Executive Chess

In the cold, ofttimes cruel world of American business past, two paths led to personal success. Opportunists selecting the first (and usually foolproof) route married the major stockholder's daughter. Traditionalists followed a more structured upward path: Join a single corporation, show loyalty and wait for the sword of knighthood to tap you on the shoulder.

In certain organizations these two paths still remain open. "The presidency of Du Pont is decided in the marriage bed," one employment counselor recently observed. Many other corporations, such as General Electric and IBM, select nearly all their top executives from the ranks of those who joined them after college. But in American business today, a third path beckons. Many men now reach the presidency after having switched jobs three or four times. Those following the two other paths risk disaster. On the eve of his success, the traditionalist may find his route blocked by merger or acquisition.(continued on page 193)Executive Chess(continued from page 150) Even the man who marries the major stockholder's daughter must worry about his father-in-law's selling the stock and running off to Hawaii with a girl from the stenographic pool—as happened several years ago to an acquaintance of mine. Executives today are more aware of the pitfalls—and pratfalls—along the time-honored paths. The result has been the rise of what Chicago executive recruiter Edwin C. Johnson calls the mobile opportunist. "This is a person," says Johnson, "whose loyalty is to himself and his career rather than to his company. As long as his company's interests coincide with his, he works like hell. But the minute he sees a better opportunity, he jumps."

Few executives attain success without making fairly frequent moves. Even the traditionalists, the insiders, those who remain with one organization, must move frequently within the framework of that organization to succeed. "Success is no longer a one-sided game," says Eugene E. Jennings, a business professor at Michigan .State University. "The successful executive today plays the two-sided game. No more is he content to sit and watch as the corporation dictates all the moves."

Those who make it big in business today see their careers as a game similar in many respects to chess. Well-established rules dictate play—and logic prevails. Gambits may improve the player's position on the board. The laws of probability often govern decisions on whether to make one move or another. Success accrues particularly to the player who can think, more than one move in advance. The ultimate champion is one who, with a sweep of his eye, visualizes the entire board before him and plans every move that might help him reach victory, taking into account at the same time the likely moves of his opponents.

Take, for example, the career progress of an executive whom we'll call Sherman, a typical mobile opportunist. He was graduated from college as an electrical engineer and, after several years as a naval officer in World War Two, became a salesman for a large electronics firm. In two years, he moved to corporate headquarters as an assistant product manager. Two years later, on the verge of a second promotion to product manager, Sherman sat back to consider his next move.

Analyzing the career patterns of the corporation's top executives, he saw that a steady string of promotions would boost him by the age of 40 to division general manager with a $40,000 a year salary. But, he had lost career time in the Navy. Several of his peers had entered the organization at a younger age or had advanced degrees and, he suspected, a few made slightly more money than he. Some might switch to other jobs and others might fail, but in all probability, two or three could stand in his way when it came time to make vice-president. This could slow him or even halt him. If one proved more capable or durable, he might block Sherman from the presidency, his ultimate goal. This would prove disastrous enough, but Sherman not only wanted to become president, he wanted that office by the age of 40, the same age his calculations indicated he would reach a general managership in his present corporation. So he abandoned his frontal assault and undertook a flanking maneuver. He left the electronics firm and joined Booz Allen & Hamilton as a marketing specialist.

Booz Allen is a management-consulting firm that specializes in giving advice to industry. It's similar, hierarchically speaking, to an accounting firm or a law firm.

Many consider two years in consulting the equivalent of a master's degree in business administration. After that period of time, most young consultants, unless they think they can make partner, return (or are returned) to industry. Sherman, however, remained a third year with Booz Allen, moving laterally into the firm's executive-search division. In dealing with the resumes of hundreds of highly paid executives, Sherman could perceive even more clearly the patterns that brought men to the top. At the age of 30, he left Booz Allen, switching to a job as marketing consultant on a large conglomerate's corporate staff.

Sherman's new job provided both exposure and visibility. (Exposure is where the right people can see you; visibility is where you can see them.) The conglomerate contained 30 divisions. Within a year, Sherman spotted an opening for himself as marketing director of one of the divisions that manufactured electronic equipment. With only 200 employees, it ranked smallest in the organization.

