* What changed in the 1980s that made so many of today’s jobs inhumane
* How consulting to MCI inspired the story
* Influence of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey
* Tools for Personal Transformation
* Choosing a stand or “Way of Being”
* The useful coaching concept of “game”
* How physical spaces engender specific behaviors
* How personal relationships can enrich business effectiveness
* Transform pain and disappointment into growth
* Finding time and focus to write a novel
* Pre-meeting meetings and after-action reviews
* The “Slow / Fast” Method vs. typical business behavior
* Tony’s next book: “The Conversation Contract”
* What changed in the 1980s that made so many of today’s jobs inhumane
* How consulting to MCI inspired the story
* Influence of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey
* Tools for Personal Transformation
* Choosing a stand or “Way of Being”
* The useful coaching concept of “game”
* How physical spaces engender specific behaviors
* How personal relationships can enrich business effectiveness
* Transform pain and disappointment into growth
* Finding time and focus to write a novel
* Pre-meeting meetings and after action reviews
* The “Slow / Fast” Method vs. typical business behavior
* Tony’s next book: “The Conversation Contract”
While a consultant at Arthur Andersen & Co in New York City I was assigned to a high-pressure project for a Wall Street firm. We were proud to work at Arthur Andersen because this was way-back-when, before Enron, before helping investment banks was cause for abject ethical concern, and before the building we worked in was destroyed by hijacked airliners. It was the summer of 1985 when I was old enough to think I understood business and too young to notice that I didn’t.
We worked long hours in cramped quarters implementing mainframe software for an innovative financial product. One of the first derivatives, come to think of it. The bank’s internal developers had fallen woefully behind schedule and AA&Co was called in to rescue the project. Every day of delay, we were assured, was millions lost to the bank. Too many delays and the market would be taken by some other bank.
Threescore and eight “Arthur Androids” pulled from “the beach” in every office around the continent instantly gelled as a team and, as in any tribe, we quickly fell into the lazy habit of using buzzwords and (more…)
During the 1980s, I was an avid admirer of Ayn Rand‘s philosophy of Objectivism. The greatest expression of this devotion was the following short story. The germ of the idea came from this news event. I was very proud of my story at the time. I offered it to only three magazines. I was shocked by their responses.
My rejection letters from The New Yorker and Esquire are below. The Atlantic Monthly did not bother to respond.
Reading the story now, it seems much more righteous and judgmental than I admit to being today. I still love the rhythm of certain sentences, the cinematic clarity of the settings and some of the word play, for example, the double meaning of the title and the triple meaning of DRILLER. Comments are welcome, of course, but please remember that I am no longer the author. He has grown away.
He pressed his fingers to the throb in his temple. Not to ease the pain, but to focus on the rhythmic pressure and blot out his sister’s insistence. Her unpersuasive words sought to compensate with repetition and emotion what they lacked in evidence and reason.
“Please Randall, if ever family mattered it is really important now.” Yes, Rachel, he thought as she talked. I know family matters, that is exactly why I am sitting at your kitchen table on a weekday morning. Being part of this family is why his day had detonated from the usual historical exposition to this hysterical exposition. If he were not born a Fleischer, Randall would still be at his desk, working on his next book.
Randall had just finished his daily preparing-to-get-ready-to-start-to-write rituals and was about to fill the computer screen with historical in-sight when the telephone rang. The first surprise was that the caller was his literary agent. Franklin called for only two reasons, either to report that Randall’s latest book had been sold to a publisher or to report that the publisher was impatient to receive the final draft of Randall’s latest book. Since Errors of Democracy had been purchased only three months ago, he could not imagine a reason for this interruption.
“Rand, what is your father’s first name?”
“Otto. And my mother’s maiden name was Calabrisi.” Randall was playful. “Is this some kind of identity check, Franklin? Are you going to pass along a secret message to me?”
“I’m afraid its no secret, friend. Something terrible has happened. The news is filled with reports that your father was… Rand, do you know what your father did during the war?”
A merchant owed a large sum of money to a lender. The old, ugly moneylender fancied the merchant’s beautiful daughter. He proposed that he would forget the debt if he could marry the merchant’s daughter. The merchant and his daughter were horrified.
The moneylender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty bag. The girl would pick a pebble from the bag. If she picked the black pebble she would have to marry the moneylender and the debt would be forgotten. If she picked the white pebble, she need not marry him and the debt would be forgotten. If she refused to pick a pebble the merchant would have to go to jail.
The moneylender bent over and picked up two pebbles. The sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. The girl immediately agreed to the contest despite her father’s protests.
Why did she agree?
On first impression it would seem there were only three possibilities:
She refuses to take a pebble, sending her father to debtors prison.
She shows that there were two black pebbles exposing the cheating moneylender but leaving the her father in debt.
She picks a black pebble and sacrifices herself for her father’s freedom.
Before you read the answer, below, try to solve this problem yourself.
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This podcast is an interview about Tony’s new novel, Crimes of Cunning: A comedy of personal and political transformation in the deteriorating American workplace. He is interviewed by longtime client Ron Dimon. Ron is an expert on the use of information by executives of large organizations. Listen as two experienced business people play with useful ideas in this episode including:
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