Mike barely has time to hit the restroom and then refill his coffee cup in the break room before Louis flags him down in the hallway.

"We've got Denise Sizemore in 10 minutes, you know," Louis warns. "I hope you remember we're not in good shape on this one."

"Yes, not only do I remember, but I'm looking forward to it in a weird kind of way," Mike says. "Yesterday I looked over the e-mail trails between you two over the last few weeks. Not a pretty sight." Mike is actually ahead of the game for the first time today.

"Well, you're right on that . . . it's ugly," Louis says. "But why on earth would you say that you're looking forward to it? That's like saying you can't wait for your next colonoscopy."

Mike laughs. Louis is right; the meeting with Denise won't be a ton of fun. But Mike still has his reasons for his anticipation. "Well, for one, I'm looking forward to seeing you in action. Last week we prepared well for this," Mike explains. "Second, I'm interested in her reaction. She does a damn good job of negotiating for her company, so I want to see how she responds."

"So you're not expecting a world war?" Louis asks.

"No way," Mike says. "I'm guessing she'll back off as soon as you go forward with your plan. But she'll still try to get more than what's fair from us. That's what will make this interesting."

Chad and Jody have been huddling together in Chad's office since the planning session broke up minutes earlier. One of their biggest customers, Steve Moreno, had requested a face-to-face with them to discuss the delivery of his last two orders—both of which had been late.

Steve gave Jody a sarcastic answer last week as they were scheduling the meeting over the phone: "No, no, no. I'm more than happy to drive all the way across town and come to your office. I wouldn't want you to get lost along the way and show up late," he had told her.

"Do we have anywhere to go on this, or are we totally up against the wall?" Chad asks Jody.

"I don't know what to say to him. We screwed up, big-time, on his last two orders. I'd be pissed, too," Jody offers.

"Okay, here's how we'll play it. We'll say we're sorry and all that, but he has to realize it was a weird set of circumstances that caused the late shipments . . . you know, 'the perfect storm' thing, which is totally true," Chad says. "You take the lead, and I'll jump in when needed."

"Sounds like a plan," Jody shrugs. She doesn't think it's a very solid plan. Steve Moreno is a long-term customer. He's a reasonable guy; but he isn't a pushover. She's worried it's going to be rougher sledding than Chad is preparing for.

"Okay, let's you and I show a united front, and hope for the best," Chad says as he stands up straight and grabs his BlackBerry and his notes.

Louis, Mike, and Denise trade some minor pleasantries over the traditional guest "coffee, water, or soda?" ritual. Louis marvels at Mike's demeanor with Denise. He's friendly, but not gratuitous. He asks meaningful questions about Denise's company and her kids, but nothing that smacks of brownnosing. To anyone unfamiliar with the reason for the visit, it looks like Mike is doing a great job of naturally connecting to a valuable customer, with no agenda in mind.

Denise, in turn, is professional with Louis and Mike. She doesn't cop an attitude or act snippy. That doesn't mean she won't once they got going, but at least they're off to a good start. Louis takes note of Mike's steady performance early on in what is going to be a trying meeting. Mike isn't sweating, nor is he coming on too strong. He's just pleasant, with a nice touch of confidence.

Without any prompting from Mike, Louis officially starts the meeting.

"Look, Denise. We know we've been out of sync with you from day one on your last order, and the purpose of this meeting is to make it right," Louis says.

Denise leans forward and clasps her hands across the conference table from Louis and Mike.

"Okay, that's a good start," says Denise. "As long as you realize you're the ones who are out of sync with me, not the other way around."

"Yes, that's how we see it as well, Denise," says Louis. "This is our issue, not yours. But right now I want Mike to hear firsthand from you what went wrong. Please go over what happened, so when we start anew, we'll be working from the same template."