A 64-year-old general manager headed the division. Moving just fast enough to maintain his balance, and trading on his consultant-bred experience, Sherman suggested within the next year that the general manager be retired and the division phased out. The conglomerate chiefs agreed and handed Sherman the assignment along with the impressive title of general manager. A year later, with the division liquidated as planned, no more general managerships beckoned. So Sherman job-hopped from the conglomerate to a manufacturing corporation in the electrical industry. He became assistant general manager, seemingly a demotion. But lie had moved to a much larger corporation that grossed §60,000,000 annually and had seven plants and 2200 employees. Therein lies an important rule of executive chess: You can move forward while appearing to move backward.

Before accepting his new job, Sherman had looked closely at the general manager under whom he would work. He recognized the man as being both extremely capable and ambitious: like himself, a mobile opportunist. Sherman reasoned that within a few years, this man would either move up within the corporation or move out to a better job. In two years, the latter happened. At 35, Sherman became vice-president and general manager of the division. Had lie remained with his original company, he wouldn't have attained that rank before he turned 40. By deft maneuvering, he had saved five years' career time, the most precious commodity in the game.

Most mobile opportunists who reach the top stay in one position a maximum of 36 to 40 months. Early in their careers, they shift even more often. They either move within their company or move outside. They understand that most managerial positions can be mastered within a few years and to stay any longer wastes career time. Another rule in the game: You can move backward by standing still. "Mobile executives have an 80-20 orientation toward most positions," says Eugene Jennings. "By this is meant that 20 percent of any job counts for 80 percent of the learning. If they can master the 20 percent and move on to another job, the learning curve is constantly rising. If they were to stay in the job longer, they would be completing the 80 percent of their time that counts for only 20 percent o£ the learning."

Sherman moved again, dropping somewhat in title to vice-president of marketing—but with an $800,000,000 organization. The move resulted in his first serious career setback, however. Within a year, the board chairman responsible for hiring Sherman sold his stock in the corporation. The traditionalist might have remained in his position, content with his high salary and trusting to luck, but as a mobile opportunist, Sherman recognized the danger inherent in his position: His sponsor had left him stranded. He might click with the new ownership, but suppose they decided to sponsor their own group of managers? He could be sidelined or even fired. Rule: Move from the board at your convenience, not that of the other players.

As a former executive-search specialist, Sherman knew the secrets of running a job-hunting campaign. He began to drop hints of his availability to former Booz Allen friends. He circulated job résumé's to the right employment agencies and search firms. The career record represented on his resume glowed with an inner sheen, as though sculpted by a medieval craftsman: four years' training and development with a large electronics corporation; three years' consulting with Booz Allen; three years with a conglomerate, rising to division general manager; five years with another corporation, rising to vice-president and general manager of a larger division; and his current vice-presidency with an $800.000,000 organization. A steady progression upward in size of job. Enough mobility to demonstrate breadth of experience yet without indicating promiscuity. The proper combination of brains, balls and track shoes. At 39, Sherman became president of a $160,000,000 company.

The average executive, having risen to the pinnacle of power, might have relaxed, content to count his stock options and deferred income. Mobile opportunists, however, are not average executives. They reach the top by assuming risks. They resemble mountain climbers in that they don't look back; they blank from their minds the abyss below, the fear of what may happen if they slip. In Sherman's case, some risk still remains. Though he is now a president, his company is dominated by a 74-year-old chairman of the board whose family owns most of the stock. No eligible daughters are in sight. A 34-year-old grandson now runs die international division from an office in London but eventually can be expected to return and exercise his droit du seigneur. So, at 44, Sherman has his feelers out for a new position. Not just any new position. He plans to become president of a $400,000,000 organization.

Sherman's rapid rise to the presidency can be attributed to his having viewed his career as a two-sided game. This is understood more readily by the current generation than by their parents. Hal Roberts, a counselor with the employment agency Cadillac Associates, notes that tin's generation gap is reflected in resume's submitted while seeking employment. "The old-timers pushing 50 state in their resume's: 'This is what I have done. This is what I can do for you.' The new breed wants to know what the company can do for them. Their approach is that their new employer should have something to offer. They're not coming hat in hand anymore. They'll write: 'I am looking for an aggressive, productive type of management, well organized, that will recognize the need for....' Then they list their talents."

