No word from Phil yet, and that has Chad a little antsy. The West Coast guys were always up and checking their BlackBerrys by now, in case there was a 911 from the mothership; and Chad's earlier e-mail would definitely qualify as a 911. He thinks it should have prompted some type of response. Chad needs to know that Phil got the message and that spreadsheet with the West Coast projected orders will be on the way soon.

Chad's first inclination is to fire off another e-mail. He turns to his computer and composes a second e-mail to Phil.

Subject: "WHERE ARE YOU?"

Phil. My earlier e-mail made it abundantly clear I need to hear from you . . . now. Please respond.

Chad

But he doesn't send the e-mail. He doesn't even pull up Phil's e-mail address to fill in the "To:" line. He decides to think some more about this. It's a wise decision.

Chad makes a quick analysis: Either something is wrong in Phil's personal life, Phil is pouting, or even worse, messing with him.

Oh screw it. I'll just call him, Chad thinks.

Then Chad puts the phone down. He doesn't want to appear either needy or weak, so he decides to wait it out for Phil. This is a poor decision.

Back in his office, Mike checks his e-mail. He's happy to see a response from Jeanie along with an attachment.

Re: Re: JUST LEFT YOU AN IMPORTANT VM YOU NEED TO CHECK RIGHT NOW.

Mike: Here's the spreadsheet with the projections. I'm sorry. I should have had it to you when I said I would. Will you please drop me a note to let me know you got it? Otherwise, I'll call you at 10 am, your time.

Thanks,

Jeanie

Mike opens the attachment and sees precisely the projections he needs to add to his report for the vendor negotiations this afternoon. Jeanie was late, but with a strong nudge from Mike, she performed in plenty of time.

Mike is pleased for two reasons. First of all, Jeanie understood the full importance of his message and therefore acted promptly to right her wrong. And she did it with a perfect apology. Mike taught his managers to accept responsibility for lousy performance promptly and then make amends quickly and powerfully. Finally, he wanted them to move one. "Express remorse and act upon it quickly," he'd say, "but don't wallow in it."

"Now, this is accountability," Mike says out loud with false sincerity. Lots of managers in the company went on and on about the importance of accountability. They threw the word around so much, Mike thought it lost all meaning, if it ever really had any at all.

That's why he was pleased with Jeanie's e-mail and even smiled when he retrieved the voice mail. She flat out said the magic words that made for the best apologies:

Mike had taught all of his employees his three-tiered format to owning up to a mistake:

No one who was late for a morning meeting with Mike would ever dare to blame traffic, weather, or a power outage that killed the clock radio; and anyone who didn't know better would face a blistering series of questions that always resulted in the guilty party admitting they were late because they had not allocated their time properly.

Mike walks the walk. When he screws up, he goes through the three steps himself. All of his managers had seen him do it more than once during the past few years. That's why Jeanie's voice mail apology worked so well for Mike. It was direct and short, offering no excuse. She also didn't make more of it than it was—a slight screwup, not a hanging offense. She even joked about Mike's use of the word "asshole," which showed Mike she got the message, but that she wasn't intimidated by his language.

Mike is in a buoyant mood as he heads into the small conference room for the division financial update from his controller. He notices he is two minutes early for the meeting. Good job, Mike, he thinks to himself.

The senior leadership at Mike and Chad's company provides each operating division with plenty of autonomy, even though many of the divisions are housed in the same building. Each division has their own infrastructure, including a president (Chad, Mike, and others), financial controller, HR department, and IT gurus, as well as separate sales teams and production units. The big bosses set this up for two reasons. The first was the desire for each division to be as nimble as some of the stand-alone companies they compete against. This full infrastructure approach gives each division the ability to make faster decisions in response to customers' needs and pressure from competition. They are quick responders because they don't have to run everything through corporate.

This plan also gives the corporate leadership the ability to measure the performance of each division against each other easily and quickly. The constant evaluations make for an exciting and dynamic culture. They like to pick apart what each division is doing right and doing wrong, and then offer those best practices to the company as a whole—just as they did with Chad's tremendous sales tracking tool.

Mike enjoys the financials update meetings with Ellen, his controller. While he has little interest in the mechanics of accounting and cash flow, he knows how critical they are to the success of his division. He's a marketing guy, not a finance guy, but he appreciates the intricacies of how the accounting world works, all the little rules and standards. And, because of the corporate structure, he doesn't have to wait to find out how he's doing from the CFO's office. Ellen can tell him.

