The age of hardball

Philip Delves Broughton
18.05.09

Emotional intelligence and soft skills have had a long and successful run as the favoured trait in managers. While the markets soared, house prices rose and all seemed well, business could afford to worry about corporate culture, understanding and empathy. But now hard times have brought a fresh appreciation for hardball, or doing whatever it takes to survive.

Hardball has always gone on at the highest levels of business and politics. Even those with public reputations for being sensitive, decent types often employ sidekicks to body check, tackle and hurt. Tony Blair had Alastair Campbell. Barack Obama has his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a notorious hard nut and compulsive curser. As Obama said in a speech last week after Mother's Day in the US, “This is a tough holiday for Rahm Emanuel because he's not used to saying the word day' after mother'.” Obama can have polish and style because he has Emanuel knee-capping in the back room.

Richard Nixon once said: “People react to fear, not love. They don't teach that in Sunday school but it's true.” And as George Stalk and Rob Lachenauer, the authors of a classic management article titled Hardball: Five Killer Strategies for Trouncing the Competition, wrote: “Winners in business play rough and don't apologise for it.” For anyone who has winced at the hypocrisy of companies preaching the virtues of soft skills and corporate social responsibility while behaving otherwise, honesty about the effectiveness of hardball is long overdue.

Everyone knows that the great fortunes and innovations of this world are rarely created by cuddly, honourable people. They are created by egotists, bullies and liars. Spend too much time mollycoddling your employees and you will be overtaken by someone who does neither. For an employee, the cost of working for these monsters is balanced by the reward of association with a winner who won't have to fire them.

In tough times, you want a leader like General George Patton, who used to practise his general's face in the mirror each morning to make sure he would look imposing enough to his troops. You want someone to scowl and object and argue in negotiations on your behalf, not roll over to keep everyone happy. And most people know that their best work is not coaxed gently from them but dragged out under extreme pressure, intimidation and raw fear.

During the bull market, the notion of doing well by doing good, of profit and compassion being compatible ideas, thrived. It will be interesting to see how it survives this recession. In America, a firm which tracks emotional intelligence in the workplace just reported that for the first time since 2003, the tendency of employees to understand others declined over the past year. People suffering from stress brought on by the recession have little time for other people and their problems.

According to Stalk and Lachenauer's recipe for Hardball, it is not about breaking the law or cheating, it is about relentless competition and absolute clarity of purpose. It is not about people skills and niceness. It is about the young Bill Gates going for days without sleep, screaming and slamming doors and emerging with Microsoft and the greatest fortune in history.

Hardball is tough, not sadistic, they write. Yes, you want rivals to squirm but not so visibly that you are viewed as a bully. In fact, you want the people in your world to cheer you on. And many of them will, as they share the riches your strategies generate.

It is easy to see the perils of practising hardball, the risks of being loathed and derided. Harvey Weinstein, the film producer, has been a notorious hardballer, shouting and intimidating his way to the top. But hundreds of millions of dollars and multiple Oscars later, he has triumphed in an industry with minuscule odds of success.

Bill Gates is now as tough on issues of global health as he was developing Windows. If you are an African with malaria, this is tremendous news. Who would not want Bill Gates turning his attention to their problem? He will fix it. And success, whatever it took to achieve it, earns a lot of forgiveness.