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Excerpts from Cracking the Corporate Code

Lloyd Trotter is currently president and chief executive officer of one of GE's largest operating divisions, but in 1963 he literally had to push open the corporate door. He arrived at Cleveland Twist Drill as an applicant for its new journeyman program. He was armed with high expectations after meeting the program director at his high school. The guard at the door, however, did not know about the new program.

"I saw the waiting room and the personnel office, and I thought, boy, anybody could walk in and pick up an application and talk to someone. But then a guard stopped me with, 'Can I help you?' And I said, 'I have an appointment. I'm here to fill out an application.' And he said, 'we don't have any jobs.' That was the answer. I gave him my explanation, and he said, 'Wait here.' I still didn't get into the waiting room. This company was making a conscious effort to do something about past discrimination, but I think they started doing it without a lot of planning or communication. So right away I was reminded of what I was getting ready to face."

Trotter was eventually shown in and received an apology from the president, and certainly the indignity of standing and waiting outside that door has faded into the background with his enormous success. But what was in his mind and heart then? He had entered totally new territory with optimism and enthusiasm, and he hit a brick wall almost before he processed his first impression. What prompted him to remain? Where did he find the fortitude? One factor was the long arguments he'd had with his father about pursuing this program instead of going straight to college. He was not about to suffer the additional indignity of admitting he had abandoned his hard-won independent decision so easily, an incentive with which every young person can identify. But he also took, under the circumstances, a great leap of faith in his willingness to trust himself, the program director and the organization. He forced himself to stay despite his doubts and discomfort.

Walking to meet the supervisor for his first assignment, he was painfully aware of complete isolation. "When I walked through the door, you could hear a pin drop. The only thing I could hear was my brand new shoes squeaking as I walked. I don't think any of the skilled trades guys knew about me until I got there."

He did not ignore the pain. Decades later he can still hear his shoes squeaking as he walked across the floor. But even then the pain did not stop him from continuing the walk, getting the assignment and, we must assume, performing well. Trotter is a man of action. He did not analyze or intellectualize the experience. With dogged determination he kept his eye on the prize: his own goal of making good. He found a place within himself and within the work where he could function effectively.

By most measurements that walk across the floor was a small step, but viewed from the perspective of those times, it embodied significant risk. His willingness to take that small step, to withstand the isolation and then build out from it, was in fact an early indication of his eventual corporate success. These acts of will, simple but strong, are available to everyone.