I shine at office retreat as Shiro walks out on me

Early last week, we had an office retreat in a resort in the Rift Valley. The purpose of the retreat was to have a mid-year review to look at where we are against the targets set.

I was pleased that this time the CEO did not invite me to take notes or to prepare his presentation. Instead, he asked me to come and present on what business ideas have been developed to maturity since the year begun and also which ones we plan on completing by the year end.

This required me to talk to various unit leaders about their performance during the year and I got a number of interesting responses.

One of them told me, “I do not see why I should share what I have done so that you can get all the credit.” I spent the next 15 minutes trying to explain to him about my role and how it is important that I get a holistic view of the business in general.

He then asked, “So are you really responsible for making any money or all you do is just throw ideas to us all over the place?” I felt insulted by his comment but I soldiered on and told him that my business development would include preparing “comprehensive business cases supported by all the data you need to execute the idea.”

He seemed unconvinced by my explanation so I used the last card up my sleeve and said, “Well the CEO has asked me to share with him a presentation by end of day so please help me meet this target.”

This trick worked because he thawed and called an analyst in his team and told him “please share with Josphat our January to June performance and our forecast.” This experience and others left me feeling a bit concerned that most of the managers still view me as an errand boy.

I therefore decided that I needed to make a killer presentation during the retreat so that I can earn their respect.

Killer presentation

I prepared thoroughly and even did a lot of research in terms of how and what successful companies do when they conduct business reviews.

I also looked at my notes from the public speaking skills to ensure that I gave a killer presentation. On the morning of leaving for the trip, I had a rather worrying conversation with Shiro.

She asked me, “When are you coming back from the retreat?” I found that interesting but I responded and said, “I will be back on Tuesday evening.” She said, “Just as well because our company is holding a team building event on Thursday and Friday at the Coast.”

I was stunned by her excitement on the retreat and I asked her, “since when did you get so excited about team building events? I thought you hate them.”

She smiled and said, “I was speaking to Timo and he said that most people consider me a snob and so I need to change that perception.” I could not help but ask her, “What is going on with Timo? You seem to be hanging out a lot and getting his opinion.”

That set her off and she accused me of not trusting her and how I was reading too much into things.

She stomped out of the house with final words, “Well, you better take care of Maingi while I am away.”

As we drove to the Rift Valley, I could not help thinking that perhaps Shiro is having an affair with this Timo guy. I promised myself that I would investigate upon my return.

The rest of the retreat was quite intense with a lot of questions coming in from my colleagues during my presentation.

I noticed that most of them would change the tone of the questions to match the mood of the CEO. At one point the CEO said that I needed to give more details and two managers went for the jugular attacking what they called my “scanty details.”

When the CEO said that he liked my forecast the same managers changed their tone. I guess I am learning very fast that when it comes to corporate affairs, you do what the boss wants.