Influence

by Chris Parker

  ‘My starting point is completely different. When I see a patient I want to understand the totality of their life. I want to gain insights into the relationship they have with their body. I want to know about any pressures and stresses they are experiencing. I always tell my clients that the human body is like the planet: the way it is performing, the ways the different and yet interconnected systems and processes are operating, is ultimately a reflection of the way we are treating it. “Health Matters” exists to make people better, to improve them in significant ways, to move them on, not to simply take them back to how they were so that they can make all the same mistakes again.’

  When he finished speaking, Paul realised that his heart was hammering in his chest and that his face was flushed. His back had straightened and he was acutely aware of the natural curve of his spine. His feet were pressing into the carpet on the office floor. He hadn’t felt so alive in years.

  ‘Happy writing,’ Marcus had said, bringing the meeting to a close.

  Now, as Paul Clusker walked through the city in the direction of his clinic, face down against the oncoming rain, he looked forward to his second meeting with Marcus Kline. It was due to take place from 3pm to 4pm that afternoon. He couldn’t help but wonder what he might hear himself say this time.

  It wasn’t just because of the way he was looking down to escape the rain that Paul Clusker failed to notice the grey Audi A6 as it passed him. It wasn’t because of his preoccupation with the forthcoming meeting that he ignored the man in the dark green raincoat looking up at the clouds as if welcoming the cleansing rain on his skin; the man who was actually keeping his eyes open letting the raindrops hit his pupils, blurring his vision before running down his cheeks like tears. The man who was actually looking at the rain.

  Paul didn’t notice that man at all. He was wrapped in his own thoughts, insulated against all that was happening around him by his own imaginings. Paul had not been conditioned to give others attention unless, or until, they appeared at his clinic. As committed as he was to his work, Paul had long ago learned the importance of knowing how to distance himself from the stresses of his work, of being able to take time out to ensure his own wellbeing.

  There was such a thing, he told his clients, as appropriate selfishness. It was, he said, the ability to do those things necessary to look after yourself without causing harm to others in the process. Appropriate selfishness meant finding time, even if it was only brief periods, when you just did what was best for you. He suggested to everyone who would listen that it was more basic and more important than any form of clever, communications technology. For Paul, walking to and from work was a crucial part of his own time.

  So, he walked past the man who was letting the rain spike into his eyeballs. He had no more sense of him than he did the buildings that towered above them both. Right now he was no more likely to consider the man in the green raincoat than he was to pause and look up at the higher floors and the rooftops of the buildings. Only a tourist would stop to study the architecture. Only a professional who had an unhealthy obsession with their work would fail to create personal time.

  If asked, Paul would have said that creating this time was an essential way of maintaining one’s own sanity. The challenge for anyone working in the service of others – particularly those who, like Marcus Kline, were the very best at what they did – was in ensuring that that whilst they were making things better for others, they were also making things better for themselves. Brilliance, Paul knew, came at a price. Clients usually had to pay large sums of money to be associated with such brilliance. Too often, though, those who were brilliant got their work-life balance wrong and the price they paid was even more significant.

  If asked, the man in the green raincoat would have agreed. If asked, he would have said that there was always a price to pay. He would have said that nothing ever came for free, that payment and accomplishment was one of the most basic and powerful forms of association. It was not as primal, of course, as left brain and right brain connectivity, but it was pretty close to it. Only the laziest and weakest backed their hopes of a successful future on a weekly lottery ticket. The truth was the more you wanted to get back in life, the more you had to give out. The man closed his eyes and felt the rain sting his eyelids. And if you don’t give it out, he thought, you have to make someone else do it for you. Sometimes that is the best and only option.

  7.

  ‘There’s always another option,’ Marcus Kline said as he walked across the Market Square in the very heart of Nottingham. ‘The problem Simon, is that you haven’t identified that option yet.’

  Marcus heard Simon Westbury sigh. It was followed by a brief silence. Marcus found it easy to imagine Simon moving his face away from the phone, looking up to his right, shaking his head in bewilderment as he considered the best response.

  Marcus waited.

  After several seconds, Simon had gathered his thoughts. ‘But the client is wrong! I don’t see why I just can’t tell them that. After all, they pay us for our expertise don’t they? They come to us because we know more about this sort of stuff than they do. So why not, in this case, just tell it like it is. I know that what I’m recommending is right, because you’ve told me it is. I know, therefore, that his alternative idea is bollocks. Why waste time –both the client’s and ours – pussyfooting around? My granddad used to say that if you don’t call a spade a spade, you never know which tool to bring out of the shed. I really think it’s time to bring out the spade.’

  Marcus chuckled. He thought of Simon Westbury as his protégé. The twenty- three year old had been with him for a little more than a year. Simon had first approached Marcus when he was midway through a Masters degree in Strategic Marketing at Nottingham Trent University. Simon had emailed and then phoned asking for part-time, unpaid work experience. Marcus had agreed to meet the proactive young man and had been immediately impressed by his overwhelming passion for a career in communications and influence. During his work placement, Simon had shown such promise that Marcus had created a full-time post for him when he graduated.

