--Originally published at Project Evaluation and Management Reflections
The finish line
Yet, he calls Mr. T. again to ask him for Beloks whereabouts. He planned to make him his successor and is now looking for a solution. After Mr. T. proposed to choose Gabriel Markov, the ex-General instead, NLL accepts and proclaims that he´s ‘got a natural flair for this sort of thing’. This totally wrong impression of his own judgement shows that some people are just not “people people”, like some of those we got to know in the book. Instead, some might just be more “facts people”.
Speaking of the devil, ex-Minister Belok (don´t tell him, he doesn’t know yet 
) calls and demands to squeeze most of the employees together in one building, as he wants to rent out the Aidrivoli space to a tenant paying him more money than the employees are making. He phrases this as making the company ‘lean and mean’, exactly what had happened to Mr. T. in the beginning of the book at his old company. ‘Lean and mean’ basically is just a term to replace a failing company, and quite the contrary to an organization’s natural goal of being ‘prosperous and caring’, so that talent can be used and promoted.
When Mr. T. refuses, he replies:
‘You are powerless and afraid, and I am one mean and dangerous man. You don’t dare trifle with me. You haven’t got the guts.’
ex-Minister Belok
It seems like this is the style a lot of managers can get away with, and as long as people don´t actually dare to contradict them, they can do as they please. However, once you actually refuse to follow their orders, you might realize that they besides their attitude, they have no power at all to push people around anymore.
