BOOK REVIEW: There's No Elevator To The Top

Dharmendra D.

There's No Elevator To The Top: Leading Headhunter Shares the Advancement Strategies of the World's Most Successful Executives
By Umesh Ramakrishnan; Penguin;
Pages: 256; Price: $25.95

BUY BORROW AVOID

Umesh Ramakrishnan is vice chairman of a global executive search firm CTPartners, who recruits executives to the C-suite. He started from Bangalore University, moving on to the University of Texas and lives in the US, but as is evident from the book, has never stopped learning.

The book is divided into 10 chapters, starting from the formative years for a C-suite aspirant to handling various responsibilities, networking, communication, handling globalisation, work-life balance as well as life in the corner office and finally, what makes it worth the journey to the top. It is written in an easy to read style and for a volume on such weighty matters is surprisingly free of management jargon. Each chapter in the book has its own executive summary, to aid your recall.

The book is sprinkled with insights from various CEOs (including Ramakrishnan’s boss), CFO and other CXOs that the author met over the course of writing his book. There are luminaries such as Bill Amelio of Lenovo, a coup of sorts with both cola majors — Terrance Marks of Coca-Cola, Steve Reinemund of Pepsi, Jim McDonald, ex-CEO of Starbucks, Nandan Nilekani of Infosys, and leaders from BT, Cadbury Schweppes, Charles Schwab, Raytheon, etc. as well as a few companies from Asia including SingTel. The book suffers from a bias of its mostly American companies although there are a few Asian examples as well. It would have done better by including a few more CXOs from Europe, not merely for cultural diversity but also for management styles.

The challenge with a book of this sort is that while the author may have much to say on his own, he can deliver great insights to the reader by merely asking the right questions, which Ramakrishnan does rather well. Early in the book, a CEO contrasts the running of a company in earlier times to mountain climbing where one would diligently plod one’s way up from milestone to milestone, to the current day where it is akin to rock climbing where one isn’t sure what the future may bring. There is the fascinating example of the Lucas Chow who decided to take on the responsibility of Quality (not a very popular choice) and caught the attention of his bosses with his stellar performance by among things, placing a mirror in front of customer service associates to ensure they were smiling when they spoke to customers, driving up customer satisfaction!

As McDonald points out, “While you can’t pull yourself to the top, you can get pushed up rather quickly,” — thus emphasising the value of doing everything one does, well, as well as the value of building and working with good teams. Opinions of the CXOs are split on the value of networking, with some feeling that it is more about doing the right thing, others feeling it lends one better perspective and still others insisting that it is not about the proverbial scratching another’s back. Further, some of the CXOs swear by an executive coach or mentor, while others prefer to work on their own.
 
Communication does get a lot of attention from the CXOs, as one CXO articulates that it is very hard to know how to motivate and lead people, if one does not know the effect one has on them. Again, styles vary from Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Biocon who knew most of her employees by name till her organsation grew beyond 500 to Walt Bettinger who was taught a priceless lesson by one of his professors, who gave his class one question as part of a final exam to end a strategy course — to provide the name of the cleaning lady in the building that their course was being held!

Shaw even emphasises the need for not having executive lunch rooms and other such barriers to communication and culture.

While most CXOs expectedly come across as hard working, there is immense diversity in styles, from the young and aggressive head of a real estate business in the Middle East who tells her employees about the fact that there will not much of a life for their next two years to the almost sage-like heads of American companies, some of whom are in their second or third stints as CEOs, one of who still gets down to his daily run after a flight across the globe.

While one of the CXOs drives home the value of work-life balance insisting that one is not what is one’s business card alone, there are others who maintain a work-life blend rather than a balance. Some acknowledge the role of spouses who they believe are as important, if not more.

In response to Ramakrishnan’s questions, Pepsico’s Reinemund offers his ‘Head, Heart and Hands’ model for a leader and Jim McDonald — his Seven Steps to Success – a bonus read.

Overall, Ramakrishnan seems to presents the humble philosophy of good old hard work while trying to have a life, as his recipe for the way to the top.

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A version of this review was published in the Businessworld Issue dated 16-22 June 2009