How did we get here?

Robert MacCawdor, now the confident Director of Planning, having rid himself of those pesky lieutenants: the “rower”, the “techie”,  and “teflon man”, and having surrounded himself with his ever-faithful adjutant, Lady M, and his “eyes and ears,” the three watchers, felt quite at home in his large comfortable chair looking out of the executive floor office’s picture window at the rowers practising on the river in the soft early morning light.

The Commander was happy. Lady M was delivering the strategy and financial plan. His PA, May, the “poisoner”, and his “special projects” duo – the “thief” and “noddy”, known collectively as the three watchers, kept an eye on the first floor people. And that irritable Director of Development, Sue, was so busy she did not have the time to delve too deeply into his Planning Department’s murky affairs.

There was just one problem that preyed on MacCawdor’s suspicious mind – that annoying little intern, the “team-builder” as she was referred to in derogatory terms. What did she know? Who had she been seeing? What did she tell them? Despite his carefully woven network of surveillance, he did not know. Time to act. The merger, meanwhile, exacerbated the general atmosphere of menace, fear and relentless pace. Continue reading →

“Get Out of There”

The three lieutenants – the rower, the techie and teflon man – all gone. An atmosphere of fear pervaded the first floor offices as Lady M stalked the corridors to find out who knew what about the illegal transfer of funds. Her job was to identify any whistle-blowers and fix the problem for the ever-impatient MacCawdor.

Sue called in the interns for a meeting when MacCawdor complained of poor feedback from the team-building events. The Commander got wind of “concerns” about “amateurs” and serious wastes of professionals’ time. MacCawdor asked Lady M to investigate. The first floor corridor of St. Angela’s buzzed feverishly with rumours.

Drip, drip, drip. The poisoner did her job. She added to the menacing atmosphere by having tea and chats with the top executives’ PAs and secretaries about the terrible state of things and the unspecified “concerns”. I felt the heat of the spotlight on me; I felt fear. Continue reading →

Reconnect, or Disconnect?

Duncan McNiel, the affable Director, gone. His PA, Amy, gone. So what happens to the team-building programme now? Sue, the Development Director and pupil master of us naive interns, was by now a very busy person as she had been given an extra job by the Commander – managing communications. She said the programme had to be “re-anchored” with the new director, Robert MacCawdor, and to keep her informed. “Catch you later” was her stock phrase when running away from you down the corridor in her frenetic busyness, always with a rictus smile on her face. She meant well but she was too busy, over-burdened, and stressed.

The “re-anchor” meeting with Robert MacCawdor did not go well. Of the team-building meetings that had gone before, he said with intense menace, even hatred, “What did we learn from this?” He was frank; he saw no point in the programme as the team was fine but he would tolerate it as it was what the Commander wanted. He instructed, May, his PA, to issue the necessary invites to his team-briefing sessions.

The message was loud and clear: the team is fine and don’t interfere. With his cold staring blue eyes, he communicated intense contempt for me. For the first time in my working life, I understood what theoreticians called coercive power. I felt fear.

St. Angela’s University Teaching Hospital (illustration by Bill Morris)

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My First Assignment

I learnt about the inadequacy of “team-building” on my first assignment for The Commander, and his side-kick, Sue. They had spotted some problem, unspecified, in the planning department of St. Angela’s. It was a general gut feeling that all was not well; there had been talk about “tensions”.

On the surface, it looked like an impressive set-up with some very talented people employed to develop St. Angela’s strategy and operational plan under its affable director, Duncan McNiel. Ah, team-building – you do your diagnostic interviews, design the programme of exercises, and deliver them and sign off. With a bit of reading, I thought it would be a piece of cake.

I was taught all those years ago by a wise professor who had consulted widely with all the top companies. I think, judging by his fabulous Mercedes car, that he was successful. He was an enthusiastic local dramatist and his golden tip to us, his eager students, was to always “go behind the curtain”. There is in all organisations according to him, a front-stage, and a back-stage. If you want to earn big money, be a back-stage player. That was his advice but, at the time, I did not really understand what he was talking about. Continue reading →