Page 129 - The Way to the Top

Timothy H. LING

President and COO of Union Oil of California*

*Editor’s Note: Timothy Ling passed away January 28, 2004.

When I was attending business school at Stanford in the late 1980s, it

seemed like all of big business was dominated by the “great men” of the
board rooms—folks like Jack Welch, Larry Bossidy, Andy Grove, and
Warren Buffett. I can still remember thinking how important it could be to
my career if I could receive some advice from executives of that stature

and fame.

Fifteen years later, as the president of Unocal, a Fortune 200 energy
company, I have indeed had the opportunity to meet and talk with a
number of noted business leaders. Ironically, the best business advice I
ever got wasn’t from one of these high-powered guys. Rather, it came

from someone who was finishing out his long career with Unocal as I was
coming in to be the company’s CFO in 1997. A gracious North Carolinian
with a Duke pedigree, Fielding Walker had spent the bulk of his career

climbing the corporate ladder at Unocal and had made it all the way to
running one of the company’s largest divisions. He was anxious to start his
new career as a painter (a career move he has now successfully
completed), but as a favor to the then-CEO Roger Beach, he delayed his
retirement for a few years in order to serve as an advisor to the CEO and

senior executives on organizational and personal development issues.

When I joined the company, there were many things that I believed
needed to be changed in order to give us a good chance of long-term
success. With the naiveté of a former consultant, I embarked upon an

aggressive and in hindsight overly comprehensive agenda for change. My