A second reminder notice for Chad's meeting with his controller pops up on his screen. He snatches his trusty BlackBerry and notepad and stands up from his desk, when he sees the e-mail from Phil appear. It isn't the response Chad had anticipated.

Re: Re: NEED PROJECTIONS YOU PROMISED!!!

Chad:

Got your e-mail this morning, and I have to tell you it caught me a little by surprise. I do remember promising my purchasing projections, but I had no idea you needed them this morning. I was planning on going over them and getting the spreadsheet out to you by Wednesday. Now, for the first time, I know you need them today.

I have a breakfast meeting with a client that I can't cancel. I'll move everything else around this morning and hopefully I can have the projections off to you by 9:30 am my time. You shouldn't count on seeing it any earlier.

Chad, I'm sorry for the mix-up on this, but I did not know the urgency of these numbers. I would never let you down on purpose, and I think my track record shows this.

I hope you will have a successful meeting with our vendor.

Phil

This is a bad e-mail in so many ways for Chad. The worst news, of course, is that he won't have the numbers in time for the meeting with the vendor. He'll either have to cancel, show up late, or go in unprepared. Every one of the options will hurt his cause.

In addition, Chad is furious that Phil failed to acknowledge accountability for his missed assignment. Phil even had the gall to toss it off as a "mix-up." What crap! Chad knows that he had specifically told Phil about the projections deadline.

But that still isn't the worst thing about the e-mail. Phil had raised the stakes considerably by CCing Lynne, including her in the e-mail trail so that she could see Chad's original e-mail as well as the response. Lynne is the corporate executive VP and Chad's boss.

Chad feels a direct punch in the gut. Phil called Chad out in front of Lynne, and he had never pulled such a shenanigan before. On top of that, he had the political sense and even the guts to copy Lynne instead of blind copying her. A scenario in which Chad wouldn't see the correspondence going to Lynne would have been sneaky, and Lynne would have busted Phil for a devious end-around. But a direct CC wasn't devious at all—it was a full-on frontal assault.

Boy, he must be really pissed off by my by earlier e-mail, Chad thought. Free-spirited Phil and the organized Chad had endured plenty of go-arounds before, but they had always settled matters peacefully. And Phil is no dummy. He deliberately chose to make this e-mail a huge corporate issue.

The e-mail trail makes Chad look like a lousy boss—one who can't succeed with even the simplest of leadership communication exercises. So much so, his employees are now choosing to escalate issues up the corporate ladder. More fuel to that burning 360 fire from Friday.

He realizes something critical as he rereads the exchange. Phil's tone was consolatory and polite, and he offered a reasonable—if not perfect—solution to the tough situation. Chad now realizes that the words in his own e-mail, dashed off with so much authority two hours earlier, were dogmatic and almost childish. Insightful Lynne won't have to think too hard to see that Phil was sending a message: "Please, look at what we have to deal with, Lynne." This whole exchange makes Phil appear as the sensible one, while Chad comes off as the petulant child.

Chad quickly e-mails John, his controller, and asks for a 15-minute delay. He needs to think about all this; otherwise he won't be able to concentrate on the scheduled financial meeting.

"Before we get going, there is something important I need to tell you," Mike says to Ellen, with a mock serious tone.

"Oh, I'm sure there is." Ellen hands Mike the financial reports, puts her copies down in front of her, and looks right at him. "Well, what is it?" She's challenging him in this weekly game, very well aware of what's coming next.

"I had some dreams," Mike says.

Ellen shakes her head in disbelief and smiles. "Well, I guess they were just clouds in your coffee."

"Yes, they were clouds in my coffee," Mike reaffirms.

"Well, I guess someone you know is 'so vain' then, aren't they?" Ellen says.

"Nicely done!" Michael is again impressed with Ellen's prowess.

"Well, I try." Ellen is happy, too, though she knows Mike didn't work very hard on this one. But she always enjoys these little lyrics tests that Michael springs on her.

"Okay, well, what do you have for me?" Michael picks up the financial reports. The pleasantries are over with; the meeting is now officially starting.

"Well, first of all, the report today will be in a slightly expanded version," Ellen says. "I've taken our year-to-date numbers and added a comparison to benchmark numbers for our industry from several databases on the Internet. It's not a perfect comparison, but I'd still call it apples to apples, but not Red Delicious apples to Red Delicious apples. The bottom line, Mike, is that when you look at the other guys, we're doing pretty well."

