In the mob model, captains generally oversee several crews headed up by soldiers, and unquestioning obedience is the operating principle. Christopher, for instance, is a soldier. Two of his associates, Sean and Matt, started out committing small burglaries, but when they disobeyed—they tried to gun down Christopher as a favor to Richie—they did not receive the type of warning a direct report might receive for a similar act of disrespect. Instead, they received immediate termination notices. They did not obtain support from Richie or anyone else. Clearly, they had overstepped their authority based on the mob’s structure, and in a hierarchy where reporting relationships are sacred, they committed a terrible sin.
It’s understandable how the mob benefits from this structure. Without rigid reporting relationships and an emphasis on obedience, chaos might erupt. People might stage internal coups or form alliances with other families that could destroy the organization. Bosses need to keep a tight rein on their people to ensure they don’t get any bright ideas and start acting as free agents.
While Tony needs to work within this structure, he has made adjustments that allow him to be more innovative than most mob bosses. As you can see from the chart on page 44, Tony has blurred certain lines that normally are crystal clear so that there is overlapping responsibility for various businesses.
Tony’s intense pragmatism informs this structure. He is not going to push decision making down to its lowest level because he doesn’t trust neophytes or guys who are all brawn and no brains. Nor is he going to encourage his people to network without his direction and supervision, aware that they could just as easily form alliances against him as for him. Though Tony’s ego is healthy, he has more practical reasons for giving himself so much power. He knows that in the mob culture, a boss without power is a boss who will never receive respect. Following are the underlying assumptions of Tony’s structure:
- Following the chain of command is good and keeps things orderly.
- These guys are crooks and need rules to keep them together.
- Following orders is okay; it’s the way things are done; no one objects to this.
- The boss has the final word. You can give him all your input and disagree, but he has the last word. Once a decision is reached, it is executed without further argument or disagreement. Everyone stands behind the decision.
- You respect the boss. The boss is the boss because he is the right man for the job. He has proven himself. He knows what he is doing. The other families respect him.
- You trust the people at the top; they earned their stripes.
- Your loyalty is to the family and to the person above you. The family will take care of you, especially if you are in need.
Reading these assumptions, you may want to tell Tony to get out of the dark ages and get with contemporary organization design. At the very least, you may think that none of his assumptions apply to your leadership role. You probably responded to all the ideas about loyalty to the family and following orders as irrelevant to what you’re trying to accomplish today. Who is loyal to organizations in these times? Who follows orders, especially among the growing, youthful management information systems (MIS) segment of the employee population?
TONY ON THE FUNCTION OF DIRECT REPORTS FROM A LEADERSHIP PERSPECTIVE
"Your job is to make my job easier."
If you don’t take these assumptions 100 percent literally, though, you might find some figurative truth in Tony’s structural imperatives. Consider his premise that "these guys are crooks and need rules to keep them together." I’m assuming your people aren’t crooks, but they may be headstrong, immature, and overly willing to take risks. Thus, they need some rules—some well-defined parameters—by which to operate effectively.
To see how Tony’s structural principles may apply to the 21st-century leader, let’s imagine what might happen if Tony decided to hire a management consultant to provide him with an alternative perspective on the way he’s organized his crew. This consultant is relatively young and very much in favor of all the hot concepts, and Tony calls him in to discuss his view of Tony’s group. Here is how their conversation might go:
Management consultant: Tony, the pyramid is out. Haven’t you heard that we want to push decision making down and empower people?
Tony: Hey, I push it as far down as I can. My captains run their own shows. As long as they bring in the money. That’s all that matters. They bring in their take ’cause they don’t want me up their can. They decide how they do it and by what means they’ll do it. I expect that they do that with their crews and down the line. I don’t want to ride anybody and I don’t want my guys to ride anybody. No one wants to work that way. The associates under the soldiers, well that’s another story. We don’t give them much rope. These guys are green. They have to prove that they can take orders and they have to prove that they can be trusted.
Management consultant: With such a hierarchical structure, you cannot possibly benefit by getting ideas from those lower in the organization—those closest to the work. Your captains are so removed from the day-to-day operations.
Tony: You saying that my captains don’t know what’s going on with their crews? I expect my captains to be on top of their soldiers and I expect my soldiers to be on top of their associates—that’s how it works. Everybody knows what’s going on below them at the levels they need to know it. This also is not a dictatorship but it’s also not a democracy, either. The soldiers have their say with the capos and my capos have their say with me. Everybody speaks his mind but the boss always has the last word. Once we make a decision, it is executed with no one speaking in opposition.
Management consultant: What other benefits do you find with this structure?
