by Richard Hine
“That’s nice.”
“After that, I told him he could crash with us for a night.”
“Oh, really.”
“You have a problem with that?”
“Me?”
“Don’t give me that look,” she says. “He wanted to get together. What’s your problem? He wants to meet you. I haven’t seen him for twenty years.”
“No problem,” I say. “I always love to meet your friends.”
On Friday morning, I decide it’s important for me to make up the weekly staff meeting I canceled when Ben got fired on Wednesday.
I normally have the meeting at eleven thirty on Wednesdays. Eleven thirty’s a good time for it. It motivates everyone to get through the topics we’re discussing within an hour. That way we can all take a full ninety minutes for lunch. And Wednesday’s usually a good day for it. It avoids conflicts with other weekly meetings. Plus, because it’s in the middle of the week, it gives us time to correct the mistakes of the first half of the week and get things back on track by Friday. This timing doesn’t allow us to correct the mistakes of the second half of the previous week. But those mistakes have often been forgotten or superseded by others long before the next Wednesday meeting rolls around.
If ever I cancel the meeting, I usually let things slide till the following Wednesday. But this hasn’t been a normal week. My team needs to see me steering our departmental ship with confidence. Rumors are flying. They need me to confirm that management knows what it’s doing and has a clear vision for the future. They need me to reassure them that their work is valued and their livelihoods are secure.
I can’t do any of that. But the meeting may help me crystallize my thinking on how my team might function with two less people—and which two names I will give to HR next month so that severance packages can be prepared.
The first step will be to decide whom I need to keep. And then whom I want to keep. I will put on paper my optimal mix of people—a mix that will ensure I have a fully functioning, appropriately motivated team. After that, I will adjust as necessary for factors beyond my control, like Henry’s misplaced love for Cindy.
Being on time for the meeting, I’m the first one seated in the small conference room. The rest of my team shuffles in over the next few minutes.
Barbara Ward is the first to arrive. Which makes sense. As the departmental assistant, she’s the least busy. In theory, Barbara’s job is to help ensure that my whole department runs smoothly. In reality, she is one of those old-timers at the company for whom any job description became superfluous many years ago. But I turn a blind eye to her photo-sharing and eBay addictions because Barbara does have one talent that makes her indispensable. Her capacity for endurance gossiping is unparalleled. She spends hours each week plugged in to a network of executive assistants throughout the company, which means she is always first with the scoop on upcoming hirings, firings, staff promotions and product launches.
“What’s new?” I ask as she takes her seat two places down the table. And then, in case she feels the need to update me on her grandchildren’s lives, I specify: “I hear they’re staffing up in Yolanda Pew’s division.”
“How do you know?” she says. “It’s all meant to be top secret.” I suspect Barbara has a paranoid streak, that she thinks her internal calls are being recorded.
“I’ve talked to Barney Barnes,” I say. She doesn’t need to know that the last time I talked to him was a year ago at the cafeteria salad bar.
Barbara leans toward me and says in a loud whisper, “Can you believe it? Everyone else is getting laid off, and he’s hiring eight new people. He’s even talking to Martin.”
Like I said, Barbara is indispensable.
The door opens and Angela Campos walks in with the notebook and pen she likes to carry. Today, Angela is in a tightly buttoned blouse with a cutout pattern down each arm. She walks around to sit opposite Barbara. Even though she’s two seats down from me, she’s close enough that I smell the flowers of her perfume.
“Hi, Mr. Wiley,” she says.
Barbara makes a huffing sound.
“Russell,” I say and clear my throat. We sit in silence for a while. I notice that Angela has drawn a series of interconnected swirls on the inside cover of her notebook.
Erika Fallon and Sally Yun arrive together. This is their first meeting as part of my team. They sit together at the far end of the table.
We all sit in silence for a while as I practice looking at Erika with the same expression of professional detachment I use on the rest of my team.
Kelly Gardner and Jeremy Stent, our two marketing coordinators, arrive. They’re deep into a discussion of the cookies now being served in the staff cafeteria, where a new food service company has just taken over the contract.
Pete Hughes follows. He’s one of the four managers who report to me. Pete’s a short guy, mostly bald, who moves with his head down. He used to wrestle in college, but that was twenty years ago. He looks up briefly to check who’s here, then sits in a chair close to the door. As usual, his top button is undone and his tie is loose at his collar. His sleeves are rolled up to reveal hairy arms. When forced to sit down at any kind of internal meeting, Pete can never shake the air of impatience that hangs over him. I sympathize. I know what it feels like to have a ton of work piled up on your desk, all with pressing deadlines, only to have to sit through another bullshit session that doesn’t accomplish anything or help anyone move projects forward. But while I sympathize with Pete, he’s starting to bug me too. As he waits for the meeting to begin, he makes conspicuous notes on his pad to remind us he has a lot on his mind and many better things to do.
I let the inconsequential chatter continue. I know it’s important for a certain personality type to connect with people they work with on a more personal level. The discussion broadens from the specific (cookies) to the general (desserts). It’s interesting to watch Kelly get passionate about carrot cake. She thinks it’s “way too sweet” and “virtually inedible.” Kelly is one of the invisible people, a quiet and hardworking employee who’s too busy and too shy to worry about her profile with management.
