Awakening, 2nd edition (14 page)

But now—now everyone was engaged. Somehow, in the space of two hours , it had become apparent that each one of them had something to say to the others.

At first, they—mostly Chris, Alan, and Ross—tried to come up with a process.

“The process, ” Chris was repeating, his eyes glittering, “we must have a good process.”

“We can do it, ” Ross was chanting, smiling , and looking into the others’ faces . “I ’m sure we can.”

And Joan sat grim, and Robert sat silent, and Alex was drumming his powerful fingers softly against the table while occasionally casting thoughtful glances at Kevin. And some long minutes later , when there was still no sign of the process, when Brandon had muttered, “I t ’s useless, folks ” and began smiling skeptically, and Paul demonstratively kept sketching one grinning ugly mug after another in his letterhead notepad, Michael , who until that moment had not uttered a single word, suddenly turned to Stella and , just as suddenly , asked , “What do you value in a leader?”

He spoke softly, talking apparently only to her, but for some reason , exactly at that point there was a microscopic pause in the quest for the process and everyone else heard him.

“Me?” Stella asked with a certain degree of bafflement. “What do I value in a leader?”

“Yes,” Michael confirmed , “y ou.”

“What sort of leader?”

“A leader whom you could follow.”

“Well,” Stella said slowly , “t o start with, this leader better be strong, if you expect me to follow him .”

“No doubt about that, ” Michael agreed. “What else? Any details?”

Stella thought.

“Details . . . First, this leader has to believe in the goal he’s lead ing me to wards .”

And at that point it became apparent that everyone—or nearly everyone—was listening to this conversation, that no one was interested in the process, and that everyone had an opinion to contribute. Ross made a feeble attempt to bring them back to the process -crafting, but this attempt failed miserably, leading only to an irritated look from Stella. She was trying to explain to others what she meant by , “Believing in the goal , ” and wasn ’t expecting to be interrupted.

Another thirty minutes later, when they were interrupting each other and the conversation was full of remarks like , “You ’d have to be crazy to give power to people like that!” Paul at once stopped sketching his grinning mugs and informed everybody that , in his opinion , only those who don ’t surround themselves with idiots could claim to be leaders. At first, this remark was met with laughter, but then with Robert ’s help it turned out that Paul ’s definition of a leader was far more controversial than laughable and the argument boiled up anew.

“No,
you listen to me!
” Brandon argued fiercely. “Even a perfect job interview isn ’t a panacea. Sometimes it takes me longer to see that someone isn ’t a fit.”

“But you don ’t need much time to tell that someone is a complete idiot, do you?” Stella asked him.

“Depends. You can always spot intelligence, but stupidity comes in all shapes. But , yes, if someone is an idiot I see it pretty quickly.”

“Then how come there are so many of them around?” Paul asked with a bubbling passion. “Someone ’s hiring them . Someone ’s bringing them in! Some shitty managers need them! And I ’d rather poke myself in the eye with a fork than call one of th o se management jerks a leader!”

“Take it easy , boys, ” Joan calmed them down . “Things happen. Even the best leaders make mistakes.”

“Best leader, my foot!” Paul proclaimed majestically. “If your best leader keeps hiring idiots , he ’s not a leader. He ’s —”

“An idiot,” Alan suggested.

“Yes!” and Paul glanced victoriously at Brandon .

“I’ve been taking some notes, ” Michael said calmly. “It ’s shaping up nicely. We disagree on some details, but on a high level , we ’re all on the same page. Want to hear it?”

“Bring it on!” Paul roared, still preoccupied with the fight.

Joan looked at him reproachfully and he said, this time with less passion , “Let ’s hear it.”

“What about writing it down on the whiteboard or on this flipchart here?” Alan asked. “We may need it later.”

Michael nodded.

“Good point. Would you mind taking care of this?”

Alan hesitated a moment. Then he stood up and, having raised his finger, announced loudly , “A true leader should always be willing to do any job himself !”

