A. In a pharma company where I worked at the start of my career, I found that the general manager (GM) for packaging and design, never got started on any request from the sales department unless the request came to him directly from the GM—sales (there was no marketing those days – it was just sales). Even though I would go to the packaging department twice or more times (I was only a junior manager) to remind them, there was little response. Terry, the head of packaging, had this ‘kink’ in his brain about dealing at a ‘parity level’. And this attitude of just one manager generated a lot of politics and caused unnecessary unpleasantness, as well as delays in the execution of projects, both large and small. Perhaps, the managing director (MD) could have controlled this situation by reining in the head of packaging, but unfortunately, this did not happen! Terry had managed to cultivate good relations with the MD, at the golf course and on other social platforms—so the rest of us had to suffer in silence!
B. In another pharma company where I worked later, the autocratic-styled chief executive officer (CEO) somehow got to dislike the advertising manager, who reported to the marketing manager (which was me). At every available opportunity, the CEO would lightly (later, more firmly) suggest that I terminate the ad manager’s services.
I suspect it had something to do with a disagreement on some issue (I could never find out), but the CEO never forgave him. The ad manager’s work was above average, though not outstanding. I had enticed Samir to leave a large advertising agency in Mumbai and join this pharma company, which meant he had to uproot his family from Mumbai to come to this smaller city, and to a fairly recent start-up in India. It would be unfair to terminate him when the work delivery was more than satisfactory. Finally, the only way I could stop this ‘sack him’ campaign was to offer my own resignation. It was worthwhile but a high price to pay to control these small-minded politics. The CEO stopped his campaign, and the whole situation got back to a ‘status quo ante’. He pretended that he had never done anything, and I pretended that nothing had happened. However, it was unnecessary emotional stress for a period of time!
C. The first two batches of our new product went out to all the distributors in India. It was only after about six days that it was discovered that the maximum retail price (MRP) printed on the labels was wrong (and lower than the government-approved price). Thousands of bottles had to be recalled and re-labelled. How did this happen? The Indian CEO was reluctant to immediately blame the production manager for this faux pas which cost the company many lakhs of rupees. After all, the production manager, Bill, was an ex-pat loaned by the international parent company for a three-year stint in India. So, the CEO blamed the marketing manager (which was me) for this fiasco. ‘I’ had given the wrong MRP to the production manager! And now, look what has happened! Fortunately, I never destroyed what I thought may be important papers, even if they were not official memos. After considerable effort, I could trace in the office drawer containing all such notes, a copy of the note I had sent to the production department giving the right price—and the acknowledgement. The escalation of politics based on assumptions and presumptions, and trying to find a scapegoat, immediately came to a grinding halt! No one said anything more.
D. Sam had been a loyal, if not a highly efficient marketing manager, reporting to John, the vice-president (VP) for marketing. Things went well for six years until the company faced a turbulent market and had problems. Instead of taking the problems head-on and as a team, CEO Raj chose to play the ‘politics game’. He made it known, implicitly and explicitly, that the company was having problems because of the inefficient marketing VP. Raj made life so difficult for John, that Raj was pleased when John finally threw in the towel. Sam saw the change in the direction of the winds and sought to gain favour with the CEO. Raj encouraged Sam to tell him more and more about John - and Sam obliged, also adding large dollops of exaggeration and many inaccuracies. Sam rightly thought that, with such cooperation, he would smoothly slip into John’s role.
He waited for six months, with hope and expectation—and it did not happen. The distribution manager, who had been longer in the company, was brought in from the sidelines and made the marketing VP. Now, Sam had to report to him!
Raj had accurately assessed Sam’s capability for the new job. And also Sam’s tendency to bend like an acorn and endear him to whoever may be in the seat of power. Again, the master politician Raj had won!
In equipping yourself to handle politics, the first step is to accept that company politics is a stark reality. The manager should be mentally prepared and attitudinally trained.
The second step is to understand why political crosscurrents exist; in other words, to understand human beings - their desires, aspirations, ambitions, and values. Your career evolves not only out of what you know and what you can do but also out of power struggles, opportunism, political savoir-faire, chance, personalities, operating styles and philosophies of your fellow executives. Skills in these areas are precisely those that cannot be taught in formal education and training programmes. That is why both, formal training and experience are needed in managerial efforts.
But we will keep the third and most important step for another time in the future.
(Partly adapted from the book Manager to CEO, by Walter Vieira, published by Sage Publications)
(Walter Vieira is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India- FIMC. He was a successful corporate executive for 14 years and then pioneered marketing consulting in India in 1975. As a consultant, he has worked across four continents. He was the first Asian elected Chairman of ICMCI, the world apex body of 45 countries. He is the author of 16 books, a business columnist and has been visiting professor in Marketing in the US, Europe, and Asia for over 40 years. His latest books are ‘Marketing in a Digital/Data World’ with Brian Almeida and ‘Customer Value Starvation Can Kill’ with Gautam Mahajan. He now spends most of his time on NGO work and is presently Chairman, Consumer Education and Research Society, India)