This is exactly what he likes about Ellen. She frequently does extra work or develops additional financial reports that give him greater insight into how the division is performing. They're never the result of direct instructions from Mike. Ellen just starting doing these add-on chores about six months ago, and Mike made her feel great about it. It's easy for her to find the time because his specific compliments provide her with the energy and the incentive.

"This is great, Ellen, and I'm so delighted you used the 'apples to apples' thing instead of saying people who are 'in our space,' " Mike says. "Please continue. I am still on the edge of my chair." Mike presses his managers to eliminate jargon as much as possible in all of their meetings. He lectures them, sometimes daily, that relying on technical jargon—whether financial, production, or marketing—is the mark of a weak or nondistinctive leader.

Mike wants his team to become extraordinary—not just average. He tells them the best leaders dump jargon whenever possible, replacing it with commonsense language. This requires more mental gymnastics, he admitted, but makes for more powerful meetings and discussions. He'll let them use a bit of jargon once, but if they repeat it again too soon, Mike brings down the hammer.

When Mike unveiled this policy after he had been promoted, a number of his managers—including Ellen—pushed back, "So, we have to dumb it down to an eighth-grade level all the time, even when everyone knows what we're talking about?"

Mike didn't back down. "No!" He almost raised his voice, "You have to act like you are considerate of others, and that you intend to work hard to prove your point. You accomplish that when you use less jargon and only do so when it's absolutely necessary. Don't try to save time by spewing terminology. The more that you use, the more insecure or uncaring you sound. I'm going to be relentless on this, so consider this a stern warning." He was, and they all learned to follow his jargon-free communication example.

"You know, it was a struggle to not discuss 'benchmarking in our space' more, but I knew the beating I'd take if I did," Ellen admits. "Speaking the way you want us to is difficult for me."

"I know it is," says Mike, "and your hard work is paying off. Not only do I understand your reports more easily, but Andy would probably say you sound a lot more confident along the way as well." Andy is the company CFO, and, although Ellen doesn't report to him, she works with him frequently.

Chad makes very good use of the 15 minutes of breathing room he bought by delaying the next meeting with John, his financial guy. First of all, Chad figured out how he would handle the supplier situation. He'd just go ahead and make his pitch for better pricing without the numbers from the West Coast. He'd fake it and try to win with charm instead of numbers and data . . . and logic. It wasn't the most comfortable play for him, but he determined it was better than canceling the meeting.

Second, he composed a quick e-mail to Lynne to make sure she didn't feel the need to become a part of the little fracas with Phil.

Re: Re: NEED PROJECTIONS YOU PROMISED!!!

Lynne:

Sorry about the fact this hit your desk. I'll take care of this with Phil. I'll keep you in the loop and let you know how we resolve it.

Thanks,

Chad

He deliberately chose not to follow his initial impulse to call Lynne's cell phone, interrupting her in the middle of whatever she was doing this morning, and tell her Phil was lying. Instead this e-mail is contrite, giving Lynne good, brief information. She can take the Phil–Chad confrontation off her plate for a while.

He sits at his desk and thinks about all the variables in front of him.

The day was off to a crummy start.

Following the advice Mike gave him on Friday to take other people's insight into his communication style seriously, he starts to wonder if he might actually be the one responsible for this little mess. After about 10 minutes, he puts a list together in his head of all the variables he's facing with this Phil situation.

He resolves to make this right by the end of the day—first with Phil, and then follow up with Lynne. He doesn't know how he'll do it, but he remembers Mike's encouragement. This is just another wall he'll have to burst through. Even though, to be completely honest, Chad says to himself, none of this is my fault.

Chad feels better about the day as John gives the polite knock on the door before entering the office. The Phil issue is bad, but it is no longer a crash-and-burn situation. Financial meetings are always fun for Chad. He loves the order, the logic, and the rules of financial reports. No chance for leeway or miscommunication here. Either a number is right, or it's wrong. He welcomes the distraction.

"Hey John, how was the weekend?" Not much variance for Chad from his break-room routine.

"Oh you know, busy and too damn short." John sits down across from Chad and hands him last month's financials for the division. The report has a lot more comparison data than the one Mike and Ellen were going over. John's columns not only show performance for last month, but they have a number of other columns so Chad can see how his team did this month compared to projections for the year, industry averages, and his own running average for the last 12 months. It's all good information for any boss to have. John and Chad have a lot of beneficial discussions about the comparative data.

