In times of financial dire straits, both the hustler and the corporate honcho become the best management gurus around. They both have some nuggets of wisdom to share. The credit crunch seems to bring out the best in them. Their leadership traits are put to a test and subsequently bloom. There are, however, some more management tricks that a drug leader can teach the corporate big guy.
Drug dealers are often on the brink, living ‘permanently in a world of zero credit.’ They can hardly get loans from banks, so they tend to excellently manage their cash flows. That’s a trick that the dealer can impart to the corporate boss – to run things in a way where you know that nothing or no one can bail you out, and that you’re on your own.
The CEO would also do well to learn the art of ruthlessness from the drug dealer. While the drug dealer should always hand over good stuff to his clients, not tweaking the good stuff a bit is tantamount to not taking care of his business interest. This ruthlessness would work well for the CEO especially when he has to axe a good part of his workforce so as to control his cost center and protect his profit center.
Another area that a drug dealer can teach a CEO in is accountability. The drug dealer is totally accountable for whatever goes on and happens in his trade. He just has to survive the deal, whatever it takes and however the ins and outs of it turn out. This is total responsibility. The CEO would do well to embrace such complete personal dependability. In other words, like the drug dealer who is out to protect his trade through total attachment to the belief in what he does because his life literally depends on some given strategies, the CEO should also employ the same adhesion to the belief that what he does, and how he does it, should and would work.
Via Financial Times
