Forget the Yellow Brick Road

by Liz Green

  For the next three days, Dorothy joined the three for an afternoon coffee break. Although at first Dorothy held up her guard, they all began to share stories and tell jokes, she began to relax around them. In fact, Dorothy discovered that these three did not like Wendy West either. They talked about mistakes Wendy had made and the things they had to do to cover for her. Dorothy also shared stories, mostly about her friends, the funny situations they found themselves in, and how she more often than not found herself bailing them out, but of course how often they would bail her out too. She proudly told them what a great group of friends she had and how they regularly got together, even as their lives had changed over the years. Just next week, they were having lunch together to celebrate the start of the new year.

  On the fourth day, the three musketeers were nowhere to be seen at the usual coffee break time. Dorothy really did not mind, however. She wanted to get as much done as possible before the weekend began, as the majority of people would return to work on Monday.

  The following Thursday, Dorothy was called into a meeting at the last minute, right before she was due to meet her friends for lunch. Thankfully, the meeting did not take long, as it turned out she really was not needed anyway, but it did make her ten minutes late. Hastily, she pushed through the door of the restaurant to see her friends, minus Tim who was still working in a regional office, listening intently to the three musketeers. What a coincidence, she thought. She plonked herself at the table, apologised for her lateness, and picked up

  the menu.

  “Is that what you really think of us, Dorothy?” asked Catherine Lyons.

  “Think what of you, Catherine? You know I adore you guys,” replied Dorothy without a second thought.

  She was rushing through the menu trying to select the right meal. She usually selected a meal that never looked as good as the meal served to the person sitting next to her.

  Suddenly she realised that the usual warm welcome from her friends was absent. As she looked up, she saw a smug expression on the faces of the three newcomers to the friends’ table. Then she saw, sitting at the centre of the crisp white-clothed table, between the butter and the bread, a digital voice recorder.

  “What’s that doing there?” Dorothy asked, still unaware of the events that had unfolded before she arrived.

  “After all these years, Dorothy, who would have thought you had it in you,” said Scott Crow. He pushed his chair out from the table and sulked out of the restaurant.

  “Had what in me?” Dorothy asked those still sitting at the table.

  The three people from Wendy’s team excused themselves discreetly and, with digital recorder in hand, left the friends with the chaos they had created.

  “How could you say all those things about us to that bunch of monkeys?” Trent exclaimed. “And especially about me, Dorothy, after all I’ve done for you.” He stood up and motioned to Catherine Lyons to follow him out of the restaurant.

  Flabbergasted, Dorothy sat alone at the table. The reality of what had just happened began to sink in. Those three clearly were under the spell of Wendy West, and they had set her up by producing an edited version of the afternoon coffee chats she had with them the previous week. Furious and worried that Wendy had destroyed the relationships she had with the people that mattered most in her life, Dorothy remembered the kind advice of The Captain. She vowed to face Wendy head-on.

  Several weeks had passed since that day in the restaurant, and no amount of phone calls, instant messages, or e-mails could convince Dorothy’s friends to forgive her. To make matters worse, Dorothy had begun to feel the pressure of work and longed to share her challenges with her closest confidantes and friends. The right opportunity had not presented itself for her to confront Wendy, but Dorothy was confident it would not be long until she was able to slay the witch.

  Dorothy arrived at work early one morning, when most of her co-workers were only just getting out of bed. She passed by Wendy West’s office. Usually it was locked, but this morning the cleaning crew had opened the office to empty the waste bins. As chance would have it, the crew had stepped away momentarily, providing Dorothy with the perfect opportunity to sneak in and look through Wendy’s drawers for the digital voice recorder. She expected the recorder to be hidden and difficult to find, but to her pleasant surprise, she found it sitting innocently in the unlocked second drawer of the desk. Briskly, Dorothy left the office and headed to her own, realising that she would need to act fast, before Wendy noticed it was missing.

  Sitting in her office, Dorothy scanned through the hours of dictation Wendy had recorded until she found what she was looking for: the original recording of what Dorothy had really said about her friends. Dorothy had a management meeting that day at 11:00 a.m., and Wendy would also be attending. The meeting would provide Dorothy with her chance to bring Wendy down.

  Dorothy arrived at the meeting early, as she most often did, and set herself up in the boardroom one seat to the right of the head of the table. She set up her laptop to look as though she were making last-minute changes to a document. She instead made a Web conference call to include Trent, Scott Crow, Tim Woods, and Catherine Lyons. She set her laptop microphone volume to high, muted her speaker volume, and just prayed that her friends would be at their desks at the crucial time to accept her Web conference request, so they could witness the event that was about to unfold.

