Hierarchy Archives - Page 5 of 6

President “Jimmy”

James Earl Carter took the presidential oath as “Jimmy,” not “James.” In December 1977, Hugh Sidey of Time called him “the first President in history to get away with official use of a nickname.” National Park Service historians checked with the White House about which name to use. “Back came the order: Jimmy.”

Carter had campaigned the same way. In Iowa in 1975, before the 1976 caucuses, he would walk up to strangers. The journalist Judy Woodruff recalled that he would “put out his hand and say, hi, I’m Jimmy Carter, peanut farmer from Georgia, former Governor and I’m running for president.”

Sidey also saw a cost. He wrote that Carter’s “seemingly casual, unorthodox approach to the presidency may now be working against him.”

The Vocabulary of the Level Table

There are no bad ideas. — Said at the start of a brainstorming session. Every idea is welcome.

Leave your titles at the door. — In this meeting, rank does not count.

Everyone has a seat at the table. — Everyone here has a voice in the decision.

That’s above my pay grade. — Someone more senior has to decide this.

The loudest voice in the room. — The person whose view wins because they speak the most.

HiPPO

“HiPPO stands for ‘Highest Paid Person’s Opinion.'” In American business, the term is used for the opinion of the most senior person in the room, when it decides a question that data should decide.

Ronny Kohavi wrote that “Dylan Lewis at Intuit came up with the acronym HiPO back in 2006.” The analytics writer Avinash Kaushik heard it and blogged about it in October 2006. Kohavi’s team at Microsoft added the second P and the image of a hippopotamus.

Black Monday

In the National Football League, Black Monday is the first Monday after the regular season ends. It is the day many head coaches are fired. An Associated Press headline of December 29, 1998, read: “NFL coaches face ‘Black Monday’ with five fired.”

Long service does not protect a coach. In 2024 the New England Patriots parted with Bill Belichick after 24 seasons.

“I Do Not Wish Your Advice”

On September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln called his cabinet together. He had written the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase recorded the meeting in his diary.

Lincoln explained why he was acting now: “The rebel army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfil that promise.” He told them: “I do not wish your advice about the main matter – for that I have determined for myself.” Then he read the proclamation.

First Among Equals

Justice Felix Frankfurter said: “The Chief Justice is primus inter pares.” The Latin means “first among equals.” Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that his vote “carries no more weight” than the vote of any other justice.

The chief justice still has real power. He speaks first at the justices’ conference and proposes a vote. When he votes with the majority, he decides who writes the opinion of the Court.

The HP Way

At Hewlett-Packard, the company’s way of working became known as the HP Way. The founders insisted on “first-name informality.” Employees received goals but no fixed method for reaching them. HP’s 1977 objectives described the aim of “allowing the individual great freedom of action in attaining well-defined objectives.”

In 1995 David Packard published a book called The HP Way.

The CEO in a Cubicle

At Intel, the chief executive Andrew Grove worked in a standard cubicle. In January 1995 an article titled “The Education of Andrew Grove” said: “Grove sits in a cubicle precisely to eliminate barriers between chief executive and staff.”

The article added: “When he is around, anybody can stop by and bend his ear, even to tell him he screwed up on a decision.”

The Bullpen

Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York City on January 1, 2002. He cleared out the biggest room in City Hall and made it an open office. It was called “the bullpen.” Dozens of aides and managers sat together in it.

In 2019 Bloomberg wrote that at City Hall he sat “right in the middle.” At his own company, he wrote, “I don’t have a private office, no less a corner office.”

The First Fireside Chat

On March 12, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke on the radio about the banking crisis. He began: “I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking.” He promised to explain “what has been done in the last few days, why it was done.”

Near the end he said: “It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail.”