Four Ways to Attack the Castle — And Get a Job, Get Ahead, Make Change A wise mentor once explained his strategy for getting things done when faced with an impregnable organizational fortress. He likened it to a medieval castle that doesn't want you inside and doesn't want change. If you attack the castle head on, he said, you risk all the defenses going up at once. (Picture the moats filling, iron bars clanging down, doors slamming shut, and weapons activated.) Or, he said, you can find a way to go around and underneath the castle with small, less visible steps. These don't trigger defenses. They gradually weaken the ground on which the castle sits, until it begins to fall of its own weight. Whether you are job seeker or change agent, from inside or outside, it helps to have multiple ways to attack the castle. Find other doors. A professional seeking a job followed the Castle's stated procedure of submitting an online application. Computers have become the latest castle guards, making it impossible to peer into the castle or find a live person to contact. (On many websites, it is difficult to find out where the company has its head office, let alone get a street address if you want to go in person.) If the front door doesn't work, find a back door. This is where networking comes in handy. That professional found the right friend to ask an insider to pass his materials on, being honest about the fact that the online system had rejected him. Once in the office, he asked not for a job but for a project on which to be tested and learn. He got the project and later the job. Befriend the fringes. Get to the guards and gatekeepers, and you'll find a way into the castle and its towers. Make friends with staff, the CEO's personal assistant, security guards, or the servers who bring lunch to the boardroom. A hard-driving American executive accustomed to getting his own way in hierarchical situations didn't do that. When he tried to get an exception to the rules of a large, complex association, he berated staff and so alienated them that word got to the board, which encouraged him to resign his membership. In contrast, a rising female professional in a prominent global
company befriended top executives' assistants, stopping to chat with them or invite them to lunch. As a consequence, she heard hints of new developments, always got appointments promptly, was a frequent visitor to the executive floor, and was on a fast track for promotion. Go underneath. Perhaps you pleaded your case at the top but were stonewalled, so to speak. Rather than give up, go down. If you see problems, you can bet others do too. At a German company, a manager who was one of 21 officially designated change agents encountered obstacles at every turn. When a budget crunch found her project on the delete list, she went down the ranks to talk with peers and lower echelon groups who saw the virtues of her project. She gathered hundreds of signatures for a petition supporting the project. Top management caved. The project went forward, and the castle was already changing. Go around. My mentor did that when he was part of a group trying to get a set of about 7 hospitals to merge. This would improve access for patients to a wider range of highquality services while eliminating duplication. But each castle defended its ground; in meetings, people nodded at the good idea — but did nothing. So he took matters into his own hands as board leader for one of the hospitals. Secretly, to avoid triggering defenses, he approached the most receptive hospital and worked out a merger. When it was announced, the rest of the castles were not happy. But they fell quickly, finding their own mergers. The change process speeded up. In the recession, castle-establishments have become both more defensive and more vulnerable. Even the most heavily fortified increasingly look like glass houses. So go ahead and throw a few stones — such as resumes, new projects, and change plans.