6 ◾ Transforming Teams
happy with his sales numbers if we have to throw all of
these modules in the garbage.”
Eliza was frustrated that Dave wasn’t in the meeting
to address Claire’s concerns. He had sent a text saying
he was dealing with a major client issue and wouldn’t
be in the ofce until later. She wondered if what he
was working on had anything to do with this Cynsis
blowup.
“Claire, did you review the spec sheets when Dave
submitted them? Did you and Kirby discuss them
before they went into manufacturing?” Eliza asked.
“Yes, Dave showed them to me. But he didn’t actu-
ally go over them with me. He just handed them to me
and I took them to Kirby, and he and I went over them
together, right?” she said as she looked toward Kirby.
He nodded in agreement.
“These modules were built exactly to the specs that
Dave provided and are to order based on what Dave
submitted,” Kirby added.
“Kirby, what do you know about the specs?” Eliza
asked.
“Dave and I had a couple of calls with their system
provider, so I just assumed that the module would
work. I mean, nothing looked off to me,” he said.
“But the demo module built with those specs doesn’t
work!” said Claire, raising her voice. “Eliza, I had to
have a very difcult conversation with Cynsis’ lead
technician. I had to admit to them that I had no idea
what Dave was doing with those specs. I admitted to
him that we had never had a screw-up this bad before
Eliza’s Bad Monday at HDS Tech ◾ 7
and that we would make them whole, although I’m not
sure how we’re going to do that.
“I just can’t believe that Dave would be so eager to
sell something that he would make a mistake this big.
I knew he was aggressive, but this is ridiculous. I think
we’re in big trouble over this one.”
Eliza was in no mood for Claire’s drama. “Well, obvi-
ously we’ll know more when Dave gets in, won’t we?
One last question: what did Dave say when you dis-
cussed this with him last week?”
“I haven’t spoken to him yet. He’s never around. I
gured I’d talk with him about it here but . . .” Claire
said with a roll of her eyes toward Dave’s empty chair.
“Claire, we can’t jump to conclusions until we know
the story from Dave’s perspective. Don’t you think you
should have tried to reach him when this all blew up?”
Eliza pressed.
“Eliza, I was dealing with this all Friday afternoon!
By the time I got off the phone with the client, Dave
was gone. Probably off golng.”
“Alright, alright,” said Eliza. “Look, as of now, if any-
one from Cynsis calls about this before you’ve spoken
to Dave, forward them to me. Otherwise, just keep
your team focused on the other open client tickets.” She
then dismissed them both and looked at the clock: it
was only 10 a.m. This was going to be a long day.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Eliza reconvened her meeting
with Kirby, Claire, and a newly arrived Dave. She was
8 ◾ Transforming Teams
doing her best to contain the situation. Before Dave
was able to explain his side of the story, Claire jumped
in: “While you were off golng, Dave, I was stuck
apologizing to the Cynsis lead technician for this colos-
sal mistake. I tried to convince them you didn’t sell
them a bill of goods, which wasn’t the easiest thing to
do. They are hopping mad about this.”
“What do you mean you told them this was a mis-
take?” asked Dave in disbelief. “There’s no mistake! Why
would you have said that without talking with me rst?”
“How could I? You weren’t around on Friday
afternoon when all the bad news came rolling in,”
answered Claire deantly.
“Oh, really? Have you ever heard of a cell phone
Claire? I happen to carry one because I work around
the clock, and just because I’m not sitting under your
nose doesn’t mean that I’m not working,” shouted Dave.
“If you had just picked up the phone and called
me,” he continued, “you would have reached me
and I could have told you the modules don’t work
because Cynsis is going through a system migra-
tion that will be completed in 45 days. Our module
doesn’t work on the current system that their head-
quarters is on because that system is obsolete. The
modules are designed to work with the new system
that will soon be rolled out company-wide. I spent
about two weeks working out the specs with Kirby
and the new systems provider. That module will work
in their pilot locations—Phoenix and Des Moines—
but it won’t work in their headquarters . . . it was never
designed to!”
Eliza’s Bad Monday at HDS Tech ◾ 9
He turned to Eliza and said, “Their CEO called me
and tore me up this morning, saying that our own cus-
tomer service team told them I sold them an expensive,
worthless module. First, it took me 10 minutes to calm
the guy down. And then, once he understood why it
didn’t work, he started yelling at me, asking why our
VP of customer service didn’t know the specs of the
system we sold them.”
Dave turned to Claire and said, “So, you basically
told them I screwed up before you could even call me
to gure out what the real situation was. Now they
think that one hand doesn’t know what the other hand
is doing . . . which I guess is the truth! It took me nine
months to land this account, and by throwing me under
the bus it has taken you only 15 minutes to put a big
dent in it. Way to go, Claire!” yelled Dave as he picked
up his belongings and stormed out of the room.
Eliza, Claire, and Kirby sat back in their chairs in a
stunned silence. Turning to Claire, Eliza said, “You need
to call your tech contact back and tell them what hap-
pened. Tell them we’ll FedEx a demo module to Phoenix
or Des Moines for them to test tomorrow. And, Claire,
you need to x this. You need to take responsibility for
jumping to such a conclusion,” Eliza said rmly.
“Eliza, Dave never told us this was for a new sys-
tem. I didn’t even know they were going through a
system conversion,” said Claire. She turned to Kirby.
“Did you know?”
“No. I mean, I did work with their new systems pro-
vider to match their specs, but I didn’t know whether
that was for one location or all of them,” said Kirby. “I
10 ◾ Transforming Teams
never knew the context or that it was part of a whole,
corporate-wide system conversion.”
Claire continued. “Eliza, I’ll admit that I was wrong
to jump to conclusions on this one, but on a day-to-
day basis, it’s my team that’s on the front line with
the clients once Dave has sold the account. He has no
accountability once the product is sold and the specs
are nalized and his commission rate is calculated. But
we need to know everything that is going on with our
clients. He should have told us about all this in advance
and not waited for us to ask about it.”
Eliza nodded in agreement as Claire picked up
her things and left the room with Kirby following her
out. She could feel a stress headache coming on and
reached for an Advil.
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