DISCIPLINE ONE

Jamie had decided that he would not just recite the list of disciplines for his suitor. That would diminish the fun. Instead, he would describe the unusual behaviors of Rich and his staff, and let Vince look for the thread or theme.

He all but announced this to Vince, who reluctantly agreed, and then buzzed his assistant: “Tracy, please clear my morning. . . . That’s right, until after lunch. . . . Thanks.” He hung up the phone. “Let’s get started.”

Jamie sat forward in his chair and seemed genuinely excited to be sharing all of this with Vince. “You would not believe the way these people act during meetings. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve worked at a lot of different places.”

Vince cracked a smile. “What do they do?” He was quietly relieved to know that someone, anyone, thought that Telegraph was weird.

“They argue constantly.”

Vince was surprised. “Really?”

It was a rhetorical statement more than a question, but Jamie answered it anyway: “Oh, yeah, they don’t miss any opportunities to argue. Their meetings are like internal family feuds. Someone is always getting upset about something, and people yell and shout. It reminded me of some cousins of mine. Irish and Italians.”

Vince thought about his own staff meetings and wondered aloud, “I bet they’re not boring at least.”

Jamie laughed. “No, boring isn’t a word I’d use to describe Rich’s meetings.” He noticed that just using Rich’s name made Vince shrink a little.

“How do they get anything done?” Before Jamie could respond, Vince added, “And how do they avoid killing each other?”

“That’s the crazy part. These people argue like brothers and sisters, but then they seem to forget about the arguments ten minutes later, just like my cousins. One of them would have a bloody nose, and the next thing you know they’re laughing.”

Vince was stunned. Jamie quickly clarified. “I was talking about my cousins. I never saw anyone at Telegraph punch someone in the nose.”

Vince smiled.

“Although I did think that Rita was going to cold-cock Tom a few times.”

“Really?”

“Well, not exactly. But she used to get upset at him on a fairly regular basis. She actually called him an ass one night during a long meeting.”

“Tom is the COO, right?”

Jamie nodded. “And Rita is the legal counsel.”

Vince knew that. “Right. So the two of them didn’t get along so well. That could be pretty difficult, given their respective . . .”

Jamie interrupted. “No, I never said they didn’t get along. In fact, they worked very closely together. They just always seemed to fight during meetings.”

“About what?”

“Budgets. Clients. Employees. You name it.”

“Petty stuff?”

Jamie had to think for a second. “No, they didn’t spend much time on petty topics during meetings. Usually it was something fairly important.”

Vince was confused. “So how did they make decisions? The loudest one wins?”

Jamie laughed. “No, because Tom would have won them all. What they would do is argue for a while, and then someone, often Rich, would make everyone step back from the issue and cast a vote.”

“So they voted on everything?”

“No, not really. Ultimately Rich would make decisions when there was no clear answer. But usually they came to a fairly quick consensus. Somehow the arguing seemed more like fact finding than advocacy. It was strange.”

Vince could see that beneath all of his disparagement, Jamie admired his former colleagues. This only frustrated Vince and made him impatient.

“So what exactly is the first discipline?”

“I haven’t finished describing . . .”

This time Vince interrupted. “Listen, just tell me what the first discipline is, and then you can describe it all you want.”

Vince had a way of demanding something that made a person not want to test him. Jamie smiled to conceal his momentary fear, and then relented.

“Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s the first discipline: ‘Build and maintain a cohesive leadership team.’”

Vince thought about it for a moment. “That’s it?” He seemed suddenly confident and judgmental.

“Well, that’s the way Rich describes it. But there is a lot more to it than that.”

Vince took a deep breath and reminded himself what he was after. “Like what?”

“Well, they did something called the Myers-Briggs. You’ve probably heard of it.”

Vince nodded. “Yeah, I think I did something like that in graduate school. I don’t remember exactly.”

Jamie was suddenly animated again. “Well, it’s actually pretty interesting. You take a twenty-minute test and then get a report back that tells you how you make decisions and organize things.”

Vince was frowning. “Sounds pretty squishy to me.”

“Well, it can be. But over there, they use it to understand each other. Everyone knows everyone else’s Myers-Briggs type, and they refer to it all the time.”

“And that’s good because . . .” Vince let Jamie finish the sentence for him.

“Well, for one it helps them avoid making judgments about each other. And it gives them a vocabulary for pointing out each other’s flaws. They used to give Tom a hard time for being such an extrovert and Rita for being a ‘J,’ which is basically the Myers-Briggs way of saying she was anal retentive.”

Now Vince was totally lost.

Jamie explained. “See, when Rich thought about making his team cohesive, he wanted them to know one another well enough so that they didn’t hold anything back. Those people really do act like brothers and sisters, and when a difficult issue has to be discussed, no one hesitates. Not for a minute.” Vince turned sarcastic. “So these people were perfect, basically.”

“Not at all. I think some of them are peculiar. But one thing I have to say about them is that not once did I ever hear them say anything negative about a member of the team.”

“Oh, come on.” Vince was incredulous.

“You didn’t let me finish. I said I never heard them say anything negative that they wouldn’t say directly to the person.”

Vince nodded as if to say, Oh, I get it. It all seemed to be sinking in now.

Jamie continued. “As unusual as they were, those people cared about one another. And I suppose that if you liked them, that would be okay. For me, it was too much.” Jamie didn’t seem to believe the last part of his own statement.

For the first time Vince saw a clear picture of Jamie’s insecurity. He actually felt bad for him, and decided to help him move on. “So, what’s the second discipline, Jamie?”