Decisions Ch. 01

*****

Kansas City in the summer can be oppressive. The hotels in the City often brief you on what to do if you hear the tornado siren go off. Tuesday evening I was sitting and looking out the window of my five-star hotel savoring the day but watching the darkest, meanest sky I think I'd ever seen, fully expecting the hotel warning system to go off. I had the weather channel on the television and it kept making strange sounds alerting everyone in the viewing area that there were severe thunderstorms with a likelihood of tornadoes across the two-state area. It was six o'clock and the sky should have been bright blue, instead it was almost black. A torrential downpour was rapidly flooding every road in sight from my window. Traffic was almost at a standstill.

I had actually had a good day. The flight had been on time and I'd gotten to my prospect's place of work at eleven o'clock thanks to a rare direct flight and they're being in a different time zone than the east coast. I'd made a presentation about McKinnett, my ideas for their transformation project, and then the room of executives had escorted me to lunch in the company cafeteria. I had tried to read their faces but near as I could tell the vote was inconclusive.

Over my end of the lunch table I used my best sales training to elicit their objections about the project and to respond to any misgivings they had. At the end of lunch we all walked back to the conference room we'd been in, stopping along the way for 'health breaks' in the various rest rooms.

When everyone was reassembled, Les Menchen, the head honcho explained that they were very open about their decision making process and the sharing of information. He said they had no secrets from each other and thus they felt they could discuss the merits of my proposal in open forum if that was OK with me. It was and I told him I liked the sound of that kind of company culture.

Les then went around the room and each person commented on whether they wanted to go forward with the strategic planning and reengineering project I had proposed. In the end there were ten favorable votes and one negative vote. Les turned to me and said, "Can you persuade Grace that she should give you a positive vote?" Grace was an assistant vice president and one of the key players in the group. Unfortunately we hadn't sat close to each other over lunch, so I didn't know what reservations she had about the project.

"Grace," I said, "if you were the president of this company what would you want to make happen?" She was taken back by the question but smiled at my rapid promotion of her to the top spot.

"I'd want to fix our drug approval process," she said. "It takes us six or seven years to collect enough clinical information for the FDA and then we screw around another year or two getting it analyzed and massaged so we can submit it to them. I'd love to take two years out of that process. If we do, for each drug we bring to market we'd save about a million dollars a day in bottom line profit."

"What if we made that the first priority of this project -- to take two years off the clinical trials and FDA submissions process?" I asked looking at the other executives to see whether they even thought that was a good idea.

Grace nodded, "If you start there you have my vote. That one move can have greater impact on our financials than any other single thing this company can do except finding a new blockbuster drug in research."

I turned to the others in the room, "What do you say to that idea? We could run the general project in parallel with the work on clinical trials and submissions."

Heads started to nod. Les stepped in with a smile, "I like that idea -- but why not make two projects instead of just one." He turned to the execs around the table; "To sweeten the pie, let me add that I will fund these projects from my budget. Neither of these efforts will come out of anyone's budget. Does anyone have any objection?" Heads around the room nodded in unanimous agreement.

Les turned to me and shook my hand, "David, it looks like you've sold two very large consulting jobs here today. Let's end this meeting and you group leaders figure out how to get these started." He turned and dismissed the others.

Grace, Roger, Hank, and Evelyn all stayed to talk with me about project launch and next steps. We met for another hour and filled about ten flip chart pages with a huge amount of planning information. I scheduled individual meetings for the next day with each of them and then the meeting broke up. I headed to hotel to make some calls back to New York and also to spend the night on my laptop trying to organize the pages of plans and ideas for the two projects.

I called my boss and told him the good news about the sales. He was the most ebullient I had every heard in his praise for my work and efforts. I did feel proud. I'd expected to land a single consulting project for about $150,000; instead I had sold two multi-million dollar projects, the combination possibly the largest ever sold at one time in the firm. Visions of partnership danced in my head; I could be the youngest partner. All I had to do was keep the client happy for a year.

I was almost through typing up my notes when my cell phone rang. I answered, "Hello, David here," as I usually did.

"David, this is Grace Malloy -- we met today."

"Yes. Yes. Grace. Hi. What can I do for you? I'm not in the offices, I'm in my hotel."

"I expected that. I was wondering if you were available for dinner -- assuming this storm doesn't spawn a dozen tornadoes. I thought we should get to know each other since we're going to be spending a lot of time together."

"I would be absolutely delighted. My stomach is already growling, however. I'm an hour ahead of this time zone so I'm ready when you are. Where should I meet you?"

"What hotel are you at?"

"I'm at the Intercontinental -- what used to be the old Ritz Carlton. They have a very nice restaurant and bar here, plus valet and underground parking. You probably wouldn't have to get wet," I offered.

"I'll meet you in the lobby bar in thirty minutes. I'd be eternally grateful if you'd order me a Merlot and have it waiting."

"Your wish is my command. See you in a half hour." I clicked the phone shut.

To be continued...