The next two days were filled with fighting fires and cleaning up at Oak Ridge, as well as planning for the new projects, especially the hospital. During that time, Jeff became so immersed in the business that he spent almost no mental energy thinking about teamwork and hiring, something that surprised him given the magnitude of the issue and how obsessed he seemed just forty-eight hours earlier. He was starting to get a sense of how the tangible and urgent demands of construction could crowd out more important matters. But he was determined not to let that happen to him.

So, as they were leaving a meeting with the Napa city planner, Jeff asked Clare to put together a list of all the former employees that VB had let go over the past few years and any current ones whom she had doubts about.

“I'll have it for you tomorrow morning,” she assured him.

He then asked Bobby and Clare to clear their schedules for the next afternoon, something that Bobby protested but Jeff insisted on.

When they arrived at Bob's office, Jeff had written the names of all twenty-three people from Clare's list on the whiteboard.

“Let's go through these names one by one, trying to figure out any common denominators that might help us figure out what red flags we should be looking for.”

As always, Bobby joked. “You mean jackass indicators?”

Clare countered. “Hey, remember that some of these employees still work here. We might want to be a little more careful about how we refer to them.”

“You're going a little soft on us, Clare,” Bobby teased her. “Is all that HR stuff finally getting to you?”

She laughed.

Jeff reinforced her point. “She's right, though. We need to remember that these aren't bad people. They just might not be right for a culture built around teamwork. Or maybe they've been managed by a jackass and are just doing what they think will help them get ahead.”

Bobby relented. “Good point.”

“How will we tell the difference?” Clare wanted to know.

Jeff had an answer. “Well, we don't need to know for sure.”

Clare seemed puzzled. “What?”

Jeff explained. “Remember, once we figure out what we're looking for, then when we see someone who doesn't measure up, we just need to make it clear to them that their behavior has to change. If it does, great. It probably wasn't them after all. If it doesn't, then we know they don't belong here, and we'll help them find a better place to work.”

Bobby looked at the whiteboard. “Where do we start?”

“At the top of the organization,” Jeff answered confidently. “If we can deal with any questions at the highest levels, everything else will be easier.”

Clare suddenly seemed intensely excited about the plan, and surprised both of them when she said, “Listen, you guys. We can't afford to be wussies about this. The future of this company is riding on us getting this right.”

With that, Clare went to the board and circled two names. Nancy Morris, the project manager on the Oak Ridge site, and Anthony Benson, the bad engineer on the high school renovation project.

The leaders spent the next hour dissecting Nancy and Anthony, and the other two dozen or so people on the list, looking at their performance histories and behaviors. When they were finished, they had a list of predictable adjectives on the board—words like negative, lazy, insensitive, irresponsible, and self-centered. Jeff felt the same way that he did the night before.

“We must be missing something. It's too obvious,” Jeff said.

“I agree,” Clare confirmed. “It can't be this simple, can it?”

“If it's so simple,” asked Bobby in his good natured sarcasm, “then how did we screw it up so badly?”

“Maybe we're just too close to these people,” Clare wondered out loud.

Jeff shook his head. “I think we just didn't know what to look for.” Then he had a suggestion. “What we need is a case study. Someone we're not so familiar with. Someone we could poke a little and test this with.”

That person would present himself sooner than they could have imagined.