Tell the right story

CHAPTER NINE

[This is the penultimate chapter of Clara and Marcus’s fictional adventures at WidgetCo. If you’d like to see how the drama began, start here.]

“Tomorrow I’ll be delivering the closing keynote at Safe AI,” Monica said at a hastily-called company All Hands. “The speech isn’t yet 100% finished, so I can’t share it now, but we will be laying out a comprehensive new vision for generative AI that has trusted, owned data as its foundation. We’ll be having a watch party at the office tomorrow at 4 p.m.

“Next Wednesday we’ll hold a full-day offsite. We’ll do a plenary session in the morning on our objectives, strategy, and timeline and then each team will do their own two-hour deep dive session. After that, we will all go out for a much-needed celebration.

“It’s a crazy time in our industry, which means we have to work harder than ever for our customers, who depend on us to steer them in the right direction. Each one of you has a vital role to play.”

“What about the product direction that Jones presented at AI Next?” said the sales guy who Monica noted had apparently not been fired for the Gold Club incident.

“We’re clarifying and augmenting,” said Monica. “We have a robust, responsible plan. In tomorrow’s keynote, we will lay out all of the details and set a clear path forward.” She searched the room for Jones. Was that him lurking by a pillar in the back of the room?

“And what about Arun’s comments a couple of weeks ago?” said a junior engineer who looked a little indignant.

“Let me address that,” said Arun, who so far hadn’t said a word at the All Hands. “I made a mistake. Monica and Justine and the whole team have been hard at work on our AI strategy and I was too out of touch to know what was going on. I should not have said anything in public. It won’t happen again.”

“We’ve reached agreement on our strategy. We are now all rowing in the same direction,” said Monica, nodding and smiling at Arun, who nodded and smiled back. “Now 10,000% of our focus has to be on making each one of our customers successful.”

The next afternoon, Monica got huge applause at the end of her keynote.

Emily called Clara and Marcus as soon as she got into her car. “It was a smash,” she said. “The customer stories got whoops. Analysts were swarming me asking to come in for briefings, I even had a few clueless VCs give me business cards. At least six reporters wanted time with Monica, but I only let them have five minutes each. Oh, I have to go, another one is calling me now.”

Monica called Clara just a few minutes later. “Clara, things have been so crazy, I don’t know if I have said it clearly enough. I want you to know that I know the source of our new strategy. I am so grateful that you brought the right idea to us in the right way at the right time. You changed the future of WidgetCo.”

“Wow, uh, well, it was just a proposal,” said Clara, too overwhelmed to know what to say. “Everyone added so much.”

“Of course. That’s what we do. But the kernel came from you. I’d love to sit down with you next week and talk about your role at the company and what you’d like to do.”

“I’d love that,” said Clara, feeling a little dizzy.

Monica hung up feeling proud of and grateful for her whole team at WidgetCo, but about four seconds later, her happy bubble burst. Jones was calling.

“We’ve called an emergency board meeting,” he said. “Tomorrow morning at 10. To discuss the makeup of the executive leadership team. Your attendance is, of course, mandatory.”

WidgetCo’s whole team mastered their channels - telling the story to customers, to employees, to the industry, to analysts and press. And they squashed confusing, unpredictable messages.

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