"I hear you on that one. Donna scheduled social stuff for us on both Friday and Saturday nights, which is a killer," Chad complains. "I was shot all day on Sunday."

Donna—whose suit was still at the dry cleaners—was a partner in a large law firm.

"Well, I guess you don't call the shots at home any more than I do these days," John offers.

"Oh, I stopped trying to call the shots a long time ago. You can't win an argument with someone who argues for a living," Chad smiles. He's proud of Donna and likes boasting about her.

"Okay, let's take a look here." Chad picks up the reports and starts his examination.

John didn't tell him his twin daughters competed in a two-day swim meet this weekend. That's what he meant when he told Chad he was busy. But Chad didn't ask any follow-up questions, so John lets it lie. That's fine with him. Everyone knows Chad is a decent guy, but he doesn't much care to know what goes on outside the office. He'd inquire about the twins every now and then, but not with much interest. Chad could probably remember that John's girls are on some sort of swim team, if he really thought about it. He doesn't know they're talented enough to be competing in statewide meets at their young age.

"Our office supplies expenses look a little out of whack here. Do you know why they're so high?" Chad asks. He's just testing John.

"Um, no I don't. You're right, they did spike a little last month . . . in fact, they're the highest they've been this year, when you look at the year comparison. I'll have to go back and chat with Cindy over the invoices we got this month to see what happened. I didn't notice any extraordinary shipments of stuff, though, so I don't know what it is."

John isn't sweating this. It isn't a huge dollar amount. But he knows Chad will want to get to the bottom of it.

"Well, maybe we can figure it out here," Chad offers. He already has a pretty good idea why the office supplies number is so high. "Shouldn't our depreciation expenses have gone up? We took delivery on those juiced-up computers and printers the graphics department has been bugging us about, didn't we?"

He's right, as usual, thinks John. "Yeah, that's it. We probably booked it as an office expense because the whole package was less than 20,000 bucks. Good catch. I'll have Cindy move it over to fixed assets and we'll get it into the depreciation schedule."

This is typical of the way these financial meetings go. Chad has a nose for cash flow and expenses and finds stuff like this all the time. His correction will make the P&L improve this month. They'll depreciate the expense over three years instead of taking it all this month, so they'll pick up a few bucks.

Most likely, Andy's financial team at the corporate level wouldn't have caught it, either. Chad's division is just one of several multimillion-dollar divisions that Andy has corporate financial responsibility over. This is too small of a dollar amount to hit their radar screen.

Still, Chad is happy. His financial statements will now be accurate, and that's always important.

"I'm sorry about that, Chad. Cindy knows better, and I should have seen it before you did," John says.

"No worries," Chad says, "the important thing is that we'll get it right now."

Chad is proud of himself. He caught an error and was pretty doggone nice to John in the process. All in all, the morning just got a little bit better.

John leaves the meeting thinking, once again, Chad is a pretty sharp cookie. But John didn't learn anything from the experience. Chad missed a great opportunity to explore the reason for the mistake or help John learn how to coach Cindy to make sure the divisional financial reports have the right information in the right place.

Mike really likes the extra work Ellen has been putting in to make the financials more meaningful for him. It helps him to make better decisions.

"Can you make it to the corporate management meeting next week?" Mike asks. "I'd like you to present this format with the 'apple to apples' stuff to the big bosses. This is a nice piece of work and I'd like them to see it." Mike wants to reward her hard work and innovation with meaningful recognition within the company. Ellen says she would be there and thanks him.

"Oh, and one more thing, Ellen," Mike says with a straight face and another over-the-top mock serious tone, signaling the meeting is over. "What would happen next if I told you that 'you run for cover so discreet'?" He asks, with no smile.

"Why that would be quite simple, Mike," Ellen says, admitting to herself that this reference to The FIXX is significantly more taxing than his earlier lyrical quiz about Carly Simon's "You're So Vain."

She doesn't let him know that, though. "Why, I would quickly ask 'why don't they do what you want, say what you mean?'"

"And why," asks Mike, "Would you possibly do that?"

"Because everyone knows that 'one thing leads to another.' " Ellen triumphs.

"Damn! Next week, I will get you," Mike jokes.

"Doubtful," says Ellen. She walks out of his office.

Yeah, doubtful, Mike thinks, filled with wonder at Ellen's financial mind and encyclopedic knowledge of '70s and '80s pop song lyrics.