Kelly’s the first person Henry would want me to fire. He doesn’t like the way she looks. He barely acknowledges her existence. He has no idea how much work she actually does.
The conversation ceases when Roger Jones arrives. It’s an awkward silence. A line I once saw on a refrigerator magnet pops into my head: stressed is the opposite of desserts.
I start thinking about how I’m actually going to run my department with Roger out for six weeks and two others permanently gone. It won’t be easy. My company is neither ruthless nor effective when it comes to firing people. We’re not like those organizations that execute a rigid performance management plan—and eliminate the bottom ten percent of their workforce every year to make room for new hires. In those companies, everything’s out in the open. People know if they are not measuring up. When the ax falls, the nonperformers get cut. There are really no surprises.
Burke-Hart is not like that. We like to promote collegiality. Our performance management system is directional, based on the personal, nonscientific observations of departmental managers. There’s no penalty for poor performance built into our grading system. We don’t have the annual cull of the lame, the weak and the unproductive. When business gets bad and layoffs come, we start to panic. We reduce headcount randomly. We’re just as likely to eliminate star performers or reliable workers as we are to chop away the real dead wood.
Meg Wilson comes in and apologizes for being late. I’m mildly pissed, but at least she has a reason: she was held up at a client meeting.
Finally, Cindy Lang makes her entrance. Despite being almost fifteen minutes late, she’s taken the time to stop in the kitchen and make a coffee. She sets her mug down at the head of the table opposite me.
“Are we all here?” she asks.
An outside observer might assume this was Cindy’s meeting. That she was the boss
we were here to serve. In fact, Cindy is the most junior of my four managers.
I look around the room, making eye contact with everyone but Cindy. “Right,” I say, “let’s get started.”
We run through the items on my agenda. I welcome Erika Fallon and Sally Yun, announce formally that Roger will be taking a leave of absence starting in a week and a half, then update the team on revenue forecasts and details of the latest budget cuts. No one brings up the layoff rumors, so I glide right by that issue, asking each of my managers for their usual team update on current projects and issues. I allow the meeting to proceed and wind down at its normal pace. It looks like I’m taking occasional notes, but in reality I’m just writing down the names of the people in my department, putting each name into one of three columns. Halfway through the meeting, Angela picks up her pen and starts adding more swirls to the pattern she’s creating on the inside cover of her notebook.
Erika Fallon pays attention to how Meg, Pete and Roger deliver their updates, then seamlessly takes her turn and delivers an efficient five-minute report.
Something about Erika Fallon’s delivery reminds me of Sam. For two years after we got married, Sam threw herself into a career in public relations. She was passionate about her job, enthusiastic about her work, and eager to advance. Within a year, she became an account executive, working on a rotating client list, putting in long hours, bringing work home most nights. She was making good money. Just like Erika Fallon, she invested in a chic work wardrobe. She prided herself on being ultra-organized, always on top of things. Then something changed. Seemingly overnight, she became allergic to what she was doing. Nothing was right. She hated her clients. Her colleagues drove her crazy. The concept of spin—the basic mode of communication for the PR industry—disgusted her. I listened. I commiserated. After a while, I told her to look for another job. After that, I told her if she really couldn’t stand it she should just quit. That was twelve years ago. Somewhere along the way, I realized that Sam and I were having a communication problem of our own. Maybe I should have taken into account the business she had worked in. When I said “quit,” she spun it into “retire.”
After Erika wraps up, Cindy speaks. In front of her peers, she’s less of a showboat, hiding her true colors. Keeping one eye on the clock, she wraps up precisely at 12:29. Everyone starts closing their notebooks and acting as if the meeting’s over.
“Oh,” I say, “there’s one more thing I should mention.”
I remind them that Henry has hired a new consultant named Judd Walker to work on a special project. That he will be working on the twenty-sixth floor for the next couple of months. That he will likely need to speak to each of them individually.
“He’s been round twice already,” says Pete.
“What exactly is he working on?” asks Meg.
“Just some data gathering,” I say. “Some analysis. Our job is to make sure he gets everything he needs to complete his project.”
“What kind of data will he need?” asks Meg.
“We’ll let him figure that out. Let’s see what he asks for and help him any way we can.”
“OK,” says Meg.
“OK,” says everyone else, starting to get out of their chairs.
“Just don’t overburden him,” I say. “I’m sure he’ll be crunching a lot of numbers. Make sure not to give him anything he hasn’t specifically requested.”
“OK,” says Meg.
“OK,” says everyone else.
“How about this?” I say. “Anytime he asks you for anything, no matter how trivial it seems, please review the request with me before responding.”
“OK,” says Meg.
“OK,” says everyone else.
“In the meantime,” I say, “just try to ignore him. Pretend he’s not here.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I buy an egg salad sandwich and a diet iced tea and head to the concrete park around the corner from my office. It’s a mini-refuge between the high-rises. I find a table being vacated by three Brazilian tourists near the trickling wall fountain. Within a minute, I allow the other two chairs to be dragged away. That suits me fine. No one will bother me now. And I need to think.
