ENTRY # 3: The Most Important Person.

Dear dairy, I missed you! This week has been too exciting and simulating to update entries; but here we are, together at last! OK, I know I still sound very excited and you are dying to have me tell you all about it, so I’ll just dive right in.

After the immense stress of the previous week and the final closure on Q1 analysis, we all thought we were going to have some quite days ahead; but that was not to be. What began as a peaceful week, with a much welcomed uneventful Monday and an even quieter Tuesday, quickly disintegrated into chaos when Mr. Olivier strolled in on Wednesday morning, wearing a suspicious smile on his face. No one was particularly surprised when he called for a 5minutes-in-the-boardroom later that morning. These 5mins meetings were one to the many changes that came with the new Mr. Olivier. The general specifications of these meeting included the restriction of the entire meeting’s duration to five minutes, the prohibition of chairs- everyone remained standing, and the achievement of a clear result at the end of the meeting; this could be in the form of a decision made, an information passed across, an idea birthed, as assessment given, a feedback received, or a matter shoved into suspense.  As a rule, all staff of the department must be in the board room exactly two minutes after one of such meetings have been called or be penalized for tardiness.

A minute after I received Mr. Olivier’s alert, I filed the reports I had been working on, locked my screen, and headed to the board room. As I was the last one in and quite pressed for ‘execution time’, I quickly kissed Mona good morning, pulled her along and squeezed us in between Uche and Sam after quick ‘Hellos’. Dear dairy, I had been planning this maneuver all morning without even realizing it. You see, both Uche and Mona had been avoiding me since last Friday’s night when I
returned to the office to retrieve some documents I forgot, and found them engaged in a less than official activity; but that’s a story for another day. The bottom line is that I believed the ‘avoid her, and she’ll go away’ strategy was not only childish but was also a red flag that would soon draw the attention of others; especially Temi who possessed a strong perception for such things. I could see the unease in both their faces as we stood there; but luckily for everyone, Mr. Olivier walked in and broke the mood.

“Hello everyone, hopefully, this meeting is going to be shorter than usual. I’m glad to inform you all that after Q1’s performance, the managing board have decided on a group wide assessment to elect the unit best suited to represent the company at the upcoming corporate leadership summit in Geneva”. As usual, Mr. Olivier paused for effect while we all stood there in stunned silence.
“Now, as you all may already know, the management staff are all going to be at the summit, it would be a pleasure if you’d all join me there by scaling this assessment; and its quite easy too. Simply prepare a team presentation on the topic ‘The Most Important Person’, to be presented to the assessment team on Friday. Bonne chance!” With that, Mr. Olivier tipped his hat and exited the boardroom.

We were all in shock for a while, then Temi- not one to miss an opportunity for adventure- recovered first “We don’t have a choice, we have to win this; an all-expense paid trip abroad? My God!”
“It’s not that big a deal Temi, it’s just Switzerland” Sam squirmed, already sensing the pressure that all the excitement could build up to.
“I don’t care if its Egypt or even Tanzania, bottom line is that it’s free and promises countless opportunities and adventures!” Temi countered heatedly.
Remembering that I had a report to close out on and sensing that we were all too excited presently to get any meaningful work done on the project, I mediated “Well we better have a plan if we hope to be chosen over the other units. I suggest we meet for an hour during launch, and another hour at the close of business today to work on the project”. We all agreed to this and drifted back to our respective work stations.
I was concluding the dissemination of my report to the relevant users when a huge travel guide crashed on my desk; with a startled yelp, I spun around to find Temi, arms akimbo, staring darts of fire into me.
“Guess who suggested we meet at launch hour? Why! The person who’s still at her desk pretending to be busy of course! Look Ari, some of us don’t have the time to sit around waiting for you when there’s a trip to Switzerland to plan!” I laughed out loud as Temi pulled me from my desk to the board room; as far as Temi was concerned, she was going to Geneva and anyone who stood in the way of that was the enemy.

There was full attendance in the board room as all my colleagues were already seated and deliberating on the subject; I guess some incentives were just more compelling than others. The major controversy in the room seemed to be a matter of context. The topic was ‘The Most Important Person’, leading to the question of ‘in what aspect?’ Is it the most important person in the world, or in Africa, or Nigeria, or the company? And somehow, we all new that this was the most important part of the assessment.
“Since this is a company-wide assessment in preparation for a company leadership summit, I think we should work in the perspective of the organization.” Uche suggested. We all saw the sense in that so we adopted it. Now, who was the most important person in the company?
“It has to be Chief” Temi quipped, briefly raising her head from the tour guide she had been pawing. Well Chief was the most prominent person in the organization, but as my colleagues bounced about ideas on a presentation about Chief, I felt a growing unease; something just wasn’t right. I looked into the faces around me and I saw my unease reflected in one of them; it was Mona’s, she was uncharacteristically deep in some sort of reflection.
“What do you think Mona?” I asked, somewhat startling her.
“Well, I’m not sure if I agree with the subject at hand, Chief is pretty important, no, he’s really important but I’m not sure if he is the most important person; I don’t know, my assistant Bakare, is more important to me, I don’t know what I’d do without him!” she replied.

