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Prologue When the titans of American business clash, fortunes are made and lost, careers rise and fall. Indeed, free enterprise is a system designed to reward the strong and weed out the weak. But society must demand that the game be played within boundaries of legality, decency, and common sense. On a Thursday morning in mid-November, a young woman named Abby Michener jogged briskly along a trail that meandered in and out of the forest along Wisconsin’s Lake Shaukemac. The petite, sandy-haired young woman wore a bright blue sweat suit. Her labored breathing was visible in the frigid morning air. Abby had decided that this would be the day she finished four miles without stopping for a break. But she did stop, terrified, as a twenty-four inch arrow whirred by her face, lodging deeply in a tree trunk at the path’s edge to her left. She turned, riveted by the pulsating hum of the bright metal shaft, its blue feathers quivering violently. Then she looked ahead and to her right, toward the tree stand that might be the source of a hunter’s error. Her try at a shout became a frightened croak. “Hey, be careful. I’m not an—” The second arrow whirred out of the forest, embedding in her chest with a horrific thud, driving her three staggering steps backward. She stood for an instant in horror and shock, grasping the arrow with both hands. But blood gurgled high in her throat; she felt faint, terribly faint. She sank to her knees, still clutching forlornly at the shaft. Abby Michener was one of four killed in Shaukemac County on that November day. Three of the four were completely unaware that the titans were clashing.
Chapter One
The CEO entered from the side doorway, strode to the front of the conference table, and scanned the faces of eight executives: six men, two women. He thumped a binder onto the table and leaned forward supported by doubled fists. His neck glowed crimson against the crisp white shirt; the dark eyes blazed. “We face a potential revenue crisis. You are my Senior Staff. And this piece of crap is what you give me?” He picked up the binder, growled, “Son of a bitch,” and flung it sideways. Heads ducked instinctively. Leather crashed into mahogany, rocking the row of director pictures aligned on the east wall. Richard Lockhart, head of Lockhart Technology, Inc., had arrived in Chicago an hour earlier, after a whirlwind trip to Singapore. He slept fitfully on a company jet rocked by turbulence and spent the trip’s last two thousand miles chain-drinking black coffee, mulling the strategic dilemma. An aide handed him the staff report as he stepped onto the tarmac at Midway. He absorbed for twenty minutes as his limousine rushed toward the Lockhart Tower, and fury blew away the fog of jetlag. He remained standing, arms folded in front of him. “Which one of you has the balls to explain your thinking?” Irene Bakersfield cleared her throat. “I do, sir.” On some days, it would have been a moment of levity. There was no levity today. “Explain.” Bakersfield met his glare. “We can’t have the dealers dictating strategy. If we bow on Internet distribution, we bow forever.” “So I’m to personally deliver a hard-ass speech at their Vegas convention?” “That is our recommendation. We think they’ll cave.” “I assume the speech outline is your work, Bakersfield?” “Yes, sir.” “Who role-played the dealer position?” “Dantley and I,” said Jim Zoellner, VP of Dealer Relations. “And you think a group led by Mitch Souder will cave?” “We do,” said Zoellner. “We thought through their strengths and weaknesses. We’re confident that— ” Lockhart raised his hand, an angry policeman calling a halt. He again leaned forward on the table, scanning each face, his voice muted but dripping acid. “It is once again time to locate an employee whose salary has not numbed him from the neck up.”
Richard Lockhart stormed back to his office, allowed himself a five-minute cool-down period, and dictated the message that was e-mailed to a carefully selected set of department heads, some on the headquarters campus, others in plants and laboratories worldwide. He framed the challenge: How does a leading manufacturer of electronics products begin selling via the Internet without alienating the independent retailers who have traditionally sold the products to the consuming public? He summarized the economic and political issues. And he asked for the analysis and recommendations of each department’s brightest young business mind.
*** A task force screened the eighty-two submissions, delivering fifteen to Chief Financial Officer Charlene Pearlman. Pearlman screened to four. Richard Lockhart reviewed the four and picked one. He requested her employee file and launched phase-one testing.
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Excerpt: Players and Pawns |