Henry’s demanding a twenty-five percent staff reduction from my eight-person department. Excluding myself, I’ve got seven people to choose from, not including Erika and Sally, whose original department has already endured its trauma.
I unfold the sheet of paper on which I’ve written the names of the people in my department into three separate columns.
I take a bite of my sandwich and think about what to do next. I have a clear understanding of how to define my A players. Meg, Roger and Pete are the only ones I can rely on to take on and complete any assignment.
After that, we all rely on Kelly to help organize all the added-value extras we’ve promised to advertisers—such as cover wraps, special distributions and promotional mailings.
Beyond that, Barbara gets a free pass. She didn’t take the voluntary early retirement package the Ghosh Corporation offered earlier this year. That means she wants to stay. After more than thirty years of loyal service, I simply can’t fire her.
In my own head, it seems straightforward. Cindy and Jeremy have to go. There’s only one snag. There’s no way I’ll convince Henry to agree with my assessment.
I break the problem into two.
I know I can sell Henry on the idea of firing Jeremy. He’ll ask me to explain why I’m not firing Kelly instead. But my story’s simple. Jeremy’s not working out. He’s still on probation. Besides, Henry will give me one of my picks. He may not like Kelly. But he doesn’t even know Jeremy’s name.
Cindy is the tough one. She recognized quickly that Henry shares a fatal flaw with many great salespeople. He not only loves to sell, he loves to be sold to. So that’s how she spends her time. Fawning over him. Pushing herself forward. Maintaining the kind of unsullied workspace he admires. Taking credit whenever possible for other people’s poopie. Convincing Henry that she, Cindy, is one of the company’s future Unicorns.
My task won’t be easy. But for the good of my team, it’s important that I succeed.
I put my notepaper away and continue thinking.
There was a time in my youth—a brief, shining moment—when I thought I could take on the world. I would be unstoppable. I didn’t know how I would do it, of course. But I was determined about one thing: I would refuse to be ordinary.
There was a time in my career when, through a combination of luck, circumstance and my own proven performance, things went really well. I was promoted fast. I changed companies a couple of times. My salary doubled in three years. Then doubled again in another five. When things started to slow, I jumped to the Chronicle. That was more than four years ago. I settled in. I got promoted, moved to a bigger office. And that’s where I am today. On a slow train to obscurity. Stuck in the world of middle management. Navigating my way through a world defined by hiring freezes, reductions in force and faux-generous severance packages. Buried under an increasing workload. Getting calls from out-of-work former colleagues still looking for jobs—while the headhunters have all gone quiet.
I’ve dug myself into a hole. I assumed my performance would speak for itself. I had faith that management would recognize and reward good work. Then I sat back and watched as other people—aggressive, hard-charging, permanently networking types—charged ahead. I let it happen. Why? Because I was too busy digging my hole to do anything else. I didn’t have time to deal with all the networking. I didn’t realize the subtle difference between being labeled a high performer instead of a high potential. But that’s all got to change. I can’t sit back anymore. The company needs to see me as an investment in the future, not a cost it wants to contain. The company has to see a new side to Russell Wiley. There’s only room for one Unicorn in my department. And that Unicorn has to be me.
I finish my iced tea, throw away an uneaten half sandwich, and head back to the office. I feel on the ver
ge of a momentous decision. It won’t be easy. But the time has come for me to step outside my comfort zone.
I run into Rachel Felsenfeld, Liz Cooke’s nemesis, at the elevator bank in the lobby.
She looks at me out of the corner of a half-closed eye. Her hair is cropped short and plastered to her scalp with wet-look gel. She’s wearing a designer ballet shirt, black tights and flat black shoes. The shirt is decorated with asymmetric orange and black stripes: horizontal on her right sleeve and across the front, vertical on her left sleeve. I realize the pattern isn’t as anarchic as it looks. It’s intended to represent something.
“Is that an elephant?” I ask.
She looks at me as if she hasn’t quite understood. I’m not sure if she even knows my name.
“Your shirt. I figured it out.” I lean forward and trace the pattern in the air, ignoring the fact that she takes half a step back. “Leg, body, leg, trunk.”
Rachel’s eyes are now fully open. Despite her anorexic frame and my clear height advantage, she looks ready to take me down if I move another inch closer.
I shrug and step back. “It looks like an elephant to me.”
“Then I guess it is,” she says.
We ride up to twenty-five in silence.
I realize that if Martin leaves, Rachel Felsenfeld will be Henry’s first choice for the creative director position. Liz Cooke won’t even be considered. Just as if I ever leave, the only internal candidate Henry will consider to lead my department is Cindy Lang.
I approach my office slowly. I’ve always defended my way of doing things. I tell people it’s organized chaos. As long as the cleaning staff doesn’t touch anything, I always know where everything is.
Today, I imagine the scene through Henry’s eyes. Henry, who views his immaculate, virtually paper-free office as a reflection of both his well-ordered mind and the control he brings to every management challenge.