Editor’s note: The Anatomy of Peace, an important new book by the writers of Leadership and Self-Deception, shows us the cause of human conflict so that we can learn to live in peace. Look for the continuation next Monday.
“Did you hear that, Carol?” Lou said chasing after her out to the parking lot. “That girl, Jenny – you know, the one who was yelling and carrying on this morning – she took off running.”
“Where?”
“Here, out in the streets. She just took off running across town.”
Carol stopped. “Oh, how terrible,” she said, looking up the street. “Poor girl. She wasn’t wearing any shoes. Do you think we should try to find her?”
“I’m sure Yusuf and his team are handling it,” he said.
Before now, Carol would have thought this a sarcastic dig, but she thought she heard a hint of respect in Lou’s voice.
Lou glanced at his watch. “Listen, Carol, I have to make some calls.”
“Now?”
“Yes. The situation at the office is kind of a mess. I have to check in with a couple of people.”
>”Can’t you do that later?”
“They’ll probably be gone home by the time we’re out this evening. I’m going to have to call now.”
“You never worried about calling them at home on Friday nights before,” she said, coyly. “Why now?”
Lou knew what Carol was searching for, but he didn’t want her to have the satisfaction of knowing he was actually considering what Avi and Yusuf had said. Avoiding a direct answer to her question, he said, “Well, I’d rather not call them at home if I can help it. Not with all the turmoil everyone’s in. Don’t want to add to it, I suppose.”
“Okay,” Carol said. “I’ll bring you back something to eat.”
“Thanks,” Lou said as he turned to look for a private place to make his calls.
He knew who he needed to call first: his secretary. But he got her voice mail. Where is she! he thought, before catching himself.
“Please leave me a message,” came the pleasant voice.
“Susan, it’s Lou. Just checking in for a report. I’ll try you later.” In that moment, he suddenly flashed back to the blustery way he’d left the office the day before and felt a tinge of regret. “Oh, and one more thing,” he found himself saying. “I’m, uh -” he hesitated. “I’m sorry for blowing up at you yesterday on the way out of town. I didn’t mean it, really. I think I was just feeling the load of all that’s going on, and I ended up taking it out on you. So, sorry about that. Anyway, that’s all. Carry on.”
“Carry on”?Lou thought to himself as he hung up the phone. You can’t do any better than that? “Carry on”? Lou shook his head. Wow, once ‘Nam’s in your system, you just can’t shake it.
Other than feeling a bit of chagrin over his military-issue good-bye, Lou felt good having made the call to Susan.
But the next call was going to be harder. It was to Kate – Kate Stenarude, who had led the mutiny of his executive staff.
Kate had been one of the original twenty employees at Zagrum, where she started as an order fulfillment clerk after graduating from college with a degree in history. It turns out she had been a brilliant hire, as her combination of brains, likeability, and professional drive quickly elevated her to the top of the sales division. Despite her young age, until the March Meltdown she had been everyone’s pick as Lou’s successor – if and when he ever decided to retire, that is.
This love for her was partly born of a desperate hope as she was the single person who while possessing the business vision and smarts required to run the operation also retained a deeply felt appreciation for the people around her, regardless of rank or position. When she walked in the Zagrum doors each morning as Zagrum’s director of sales, she walked and talked and greeted and laughed the same way she did the day she was hired. She walked in not as a big shot but as one of the people. And the people loved her for it.
So when she walked out of the building on that rainy Connecticut March morning, “escorted” on Lou’s command by apologetic members of the security staff, it was as though the company’s heart and soul walked out with her. Lou knew this, although until now he had been trying to deny the full impact of her leaving. But truth was her loss hurt the company more than the loss of the other four combined. And probably more, even, than if Lou had left himself.
He had to call her. But what am I going to say? he wondered.
He stood there with the clumsy uncertainty he once felt as a teenager when he was trying to motivate himself to call and ask a girl out.
Ah hell, just call her! he shouted internally, calling himself out of his adolescent timidity.
He dialed the number and waited: one ring, then two, three, four.
With each ring he felt the youthful panic build again within him until he was telling himself that if she didn’t pick up by ring six, he would hang up.
The sixth ring hadn’t even completed before he terminated the call, a spasm of relief releasing droplets of sweat on his brow. Well, I tried, he said to himself. I’ll catch her later.
But his racing heart told him that he might not get the courage up to do it again for days. If ever.
Now for real work, he thought to himself, as he dialed up John Rencher, the president of the local union, who was threatening a strike.
“Hello?” came the voice.
“John.” It was more of a summons to attention than a greeting.
“Yes.”
“It’s Lou Herbert.”
