Order Now | Review | Excerpts

Excerpts from Cracking the Corporate Code

Chuck Chaplin was performing happily and very well as the head of the New York City office of Prudential's mortgage company when the company president approached him regarding development plans for high-potential employees. Chaplin was not surprised to be included, but it took him a while to figure out what was really being offered and then to accept the challenge. He took the following steps to decode their messages and analyze the offer: "The president and his boss said to me, 'We think you have a lot of potential to be a leader around here, and we need to think about what is the appropriate way to broaden your experience.' So I went back and thought about it as best I could on my own. At our next meeting, I said, 'I've been doing real estate debt for going on 10 years now. How about real estate equity?'

"They said, 'your thinking is too narrow. We think you have potential to go well beyond the real estate environment. Are you willing to view yourself as a finance generalist?' They didn't say it in exactly those terms, but after I did some more soul searching around what they'd suggested, that was what I came up with. As I caught up to them, they became more specific. They said, 'Here is an opportunity for you to get positioned for the role of Prudential treasurer, and, frankly, we think you could do it. It's rotational in nature, because we use it as a way to groom senior executives. You would have to move laterally and work as an assistant treasurer for a couple of years. You can see how you like it and demonstrate you can do the job. If you do, you will be on the very short list for treasurer.'

"I was completely taken aback and didn't know what to say. Their offer was mind boggling in its import. I discussed it with my wife, but I didn't really know anyone else who could help. This was such a unique set of circumstances, well above anything I'd thought about. I tried to organize my thinking so I could make a decision.

"I knew there was a minority angle here; I wasn't completely naive. One of the motivators was trying to bootstrap us into getting a black senior executive soon, and they knew they had to do some extraordinary things if they wanted to make that happen. So being black was one of my assets in this situation. But as a minority I was going to be in a fish bowl, and the penalty for failure would go far beyond just me and my career. Whether anybody else black got a chance was on my shoulders. In addition, I knew absolutely nothing about treasury or what anybody did there. And I would have to chuck real estate, where I really did know almost everything, and start all over again proving myself. All of those things were negatives. "On the other hand, there were positives. It was an awesome opportunity, if I could make it work, to have real influence and juice around this place.