woman wearing irish linen shirt

An interesting thing happened at today's meetup: Sanjay, who is loved by all parties and works hard, also started to play negative responses.

Because he was too enthusiastic and cooperative before, this gap in attitude was immediately noticed by everyone.Another manager on Kevin's side took over and Sanjay himself was just answering questions - how negative is that?The only person on our side who is "only responsible for answering questions" is Lao Huang.

It was also Sanjay's sudden turn that made me realize why Miss Pender was sitting here.She will appear at the conference once a week, and occasionally participate in small meetings of the middle and high levels, but the number of active speeches can be counted on the fingers.At first I thought it was some kind of trade-off between the Shanghai office and the Singapore office, but now it seems to be the opposite. Miss Pan De is definitely not sitting here as a mascot.

A partner of hers is not busy with business development, but stays on projects all day long, which speaks for itself.

"I want to make one thing clear—" Miss Pender said, and everyone fell silent, "The new team and I are not here to make the situation worse."

Of course it's not to make the situation worse, you are directly here to smash the pot.I wonder.

"We've been working together for two weeks, but unfortunately, up to now, we still haven't reached an agreement on the process of problem definition. It's a waste." Miss Pande looked at Kevin, her eyes went to the boss, and she looked around in a circle.It is likely that what she really wants to remind is the people around her.

Next to her was the seat of the big boss, with Jocelyn sitting on it.

Miss Pender paused for a few seconds and said, "We're here to help."

"We're very happy about that," Jocelyn said.

I was taken aback, it was really yin and yang.

But she acted very sincerely, as if she didn't mean anything at all just now, and continued: "Li Song is not satisfied with the current progress. Kevin, Rudra—of course, I understand that in the current routine work, Your teams all have massive workloads to juggle. Given the COVID pandemic - bless those who are afflicted with it - the additional workload has increased and is inevitable."

She tossed about this for another two or three minutes, and then said: "But the integration of resources is a very critical and important project. Li Song hopes that you will actively cooperate."

"Of course." Kevin was the first to answer.

The boss also said: "I will make sure that we allocate more manpower in this area." He changed the subject, "Yao, can you introduce the phased results of our internal discussions in the past two weeks?"

When did we have this discussion?

I stood up: "Okay. I hope you don't mind looking at the whiteboard."

The BCG side obviously didn't expect this, the smile lagged behind a little, and the timing when it appeared on the face was very embarrassing.Miss Pan De remained calm, looked at me and raised her eyebrows, and moved her chair back a little.

I carried the whiteboard over and took off the pen cap.It is still possible for Jocelyn or Miss Pender to see my expression from this angle. God knows how much I want to take a deep breath.I turned around very quickly, maybe God really couldn't stand it and lent me a few leopard guts?I tried to speak slowly, but not suspiciously: "I think you all know that we have been going through pains since the division was separated for a year. In some core positions, such as data analysts, the two The people in the project team are all facing the problem of insufficient manpower.”

This is why Kevin can go to An Ning, while our side, which has a relatively deep background, can directly receive support from other departments.

"However, this is not the most fundamental problem we are currently facing." I wrote a few keywords roughly according to the geographical distribution on the whiteboard and circled them. Because we are in charge of the European, Asian and Brazilian markets, our two project teams, from the same company, need to go through a lot of communication processes. When it comes to cross-regional cooperation, many unnecessary costs are consumed in such processes .”

One of the instigators is Kevin.

I paused for two or three seconds, which is time for everyone to think.Next, I drew two lines between "Europe" and "Asia", which should be barely visible as pipelines.At this time, I found that the colleagues with lower ranks in the back were more energetic, but I didn't dare to look at the boss at all, I was afraid of being discouraged.Immediately afterwards, I said: "Communication. After a long but substantial discussion, our group feels that communication is what we need, and we can start to build it—and in terms of channel construction, we will be very happy to listen to BCG's proposal."

Miss Pender's face softened a little.Or maybe it's just an illusion: she maintains a focused but distant smile throughout.She turned around and looked towards Kevin and the others, but didn't speak.

Jocelyn gave a timely step: "Kevin, have you hosted similar meetings?"

Kevin's mouth was tightly shut, and he looked slightly sideways at Sanjay.I don't know what kind of look he gave Sanjay. Anyway, Sanjay said "uh" twice, but didn't take the initiative to say anything.Kevin turned back, glanced at me, looked at Miss Pande and said, "Of course. What Yao mentioned is also what we think is a pain point. I have nothing to add."