"Great. This is a nice touch with you being here, Mike. I'm impressed." Denise says. "But it might hurt some along the way, ripping off the Band-Aid all at once. Your team hasn't performed very well. And I didn't even stick it to Louis's guys very hard during the pricing negotiations. Looking back, I probably should have. This has been a real pain in the rear ever since I gave this project to you."

Louis notices Mike was right about Denise's plan. She complimented Mike first and then wound up to deliver a major haircut.

"I know," says Mike, "and that's why I'm all ears. Louis and I want to hear everything you have to say, now that we're together."

Louis and Denise then proceed with the blow by blow of the contract foul-ups.

"If you guys struggle so much just getting the paperwork right, I'm scared about what on earth will happen once your engineers have to start doing real work, which is already behind schedule," Denise says as she leans back in her chair. She pauses for a minute, looks hard, and continues. "We also have begun to wonder over at our place about some of the other stuff in progress we have going with you guys, based on this contract debacle."

Denise's company had hired Mike's division for two other projects that are in various stages of completion. It would be very disruptive to Denise's operation to pull the plug on Mike's guys and find another vendor. So this last jab is nothing more than a toothless threat. But she is good. It sure sounded like she meant it, especially since she has every right to follow through on her words. The contract she received was a mess.

Mike doesn't flinch from the "take my toys and go home" line because he's well prepared for it. His words of caution just before the meeting let Louis know that Denise would beat on them pretty hard. And, right on cue, she had.

Louis waits for Denise to finish. Even though she piles it on, taking a few liberties with the facts, she gets most of it right. She clasps her hands again and looks at Louis and Mike. Louis starts in.

"Denise, this was sloppy, sloppy work on our end. It's our fault and mine in particular as the sales manager. I didn't check the contracts before they went out the door to you, and I didn't respond quickly enough after your first e-mail. I'm sorry that we did a lousy job for you. We're very happy you are doing business with us, and we are glad you are a customer of ours—both now, and hopefully going forward. We know you have other choices; we always want to be the first choice. This was not a good way of demonstrating that to you."

"Well, when you're right, you're right, Louis. But what the hell happened here? You guys are usually better than this, much better," Denise says.

"Well, I could go through all the gory details with you, but they're boring and embarrassing," Louis explained. "Besides, we don't think you should have to be worried or even care about why we don't have our act together. Here's what's important: We let you down and now we're going to make it right."

Denise laughs, "You're right! I really don't care what happened. All I want is for you guys to stop giving me a headache. My head may stop hurting after you explain what you meant by 'make it right.' Now you have my full attention."

Chad, Jody, and Steve Moreno go through a stiff round of small talk while they get seated. Steve is not very talkative and obviously wants to get this show on the road.

"Well, Steve, we certainly appreciate your coming over here to meet with us," Chad says. "Jody has filled me on what's been going on with your orders and we're here to explain to you what happened and how we have things under control now."

"Oh, I know what happened," Steve jumps in. "What happened is you were late with my orders. It was five days late the first time, and seven days late with the next one. I didn't make the trip to find out what happened." He's getting heated. This isn't an act. "I know that you didn't deliver when you said you would, not once, but twice. So, I'm well aware of what happened. My question is, what are you going to do about it?"

Steve's tone is harsh and direct. He doesn't want to chat about circumstances on their end. He is putting them on notice, but he wants to get something out of this meeting with Chad and Jody other than just tales of woe. Chad sticks to the game plan.

"We'll get to that for sure, Steve," Chad says. "But first, Jody has to explain what happened from our end. It was really an unfortunate set of circumstances, which we want you to understand. Being late with deliveries is not how we do business. That's why we're happy for the chance to meet with you face-to-face. Go ahead, Jody."

Steve manages to turn and look at Jody, ready for her explanation; only it isn't with anticipation. He looks bored and angry.

"Well, it was really a mixture of three crazy things colliding all at once. Your orders hit our system right as our IT guys were finishing off the yearly upgrade to our shipping software. In the mix, your orders didn't make the transfer over to the new database. This was the first bit of lousy luck." Jody is making a brave case. Steve nods slightly, but he isn't agreeing.

