(2 of 3)
Running them, Geneen lets junior executives put searching questions to their bosses, and he can be argued out of a position by a rare manager who possesses more facts than he does. But Geneen is also impatient, demanding quick figure-filled answers to his questions, and occasionally brutal, verbally flaying or simply ignoring executives who pose questions that he considers irrelevant. Working for Geneen is a tension-filled experience; ITT managers tend to be garrulous, because of the necessity of constantly justifying themselves. They find his constant demands challenging, if unnerving. They also are paid top dollar; five ITT executives drew more than $200,000 each in 1970. Geneen once publicly chastised an executive almost to the point of making him weep, then gave him a $10,000 raise. Moreover, executives who do well under Geneen are eagerly sought by headhunters. ITT graduates include Charles T. Ireland, president of CBS, and Robert Kenmore, chairman of the big Kenton Corp.
ITT executives form a tight club. Admittance comes only after eight hours of psychological testing, applied to everyone down to the lowliest employees. Once in, ITT executives speak to and socialize almost exclusively with other ITT people. The club has a mania for security; paper-shredding machines like the one that chewed up ITT's Washington files whine continually in most ITT offices. Returning from Washington on a company plane last week, Geneen cracked: "Now I guess we'll have to acquire a company that makes paper-shredding machines."
ITT has much experience in dealing with politicians, mostly foreign. Some of its best customers for telephone and telegraph gear are European and Latin American governments. Dealings with these government officials are often on a straight quid pro quo basis. For example, in bidding for a government contract abroad, the company might offer to build a plant in an underdeveloped part of the host country. Close ITT watchers do not find it the least unusual that the company—or, for that matter, many a large, powerful firm—when threatened with antitrust prosecution, would approach Administration leaders directly and do everything possible to weigh the scales in its favor. Geneen, cloistered in the company, might well be unaware of how damning some of these moves could appear to the U.S. public.
Hedged Bets. ITT's recent sorry relations with the U.S. Government raise some questions about its future growth. True, the trustbusters could have given the company a tougher deal; for example, they could have forced it to sell off Hartford Fire instead of the lesser Avis, Levitt and several other companies. ITT stands to collect about $600 million from those sales, and Geneen figures that he can reinvest the money—mostly in Europe—in ways that will raise profits by 10% to 12% a year. But the trustbusters have forbidden ITT from making any major acquisitions in the U.S. for at least ten years, and that will crimp its imperial aims at home. Beyond that, the political cloud cast over ITT is bound to affect its relations with customers, including the Government, in ways as yet unimagined.