CHAPTER 2
Moonlight Reflections and Midcourse Corrections
That Darned Eduardo
Jay had hoped that just once Eduardo’s grapevine would be wrong. Tonight, that was not the case. There stood Cathy Simmons with his golden statue. He had forewarned Laura of this possibility, and she was clearly crushed. He had to use all his powers of persuasion to even get her to go to the dinner. They ended up stuck at a table with no one they knew, and then the awful award ceremony. When President Blankenship made the announcement, over half the room looked immediately at Jay instead of Cathy.
One thing was definitely true about Jay: he was always the consummate professional. He smiled and appropriately applauded, even managing to drag himself to the front of the room after all the photos were taken and extend his hand to Cathy in congratulations. After the dinner, Bob Blankenship went out of his way to find Jay and personally compliment him on his year. “Jay, we are very pleased and proud to have you as a top performer on our team. You had a great year, and the events tonight don’t change that. It was a very difficult decision for the executive committee, and be assured that you received a great deal of consideration and support.” Jay thought, “Yeah, but not your support, and in the end that is the only factor that mattered.”
Bob went on, “As you will hear when I kick off the negotiation workshop in the morning, we are shifting our strategy and focus to put a much greater emphasis on client profitability. I fully expect you to embrace the simple process you will be hearing about, and I would not be the least bit surprised to be handing that golden statue to you next year.” Jay had always appreciated the way Bob could even put a happy face on an earthquake. And yes, his earth had been shaken in just a few short hours. This time, Bob’s spin magic had not lasted longer than it took for him to glad-hand the next group of what Jay saw as “losers.”
In Jay’s world, there was no second place. He thought of the movie Glengarry Glen Ross. In that film about salespeople, first prize in a sales contest was a Cadillac, and second prize was a set of steak knives. He was left to wonder, “Where are my steak knives?” At that point, he realized he was better off not having ready access to any sharp objects.
The Rocking Boat
On top of everything else, Laura came down with a moderate case of sea sickness. Jay walked her back to the cabin and got her snugly into bed. He asked if she wanted him to stay with her, and she replied that she would be fine alone. “Go and enjoy your time with your friends, but don’t be gone too long.”
She was a trooper, but her disappointment was obvious and justified. Laura was classy and supportive enough to have avoided mentioning the impact of Cathy’s victory on their new house plans. Jay knew that negotiation was on his horizon. He told himself that at least, unlike him, his wife had not expected the promotion. As he approached the door, she said, “I believe in you.” He wondered what he could have ever done to deserve a woman like this as his soul mate.
Walking through the long narrow hallways of the ship, Jay was experiencing his own form of sickness— heartbreak. With both his son and daughter headed for college in the next few years, he knew he would soon also be suffering from “mal-tuition.” After his unfortunate overly candid conversation with Dr. Pat earlier that evening, he was in no mood for company. He wished he could avoid even his own. Jay commiserated to himself, “To add insult to injury, I will have a target on my back over the next two days with that cowboy from Texas. Why did I open my big mouth to that guy? I am such an idiot!”
The Entire Bowl of Cherries
On the way out of the room, Jay had grabbed a pen and a legal pad. As he walked the deck, he looked for a relatively secluded lounge chair with enough light to allow him to make some notes. Finding just the right spot in the glow of a brilliant full moon, he sat down to assess his lot in life. As Eduardo had reinforced, Jay thought of himself as a survivor. He had almost partied himself out of State University his freshman year. It took him five years to earn his undergrad degree, but he finished with a respectable GPA. When he accepted the position at XL, it was his third job after college. To start, Jay was given one of the weakest XL territories in the country. After he had built it up, five years ago he was rewarded with what was considered one of the company’s “plum” territories.
Jay worked on both large and small accounts that, overall, generated an impressive record of annual revenue growth during his tenure, ranging from 9 to 19 percent, with an average growth rate in the midteens. The news of Cathy’s impending promotion felt like a slap in the face. He asked himself, “What else could I have done?” At this point, he had no answers. “How had I missed the warning signs that this was going to happen?” he wondered.