  The appointment had come as a shock to Emma, his totally reliable PA and receptionist, who until then had been Marcus’ only employee. ‘I thought you said this was always going to be a one man band,’ she commented. ‘I thought the point was that there could only ever be one Marcus Kline, that clients only came to us so that they could be helped by the great man himself.’

  ‘That is, indeed, true.’ Marcus had bowed his head in acknowledgement. So far he had managed to build himself a global reputation and a hugely successful business using only Emma to answer his calls, organise his diary, and act as a bridge between himself the and rest of the world; and two independent researchers he employed whenever he needed detailed background information relating to current or potential clients. ‘Think of Simon’s appointment as just another example of my extremely charitable nature,’ he said. ‘I’m not only helping a young man to fulfil his dreams, I’m also paying for him to do so.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Emma snorted. ‘I think of it as a man in the early stages of thinking about his legacy. After all, the problem with a one man band is if the one man goes, the music ends.’

  ‘I have no intention of going anywhere. And, as I’ve told you before, the best music is yet to come.’

  ‘Aah, but who’s going to be playing it? Will it be you or will it be Simon?’

  ‘I will treat that question with the silence it deserves.’

  ‘The peace and quiet will be most welcome.’ Emma’s nose crinkled as she smiled.

  Marcus shared the humour and then left her to her paperwork. She was right, of course. His motives for employing Simon had been purely selfish. He didn’t need a helping hand. Influence was the Marcus Kline consultancy. Given his unique skill set it would have been detrimental to have a team of consultants working on his behalf. In his name. Clients came to work with the very b
est, not a substitute. And the same clients were inevitably hugely grateful – and very willing to pay whatever was asked – when they got access to the very rare commodity that was Marcus Kline.

  No, Marcus didn’t need to expand his team. He had taken Simon on because he wanted to know just how good a communications consultant he could create out of someone who, despite his clear desire to learn, had not been born with the innate instincts he had. It was a challenge he relished. One he now couldn’t imagine being without. One that might be showing the first traces of a future legacy.

  Simon Westbury was very different to Marcus in just about every way that mattered. Simon’s passion, like his heart, was worn on his sleeve. Whilst Marcus had grown up sensing the need to operate from behind a protective shell, Simon had no such reserve. Marcus had always found it easy to adopt the disassociated state working with clients required – particularly when working with individuals to help them overcome tragic personal experiences, fears, anxiety or any of the other potentially debilitating factors that limit human potential.

  Marcus had known from the very beginning that the best way to help people was from a detached perspective rather than an emotional one. If love and compassion were the prime ingredients for creating personal change in others, then all people would have to do was turn to friends and family for help. And many did, at least in the first instance. The fact that it rarely worked should have come as no surprise. After all, as Marcus was fond of pointing out to a client, if you needed heart surgery who would you choose to perform the operation – a member of your family who loves you and is trained as a postman, or a qualified and successful specialist surgeon who cares more about his success rate and his reputation than he does anything else?

  The truth that underpinned successful communication and influence was a simple and profound paradox: if you really wanted to understand and influence others, if you were genuinely committed to helping them make the changes they desired, you could only do so by disassociating yourself emotionally from them. Emotion blurred the senses. It fired neural networks that actually limited the ability to influence positively. If Simon was ever going to become a truly great communicator, he would first have to stop caring so much, so easily.

  ‘I hear you,’ Marcus said into the phone. He stopped walking and positioned himself with his back to the nearest building. ‘So let me share this particular spade with you: I agree, the client is wrong in wanting to change the strategy we have suggested. You, however, are equally wrong in thinking that your straightforward honesty will be of great benefit to them; so don’t even think of pursuing that approach. You might be sure that it will work, but remember that I am right in these matters nine times out of ten. That’s why the business is so successful. Whilst being obvious and straightforward is occasionally the best approach, I very much doubt that it is in this instance.

  ‘As Lao Tzu said the best teacher is not even recognised as such by those they teach. The best teacher finds ways to allow students to discover the answer for themselves. In that way, the student takes ownership of their learning and gains confidence in their own abilities to solve problems. So, how can it make sense to call a spade a spade when the best teachers are not even called teachers?’

  ‘But everyone calls you a genius. Does that mean that you’re not really as good as they think you are?’

  ‘Either that or I’m even better than they know.’

  ‘And the prize for the World’s Most Humble Man goes to…’

  ‘I’ll be in the office in fifteen minutes. And then the World’s Most Humble Man will continue to explain to the World’s Most Naïve and Excitable Man why he needs to become a master of his emotions if he wants to become great at influencing others.’ Marcus shivered. He didn’t mind being out in the rain, actually he enjoyed it, but the chill in the air was cutting through his raincoat. He glanced at his watch and began to walk again.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ Simon said dryly.

