TGIF

Episodes 1 – 10 (August 27 – Sept. 05) The story so far: Fish works as a production leader at the Fishing Club by the Duck Pond. The club is a world leader in the manufacturing of fishing equipment. This causes a moral dilemma for Fish but the CEO, Philippe the Angler, sees enormous potential in Fish's career and, for reasons known only to him, wants to support him. Philippe is a modern day manager. He has visited all the relevant seminars, talks to important knowledge trainers and learns many new things in the field of value based management tools, leadership skills, visionary skills and many more. Philippe believes all this content and wants to implement it. He has selected Fish to assist him. Then there is Gaston, the Wise Duck. Gaston has a different view on things and always wants to learn something new. Gaston likes good food, good wine and good conversation. In the course of time, Gaston has many wonderful conversations. Archibald is the Head of the Works Council. He has a problem with just about everything. This is a little story of how they all interact and cope with their respective environments and most important, the story of their diverse yet common experiences.

Fish was stung by the word “idealistic”. Deep down, he knew that it wasn't the case. But then, he also couldn't define what it was. He too had thought about Archibald's credo about being “naive”. Naïve was one of those negative words. It was wrong to be naïve in today's world. All too simplistic. But maybe that wasn't such a bad thing either. But life long learning was the credo as well. Everybody had to learn something. Nobody could actually define what. Some learnt languages, some went on self-awareness trainings. It was all there, all for the taking.

But something was missing. Something didn't feel right.

“You're in a rut” he thought. “Get a grip on yourself and face reality”

That reality was the regular Friday lunch debriefing. Philippe had initiated it as a lessons learnt meeting. As was so often the case, it started but he wouldn't take ownership. Friday lunches were often spent outside with clients or suppliers or friends. What seemed like a good ideas soon became as the le-le meeting. It was still held, because of Philippe's insistence, but without enthusiasm, it almost had become a gossip session, hugely unproductive.

“A rather expensive luxury”, Fish thought. He did the number crunching. Hourly rate of €50. 8 people meeting for about 2 hours. That put a price tag at €800 per week. Not such a significant sum, until you figured you might meet about 25 times a year. That came to €20,000. That was a somewhat larger figure. Too much for the le-le meeting. If there was to be any cost cutting and productivity increases, here was a place to start.

It began to dawn on Fish that using the le-le meeting would be the opportunity he subconsciously had been waiting for. All he needed now was an idea, a plan. And some help from somewhere.


To be continued.