“Some jobs are better left to others , ” said Alex .

Alan glanced at him, picked up a marker and turned to Michael.

“First,” Michael said, “we ’ve all agreed that a leader must believe in the goals he is leading others to wards .”

Alan began writing with unexpected eagerness.

“Wait a second, ” Chris stopped him. “This is secondary. First of all, a leader must know what he wants. He ’s got to have a goal.”

“What’s the difference?” Brandon enquir ed dryly.

Chris turned to him.

“Come again?”

“What’s the difference between having a goal and believing in it? It ’s your goal.”

“Right,” a subtle smile appeared on Chris ’s face , “t here ’s no difference. But that ’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean then?”

“I meant that any manager leads people somewhere. Towards a goal. I do, you do —we all do. That’s what we ’re paid to do. But it takes a real leader to have a goal. A goal of his own.”

“Which isn’t necessarily the same goal he leads others to, ” Joan added, half questioningly.

“That’s not what I said.”

“But that’s what you meant, ” grinned Alan. “Don ’t worry, we got it right.”

And he wrote in a firm , clear hand: “A leader always has an ulterior motive.”

He looked at his writing for a moment, and then changed ‘ulterior motive ’ to ‘a goal of his own.’ A moment later he made another change and replaced ‘his ’ by ‘his/her .’

Michael gave him a supporting nod.

“Next. A leader has to be respected.”

“Or feared,” Alex said firmly.

Michael looked at him with a silent question.

“Respect passes easily, ” Alex explained. “Fear doesn ’t.”

“What?” Joan asked turning grim again. “You boys are really something. What fear?”

“Simple, ” Alex responded, looking at her. “A p hysiological kind of fear. One that makes people sweat and their knees wobble.”

“This won’t last, ” Ross said doubtfully. “I don ’t think people would ever choose to follow somebody like that.”

Alex only smiled back. For some reason, t his time the benevolent smile on his massive face looked rather unfriendly.

“They did follow Genghis Khan, you know, ” Stella said suddenly , “a nd I don ’t recall anyone ever appointing him a manager.”

“That does it, ” Brandon snapped, rising to his feet. “Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and Attila. Next you ’ll be bringing up Caesar, Stalin and Mao Zedong. Did you all come here for some history lessons? Why would we even talk about them?”

“We’re discussing leaders, ” Stella replied sweetly. “Shouldn ’t we talk about the best of the best?”

“Best? What best? Sorry, I see no connection between these names and my job. I have a different profession.”

“Uh, uh . . .” Stella shook her finger at him. “Only if you plan to stay a manager forever. But should you choose to grow into a leader , you will have precisely the same profession. Different scale though.”

“What does it have to do with scale?” Brandon began to boil up slowly. “I ’m not a dictator. I ’m a manager. I manage people. I don ’t order to them to shoot at each other. Okay? My job is to manage, to lead. Not to conquer lands and sit on a throne.”

“They, too, led and managed. They just happened to have more people.”

“So what? Who cares how many people they had? We ’re comparing apples and I don ’t know what . . . footballs here. Why are you bringing this up? A manager can be a tyrant, but not the other way around. Why are we talking about them at all? They were in different business es . Different busine ss es !”

Stella smiled.

“So are we. Not sure about you, but I, for instance, work in Big Pharma. Anyone else around here in the drugs business?”

“Well, if you put it th at way . . .” Alan grinned.

“Seriously. No? See, we all are in different businesses. Yet somehow we ’re all in the same room learning the same things.”

“So far we haven ’t learned much, ” Paul muttered bitterly. “But keep talking, guys. It ’s entertaining. Ed ’s notepad is already half full.”

Everyone turned towards Ed, who immediately gave them a wide smile and began gesticulating franticly, as if trying to convey the message , “I ’m not here, I ’m invisible, pay no attention to me, don’t speak to me . . .”