Tony: It’s fast and efficient. If there’s a problem, someone calls me and we take care of it. If it’s something that affects all of us, we get together and talk about it. Problems in any part of the business are either taken care of at the source by the capos or the soldiers or the problems filter up to me and we resolve ‘em. Me and my captains are tight. We are loyal to the family, we trust each other with our lives. We tell each other everything. I lay it all on the line and I expect them to do the same. If there’s an issue with trust, well then I have to deal with it.
Management consultant: Who heads up new business?
Tony (Laughs): Everybody is responsible for new business. I want all my guys to be thinking up new scams, looking at who we can strong-arm into needing protection, targeting the degenerate gamblers who’s business is ripe for the taking, more "no-show" construction jobs. Well, you get the picture. Anyone who has a new idea for a scheme presents the idea to his boss and gets a go-no-go decision. If the scheme involves a large crew, an outlay of a lot of money, or associates outside our family, the capos may need to get together and discuss it. It most situations, the head of the crew can make the call.
Management consultant: One of the things I’ve observed with hierarchical organizations is that it is difficult to be exposed to the talent below you.
Tony: Again, I rely on my capos to spot the guys who show some promise. They test them, throw them some line to see how they do. They will sometimes let me know if there is someone I should see. We can give ‘em a shot with a shakedown, fetching drinks at the executive card game. If he is worth it, I’ll get a look.
Management consultant: With everything having to go through the chain of command, what happens if I have a beef with my boss? Who do I go to?
Tony: You got a legitimate beef, you can call a sit-down. You get heard and a decision is made. But you gotta follow whatever decision is made. These are the rules.
Management consultant: I know that Paulie has some gambling business and so does Sil; I am not sure how efficient it is to have gambling and loan-sharking operations under more than one person.
Tony: Paulie’s got his bookies that have been with him for years. They will do business only with him. Paulie also has this handful of high rollers that he lets lose so much and then he stops them. Paulie always knows how much they can lose and how many points they can actually afford at one time. I don’t know how he does it but he never misses. If I gave these to Sil, well they might get so far behind, that we’d have to kill them. What good is that? Lastly, there’s Hesh, he’s got so much money for loan-sharking and he’s such a pussycat at first with his circle, that as long as he gives us our due, we all eat.
You also gotta remember that what an individual may be responsible for may have more to do with his area of expertise, what was passed down to him by his family, and what contacts he has that can be leveraged versus what neat box he fits into.
I can also easily shift around responsibilities. I don’t like to do it that often . . . unless it’s necessary. If there’s a question of trust or we think a guy might have flipped, well, then we have to take some precautions.
Management consultant: A real disadvantage to your structure is that there is no crossover or sharing of guys between the crews.
Tony (Looks at him with a steely glare): And who and how do you think pulled off that hit on the Colombians? Or the HUD deal? Need I say more? We get the best guys for whatever job we need to pull off—no matter who’s crew they are in. We all share in the money. We’re very flexible and can adapt and shift as we need to.
Management consultant: You make it sound like they are all one big happy family. There’s no fighting or rivalry?
Tony: Basically, we all do get along—some better than others. Rivalry, competition, I guess so. That’s normal. Everyone wants to be the big earner, that’s part of how you get your stripes. Everybody knows who’s earning and who’s behind. As long as it’s healthy though, it’s good for business. The more deals we can make, the more everybody earns. Sabotaging or stealing from another crew or poaching on another’s territory, it’s against the rules. You’ll pay big time.
Management consultant: Have you ever thought about a different type of structure like a council where decisions are made by a group?
Tony: Yeah, we talked about it once. I remember we were eating lobsters. It was right after Jackie died. We knew there was the need for a leader but no one wanted to step up. No one really wanted the headaches, the Feds up your wazoo, so one of the guys suggested we run the family like a council, but then we said that the old guys set it up like a paramilitary organization. You need a boss. It works. Sometimes the young guys might not like it as much. Christopher was not real happy when I brought Furio in without "consulting" him. I remember he smarted off and said, "I didn’t get the memo [about Furio]." I smarted right back with, "Would you have read it if you would’ve gotten one?" I don’t consult them on everything. That’s the way it is.
Management consultant: After Jackie died, there was some vying for power between you and Junior. Did you ever think about trying out some type of coleadership arrangement between the two of you?
Tony: You gotta be nuts. Listen, I love the man. He’s my uncle, but coleadership, no way. We’re as different as night and day. His guys are loyal to him and my guys to me. If we disagreed over something, we’d probably end up killing each other. Maybe coleaders works if you’re Ben and Jerry and running an ice-cream company, but not in our line of work. People need one boss.