Fly, Butterfly

by Annicken R. Day

  As I followed Ruth toward my new office I reminded myself of George’s wise words: “We don’t do things because they are easy. We do them because they are important.” I wanted to do something that mattered, to make a difference, and now I knew I would.

  …

  Alistair Parker’s old office was unrecognizable. The heavy old brown furniture was gone. In its place were a glass desk with a slim beige leather chair and an elegant white designer sofa next to a glass-and-steel coffee table. In the corner, where Alistair used to have his brown globe filled with bottles of liquor, there was now a stylish espresso machine with steel-colored cups resting on a glass shelf.

  “Wow, Ruth. This is beautiful! But you’ve only known for a few days. How were you able to pull all this off?”

  Ruth closed the door behind us. “All the furniture is borrowed from my friend Gerard’s office design firm. He said you could test it for a few weeks, and if you like it, he will give us a really good price.”

  “You are amazing. Do you know that?”

  “Anything for our new CEO!” She clapped her hands like an eager little girl and gave me the hug she had been holding back in front of the others. “You know, Maya, I always knew this would happen. Just not this way, or this fast!”

  “Tell me about it!” I laughed and sat down on the fancy sofa. It was difficult to take it all in. The whole situation felt surreal. One moment I had been wearing flip-flops and living a chill island life on Kaua’i, and the next I was back in Manhattan in my high heels and corporate suit, in my corner office—as the CEO.

  I looked around. My new office was everything I had ever dreamed of. I could see the tops of the surrounding skyscrapers on one side, Central Park on the other.

  I wondered if I would get time to go for a walk later.

  “So, where do we begin?” Ruth sat down on the edge of one of the beige leather chairs, her iPad in her lap. “I have never worked for a CEO before,” she said.

  I grinned. “And I’ve never been one, so I guess we’ll just have to wing it.”

  After Ruth and I had finished planning our week, and she had gone back to her office, I walked over to the espresso machine in the corner. I inserted the coffee pod and pushed the button, and as I did, I felt a rush of longing for the espresso maker on the stove in the beach house, where I would stand barefoot on the wooden floor, dressed in a sarong, enjoying the scent of coffee mixed with the ocean breeze.

  “No one leaves Kaua’i the same person they were when they came,” Josh had told me. Now I knew that to be true.

  I didn’t think Mr. Hatchett and the board knew what they had signed up for, though. But they would soon find out.

  After I finished my espresso, I left my office, smiled at the new receptionist, pushed the elevator button, and went down to the thirty-sixth floor to say hi to the team.

  It would be a long day. And by the end of it, everyone in the company would know that there was a new kind of CEO in town.

  …

  “You suggest we do what?” John Cooper, TechnoGuard’s chief information officer, stared at me as if I had just fallen from the sky. Then he looked at the other executives sitting around the large conference table on the thirty-seventh floor.

  Only a few of them met his eyes.

  I could feel the confusion in the room, and I didn’t blame them. One month ago, I had been VP of sales and had only been allocated thirty minutes a month to speak to them. Now I was their boss. A boss with very different ideas than they were used to.

  “I understand it may sound a bit drastic, but drastic is what we have to go for,” I explained. “Hordes of talented employees are leaving us every week to go and work for our competitors. Their expertise and skills are walking out the door with them, making our competitors stronger and us weaker by the day.”

  I looked around the table to see whether the executives understood the gravity of the situation. They all stared blankly back at me—except for John Cooper, who seemed to be fuming with anger.

  I continued. “I have been hired to turn things around. To win back the trust of the customers, investors, and the market. And to do that, we will first need to win back the trust of our employees.”

  I paused for a few seconds to make sure the words sank in.

  “And I know this for a fact: we won’t do that by sitting in an ivory tower far away from where the real action is.”

  “So, changing our offices into, what was it you called them—creative hubs, chill areas, and a coffee bar—and making us move down to the thirty-sixth floor, is your idea of the first smart, strategic move as our new CEO?” John Cooper spat out with contempt in his voice.

  “To rescue this sinking ship and rebuild what has been lost, yes, that will be my first strategic move as your new CEO,” I said, my voice sounding as sharp as I intended it to be.

  Apparently, it worked. John looked away. Then I paused and softened my voice a bit.

  “Listen,” I said, “I know this may feel weird to you. It honestly feels pretty weird to me, too. But here’s the thing: I intend to do everything I can to make this company healthy and thriving again. I have promised the board I will get our profitability and our share price up, and I have every intention to deliver on those promises.”

  The men around the table paid closer attention now, just as I knew they would.

  “But to achieve this, we can’t just continue with business as usual. We need to start doing things differently. And you might not like all of it.” I paused. “The revamp of the offices will only be the first change we make,” I continued as I poured myself a glass of water.

  “We also need to make some significant changes to the way we work. To stay competitive in the marketplace, we need to build a collaborative, innovative, and fast-moving culture. And we need to make it attractive to work for us by creating an environment where people enjoy coming to work in the morning and are inspired to give their best.”