The new breed of executives tends to be better educated than its predecessors. Studies made between 1948 and 1953 indicated that eight percent of company presidents had master's degrees. By 1965, almost 40 percent had master's degrees and 21 percent had doctorates. Projections indicate that in the early 1970s, CO percent of company presidents will have master's degrees and 30 percent, doctorates. But while intelligence as measured by degrees seems to be one prerequisite for business success, intelligence as measured by tests is not necessarily expected or required. According to Charles McDermid, president of Management Psychologists: "If you have an I. Q. of 110 to 115, which is below the average for college graduates, you have all the mental equipment you need to succeed in business, or in politics, or in almost anything except longhair activity such as nuclear physics." McDermid feels the ambitious turtle will reach the finish line faster than the poorly motivated hare.

The successful mobile opportunist boasts good health and stamina. Physical strength plays a more important part in the game of executive chess than many people suspect. "A businessman has to be very healthy to survive," says Pearl Meyers of the executive-recruiting firm Handy Associates. "We see executives walk in here having just stepped off a jet plane or having been in business meetings all day, and they're always carrying heavy cases, but they still look like Prince Charming."

The winners in executive chess also possess emotional stamina. But perhaps an even more important attribute, says McDermid, is that the successful businessman be career centered rather than family/personal centered. For example, a family/personal-centered individual who works in Denver may resist a promotion or a transfer if it means he no longer can ski on weekends. Or maybe he'll stay in his home town so his wife can visit her mother. A career-centered individual, by contrast, will rank success in his job ahead of weekend pleasure, and he will have selected a mate who isn't hung up with her mother. He may be psychologically imbalanced in the sense of having what McDermid calls an executive neurosis, but he also will tend to succeed. "He won't care whether he's working in ski country or in Siberia as long as it advances his career," he says.

But having intelligence, stamina and ambition may not be sufficient if the prospective corporation president fails to recognize career success as a game in which movement is governed by rational rather than random behavior. Good luck in business or in football comes from being in the right place at the right time, so that when the other team fumbles, you can pounce on the ball. Similarly, in poker, you won't be dealt aces every time, but when you get them, you should know how to maximize your pot.

The ambitious young executive interested in pot maximization might study a perceptive book by Eugene Jennings titled The Mobile Manager. Jennings has populated his volume with such characters as the mobile hierarch, the crucial subordinate and the shelf sitter, but the vital section for the executive-chess player is a vastly complex appendix in which he outlines the science of mo bilography. Promotions, transfers and demotions are reduced to a series of mathematical terms, complete with point values. Thus, the career path of a single man moving upward in industry might be converted into a symbology that resembles this: TULULUSLUS.

The key mobilographic symbols are: T, U, L and S. T stands for technical. This identifies a nonmanagerial position of any kind, such as salesman, engineer, scientist or accountant. U means up, a promotion to a position of higher authority or difficulty. L is lateral, a transfer to a job on the same level carrying the same degree of authority and responsibility. S means stay, remaining in one position and not receiving a promotion. The four basic symbols have the following point values: T = 10; U = 5; L = 3; S = 2.

The person who moves from his technical (T) job to a managerial position, where he commands at least two other people, receives 10 points. It is a one-shot bonus, which, for example, the Procter & Gamble sales trainee receives when he leaves work in the field to become an assistant product manager for Lilt. From this point in his career, all promotions, such as the next move up (U) to product manager, earn 5 points apiece. If the executive transfers laterally (L) to another job—say, from the Lilt account to the Duz account—but doesn't move upward, he receives 3 points. A person who stays (S) in one position for longer than average time earns only 2 points. Should he remain two or three times the period it takes the average executive to move out and up, he becomes formulized as S2, S3, etc. Jennings refers to these arrested individuals as shelf sitters: They're waiting for the corporation to move them rather than moving themselves.