"Here's where it gets worse. Our warehouse assistant manager, who always catches software issues like this stuff when she goes through the manual paperwork, is on maternity leave for another two weeks. The temp agency sent us someone who really left a lot to be desired, so we have to deal with training a new temp right in the middle of the software changeover." Chad can sense Jody losing steam some as she explains it all. He's right; it isn't convincing.

"Finally, your purchase order came though on the 30th of the month, which is always the craziest day of the month around here. I'm sure you can relate to that with your customers." Jody holds her out her hands slightly, with the gentle palms-up movement, and cocks her head to the side, "If this had happened on the 20th or even the 25th, probably someone along the way would have caught it for sure."

"So you can see, Steve," Jody prepares for this big finish, "it was just 'the perfect storm.' We hate to disappoint you, but it was just bizarre timing of three pieces of bad luck that led to the late shipments. Nothing more, nothing less."

Nice recovery, Jody, thinks Chad. And the perfect storm thing sounded pretty doggone convincing as Jody explained it. Maybe they'd get out of this without too much collateral damage.

But Chad isn't ready for the whack to the back of the head that's coming.

"That is the perfect storm, alright," Steve begins, with zero sympathy in his voice. "But I think you have me confused with someone who gives a damn. You guys were late—twice in two weeks—and that left me sucking wind with my customers on their critical orders. On top of that, I got no warning from you. Your software problems, a new baby for one of your employees, and an order on the last day of the month are immaterial to me."

Chad decides to push back. "Don't you think you're being a little hard on us, Steve?" Chad asks without much conviction. "I mean, that was a whole lot of lousy karma in one week for us, wasn't it?"

"Look Chad," Steve says, "You guys have done a pretty good job for us over the years, which is why I'm over here right now, wasting a morning. But I didn't lose two hours of my life with the drive across town to get a lame bit of education on lousy karma, perfect storms, or the miracle of childbirth. They are all just excuses. I got screwed on this. Big-time. That's what happened."

Chad gulps. Jody flushes. This is bad.

"And let me tell you something in case you don't know it. Your financial department doesn't give a red rat's petunia about my perfect storms when it comes to your invoices. I get a nasty warning letter at 35 days and then you guys cut me off 50 days until I'm current. My employees have babies, too; but I'd sure better get my precious little check out to your crack AR team or I'm toast. Can't you see that's why I'm losing it here? What's good for the goose apparently is not good for the gander." Steve exhales deeply.

Steve spat out a lot in the last few sentences. And, despite the vitriol, it is a powerful argument. Chad's division, in keeping with company orders, does keep a tight credit rein on all customers.

"Okay, Steve, I get it," Chad says. He looks uncomfortable for a moment. Then he decides, without warning Jody, to cave—fast and hard. "I think you're going to like what I'm going to come up with for you."

Steve nods; and Jody begins to worry. Chad usually costs the division money when he wings it in his discussions like these.

"We apologize for this mess, Denise, and we want you to know that we take full responsibility for it," Louis continues, without prompting from Mike. "So here's what we're going to do. I hope you'll forgive us and we can move forward."

Louis follows up with a detailed explanation of how he plans to spend the next three hours creating a new, correct contract that matches the proposal. He'll have it couriered over to Denise's office by 4:45 pm. He adds that he will cut the price of the project by 7 percent without eliminating a single menu item from the proposal Denise had approved.

"We need to take this hit on this, Denise, to show you we're serious," Louis says. "I know we can't make up for your time or frustration; but we have to give up some margin on this to show you we get it. You'll do well on this deal with the 7 percent drop in price this time. We want you to be happy and know that, when we screw up, we will make it right."

"Okay guys. This shows me you're sorry. I like the price cut, and I'll be in my office waiting for your courier, Louis, just before 5 pm. Just make sure the contract is perfect, and we'll sign it tomorrow. We need to get moving on this," Denise smiles. But she isn't done yet.