  ‘You are going to have to. And under no circumstances contact the client. Do you hear?’

  ‘Loud and clear.’

  Marcus rang off and immediately made the call that couldn’t wait.

  8.

  There was only one particular type of waiting game that Peter Jones hated. It was waiting for the feeling inside him to stop. And that only ever happened when the crime revealed itself and he could begin to do something. Even if that something was not of immediate value. Even if meant that sometimes, for a while at least, he just had to go along for the ride.

  His colleagues nicknamed him “Jonah”. On the most obvious level it was a simple play on his surname of Jones. However, to those in his team, and to those who had heard the stories about his many successes, it was an oblique reference to his incredible patience and his willingness to do everything that was ethically possible in pursuit of the desired result.

  The Old Testament character Jonah had willingly acknowledged his responsibility for a storm that threatened the boat he was travelling on. He urged the sailors to throw him overboard in order to save themselves. He had subsequently been swallowed by a whale and had lived, patiently, inside it for three days before being cast ashore to pursue his cause.

  Peter’s team knew that he was meticulous, dogged and selfless in his resolve to win. He had his own set of values and a sense of professional pride that combined to create a quiet, unflinching strength and a cast iron commitment. Even if – especially when – it seemed that a case was so complex it would swallow the investigating officer whole and reduce him to pulp, Peter not only came out in one piece, but with the desired result. Which was an arrest leading to a conviction.

  Peter knew that the best detectives and the most professional criminals were game players. They knew the rules, the risks and all the tricks of their respective trades. He was well aware that patience was one of his strongest virtues. Sometimes his bosses and the media wanted to suggest that a particular game had a specific – and inevitably limited – time period, but Peter knew that the result was all that mattered. And some games just lasted a lot longer than others. There was a world of difference between knowing you were right and being able to prove it so convincingly to a dozen strangers that they could find no reasonable doubt in the story you told them.

  Storytelling was not Peter’s forte, but there were several excellent barristers who created and told those on his behalf. He was outstanding at finding all the relevant details and linking them together. Even if it did take longer than some journalists and office-bound bureaucrats liked.

  Peter knew that the deeper meaning of his nickname was meant as a compliment from his colleagues. Most people, they said, simply did not have the level of patience that he did. They saw it as a rare strength. Peter, on the other hand, found that patience came easily as long as he was able occupy himself doing something useful. As long as there were lines of enquiry that could be checked, theories that could be proved or disproved – and, for Peter, disproving something was as exciting as actually discovering part of the truth – he was always motivated, calm and focussed.

  Learning, he had been taught as a child, happened one step at a time. It was an incremental process that sometimes required you take one step forwards and two steps back. In his opinion too many people wanted quick and easy answers. They wanted real life to be like cheap and tacky newspaper headlines that made quick and easy associations, linking an effect to the most obvious or the most readily available possible cause. The truth was usually more complex. A crime was simply a highlight event in a system of activity. If his good friend Marcus Kline identified, influenced or created patterns of communication, he, Peter, identified and interpreted the patterns of behaviour that rippled out from a crime scene.

  Peter believed that if he and his team had great systems of their own in place and if they followed those systems accurately, resorting occasionally to some additional creative endeavour if the game called for it, they
would inevitably identify the system, the behaviour-chain, which would lead to the guilty party.

  So Peter did not regard himself as simply a patient man. Rather, he was an accomplished game player with an innate curiosity and an unquenchable thirst for the next challenge. He always wanted to make progress as quickly as possible but, importantly, he knew how to direct and motivate both himself and his team especially when the pace of progress was frustratingly slow.

  What Peter couldn’t stand was the waiting game he was being forced to engage in now. It was the game in which there was nothing he could do but wait. There were no lines of enquiry, no avenues to explore. Not yet. Although his stomach forewarned him it gave him no information that he could act upon. Peter was not remotely fascinated by the intuitive sense that tugged at his gut. He didn’t care what caused it or why it was always so accurate. He just hated the fact that there was absolutely nothing he could do but wait until it – whatever it was – became known.

  Peter Jones was a detective. Pure and simple. He just needed a starting point. He just needed something to detect. And then, once that something had revealed itself, Jonah, the so-called Patient Man, could begin to ask questions and instigate systems that he did understand and that he could control.

  Peter stood outside the building that housed his office for several minutes after Nic had driven away. He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t notice the rain. He only realised that his phone was ringing because he felt it vibrating in his pocket.

  9.

  Marcus’s offices were in the area of the city known as the Lace Market. During the days of the British Empire this part of the city had been the very heart of the world’s lace industry. Now the quarter-square mile with its nineteenth century industrial architecture and quaint streets housed offices, bars, restaurants, museums and shops.