No Way Back Read Online Free

‘This is Jim Thane. I’m the new CEO at Tao.’
    ‘Jim, how are you.’ He says this like a statement of fact, not a question. The reason it doesn’t
sound
like a question is because it’s not. He couldn’t
care less.
    ‘I have you on speakerphone, Dom. We’re all in the lunchroom, at the all-hands meeting, and we’re wondering why you’re not here. Since you probably have hands. And since
you’re the VP of Sales.’
    Silence on the line. He’s measuring me now, trying to figure out if this is a joke, or if I’m a lunatic. Finally, he decides on a course of action: he’ll be friendly and
patient, try to get the new guy up to speed.
    ‘OK, Jim. Well on Mondays and Tuesdays, I usually work from home. It’s easier to make sales calls from here.’
    ‘The thing is, Dom, the sales team isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire. So I want everyone working from the office. Every day. That includes you.’
    Silence again. I look at the faces in the lunchroom. Most of the people here are low-level employees, and they’ve never heard executives argue. A girl titters nervously.
    ‘All right,’ Dom says, finally. ‘I’ll be there first thing tomorrow.’
    I shake my head, for the benefit of my audience. I say: ‘Now.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Now, Dom.’
    ‘Listen, at this hour, traffic is nuts. I wasn’t planning on—’
    ‘Start planning. I want you here. Now.’
    More silence. The room is quiet. People are titillated. They know there’s a chance that this conversation could spiral out of control, that Dom Vanderbeek could take my bait.
    Everyone waits. There’s a moment when I think Dom Vanderbeek might say something sharp to me, but instead he backs down. Now I have a sense of him: he’s wily, knows not to fight when
he’s at a disadvantage. He’ll wait until circumstances are in his favour.
    ‘All right, Jim,’ Dom says pleasantly. ‘I’ll be on the road in ten minutes.’
    ‘Looking forward to meeting you, Dom,’ I say.
    ‘Me too,’ he says, and hangs up.

CHAPTER 2
    A corporate turnaround is like a murder investigation. The first thing you do is interview the suspects.
    I ask Amanda where is the most convenient place to hold a series of private meetings. She points to the conference room right across from the reception area.
    At first, I think the engraved plaque on the door – the one that proclaims ‘Boardroom’ – is an ironic joke, a small-company jibe at big-company pretension. But once I
enter, I realize no irony was intended. Like every other space at Tao, the room is overwrought, designed to impress. There’s a long black table, twelve Aeron chairs, a sideboard that may or
may not hide a wet bar. Everything in the room is state of the art: two flat-panel video screens on opposite walls, remote-controlled halogen lighting, recessed audio speakers built into panelling,
a huge whiteboard with coloured dry-erase markers.
    I station myself at the centre of the table, on the long side of the oval. My message here – by not taking one of the two power seats at the ends – is that I’m just a regular
guy who wants to shoot the breeze. Which isn’t true, of course, but it’s a CEO’s job to be aware of appearances.
    Each meeting lasts twenty minutes, and each follows roughly the same format. First, five minutes of pleasantries. A little friendly laughter on my part, to show that I am not an inhuman monster
and that I have a heart, or at least that I can superficially simulate this fact. Then, the important question, which I ask gently, as if afraid of causing offence: What, exactly, do you
do
here at Tao?
    Perhaps not surprisingly, no one who works at this sinking ship can give me a simple and straightforward answer. Randy Williams, VP of Engineering, tells me his job is to make sure ‘great
software gets built’. Since Tao’s new software version is nine months late, and nowhere near completion, I’m tempted to ask him if he has a second job somewhere else where he puts