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Business Rule #8:
Be Prepared to Hold a Grudge
October 30, 2004
(PAGE 2 of 3)
So you say Elizabeth had troubles making decisions and motivating her team? Well, she applied to be on The Apprentice to learn from The Donald himself, and so, in short order, he showed her how easy decision-making can be…
He fired her on the spot.
No extra boardroom, no “let’s bring two or three people back into the boardroom and hammer it out.” It was so obvious that she should go, he didn’t waste time with it. I fully admit that I would have been guilty of the same thing in my own company. It wouldn’t have helped to have her cry in the boardroom anyway.
Now Andy’s very interesting at the moment. I’m the type of person that really holds a grudge—I can’t help it. It will be intriguing to see if Andy will bear a grudge against his teammates. With the possible exception of Kelly, everyone else on Andy’s team either has been a losing project manager or has contributed greatly to their team’s failure. Now Andy comes along and hits a home run the first time out. If I were him, I would make them eat their words every day.
Sometimes you have to hold a grudge. It’s the only way to make it. I know it sounds a little unsavory, but if you don’t hold grudges, people will take advantage of you and spread the word that it’s okay to do so. Look at Elizabeth: she never really took the reins and led. She didn’t hold a grudge and speak out against those who tried to derail her vision. She should have said to Raj, “Sit down and shut the hell up.” Believe me, what she needed to do was make a big show of force against him. She should have stripped him of all responsibility and delegated his workload to others on her team. If she had just shown him who was boss, the rest of the team would have stepped up to the task, figuring that here was a no-nonsense leader. No one would have dared oppose her.
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Now, before you get ready to tell me how bad this advice is, remember that I run a very large multi-million dollar company that is now in negotiations with Donald Trump himself. Learn from the best and eventually you’ll get there as well.
Let me illustrate the soundness of my advice with a short anecdote and then I’ll tell you all about my recent dealings with Trump.
Most people in the know realize that the name of the game in real estate, especially commercial investments, is politics. I once had a friend who completely disappointed me. I won’t go so far as to name names, but what I will say is that this friend of mine had attended West Point and was often referred to as “The General.” Now The General may have lived in a great neighborhood and led a great life, but as I found out, he was also a certifiable stiff. When he was running for State Senate in Illinois, a magazine published a damning profile of him, and the man folded like a broken umbrella.
One day, he called me up and asked me to help rebuild a part of the Veterans Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He asked me for over a million dollars because he was having a hard time raising the capital on his own.
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If you don’t hold grudges, people will take advantage of
