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86
fortune to a river.
21
Life and work bring long stretches of
relative calm, unpredictably interspersed with periods of
frightening, dangerous turbulence. Twenty years ago, no one
expected the internet to radically transform life and work
and to create extraordinary opportunities for entrepreneurs
of all kinds. Ten years ago, few people expected a financial
crisis to bring the world economy to the brink of another
Great Depression.
Becky Friedman’s resolution of her problem with Terry
Fletcher is a clear example of how people and events can take
unexpected twists. Friedman decided to try a counseling ses-
sion with Fletcher. She told him she had definitely decided to
give him a 2.5. He immediately objected and said that wasn’t
fair. Then she added that she wasn’t going to put him on a
PIP because she thought that would be demeaning. She also
suggested he think hard about the recent hires in her depart-
ment. They all had strong technical skills, and she added
that he was unlikely to be happy or successful, surrounded
by people with these backgrounds. She then suggested that
Fletcher spend the next several months doing his job and
looking carefully for another job.
Friedman was surprised and relieved when Fletcher smiled
a little, relaxed, and said he would think about her sugges-
tions. Apparently, he had already been toying with this idea.
Fletcher spent the next several weeks looking for other posi-
tions, inside the company and elsewhere. Before too long, he
found a good job with another firm.
It is easy to dismiss all this as just good luck. And Friedman
did have some luck or, as Machiavelli and many other classi-
cal writers would see it, fate and fortune had smiled upon
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87
her. A dyed-in-the wool cynic might not have even attempted
Friedman’s approach, thinking the only options were doing
what the bosses wanted or losing her job. A naive optimist might
have ignored the threats from her bosses, skipped the counsel-
ing session, and given Fletcher a 2.5. Fortunately, Friedman
was a pragmatist, prepared for a range of contingencies and
flexible enough to take advantage of what actually did occur.
She had no way of knowing whether the option of counseling
Fletcher would work, but he smiled when she suggested look-
ing for another job. Friedman was watching carefully, she saw
his reaction, seized the opportunity, and took advantage of it.
Keep the Process Fluid and Flexible
Mapping the force field of power and relying on a flexible,
opportunistic mind-set are important for dealing with gray
area problems, but process also matters a lot, sometimes crit-
ically. Process always means deciding who will work with
you on a problem and how everyone will work. But the
third question can keep you from making these decisions
naively. It tells you not to view process simply as a method-
ical, step-by-step way of working with other people to get
information and analyze it. You need a process that is flexi-
ble, one that can adapt and change depending on the nasty
surprises you encounter, the unexpected opportunities that
pop up, and any political mines that go off. The first step
in Becky Friedman’s process for dealing with Terry Fletcher
is an everyday example of this approach. She started with a
low-key, under-the-radar counseling session with him. If it
worked, as it did, she would have dodged a bullet. If it didn’t,
Friedman could try other options.
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88
In the days after getting the PML news, Jim Mullen took
a similar approach to what was, of course, a vastly more
complex, uncertain, and politically charged problem than
Friedman’s. He immediately informed the FDA, overseas
regulators, and the Biogen Idec board about the PML cases.
Then he and his senior team spent a week scouring the world
for information on PML to learn all they could about the risks
to patients. Mullen didn’t know whether a week of intensive
effort would find evidence of a link between the new drug
and a very rare disease but, like Friedman, Mullen decided to
learn what he could without overcommitting.
Once he did know more—or found that he would be
unable to learn more quickly—he could pursue other options.
But this approach avoided the risk of a premature announce-
ment that might undermine confidence in the drug, possibly
trigger a panic among patients, and harm the company. It
also gave Mullen and his senior team some time to carefully
assess various possibilities and the steps Biogen could take if
any of these possibilities became real.
In the end, Jim Mullen had started a process that lasted
more than a year. After his week of information gathering,
Mullen and his senior team decided to temporarily suspend
distribution of Tysabri, rather than withdraw it permanently.
This gave them the option to reintroduce the drug, depend-
ing on what more they learned and the protective measures
they might be able to create. A suspension may have also pla-
cated, to a degree, the MS patients, physicians, and members
of the US Congress who wanted Tysabri available.
Once he created some breathing room, Mullen initiated a
long and complex process, aimed at making Tysabri available
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89
again. It involved MS and PML experts from around the
world, drug regulators from several countries, careful scru-
tiny of the medical records of everyone who had taken
Tysabri, and extensive outreach to doctors who treated MS
and their patients. In the end, Biogen was able to develop
protocols for determining which patients might be at risk
for PML and for helping their doctors monitor them very
carefully.
The outcome of this process wasn’t ideal, which is often
the case with gray area problems. By late 2014, more than
100,000 patients had taken Tysabri, but approximately 500
had contracted PML, more than 100 had died from it, and
many others had various degrees of disability.
22
At the same
time, however, hundreds of thousands of MS patients gained
some relief from their illness. But no one could have antici-
pated this outcome in the weeks after the first two PML cases
were discovered. A fluid, flexible, carefully managed process
was crucial to finding a practical, acceptable, medically sound
way of threading a very fine needle.
Be Ready to Play Hardball
Sometimes managers confront what Machiavelli called
“necessity.”
23
These are circumstances that give you no
choice—if you want to resolve a hard problem, do it respon-
sibly and avoid martyrdom. Resilience, in these circum-
stances, means pushing forward, despite clear obstacles, and
sometimes it means playing hardball. This involves asserting
your authority and using your power in ways that may feel
uncomfortable, too aggressive, or ethically distressing.
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If Aaron Feuerstein had permanently laid off some workers
and closed parts of his operations, in order to preserve the jobs
of others in the longer run, he would have seriously harmed
the laid-off workers, who had few other options. Feuerstein
would also have felt he was breaking his long-standing per-
sonal and family commitment to his workers. But Feuerstein
didn’t take these hard steps. Instead, he kept his hands clean,
and the results were disastrous.
Becky Friedman took a different approach and played
hardball with Terry Fletcher. At the beginning of their meet-
ing, she told him that she had definitely decided to give him
a 2.5. She also reminded him, unambiguously, of her power
when she told him that she had decided not to give him a PIP.
Friedman left no doubt she was the boss. She didn’t waver
when Fletcher protested, and she sent the clear message that
she had the authority to make decisions about his future,
despite Fletcher’s relationship with the company executives.
But there was more to Friedman’s tactics. She understood
that hardball doesn’t have to be a bludgeon and can take gentler,
subtler forms. Notice that she moved back and forth between
an “I am your boss” mode and an “I want to help you” mode.
Friedman made it clear, for example, that she could put Fletcher
on a PIP, but offered to save him from the embarrassment this
would cause. Then she asked him to look around the organi-
zation and make his own judgments about his likelihood of
succeeding. Fletcher remained unambiguously in charge. She
was also clear about what she wanted to accomplish, which was
moving Fletcher on, and what she wanted to avoid, which was
trouble from her bosses, so she alternated gestures of friendship,
support, and advice with clear reminders of her hard power.
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