Consider how mobilography can be utilized to analyze the career of Slier-man, our original mobile opportunist. Sherman's shift from salesman to assistant product manager earned him a T (10). When he moved to product manager, he added U (5). He quit the company to join Booz Allen, a second consecutive U (5). His movement within Booz Allen to executive search rated L (3), as did his move to consultant on the conglomerate staff (3). His next two shifts within the conglomerate, resulting in a genera] managership, were both U (5 + 5 = 10). Moving from the conglomerate to the corporation, he dropped in title but rose in size of job, thus L (3). He next became vice-president and general manager, another U (5). His shift to vice-president of marketing with the $800,000,000 organization rated L (3). He made his ultimate U (5) when he became president. The mobilographic chart of Sherman's career thus can be stated: TUULLU-ULULU. This translates to 52 points. In the 16 years it took him to reach the top, he averaged 3.25 points a year, a phenomenal rate. He moved so rapidly that he failed to accumulate a single S, or stay.

It would be wrong for anyone to plan his career with the single purpose of accumulating mobility points at the rate of three a year, or he might simply find himself sliding continuously sideways and never upward. Mobilography operates better as a retrospective science. You can more easily analyze your past patterns than predict your future ones. Moreover, you can more easily apply mobilography to the careers of others than to yourself. Should the young electronics executive analyze the careers of 20 presidents in his field and discover that, like Sherman, they had accumulated 52 points and a presidency by the time they were in their early 40s, he could assume that to be the pattern for success ¦within his industry. Vet someone in banking or steel or food products might similarly audit the chief executives around him and discover that only 30 to 40 points were necessary for success, and at a different age. Patterns vary from industry to industry and from company to company. The person who is able to understand this and relate the mathematical probability of success to his own career movements becomes the one most likely to succeed in executive chess.

The executive-chess player, furthermore, can adapt the science of mobilography to aid him in deciding whether to job-hop or remain in place and wait for a promotion. Take as an example the career of Tom, an executive with a food company we'll call General Products. He joins the company at 22 and spends two years as a bakery-products engineer. Then top management invites him to shift to the corporate staff (T), where he becomes an assistant product manager for Quik-Rise Flour. After six months, he moves up (U) to product manager on that account, and six months later becomes product manager on an account that produces three times the income of the earlier one and involves more responsibility (U). Two years later, he shifts laterally (L) to a similar position with Super Flakes, still within the General Products marketing group. The following year, however, he moves out of marketing (L) to work as assistant to the organizational general manager. (A second lateral move at this point might have indicated that Tom was being plateaued. Instead, his company merely wanted to groom him for a higher position by giving him more experience in a related field.) After one year, he receives a promotion (U) to marketing manager within the foods division. Tom stays in this new job three years, at which point he is 32, boasts a $30,000 salary and is one of several candidates for the next upward position: director of marketing for foods.

Armed with a knowledge of mobilography, Tom analyzes the graph of his career as: TUULLU. He has accumulated 31 points, or an average of 3.1 points per year spent with his company. But this knowledge does him no good unless he also knows the track records of those who have preceded him in the position he covets. By some cautious snooping, he obtains the career records of the past 20 executives to have become directors of marketing within General Products. The typical director of marketing, he learns, had scored an average of 36 points in 12 years. Tom thus can make a numerical comparison with his predecessors, and he learns that they scored an average of 36 points in 12 years. He now can see that if he receives the promotion in two years, he will receive five points for the U and thus match the record of his predecessors. Should he receive the promotion sooner, say tomorrow, he will better their pace and thus be more likely to receive another promotion, to vice-president. Considering his mobilographic average (3.1 points per year), he can anticipate the promotion to director of marketing with some probability of success. Tom can wait two years for the promotion and still maintain pace.

But should he wait? Not necessarily. Rather than either job-hop or wait in his present position, he might consider a lateral move. He could, for instance, obtain two years of marketing experience with the company's international division. When, two years later, he receives the director-of-marketing job, he will have accumulated 39 points—3 points more than his predecessors. Thus he will jump ahead of their pace and more likely be first in line for the next promotion, to vice-president.