"Can you please call off the dogs in the accounting department? We get these calls from your AR guys at just 35 days on an invoice. You can almost set a timer to it," Denise explains. "Look, we've be doing business together for a while. We try to pay at 30 days, but sometimes that's just not possible, given everything that's going on," she says. Then Denise makes "the ask" and it is a big one.

"How about we change our terms to 45 days going forward, and we'll work really hard from our end to make sure, at the latest, we're getting you paid at 60 days, which I'm sure won't happen very often. This will make our good relationship even stronger." Denise isn't kidding with this; it's a serious request.

After a beat or two of silence, Mike is ready to speak; but Louis beats him to it. "That's not going to work for us, Denise, and let me tell you why," Louis says. He's not defensive; but he demonstrates conviction. Even though he's just apologized and cut the price for this particular project, he stands his ground. Andy, the company's CFO, based all of his projections and financial models on customers paying on a 30-day net, with some allowances for the occasional payment that went beyond 45 days from good customers. But even good customers didn't have much leeway. Steady, consistent cash flow was the bedrock behind the ability of all the divisions to provide great value to customers and timely payment to vendors. Lynne and the rest of the management team of the company backed Andy strongly on this issue, and all the division managers had their marching orders: Discount the price every now and then if you must, but stick to a 30-day net payment to maintain cash flow.

"The success of our division and our whole company depends on us maintaining 30-day terms with all of our customers—even great ones like you, Denise. We're not going to be able to move on that for you." Louis stops talking. It is Denise's turn.

"Hey Mike, can you help me out on this one here?" Denise presses slightly, but with a lot of skill. "Sounds like Louis here had too much of the company Kool-Aid this morning. Can you get him to agree to relax the 30-day rule some? I'd really appreciate it." Denise is a great negotiator. Even though she is going over Louis's head right in front of him, she does it with charm and humor, which makes the second request sound reasonable. There's no tension in the room.

"I can't help out, for two reasons, Denise. First, Louis is calling the shots here. I'm just here to observe and learn something from both of you," Mike says. "And the second point won't be what you want to hear, either. I drank the same Kool-Aid as Louis. We all do every day." Mike smiles, "We have to stick with 30 days. There's no flexibility at all on this item."

"Okay, I get it," Denise says, "but will you do me at least one favor in the meantime? Mike, will you please ask the big bosses down the hall to give just us a break on this going forward? I promise I won't tell anyone else about it, and it would make me look really great to my boss." Denise flashes a Dentyne-like smile, showing all the choppers. But she isn't kidding. She's still pushing.

Mike admires her and thinks she'd make a great addition to anyone's team.

"Denise, despite your formidable skills of persuasion, I'm not even going to ask for you," Mike says. "It won't work with the CFO, and it won't help either one of us."

"Really?" She asks slowly, just trying one last time.

"Yes, really, Denise; but boy, you are good," Mike answers.

"You're right, I am good." Denise says. She stands up with a burst of energy and another big smile.

"Louis, why don't you come by yourself with the contracts at the end of the day, instead of sending the couriers? I'll even make sure there's a fresh pot of coffee going in case you want to stick around a bit to talk about some other ideas we've been tossing around for next quarter. Mike, you lay off the Kool-Aid. You boys are too well trained."

Chad turns to Jody and makes a pronouncement with a slow and deliberate tone. "For the rest of the year, Jody, starting today, we're going to provide a 5 percent across the board discount on all of Steve's orders. That's on top of the sharp pencil we always use for him. Jody, can you make sure the rest of the sales team knows of the special Steve Moreno discount?"

"Yes, I will, Chad." She takes out her BlackBerry, "I'll create an agenda item right now for our sales meeting next Monday. We'll make sure everyone knows." Jody is sharp, backing up Chad without a fight.

