Immediately she began babbling like an excited kid at show-and-tell. “It’ll be great,” she enthused. “It’ll give us a chance to watch the booth set-up in real time and make adjustments if needed. Once a show starts, it could give us a feel for what our customers react to, positive or negative. It could also give employees here at headquarters a chance to see for themselves what goes on at a show like this, to see how their efforts make a difference.”
While she was talking, several other team members began pointing out additional applications and possible refinements. As they continued to talk animatedly, Peter turned to me. “We’ve never done anything like this before, Jess. We’ll test it out for Expo; then, if it works the way we hope, it will give us a new way to make our marketing efforts at the next big show.”
“That’s really something,” I said sincerely. “I’ll bet Mr. Moffatt will be impressed when he sees it.”
At the mention of Mr. Moffatt’s name, Debby jerked her head up with a sour look on her face. “I wish he’d be impressed enough to recommend Peter, not Scott Benson!” she blurted out. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth in embarrassment when she remembered that I worked for Mr. Moffatt. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she said defensively, but it was clear to me that she had meant every word. And while I didn’t say anything, I wholeheartedly agreed with her.
But Debby’s comment seemed to set off a storm of emotions, and others began to chip in with their own thoughts. Peter quickly spoke up in an effort to diffuse the situation. “We’re all a little tense about what may happen, but it’s out of our control. Let’s just concentrate on the things that are our responsibility and let senior management do whatever it’s going to do.”
One of the others piped up, “Yeah, but if Scott winds up with the VP job, life here is going to be a living hell!”
“That’s right,” another said. “Why can’t they see what a terrible leader Scott would make?”
I was watching Peter and I saw his head snap up at that last comment. “What if they could see?” he said. “What if they had a chance to see the real Peter in action?”
“That would be perfect,” someone said, “but how could we make that happen?”
Peter explained his idea and the office became a Babel of excited voices asking questions and tossing out ideas. I leaned back against a wall and watched the interplay. After a while the objections coalesced into a plan and their excitement transformed into purpose. When the hubbub had pretty well subsided, Peter held up his hand to get everyone’s attention. “Listen, people, there’s something all of us need to understand. What we’re talking about here might open some eyes in the executive suite, but it might also backfire horribly. So let’s agree right now that if anything happens, I’m the one who’ll take the fall. We need to set this up so no one else’s role in this is visible.”
Immediately there was a storm of protest, but Peter held firm and finally the rest grudgingly agreed. I think that while they were loyal to Peter and wanted to back him, at heart none of them could afford to lose their jobs if their little ploy went sour. But from my perspective, I thought it was admirable that Peter wanted to protect his team, even at the risk of putting his own job on the line.
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