This assumes, however, that Tom's opponent across the executive chessboard is not playing the same game. In reality, the corporation might be compared with the diess master who accepts simultaneous challenges from a number of novice players. Two dozen others may sit beside Tom, attempting to outmaneuver the master, and one of them may checkmate him. To avoid this, Tom also must analyze the career patterns of his peers. Should he uncover several or even one with a higher mobilographic average, he may assume that lie's behind in the race to the top. Suppose his best friend, Fred, also entered the company ten years ago but, because of a different promotion pattern, has accumulated 34 points to Tom's 31. Fred's 3.4 average would rank him ahead of Tom and increase the likelihood of his receiving the next promotion. But suppose at the same time, Tom succeeds in moving laterally into the international division; those 3 points pull him even with Fred. On the other hand, Fred may anticipate Tom's move and ask for the international assignment himself. Since he already has the lead, he is more likely to get the assignment. Unless Tom can counter with another move, he may need to leave the company or else resign himself to traveling forever in Fred's shadow.

Mobilography, however, should be considered more compass than map. It tells you the direction in which you're going without necessarily indicating the direction in which you should go. A rising executive who becomes overly obsessed with numerical relationships may forget that, ultimately, performance determines success. "I'm very suspicious of the guy who sits down and says, 'Here's exactly where I'm going to be at 40,'" says executive recruiter Ward Howell. Moreover, the executive-chess player must not ignore intuition. Regardless of what the charts tell you about your relative position in the hierarchy, if you sense that position about to deteriorate, bet your hunch: Look for another job. As we have indicated, mobilography operates better in systematizing the past than in predicting the future.

In fact, the executive with the highest mobilographic rating midway through his career may not succeed at the end. Eugene Jennings feels the most vulnerable executive may be one with a pattern such as this: TUUUUU. This TU5 individual has had a continuous series of upward promotions with no lateral moves allowing him time to consolidate his knowledge. He may propel himself continuously upward on the crest of success after success, following the 80-20 rule: that 80 percent of the job can be learned in 20 percent of the time. But this works only to a point. With each rapid promotion, he leaves another 20 percent of the job unlearned. At some critical point in his career, this accumulation of deficits may provide a gap in his executive knowledge into which he may plunge to ultimate oblivion. As a consultant for such corporations as IBM, Jennings recommends that TU5s be "outspanned" to lateral or less critical positions for a year or two as a sort of sabbatical after rising too fast.

The TU5 who scrambles rapidly up the executive ladder may think that he's playing a winning game by continuously asking for promotions, but he's actually endangering his position on the board. In rushing forward with his queen and knights, he may leave his king defenseless. When the next promotion beckons, instead of grasping it, he should sit back, light his pipe and consider the consequences. Are there other moves on the board? The best one for him may actually be lateral rather than upward. Take as an example a young chemist we'll call Chuck. After receiving his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at 27, he becomes a research assistant with a large pharmaceutical corporation. Within a year, the lab director assigns him four research assistants and the task of finding a better birth-control pill. Chuck displays great ability in managing his assistants. Thus, the following year, when the assistant director of the laboratory leaves, Chuck gets his job. Two years later, he becomes director of a similar-sized laboratory whose main function centers on aspirin.

As laboratory director, Chuck has risen as high as he can go in the pharmaceutical corporation while wearing his long white coat. Two years later, at 33, he moves to the corporate staff as assistant manager of the pill division. The next step upward will be to division manager. Within two years, he spots an opening at that level in the mouthwash division. He knows that if lie pushes for that job, he'll probably get it. But he begins to feel uneasy about the speed of his ascent. Rather than rising too slowly, he's been rising too fast. In addition, a shift to mouthwash would mean learning a new product line. If he fails to succeed in mouthwash, he may ruin his career. At the same time, Chuck doesn't want to remain in his present spot much longer, for fear of losing momentum. Examining all openings in the pharmaceutical corporation, Chuck sees a second possibility: He could become assistant manager in the tooth-paste division. This would constitute a lateral move. Should he move up to mouthwash. laterally to tooth paste or stay in pills? He decides to establish a set of point values for each of his three choices and determine his fate mathematically.