“Fine,” Alan said decisively. “Let ’s go with this then.”

He turned to the flipchart, and a new line appeared on the paper: “A leader always provokes strong feelings.”

“For example, strong disgust, ” Stella commented merrily. “Do you have a problem with the word fear ?”

“I don’t have any problem, ” Alan shrugged off her comment, “b ut this definition is generic enough to accommodate anything.”

“Hey, we don ’t need just anything , remember?” reminded Chris. “We need details . We need specifics. Generic doesn ’t cut it.”

Alan didn’t seem hurt by the fact th at his definition had been dismissed so casually.

“Fine. Can you make it more specific?”

“Absolutely. How about this: A leader is always respected, feared or loved.”

“Much better, ” Stella said. “We ’re getting somewhere.”

“Let’s be more radical, ” Alan proposed. “A leader always progresses from being loved to being respected , and then to being feared.”

He thought for a moment.

“And then to being resented, ignored and , ultimately, fired.”

Despite several chuckles in the room, Chris wasn’t in the mood for a joke.

“Let’s try to stay serious, shall we?”

“Let’s try to have lunch, shall we?” Paul offered. “So far , instead of fear and respect , all I ’ve developed are strong pangs of hunger.”

They had to wait for lunch, though , as it turned out it wasn ’t supposed to be served for another half hour. But they used this time well, and another two lines appeared on the flipchart. These were curious, unexpected lines, which at first glance didn ’t seem to have anything in common with the word manager . Nor did they have anything in common with it at the second glance. And the longer they argued , and threw words back and forth, and looked for definitions, the clearer the ghosts of the past materialized before their eyes—the shadows of rulers and raging waves of people following them. And the rulers emerged from these waves, starting at the very sea level , growing up, maturing, slowly gathering immense power and finally turning into the menacing monuments to remain in history forever. Born to lower -class families, deprived at birth of any power, seeking it, desiring it, longing for it, craving for it more than anything . . .

And Brandon no longer talked about his profession. Instead, he strode back and forth across the room and stroked his mustache , listening to the others. Names of dictators and kings, presidents and generals were flying in all directions.

“Now
that was a leader!
” Chris said , cl e nching his fist. “A n obody, out of nowhere ; a street rat—and made the entire nation follow him! And if he didn ’t have bold goals , then I don ’t know who did.”

“His own goals, mind you, ” Alan add ed, with a brief glance at Joan.

“Precisely—his own, ” Chris agree d .

As for Michael, he just leaned back in his chair and contributed occasional brief remarks, while studying speakers with his slightly ironic dark eyes.

They changed the subject for lunch. Following Chris ’s proposal at the dining table , they talked about anything but the w orkshop. “Otherwise, ” Chris said, “we ’ll burn out quickly.” No one objected and the menacing shadows slowly faded back to the past and finally vanished. Only Brandon was less talkative than usual and kept silent most of the time. The o thers chatted about anything and everythi ng.

They talked about Thai cuisine. Robert turned out to be a real expert on the subject and astonished everyone with his story of how he had been served meat in a little village somewhere near the border with Laos. “No way!” Joan doubted loudly. But Robert tilted his head in such a way that at once it became obvious: yes , it had happened this way, and it had happened this way to Robert and no one else.

They talked about cocktails and dog breeds. The latter happened to be Alex ’s area of expertise and for some time he and Kevin compar ed the characteristics of the German Shepherd and the St. Bernard. Then it became apparent that , despite Kevin ’s passionate support of Alex ’s arguments in favor of the German Shepherd , he did not have and never had had a dog. As a result of this discovery, the argument wou n d down rapidly.

They talked about movies and agreed that nothing worthy had come out this year yet , and that some actors should be seriously considering retir ement . “Some producers , too, ” added Alan. “And some actresses!” blurted out cheerful Ross, but Joan immediately explained to him how deeply inappropriate his thoughtless comment was, and he took it back with a suspiciously wordy apology.