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Excerpts from Cracking the Corporate Code

Frank Fountain developed a simple but brilliant strategy for building supportive peer relationships in his early years at Chrysler. When he saw a relatively young man appointed CEO, Fountain began asking veterans, "How did he achieve his lofty status so quickly?" The answers, of course, were complex, but everyone cited close association with an important company executive. Fountain doubted he would ever duplicate that kind of personal support, so he created his own support network.

"I got together six or seven of us, all basically on the same level but in different finance departments. I had gotten to know them through work assignments, and I had confidence in them. I was the only black one. I thought by getting together and communicating, developing a tight-knit group of pretty smart people-I thought they were smart-we could leverage each other in a very formal but deft way. The key was having people you felt had potential and were ambitious and yet whose egos would allow them to share. One was someone I'd worked with in an assignment in the president's office, another had been my manager in the parts division. But, of course, we were all still at a level where we didn't have a lot to lose.

"We didn't have a name, but once a month we went to a very good restaurant, probably a little upscale from what we would ordinarily be able to afford. We got together just to get together. It wasn't over golf, it wasn't at a bar. It was a formal dinner. We traded information, and we talked about other issues, like each other's dress, if we didn't think it was appropriate. We talked about openings in our departments. We talked about whatever the politics were. So when the new controller from Ford put together the team to run his reconstituted group, almost all of us ended up there.

"It continued to work for all of us. People in finance are always constantly moving. So when guys started looking for a replacement, well, guess what? The list is created, and we got our friend on the list. Then we talked about what talent this person has: 'And at the very least, you should talk to him.'' We leveraged each other. And we must have stayed together maybe three years. Beyond that we didn't. We were now competing with each other in a different kind of way, and we didn't hold the group together, even though today, we will occasionally get together. If a group like that forms, and you're strategically placed, and if you operate not secretly but just informally, it can be extremely powerful."