  The executives stared at me in disbelief. I had just used a number of words that probably never had been uttered in this meeting room before, at least not in that combination.

  I reiterated my point with a smile, hoping to lighten things up a bit. “Happy employees lead to happy customers, which lead to better results. This, in turn, creates happy shareholders and a more sustainable company. It’s simple math, really.”

  “Gosh.” John laughed sarcastically. “Why don’t we all just hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’?” He looked at the other executives for back up. “I guess this is what you get when you have a woman as a CEO.”

  The room fell silent. I glared at him. “What did you just say, John?”

  The other executives looked down at the table.

  John suddenly seemed to realize the magnitude of what he’d said.

  “C’mon, lighten up. I was just cracking a joke. Don’t take it so personally.”

  I took a deep breath. Don’t go there, Maya. “Fine. But that was the last ignorant, sexist comment I will allow from you or anyone else around this table. To make this work, treating each other with respect is the absolute minimum. Which means you can also lay off giving me nicknames.”

  The room went dead silent. I glanced at the men around the table, but no one dared to meet my eyes. Good. They were starting to realize I was well informed and wasn’t going to put up with any of their nonsense.

  After the meeting, I sat down with Ruth to explain the changes we were making.

  “I don’t get it, Maya.” She didn’t even try to hide the disappointment in her voice.

  “This was your dream. The corner office, overlooking Central Park. You have it now. And now you’re giving it up, just like that?” She snapped her fingers.

  I knew this had been her dream, too.

  “I’m sorry, Ruth. But I’m not giving anything up,” I explained. “The dream has just changed.”

  Ruth stared at me, and when she spoke there was a sense of bewilderment in her voice. “What on earth happened to you in Kaua’i, Maya?�
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  I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Far below me, little creatures were scurrying up and down on narrow streets, in and out of big black buildings. I felt chills running down my spine and looked over at Central Park. I really needed to take that walk soon.

  I took a deep breath and turned toward Ruth.

  “I guess I woke up,” I said.

  Ruth looked confused.

  “It will take some time and a bottle of wine or two to explain it all, but for now, all I can say is this: I’ve changed, Ruth. And there’s no going back.”

  YEAR ONE

  The first year, I hit the ground running with my proposed changes. The gray cubicles were removed, offices were rebuilt, and all the executives, including myself, moved down to the thirty-sixth floor to sit with the teams. As the thirty-sixth floor turned into a more inviting, collaborative working space with colorful furniture, the thirty-seventh floor re-emerged as a beautifully designed social area with creative meeting rooms, a customer experience center, a chill lounge, and a combined juice and coffee bar. The employees and customers loved it—the executives not so much—but after a while even they seemed to have settled into their new habitat.

  Over the next few months I learned how to be a CEO, mostly through trial and error, and sometimes by being shown the ropes by Mr. Hatchett, with whom I had regular meetings. There was a lot to learn, but knowing the company, the market, the products, and the customers as well as I did certainly helped. It didn’t take long until I was up and running on my own.

  “You’re a natural,” Mr. Hatchett told me after my first presentation to the board, just three months into my new role.

  It was true that I had always been well prepared, but now I realized that my biggest strength was my ability to combine the street savvy of having spent seven years close to the customers with the top-level perspective of a CEO. Just six months after I came back, we won a number of new deals and saw a steady increase in sales.

  While being a “natural” in business, I was less of a natural when it came to the people side of things. It was humbling having to realize how fundamental the human aspect of our business was in order to make things work, and it was embarrassing to admit how little attention I had given this in my previous roles.

  I knew I had a lot to learn, and I knew who could teach me: the employees themselves. So, from day one, I spent a lot of my time talking to people, in one-on-ones, team meetings, around the water cooler, and at the new coffee bar on the thirty-seventh floor. I took the time to learn about their jobs, their challenges, their likes and dislikes, and I asked for their advice on how we as leaders could best support them and make it easier for them to do a great job.

  I carried a spiral notebook with me wherever I went and after just a month I had to get myself a new one.

  At times I felt overwhelmed by all of the information I needed to process and all the new things I had to learn as well as the huge responsibilities and expectations that came with my new role.

  So, when Mr. Hatchett suggested that I might want to get myself a mentor, I jumped at the chance. “Give Lucy a call,” he suggested. “She’s the most experienced and competent of everyone on the board. I think the two of you will get along really well.”

  Lucy and I had met the day after I returned from Kaua’i, and I was extremely impressed by her. In fact, I was starstruck by her mere presence.

  Lucy Dellaware had held multiple executive and CEO roles in a number of Fortune 500 companies and was currently the chairwoman of two companies and a board member of three high-profile tech companies, in addition to TechnoGuard.

  She had recently been featured in Fast Company magazine as “The Godmother of IT.” Even the full-of-themselves kings of Silicon Valley went quiet when Lucy Dellaware opened her mouth.

  “Soft eyes, strong grip,” the Fast Company article had said of her. According to the article, Lucy had, in a recent board meeting, calmly told the young CEO of one of the world’s quickest-growing social media platforms to stop his obnoxious behavior and start acting like the mature leader his organization needed him to be.

