By that I mean that in a corporation, when the smokers nip outside for a communal cigarette, a Director can talk to a subordinate in a much more familiar way than they would talk to each other in any other business situation.

I am guilty of deliberately doing this myself in order to get in with top management. I remember some time ago I was at my consultancy company's big get-togethers. It was one of those two day events where we got to drive aqua-buggies around a few fields, shoot bow and arrows around in a forest and generally act like 6 years olds for a day. All in the name of Leadership and Team Building. You know the kind of thing.

The problem was, the Directors and Senior Management themselves didn't really get stuck into the Outdoor Activities as much as every else. I don't think it was because they didn't see the point (we couldn't either and did it anyway). I think they didn't really want to let go and make fools of themselves in front of everyone else. I could also see that many of my other colleagues were keen to get to know the Directors too, but couldn't see a way into their inner circle.

Where am I going with this?

Well, I took the quick route to establishing rapport quickly by having a cigar with some of the directors once the dinner as finished. As I took a massive breath of the cigar, I smiled genially to my new best friends, and ignored the burning in my mouth and protestations deep down in my lungs. I thought I was terribly clever, managing to get on the same table with the directors that smoked and having a good laugh with them.

What's that? Smoking is the path to greatness? Gives you instant access to the Board of Directors and allows you to forge an instant meteoric rise to the Board?

Not quite. I was of course completely fooling myself. Whilst I was convinced that I was reeling in the attentions of the most important people in the company, I should have taken the time to study who was at the other end of the long dining table and what they were doing.

The guys I were smoking cigars with were the 'old guard' of the company. All over 55 years old, probably close to retirement, and enjoying giving this young buck (me) some old war stories about hostile takeover bids.

The real deal going down that night was on the same table, but was at the opposite end where the dynamic new Director was explaining his vision to his forward-thinking colleagues. They were, I'm sure, very glad that the old geezers were out of their way in their smoking circle, and not at their end to pour any cold water over some of their bold new proposals.

To cut a long story short, I believed that I could get associated quickly with people using smoking as a prop. I was right, you can. The only problem is that the kind of people you'll get associated with are probably not the guys you need to associate with, as they'll probably be on their way down, or on their way out.