Chuck assigns mobilographic values to his choices: 2 points if he stays (S) in pills; 3 points if he moves laterally (L) to tooth paste; 5 points if he moves upward (U) to mouthwash. He then sits down and figures the possibilities for success in each of these three areas. He already knows how to function as an assistant manager in pills, so his chance of success there is 100 percent. If he moves to tooth paste, he already knows 80 percent of the job from having functioned at that level, so he judges that to be his probability of success. If he jumps to mouthwash, however, he must cope with not only new functions but a strange product line. He rates his chances 30 percent. If he multiplies the mobilographic number by the percentage number, he thus obtains a point index for the value of each job:

Pills............. 2 x 100 = 200 Tooth paste.......3 x 80 = 240 Mouthwash .......5x 30 = 150 The choice becomes obvious. The later-al move offers him the highest point value, so he will ask for the job in tooth paste. Since an executive can promote himself sideways more easily than upward, he most likely will get the job.

Chuck based his decision on the assumption that pills, tooth paste and mouthwash exist as equal entities within the pharmaceutical corporation. In actuality, though, this rarely occurs, which brings us to another rule: Each company has a favorite function.

The favorite function usually is the division generating the greatest profits or the biggest challenges. Thus, in the past, most top General Foods executives have come up the Maxwell House Coffee route. "If you're in Procter & Gamble," comments one executive recruiter, "and each of the four group managers has brand experience in Duz and none with Jiffy peanut butter, consider it a hint. That doesn't mean you can't make it from Jiffy, but it will enhance your chances if you can get Duz brand experience."

Aside from favorite functions, most corporations have favorite disciplines. Thus, at Procter &: Gamble and General Mills, marketing men rise to the top, and financial analysts succeed at I. T. & T. They also rise fast at Ford, though the top job frequently goes to an engineer. At General Electric, men rise through the marketing area but usually go further if they have an engineering background. In Chuck's pharmaceutical corporation, the men who sell the pills may ascend over the chemists who devise them. Thus, Chuck's best route may be through neither tooth paste nor mouthwash but out to a different organization where chemists reach the top.

American business has gone through cycles in which differently skilled men have tended to land the high-level positions. These cycles coincide roughly with the decades and relate to the problems of the period. In the Forties, businessmen worried mostly about producing sufficient goods to satisfy demand, so production men rose most rapidly. In the Fifties, with an abundance of goods, the problem was how to sell them; marketing men took charge. In the Sixties, as more and more companies merged with or acquired other firms, financial men came to the fore. Ideally, a corporation president today should, in addition to having general business experience, have worked for a C. P. A. firm and also have a law degree. Some observers feel that manpower problems will become critical in the Seventies, thus look for personnel types to shine. Data-processing men may own the decade of the Eighties, though today a data-processing specialist tops out at $30,000 a year as a systems manager. He fails to ascend higher because he works with machines, not men. It does little good, however, to know that this is the decade of your specialty if you are a financial analyst working for a company whose presidents have majored in business administration and law. The skilled executive-chess player, of course, would never find himself in this position—or, if he did, at least would know the exact moment to move to another job.

And he would follow the earlier rule: Move from the board at your convenience, not that of the other players. "It has to be before it becomes an obvious decision," says Tom Ledbetter of Cadillac Associates. "The next employer needs to feel he is seducing the man he hires. So many people wait until the ax falls or they're at an impasse before putting their talents on the market. They spend irretrievable time getting relocated. The minute they're not up to their progress chart, they should make their availability known."

An astute executive recognizes the signs indicating either progress or stagnancy. At any point, lie can examine the indexes and monitor his upward speed. Suppose you decide to become president of a manufacturing company and, having read that this is the decade for financial acumen, select finance as your route to the top. At the University of Illinois, you major in accounting, then enter the Harvard Business School for a master's degree. You become an auditor with the accounting firm Price Waterhouse (carefully steering clear of tax work in that firm, because that would brand you as a technician). After 30 months, one of the senior partners at Price Waterhouse invites you to remain permanently with the firm, but you want to pursue your career in industry. "One of our clients, the XYZ Company, needs an accounting manager." says the senior partner. "I'll see if I can get you the job." You get the job. In two years, XYZ promotes you to assistant comptroller. Two and a half years pass and you know that, according to your progress chart, within the next six months you must either become comptroller with XYZ Company or leave. You can stay and try to become comptroller, but if you fail, you will lose career time and may even have to exit abruptly. You can move to another company, but for the rest of your career, you may wonder whether or not the job would have been yours. Should you stay or leave? Mobilography functions as an effective science for systematizing mobility patterns, but it necessarily ignores the realities of company politics. Consider how you might construct a political chart to guide you in your movements.