Voila! Mona had just voice what had been nibbling away at my subconscious. “That is it!” I said, slapping the palm of my hand on the table. Our presentation shouldn’t be about chief just because he’s the number one man in the organization, it should be about the people that are truly most important to us; and who’s more important than our assistants, reporting officers, secretaries, relations officers, Line managers, colleagues, and so no? These people practically keep our lives from becoming a wreck, they churn out the data we work with, organize our planners, file the right documents in the right places and speedily retrieve them on demand, interface between us and berserk visitors, customers, and sociopaths alike, they bring us coffee, memorize the names of all the other guests at events so we don’t have to and provide us with same when we need them, make tough decisions for us, draw up plans so that we work objectively and not in circles, hire good people that we can rely on and work with to achieve our mutual goals, work tirelessly with us no matter how intolerable we are and cover our asses when we slip; in fact, they literally hold up the platform on which we stand in the spotlight! I explained these thoughts to my colleagues, reminding them that this assessment was based on leadership not followership and/or praise singing.
“Come on people, there isn’t a most important person in this organization; rather everyone is most important as they deliver what is expected of them.” I concluded.

My colleagues were thoughtful for a moment, then Uche broke the silence “we are doomed. This is a damn good idea, and I know we are all too smart to ignore it, too smart for our own good! What if they actually want a praise song?”
“Then Mr. Olivier wouldn’t have been so excited. He eyes twinkled like it does whenever he gets a good puzzle” Mona answered. I saw Uche give her a meaningful look at that statement and I stifled a grin and mediated for the second time that day “we can’t be a hundred percent sure Uche, this is one risk we’d have to take”.
Temi flexed her fingers as she fretted while Sam doodled in his note pad. Even though I was right, I was suggesting a very risky path.
“Ok, let’s do this already; if we fail, at least we know who to the blame” the ever critical Dara leaped in. The clearly apportioned burden lifted the unease to an extent and everyone became more open to bounce ideas on the new subject, and put together a presentation. We broke up for the afternoon and reconvened at COB. At the end of the day we had a passable presentation; and when we met the next day, it was simply to put in the finishing touches. Then came a problem none of us had previously conceived; who would be the presenter.
Naturally, Dara strongly voiced that I should make the presentation since I was the one who birthed ‘this risk’; and for that reason, I strongly rejected the idea even as several of my colleagues consented. Instead, I suggested Mona do the presentation. She was a very good orator, she was quite new (newer than myself) and still needed opportunities to please and prove herself, and I wanted her to know that everything that’s happened since Friday was just water under the bridge as far as I was concerned. I somehow convinced everyone, and Mona was accepted as the presenter.

Friday morning turned out bright and sunny, a complete contrast to the icicles forming in belly. We had been scheduled for an 11:45am presentation and Mr. Olivier was nowhere in sight to give us some last minute encouragements. Mona looked like she’d swallowed something really bad while Temi was so restless that she became a source of fatigue; even the otherwise aloof Dara looked ready to jump into her car and zoom off to somewhere very far away from the office. At 11:40, we all piled into the elevator and climbed to conference hall at the topmost floor, to find the SST North 1 sales team exiting with JT at the head of the troop. JT (a short for Jonathan) was the superstar of this sales team, his performance was always outstanding and he looked like a cross between Prince Williams and Chris Hemsworth, however, he somehow forgot to lose his high school bully persona as he aged.
“Ah! The goggled birds are out of their coup!” he said as we approached. We all kept poker faces and tried to ignore his comment but it didn’t help that almost 90% of my team used prescribed glasses, including myself. I’ve had a few encounters with JT- well more than a few but that’s story for another day- so when he walked up really close to me and said “Break a leg Ari!” I knew it was not a compliment or a form of encouragement.
“Grow up JT!” I snapped and brushed passed him while he laughed with gusto.

As we entered the conference hall, oh boy, we immediately knew we had not come prepared. The huge projector screens still had the closing remarks of the previous team as the Tech guy on duty requested for our audio-visual presentation aid. We didn’t have any! Our presentation was purely oral. And then there was the panel! I’ve never seen so many important people gathered together in one place at a time; Chief was not there, but his second in command was, alongside too many important people from HR for anyone’s comfort. That very bad thing Mona swallowed was immediately riled as she choked “Ari, I can’t do this, oh my God, I’m going to be sick!” with that, she dashed out of the hall.
I raced after and tackled her flat before she got to the elevator “if you do this to the team Mona, you’d become worse than a pariah! You don’t need that and you know it!” I said shaking her hard to restore her to default.
Dear dairy, I knew my teammates would crucify me if I didn’t get this girl up and running in within the next minute. It seemed the gods were on my side that morning because Mona soon snapped out of her mini nervous breakdown and ended giving a damn good presentation. When she concluded with the statement “Ladies and Gentlemen, there isn’t a most important person in this organization; rather everyone is most important in their own capacity, we are all like cells in a tissue, working together to form the life substance of this organization; you are the most important person, just as I am. Thank you” I initiated the loud round of applause that ensued after she’d stop speaking simply because I couldn’t help myself. At that point, I dint care if we won the trip to Geneva or not; I was simply awed by the beauty Mona had managed to spin out after all, and by the fact all she said was truth; from her lips to God’s ears…



(Disclaimer: Aria's Note is largely fiction; as such, names, characters, businesses, organisations, associations, places, events and incidents are product of the author's imagination. any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events, locales, associations or organisations is entirely coincidental.)