"That's right, Jocelyn," Miss Pande said, "In the past work, we found that the problem was not limited to the communication channel. The technical experts of the Rudra project team gave us feedback on many professional issues. Of course, the design of the scheme is also in progress... We are judging that there may be a better optimization scheme in the overall framework."

This is equivalent to calling Lao Huang's name, but what is scary is her last sentence.

The boss will definitely not take the initiative to accept the move.I'm a little embarrassed standing here, why, if Lao Huang doesn't stand up, will she put me on the fire?

Jocelyn turned to me: "Thank you, Yao, your efforts have been very helpful for the progress of today's meeting."

"Thank you." I gave Joseline a grateful look, and went back to sit down.

Then Jocelyn said, "I think you'd be happy to hear your judgment."

Seeing Ms. Pan De giving her a look, Xu Xin said: "It can be said with certainty that the two project teams are one of the most important departments of the company, but due to structural problems and many authority restrictions, the work efficiency has gradually reached the ceiling. According to We communicated with some technical experts and middle-level managers, and we found that the parallel form of the two departments has actually brought about a reduction in efficiency, which is the consensus of almost everyone. If a thorough adjustment is made in the opening of structural permissions, We believe that at least 30.00% two to 30.00% six efficiency improvements can be brought about - this is only a preliminary estimate."

I'm sure that number was just thought of by him at this moment, and there is no basis at all.

"I'm sure Lisson will be very happy to hear that." Jocelyn was noncommittal.She smiled and said, "Can you please tell me, what does 'overall framework optimization' refer to, Sonia? I noticed that some... adverbs of degree are newly used."

Miss Pender kept her smile on and said, "That's what we're going to work on together."

"Lisong and the board will be very interested in this outcome," Jocelyn said.

The meeting ended in smoke.

Everyone went out quickly, as if they didn't want to stay here for a moment.I also want to retreat quickly, but my seat is very far back, and the whiteboard has not been wiped, so it is not a good idea to leave this work to the next batch of people who use this conference room.Jocelyn probably wanted to say something to me, but Miss Pender didn't move, so she just said goodbye to her and nodded at me with a smile before leaving.I knew it well, and knew that I would go to the big boss's place later.

"I'm sorry, Yao," Miss Pan De stopped me, "The discussion was so intense just now, I forgot to thank you the first time."

"It's never too late to say 'thank you'." I laughed, raising my eyebrows.

She opened her lips slightly, looked at me, and said, "Thank you for your explanation."

I smiled politely.Ya just put me on the fire and I still remember it.

"You like to use a whiteboard to make presentations." She leaned over slightly, and there were only two of us in the meeting room at this time, "Is it because your handwriting is beautiful?"

"Thank you." My English is very average, but it must be much better than that of ordinary Americans. They don't pay attention to this at all, "I just think it's more efficient."

"But how do you manage to sort out your thoughts quickly? Without the help of slides," she seemed very interested, "organizing the language itself is a very difficult thing."

Because every time the ducks are put on the shelves!But I said, "Maybe it's because I'm good at passing exams. Reading a book is more important than taking notes, and taking notes with a steel notebook is more straightforward than using a keyboard."

This is equivalent to avoiding her question of sorting out her thoughts.I had a hunch that there was a hole in there, but so far Miss Pender hasn't dug a hole for me, so I try not to think about it that way.

Fortunately, she seemed to be asking casually, and followed my gaze to see the graffiti on the back of the document paper that hadn't been tidied up on the table.

"Mind if I take a look?" Seeing me shrugging, Miss Pande picked up the paper.Some key information mentioned in the BCG meeting today was written in shorthand. As for the speculation behind the information, I wrote it on the computer.

"Beautiful writing." She put it back and said, "A beautiful pen."

"Thank you." I had a flash of inspiration. "The bad thing about using your own pen in the office is that sometimes it disappears after you use it."

"This one got your heart."

"Yes." I said with a smile, "it was a gift from my mother in college."

She affirmed: "It is very memorable."

"That's it. But it has other meanings, depending on how you look at it." I said, "I have a gift for you."

Miss Pender was a little surprised, but said, "Thank you!"

Then I looked at my hand.

I also turned my hand over and looked at my palm, of course there was nothing there - then I looked up at her and said, "You'll get it the next time you see me."

"What's so mysterious?" Her slightly frowning made her eyes look deeper.

I'm a little dazed, and when it comes to private contact, I tend to forget my purpose.I just blinked and said, "I think you'll like it."