Leader's Edge Column

Can You Still Claw
Your Way to the Top?

How applicable are author Dave Barry's 15-year-old views on corporate life? You be the judge.
By Don MacRae

You've probably heard of Dave Barry. He's the syndicated columnist at The Miami Herald and 1988 winner of the Pulitzer prize for commentary. What you may not know is that Dave is a career counselor, too. I didn't realize he had such laser insights into the job scene until I recently read his 1986 book, Dave Barry's Claw Your Way to the Top.

I wanted to interview Dave to see if his observations still hold true 15 years after the book came out. But Dave is well-known for neither answering his phone nor responding to e-mail from dorks like me who are trying to get something for nothing. So, instead, I decided to introduce a new literary genre for this column: a book interview. Leader's Edge will ask the questions, and the responses will come from Claw Your Way to the Top. I'll leave it to you to determine whether Dave's advice still makes sense today.

Q: Could you give our readers some direction as to what they should want out of a career in business?
A: What you want, from your career, is a SENSE OF FULFILLMENT AS A HUMAN BEING and MAXIMUM PERSONAL SATISFACTION as measured in U.S. DOLLARS. You want a Rolex watch and numerous fast cars. You want employees so desperate for your approval that you could put your cigar out on their foreheads and they'd thank you.

Q: Are there any good jobs left?
A: There are new career opportunities opening up all the time in today's fast-changing economy. Just to give you an idea, let's look at LOBSTER REPAIR: A FAST GROWING FIELD. You know when you go into a seafood restaurant, they have the lobsters up front, in a tank, all trying to scuttle back out of the way and hide under each other so they won't get eaten. Well, it's inevitable that some lobsters get damaged in the process -- broken claws, eye stalks falling off, that kind of thing. This is why there is such a tremendous demand today for people who know how, using modern adhesives, to reassemble a damaged lobster, or use the leftover parts to reconstruct a whole new one.

Q: How important is a resume?
A: Your resume is more than just a piece of paper: It is a piece of paper with lies written all over it. Often, a good resume can mean the difference between not getting a job and not even coming close.

Q: How should our readers prepare for a job interview?
A: One obvious way to remain calm and perspiration-free during an interview, of course, is narcotics, but there you run into the problem of scratching yourself and trying to steal things off the interviewer's desk. So, as a precaution, what most veteran employment counselors recommend is that you wear "dress shields." They are available in bulk at any good employment agency.

Q: What sort of organizational structure should our readers expect in a modern corporation?
A: ... At the very top, you have a chief executive who spends his entire day posing for annual-report photographs and testifying before congress; and beneath him you have several thousand executives engaged in "middle management," which is the corporate term for "management activities in which there is no possible way for anyone to tell whether you are screwing up."

And beneath them you have tens of thousands of secretarial, clerical, and reception personnel, and beneath them, somewhere in a factory nobody ever goes to because there is no decent place around it where you can have lunch, you have the actual production workforce, which consists of a grizzled old veteran employee named "Bud."

Q: Are meetings important?
A: Sometimes you go to meetings, where the purpose is to get your "input" on something. This is very serious, because what it means is, they want to make sure that in case whatever it is turns out to be stupid or fatal, you'll get some of the blame. I mean, if they thought it was any good, they wouldn't want your "input," would they?

Q: How long after being hired can our readers expect to be promoted?
A: You can't expect to get a promotion right away, of course. You should wait two, maybe even three days before you start pushing for it. This will give you time to look around to see who your serious competitors are, size them up, evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, and crush them under the freight elevator.

Q: Once promoted, how should our readers deal with subordinates?
A: 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 [editors' note: Some things have changed in the past 15 years] gymnastics team.

Q: What is the best way to fire an employee?
A: You can have compassion. You can have understanding. You can have two large security guards named Bruno standing next to you and holding hot needles.

Q: How should you behave around other executives?
A: Years ago, corporate executives tended to be middle-aged white Anglo-Saxon protestant males with as much individuality, style, and flair as generic denture adhesive. Today's corporations, however, thanks to a growing awareness of the value of diversity and of avoiding giant federal lawsuits, have opened their executive ranks to people of all races and sexes, provided they are willing to act, dress, and talk like middle-aged white Anglo-Saxon protestant males. This is what you need to learn how to do.

Q: Dave, on behalf of our readers, is there anything I can do to thank you for your career insights?
A: No, for me it is enough simply to know that I have, in some small way, helped to make you the kind of executive who can provide much-needed leadership as the corporation of today faces the challenges of tomorrow; the kind of executive who will not be afraid to meet these challenges head-on by means of innovative and far-reaching new management techniques, such as bringing me in as a consultant for $2,000 per day plus lunch money. I'll be calling you real soon.

Excerpted from Dave Barry's Claw Your Way to the Top, (c) 1986 by Dave Barry. Published by Rodale, Emmaus, Penn. 18098. Used with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. Available wherever books are sold or directly from the publisher by calling (800) 848-4735 or visiting www.rodalestore.com.

© 2001. The Lachlan Group. All rights reserved.