First, call your secretary and have her cancel your appointment for lunch with the other executives. Next, reach into the first drawer of your desk and select one sheet of blue-lined accounting paper. Write the number 100 at the top. That represents the bonus award for just being you. You figure yourself worth at least that many points. [100]

The first index you need to consider is money: how much you earn compared with others at your level. Since you work in the financial department, you will have easy access to such figures, but you should know anyway approximately what others around you make. For every SI000 a year you make above the average, add one point. For every $1000 below, subtract one point. (Let's assume you make $28,000, compared with the $20,000 average for others at lateral positions within XYZ Company, thus three points.) [103]

You also need to consider your salary relative to those in other companies. As it happens, you've just received Harvard Business School's five-year review of graduates' salaries. Add or subtract one point for each SI000 increment above or below average. (The average 1963 H. B. S. graduate earns SI8,000 in finance, so you get five more points.) [108]

List on the left side of the paper the names of the executives with whom you would have lunched today if you hadn't stayed in to plot your career. For every person on that list above you in rank, add one point. For every person below, subtract one point. (Ralph, Jim and Bill match your level in seniority, but Ted and Bob have vice-presidential rank: two points.) [110]

For the past 24 hours, you have logged every visitor through your office door. Score one point for every executive of higher rank who crossed your threshold. II he sat down to talk, you earn an additional point for every five minutes he remained in your office up to a maximum of five points. Assess no penalty points for visits from lower-level executives; but, if one sat down to talk, subtract a point for every five additional minutes you let him stay. Maximum penalty: five points. (Ted and Bob each visited you yesterday and. Bob remained an hour to discuss an important stockholder presentation: seven points.) [117]

Consult your chart of phone calls made within the past 24 hours to higher-level executives. Subtract one point for every time the secretary said you would be called back. Add two points for each time you received a direct connection. If the executive you called was the president, add two points if he calls you back. II your call goes through to him, award yourself five bonus points. (You placed five calls and got through each lime, except to the president, who called you back: 12 points.) [129]

Reach into your desk for the company house organ and check the box score of the executive softball game played at last summer's picnic. What happened when the president came to bat while you were pitching? Subtract one point if he struck out. Score no points if you walked him. If he hit the ball, score one point for each base he reached. If you hit him with a pitched ball, subtract five points. (The president made second base on an error, but you have to share credit with the shortstop who committed it: one point.) [130]

You scored 130 points—about what it will take to assure your eligibility for the comptroller's job. Merely breaking even in penalty vs. award points may not suffice, since the job should be obviously yours to justify endangering career time waiting for it. "If in every advance you make you have to compete with two or more others, you are on the point of leveling off," claims one Cadillac Associates counselor. "A man should be of such caliber that his suitability for the next job is unquestioned."

Of course, an executive may be perfectly eligible for the next position, yet never attain it. If the comptroller of XYZ Company has 15 years' service and ten more until he retires, tear up your score sheet and phone an employment agency. The executive who plays the game well should seek openings at two-and three-year intervals, either within his present company or without. Moreover, he needs to take advantage of these openings as they occur, since the ultimate rule of executive diess is: When a player fails to move, he forfeits the game.

Up the Organization Chart:how quickly you rise to the top depends on the inner rhythms of your industry

Railroads and Public Utilities

Banking and Most Manufacturing

You can expect to work your way up slowly. Youth is suspect. After two or three decades, upper management will feel a little more comfortable about having you around.

The move is quick up to the middle-management spots, then slower as you slog your way up through acres of assistantships to the presidential suite.

Advertising, Public Relations and Publishing

The Youth Professions: If you're not at or near the top by your late 30s, you're in trouble. Motion, any motion, is essential and the most likely president will be a bright light now in a neighboring company.