Heavy hangs the head

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jones didn’t sit when Monica called him into her office. Without saying a word, Monica pulled up his unsanctioned AI Next talk on her screen. She met his eyes and waited.

“I’m the only one who sees what has to be done,” Jones sputtered, his voice cracking. Monica said nothing. He doubled down. “I’m the product marketing VP. This is my job! We are going to lose in the marketplace if we don’t announce an AI strategy right now. I saw the opportunity and took it. You should be thanking me!”

Monica smoothed a non-existent wrinkle out of her shirt cuff before speaking. “Jones, if you want to make unilateral decisions, go found your own company, get your own funding, and recruit your own team. Then you can do whatever you’d like.”

Jones couldn’t formulate a suitable response, so he just sputtered again and fled, out of Monica’s office and the building. He hopped into his car, turned over the ignition to let his engine’s fierce power soothe him. ‘We’ll see how they all do without me,’ he said to himself as he peeled out of the parking lot at 80 mph.

Meanwhile, Emily in PR had her hands full, walking back both Jones’s made-up presentation on their AI strategy and their absent co-founder Arun’s vague speculative comments about
WidgetCo and AI. Marcus stopped by to check on her. “How’s it going?”

“Just rinse and repeat, Marcus. Smiling, speedily responding with the same damn words over and over again. Fulfilling my job description!”

“Anything I can do?”

“Get me another Red Bull?”

About two hours after Jones left, Hector, WidgetCo’s CRO, and Gary, WidgetCo’s COO, walked into Monica’s office. “We have a problem,” Gary said.

“You mean besides our customers wanting to buy Jones’ fake product?”

“On that, I know the new customer deck is underway,” Hector said. “Emily did a great job coaching the sales team on handling customer calls. And I hear Justine is making Clara’s plan our top priority. So as long as Arun doesn’t derail us, it seems like we’re on the right track.”

Hector was nervous talking. Monica could tell he was avoiding something.

Gary said, “It’s about Gordon, the newest hire in sales . . .”

Hector cut in to blurt out, “He took our prospects from Chevron to the Gold Club.”

Monica took a deep breath, reminding herself internally that she signed up for this insane job.

“Did he get out of a time machine from 1972 before taking this job?” Monica spat out before she got a hold of herself.

Neither Hector nor Gary knew how to respond to that one. Monica put up her hand. “OK. Three things. You two meet with HR and decide whether you’re going to rehab or exit Gordon for taking customers to a strip club. Second, Hector, make it clear to your entire team that this is unacceptable behavior. In writing. Third, Gary, let’s re-run our ethics and professional practices course. For everyone, not just sales. And make sure we’re covered with legal.”

“Got it boss,” Hector said. Gary gave Monica an encouraging smile and a thumbs up as they walked out of the room.

Monica sat back in her chair, closed her eyes and wondered if she should just move to Jackson Hole and be a ski bum for the rest of her life. Then she sat up straight, took a sip of water, arranged her face into the perfect picture of confidence and reassurance and got on her fourth customer video call of the day.

Monica is both a master of her own emotions and a straightforward communicator. These are essential skills for any leader - especially in a chaotic environment like WidgetCo! And Emily, as every great PR person does, repeats and repeats and repeats her message with a smile.

[Need to catch up? Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six. You can also find extra tidbits of WidgetCo backstory on poseycorp’s blog.]