"Conspiracy Nut" Nuts

In the '80s and '90s I sold information technology to Wall Street companies. During that time Cisco Systems came into being and by the early '90s was selling about 80% of the routers and switches used to build out this new thing called the Internet. I didn't understand their technology at the time, few did, but they had an all-star sales team and explosive growth so I was confident I had landed in a great place when they hired me in 1993.

A few months after coming on board I got called into a meeting with seven other Cisco people in the NYC office. I wasn't sure why I was asked to participate because I wasn't involved in the accounts being discussed but, as a new guy trying to find my way, I nonetheless joined the meeting.

The meeting agenda that day blew my mind. The eight of us (seven plus me as observer) spent three hours plotting a strategy to get a VP fired from a large, well-known Wall Street company who was standing in the way of a multi-million dollar deal that Cisco was in danger of losing. I remember thinking "What makes a vendor think they can go into a major financial institution and get an influential executive fired". The audacity of it was breathtaking.

Over the next several months I watched the execution of the strategy planned that day.

Step one was to map out the organization - the recommenders/decision-maker/final-approver - and a game plan to really understand the key individuals agendas - personal and professional - as well as their motivations/strengths/weaknesses/relationships/etc. This included mapping Cisco team members (exec-to-exec, engineer-to-engineer, Cisco corporate resource to the Wall Street company project overlay, etc.) to their team members for dinners/drinks/golf/"Gentlemen Club" visits/whatever it took to grow relationships and thoroughly understand the people in the decision process. I watched as Cisco learned all about "Who's Who in the Zoo" - especially the VP - mistakes he'd made, people he was competing with internally for position/influence as well as determining which allies inside the company might have an interest in seeing this VP fail.

The Cisco team worked with their allies inside the company to slowly destabilize the VP in the organization. Sharing information with his internal competitors but not with him which made him look out of touch; sharing negative stories from his previous employers with influential executives, etc. The VP began to feel the heat even though he couldn't put his finger on what was going on. At the right time, the Cisco account manager took him out to lunch for a heart to heart. The message was something like, "Just between us, you can tell you're on the outs, right? I keep hearing you screwed up X, you alienated executive Y, you lost project Z, etc. Listen, there's no future for you here - you see that, right?"

I'm sure the VP was stunned and experienced sleepless nights thinking about what the Cisco rep said and how it compared to the murky dynamics he was experiencing inside the bare-knuckle politics of his company. Not long after his message had time to marinate the Cisco account manager again took him aside and calmly shocked him once again when he said, "Since your days are obviously numbered here I think I can get you an interview at (Wall Street Company #2) with a better position for more responsibility and more money. Are you interested in having me set up a meeting?".

Long story short, within a couple months the VP was safely ensconced at the second company (with a glowing recommendation from Cisco) where he felt an enormous debt of gratitude to Cisco for "helping" him during his tough times. Cisco had their eight-figure purchase order from company #1 - a major win on the street - and everybody was happy.

I drew three conclusions from this experience:

1-I was brought into the meeting that day to expose me to this process such that I would take my game to the next level to bring more revenue into Cisco .

2-Despite that, I decided I was not going to use my time and energy to do things like try and get people fired. I was determined to find some other way to be successful.

3-There was nothing unethical, immoral or illegal in the strategic plan (aka conspiracy) that was developed and executed by Cisco. It was simply a team of extremely smart, talented, aggressive, hard-working and exceptionally committed people united in pursuit of success.

Along the way I also spent time selling to the U.S. federal government in Washington D.C. My sense during my time in D.C. was the politics there were even more intense than on Wall Street. At least on Wall Street it was unknown (I think) to die mysteriously or of "assisted suicide" which seems to be so prevalent these days in the D.C. circles.

In my opinion, people who think there is no such thing as conspiracies are "conspiracy nut" nuts.