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6 SNAKES IN SUITS
tions pleasant, and the chance to work for one of the oldest and
most respected names in the business was personally rewarding to
many. Nevertheless, as with all good things, there was change. The
CEO, “Old Man Bailey” to his friends (and most employees were
his friends), had sold his financial services company to a bigger
competitor two years back. However, like so many career executives,
he just could not see himself quietly fading away, but needed
to keep his hands in the business, so he negotiated an interim consulting
position on the board to assist with the transition.
The board welcomed his advice and felt comfortable with
his occasional visits to his former company’s (now a division)
headquarters. Bailey wanted to keep the old values he had impressed
upon his people alive in the company, and hoped that
they would spread to the other parts of the bigger corporation,
but this was not to be. Being part of a big corporation meant
that there were now many divisions and locations, and his little
piece of the corporate world, as well as his ability to influence,
was lessening with each acquisition. Other divisions had their
own values, service lines, and ways of doing things, and the corporate
staff had their own ideas about what the overall company
culture ought to be like.
Although he made a point of staying out of the day-to-day
running of the business, one decision in particular that bothered
Bailey was the promotional transfer of Gus, a “hotshot whiz
kid” according to Bailey, into the top slot as COO of the division.
Bailey saw Gus as a status-conscious suck-up who hated
holding people accountable, avoided confrontation, preferred to
get others to do his dirty work, and was rather susceptible to flattery
and attention. Bailey thought Gus spent too much time
meeting with the corporate folks and not enough time getting
things done in his division.
Soon pitchers of beer and bowls of peanuts were spread out over
the tables in O’Hare’s back room, where the group discussed the de-