She makes a mental note to tell Louis—her counterpart in Mike's organization—that she resisted the urge to pull a "Sonny Corleone," despite the fact she lost three-eighths of her tongue while biting through it. Louis would get the Godfather reference immediately and know she had wanted to disagree with Chad, but she had the good sense to "never show her true feelings to outsiders."

She had a feeling Chad would pull a stunt like this once Steve bared his teeth. But she also knew that Chad didn't have to go this far. The "perfect storm" idea was weak, and once it had failed to soften Steve, Chad was overcompensating with this year-long discount. If they had discussed this ahead of time in greater detail, she would have kept him from making such a drastic concession. Steve probably would have been placated with a 5 percent discount on each of the screwed up orders. If Chad wanted to be a real mensch about it, he might have gone to 7 percent—but just on these two orders. Giving Steve a permanent discount for the year will screw up their margins and give them less wiggle room with other customers as the year goes on. Also, it will be hell to get Steve back to his original price once he gets used to the discount.

As for Steve, he is surprised at the 5 percent year-long discount, but he has the moxie not to show it. And Jody is right; he would have been delighted with a real apology and a small price cut of the two late orders. Instead, he got a pile of dumb excuses, and that made him hot.

He's surprised that Chad, buttoned down and sharp as a tack when it comes to numbers, folded so quickly instead of just admitting he didn't have his operational act together. That alone probably would have cooled Steve down. Instead, Steve decides to keep Chad on the run. Maybe there's more money in it.

"Okay, I'll accept your apology; and I'm looking forward to the discount. But, while we're at it, can we look at one more item that would really help me to forget the mess you've got in your shipping department?" Steve asks.

Chad thinks this is a good sign, "Yes, of course. What else can we do for you?"

"Can we get your financial guys to relax their terms a little?" Steve asks. "Not a lot, just a little. If we could go net 45 on our orders to the end of the year along with that great discount you've offered, why, it would be like those two late shipments never even happened, as far as I'm concerned."

Jody looks at Chad, hoping he will come clean and say they right thing to Steve. She is disappointed.

"Steve, I'm going to do everything I can to get our credit guys to offer 45-day terms. It's a reasonable request, after all, given all that's going on. I'm making no promises, because our rules on terms are handed down on tablets from corporate; but I certainly can try. Can I get back to you next week on this?"

"Sure, that would be great," says Steve. "Next order on time though, with the 5 percent discount, we're all clear on that right?"

"You bet," says Chad.

"Well, then this morning wasn't a waste of time after all," says Steve, as he is leaving.

After he walks out of the office, Chad says to Jody, "Whew, that was brutal, but I guess it wound up okay, don't you think?"

"Yeah, it was okay I guess in the end; and yeah, it was brutal," Jody says. The year-long discount isn't a complete disaster, she thinks, if that's how Chad wants to evaluate things. What isn't okay with her is that Chad knew he had no chance of changing the payment terms for Steve. Oh, he didn't out-and-out lie about it; Chad, being Chad, absolutely will do what he said and will follow up. He'll weakly ask Andy, the corporate CFO, to make an exception for this customer. But Andy won't budge and Chad knew it, ahead of time. Andy will probably wonder why Chad would even ask about relaxing the terms.

Jody doesn't respect Chad's weak qualifying choice of words like "I can certainly try." Chad knew even before he said it that he would be calling Steve back with disappointing news on the terms next week. He was placating Steve Moreno, instead of treating him like a trusted business colleague. Jody would have actually looked up to Chad if he could have just told Steve straight up that they'd have to stick with 30-day terms. The meeting still would have ended on an upbeat note.

It's turning out to be a rough morning for Jody. Chad isn't a very motivating boss, she's starting to realize. If times were better, she'd get an updated resume out on the street. Instead, she decides to just try to keep her head down, deal with Chad, and get through this part of her career. Maybe she'll update her resume tonight as well.