what position you promote yourself to. If you pick a position with a highly specific name such as Auditor, people might expect you to actually “audit” something. You want to pick a position involving words that could mean virtually anything, such as Coordinator and Administrator. If you promote yourself to Coordinating Administrator or Administrative Coordinator, nobody will ever be able to pin an actual job responsibility on you. You can devote full time to deciding on your next promotion.
Another possible problem is: What if your company uses the kind of bulletin boards that are covered by little locked glass doors? What you have to do here is find the person who has the key—this is going to be a low-level employee, of course—and make friends with him and explain that if he will let you use the key, you will promote him to a much, much better job than screwing around with bulletin boards. Like, if your company has a fleet of corporate jets, you could offer to make him a Senior Pilot.
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.