  I was thrilled by the thought that she might mentor me.

  “I don’t know what Archie told you,” she said when I finally had built up enough courage to call her. “But I don’t do mentoring.”

  I stopped breathing. That was not the answer I’d been hoping for.

  “It sounds so pretentious and boring,” she continued, her voice deep and confident. “However, I would love to meet with you and chat.”

  I breathed out a sigh of relief.

  “Why don’t we have lunch next week,” she said, “and if we both enjoy it, we can do it on a regular basis.”

  And with that, Lucy Dellaware, one of the most successful and accomplished businesswomen in the country, became my mentor, or monthly “lunch buddy,” as she preferred to call it.

  Lucy usually picked the time and place for our lunches, the venue as varied as the topics we discussed. One month we went to a three-star Michelin restaurant, the next we had hotdogs on a bench in Central Park, but most of the time we went to laid-back, low-key places with great food.

  Regardless of the location, I loved our lunches, devouring every word Lucy said.

  She asked a lot of questions, seemed genuinely interested in my perspectives, and was always very generous with her own insights and leadership experiences.

  And one thing I could almost always count on was for Lucy to have a glass of wine with her food.

  Once she commented on this habit. “I’ve lived too long in Southern Europe to enjoy a good meal with just a glass of water.” She smiled at the waiter as he poured her a glass of Riesling.

  During this particular lunch, we were sitting across from each other on tall bar stools at a sushi restaurant in Midtown. While waiting for our food, I wanted to find out what it had been like for her when she was just starting out, so she obliged me and talked about her early years as a CEO and what she considered her biggest mistakes.

  I sat there with my notebook and a glass of water, intent on learning everything I could, and a little bit envious of her, drinking wine and not having to go back to an office.

  “I was inexperienced and had no idea how to be a CEO, so I observed other CEOs and then tried to mimic their styles and behaviors.” She took a sip of her wine. “That was a big mistake. I acted in a way that I thought a CEO should act, rather than doing what I felt was right and showing up as myself. Being a copycat didn’t only make me a pretty lousy and ineffective CEO, it also left me feeling deflated, frustrated, and unhappy.”

  I noticed the strained expression on her face.

  “I even tried to dress like the other CEOs. Considering that all of them were men, you can only imagine.”

  I laughed with her. I could easily relate.

  Soon after, the food arrived, and I took a bite of my salmon sashimi. I glanced over at Lucy who was closing her eyes, slowly chewing and clearly appreciating her food.

  Looking at her, it was hard to imagine her ever having been anyone but who she was today. Her thick gray hair tied loosely in a bun, dressed in a bright red blouse with black trousers, she had an air of confidence and strength. Yet she always wore a heartfelt smile. She quickly became a powerful role model for me.

  “So how did you do it?” I asked. “How did you become an effective leader and CEO while staying true to yourself?”

  Lucy sat quietly and reflected for a moment. “There really is not a simple answer to that question,” she said after a while. “But I think it had to do with self-awareness. The moment I discovered my lack of self-awareness and understood better the reason behind my unconscious choices, that was the moment I could start making different ones.”

  “What do you mean by self-awareness exactly?” I asked.

  Lucy had made it clear to me from the beginning that there was no such thing as a bad question, so I was never afraid to ask for clarification during our chats.


  She took another sip of her wine before she continued.

  “To me, self-awareness is about knowing myself. It’s about understanding my own emotions and reactions, my weaknesses and strengths, my values and beliefs. Whether we want to admit it or not, our inner life is always reflected on the outside, and only when we understand ourselves better are we able to understand why we make the choices we do and how our actions and behaviors affect others.”

  I nodded at what Lucy said. It made a whole lot of sense and actually reminded me of something Josh could have said.

  “In fact,” Lucy continued after having given the topic some more thought, “I will go as far as saying that self-awareness is the foundation of all leadership.”

  She rested her elbows on the table and looked at me intently.

  “If we don’t understand ourselves, how can we possibly understand others? If we don’t know how to lead ourselves, how can we even think that we can lead others? And there’s no way we can lead ourselves unless we understand ourselves—who we truly are, deep inside.” Lucy placed her hand on her heart.

  Then she smiled brightly. “So, the answer to your question is definitely self-awareness.” She took another sip of her wine and looked happy with her conclusion.

  I was fascinated by our conversation.

  “So what happened? When did you change?” I asked, but was interrupted by the waiter who came to collect our plates. We ordered coffees and a dessert to share, like we always did. When the waiter had left, I asked again, “How did you become more self-aware? Did something happen to trigger it?”

  I was thinking about my own experience. “Who do you want to be?” the soft voice had whispered. And suddenly I had just known.

  “Oh, I can thank my daughter for that,” Lucy said and smiled affectionately.

  I was surprised. I didn’t know Lucy had a child.

  “One morning Annabelle, who was only five at the time, asked me what it was like to be a grown-up. ‘Do you ever have fun, Mommy?’ she asked me.”