Silence.
Just then Lou thought of Yusuf’s assignment to see everyone as people.
“Hey, listen, John,” he said, in as kind a voice as he could muster, “I was wondering if we could get together when I get back and take another look at your proposal.”
“Take another look at it yourself,” Rencher shot back. “You’ve had it for a week.”
“I just thought you and I could get further if we talked things over,” Lou responded, still as agreeably as he could.
“So you still want more from us.”
“Well, this is a negotiation after all.”
“No, Lou, this is an ultimatum. We’re going to shut you down until you meet our demands. You’ve railroaded our people for too long. It’s over, Lou.”
“Now you listen here, you little scumbag,” Lou exploded. “You can take your clock-watching, do-nothing morons and go ruin someone else’s company if you want. But if you walk out on me, you’re over at Zagrum. The union will never walk through my doors again. You got that?”
“You got that!” he repeated.
“I said, YOU GOT THAT!“
But the line was dead. Rencher had hung up.
Lou bellowed in frustration as he flung the phone at the wall. “Stupid homework,” he muttered. “See people as people,” he repeated to himself sarcastically in a singsong tone. “What a joke. Yusuf hasn’t worked a day in the real world. He doesn’t know squat! Yeah, go ahead Yusi,” he said to the air mockingly, “try your little soft-pop stuff on the union. Yeah, that’ll work. And on the terrorists. And on Cory too. Sure, they’ll all just roll over and pant happily after receiving a little of your Middle Eastern love.” He laughed at the oxymoronic ring to this and then shook his head, half out of anger, half out of disgust. “What a waste. This whole thing is a waste.”
When Carol returned from lunch, a take-out box for Lou in her hand, Lou intercepted her before she entered the building.
“Carol, we’re leaving.”
“What?” she uttered in complete surprise.
“You heard me; we’re leaving.”
“Leaving,” she repeated in disbelief. “Why?”
“Because this is a waste of time, and I don’t have time to waste.”
Carol looked at him warily. “What happened on your calls, Lou?”
“Nothing.”
“Seriously, Lou, what happened?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you, if you really want to know. I was yanked back to reality, that’s what happened. Someone brought me back to my senses. Come on. We’re going.”
At that, Lou started for the car.
But Carol didn’t budge.
“Carol, I said we’re leaving.”
“I know what you said, but I won’t allow it. Not this time, Lou. The stakes are too high.”
“You’re damn right the stakes are too high, Carol. That’s why we have to go.”
“No, Lou, that’s why we have to stay. The stakes you’re worried about, whatever they are, are high because of how we’ve been mostly tone-deaf to what we’re starting to learn here. We’re not leaving, Lou.
“Okay, have it your way, Carol,” he said, dismissing her with a quick flick of his wrist. “I’m leaving then.”
Carol stood in silence. The hope that had developed within her through the morning was now fading. See him as a person, see him as a person, she repeated within. You’ve got to keep seeing him as a person.
“Lou -“
He stopped and turned to her. “Yeah?”
“If you leave here, Honey,” she said, “I’ll leave you.”
“You’ll what?”
In this moment, Carol was struck by how much she loved this man. Despite his belligerence, she was not raging within toward him. And his bullheadedness did not wash from her memory the many wonderful things he had done for her and for others. He wasn’t a saint, to be sure, but there were times – especially during some of the private moments that make up most of life – that he cared and loved and acted in saintly ways.
He was better in private than he was in the glare of public moments, which was just the opposite of many people she knew. And it seemed to her that his brand of private strength and public weakness showed more goodness and character than those who hid private weakness with conjured public strength. Yes, she thought to herself, I’d take him again if we had the chance to do everything over.
So she was surprised when she heard herself say again, “I’ll leave you, Lou. And I mean it.”
Lou stood for a moment in complete silence. Every muscle in his body had frozen still, as if afraid to move for where the movement might lead.
“Carol,” he said finally, almost in pleading, “you can’t be serious.”
Carol nodded slightly. “Yes, Lou, I’m afraid I am.
>”Don’t misunderstand,” she added. “I don’t want to leave you. But I will.”
This knocked Lou completely out of sorts.
“Listen, Lou, I think we need this. I think Cory needs it from us. And I think we need it for him and for each other. You might need it for Zagrum too,” she added. “And for Kate.”
This last mention of Kate caught Lou, for it took him back to the feeling he had when he knew he needed to call her, which seemed like years ago.
He slumped his shoulders and heaved a heavy sigh.
“Okay, Carol,” he said, forlornly. “You win. I’ll stay.”
Then he paused. “But only until tonight.”
Copyright 2006 by The Arbinger Institute
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