As Jay started to reflect on his current lot in life, he first tried to focus on avoiding a pity party. He and Laura had been college sweethearts. They married the summer both graduated from State U. Times were never especially easy, but they always supported one another. In recent months, he had at times questioned that point as Laura was devoting more and more time to the community theater and had recently partnered with her sister to open a women’s dress shop. With Jay’s travels of ten days a month or more, their relationship had evolved into one of voicemail, text messages, and sticky notes on the fridge. They used to schedule a “date night” at least once a month, but he was way behind on that pledge.
Jay was proud and thankful that he and Laura had two great kids. Their son, Trey, had just turned seventeen and was considered a solid, small-college baseball recruit, but probably not one who would be getting scholarship offers from any major universities. Their daughter, Ashley, was a story unto herself. She was now showing a strong interest in her social life, text messaging with abbreviations that would drive a court stenographer crazy, and buying designer handbags that created some major strain for the family credit cards. As he thought about the many negotiations in his life, he had to admit that his success rate was very low with his teenagers. To them “no” only meant “not yes yet” or a cue to simply change the parent they were negotiating with to an easier mark.
Jay was starting to realize the number and variety of negotiations he faced in his personal life. Just before the trip, his sister had expressed strong concern that their dad was starting to show some early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. He was forgetting lots of small things, such as where he had parked his car at the airport the last time he returned from a trip to St. Martin. Jay felt that after Dad had spent several days relaxing in the Caribbean, they should expect him to forget what state he lived in, much less the whereabouts of his car. Jay tried to pass his sister’s concerns off as a major overreaction, but she felt the symptoms were more serious and that they should be looking at medical specialists and assisted living options.
The Fork in the Road
Yogi Berra is renowned for saying, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Well, Jay felt like he was being stabbed by the fork in his road. He had several options at this point in his career, given the extreme disappointment experienced during his first evening of the so-called reward trip. He was now making some notes. First option: he could jump overboard. He was not serious, and this was not a survivor play.
Legitimate Option 1: he could look for a new job and perhaps even start in a management position. That idea seemed somewhat appealing. He had been approached by other companies in and outside the information systems management industry from time to time. There would be no Cathy Simmons in his life if he took this path. All the baggage that had been loaded on his career conveyor belt would immediately disappear. There were certainly positives to this option, but on the other side of the scale, he had invested so much of himself at XL that he hated to cut and run.
Option 2 centered on resisting this change in his company’s strategy. He could muddle along as an average performer until the game changed back around. One part of him liked this path, but he had strong doubts as to whether it would actually work. Dr. Pat had mentioned that the focus on profitability was seemingly everywhere. Besides, average was not a word he ever wanted to associate with himself.
Option 3 was to chart a totally different course—not merely accepting, but fully embracing this change that had crashed into his life. He could take full advantage of this learning opportunity and make Bob Blankenship live his words about handing him the golden statue twelve months from now. Jay could make tonight’s shocking events merely a bump in the road or, better yet, a wake-up call. “Tough times don’t endure—tough people do,” he told himself. If this Dr. Pat was right, he could make relatively minor changes in his process and generate big changes in his results.
If this were the new game for the business world, he could buy in and endeavor to learn from the person who was apparently the first in his company to treat her negotiaphobia. He could approach Dr. Pat first thing in the morning, let him know that he was there to learn and that he would be both an attentive and open-minded student. He could totally immerse himself in his treatment.
In less than a minute of scanning back over the three possible directions, Jay decided this final option was the most viable alternative and became committed not to just walking but sprinting down this path. He went so far as to write out and put his signature on this decision on a page in his legal pad. He was now totally committed.
1. A gap in our negotiation skills can become apparent to us as a subtle tap on our shoulder; but to generate behavior change, it often requires a slap in the face.
2. Our past is the result of the experience we have gained and the decisions we have made, and our future will be shaped by our choices today and those yet to come.
3. Don’t simply wait for the old game to return; learn the new one. The only constant is change, and the only real job security today is our own bank of relevant skill sets.
4. Life presents us with a series of learning opportunities. Should we decide to stop learning, we have begun our own obsolescence.