  Dorothy knew that Wendy was also usually early to meetings. Dorothy also knew that Wendy’s motive was not to arrive early to be polite or ensure she was prepared, but rather simply to be sure to secure her position at the head of the table to assist her assert her dominance during the meeting. While sitting there waiting, Dorothy tumbled the digital voice recorder around in her hand in her jacket pocket.

  As if on cue, Wendy entered the room and sat at the table next to Dorothy. Without a minute to spare, Dorothy pressed play on Wendy’s digital voice recorder and sat it in front of Wendy.

  Without flinching, Wendy snapped, “You have stolen my property. That is grounds for dismissal.”

  “So, this is your recorder, is it, Wendy?” asked Dorothy.

  “Of course, you know it is. You’ve taken that from my desk. I’ll report you for that,” Wendy replied.

  Wendy looked at Dorothy, anticipating that she’d see a look of worry and retreat on Dorothy’s face. A moment of silence fell between them, and Dorothy’s voice came from the digital voice recorder loud and clear: “I could not have asked for a more supportive and caring group of friends. I love them, and I would not be the person I am today without them.”

  In place of a look of fear, Dorothy displayed a strength and courage she had not before felt in front of Wendy West.

  “Actually, Wendy, I think I’ll be keeping this recorder as evidence of your fraud in editing my words,” Dorothy said. “Perhaps you should have been clever enough to delete my original words. Let’s just say that from now on you will stay out of my way, or I’ll have to show this to the relevant people.”

  Dorothy felt there was nothing more to be said. As the other meeting participants began to fill the room, Wendy seemed to look a little smaller and a little less powerful. In fact, if Dorothy did not know any better, she would have sworn Wendy was shrinking right before her eyes.

  The same day…

  CHAPTER 13

  How the Five Were Reunited

  Catherine Lyons was sitting at her desk replying to some e-mails when the Web conference request from Dorothy popped up in the bottom right-hand corner of her computer screen. Catherine had been very upset about what Dorothy had said about her and their friends. She wasn’t sure she would be able to forgive her enough to go back to the way things were, so Catherine was avoiding Dorothy’s calls and attempts to make contact.

  Since that day, Catherine found that each of the friends grew more distant from each other and made no contact, not just with Dorothy, but with each other. Catherine realised that Dorothy really was the glue that held their friendship with
each other together. She also realised how much she relied on these friends for guidance and support, which gave Catherine the courage she needed to meet the increasing demands of her job and balance those with the demands of her family life.

  When she saw the Web request, Catherine tried to ignore it and continued working through her impossibly long list of e-mails. But curiosity got the better of her and she opened the request to see that the others had been invited too. Strange, Catherine thought, as it was not like Dorothy to waste company resources and time right in the middle of the working day. So she pressed

  ‘accept’.

  The video on Catherine’s screen showed Dorothy sitting alone in the boardroom. Catherine said “hello” but got no response from Dorothy. She could hear Dorothy’s chair squeaking as she fidgeted, swivelling her chair a bit to the right and then a bit to the left. Catherine tried again to get Dorothy’s attention but received no response or acknowledgment she had even accepted the Web conference request.

  She saw that none of the others had accepted the meeting request yet, so Catherine called Trent and described to him what she was watching.

  Trent had just finished conducting a performance appraisal with one of his team members. He had to deliver some feedback that he knew the other person might take the wrong way. Usually he would have called Dorothy for advice before attempting a meeting like this one, and he wished he could have this time, too, as the meeting did not quite go as planned. The experience made Trent realise how much he relied on Dorothy as a counterbalance to his abrupt and honest approach with people. She softened him and often forced him to see things through other people’s eyes.

  Intrigued with what Catherine was describing, Trent logged into the Web conference. Trent and Catherine could hear each other speaking through the software and knew that Dorothy surely saw they had accepted her request, but she was still not responding. Trent saw Scott Crow walk past his office and called him in to ask what he thought was going on.

  Just as they were about to log out, Tim Woods logged in. More importantly, Wendy West walked into view and sat down next to Dorothy. Catherine, Trent, Scott, and Tim watched intently as Dorothy’s battle with Wendy West unfolded before them, and the truth was revealed.

  As Dorothy and Wendy’s battle came to an end and the other meeting participants began to fill the boardroom, Dorothy closed the laptop and disconnected the Web conference. Each of the friends were now left to think about how horrible they had been to ignore Dorothy and to take the word of Wendy West’s three wicked monkeys over their dear friend.

  At the end of the meeting, Dorothy stood proudly and assertively, picked up her laptop, and made her way back to her office. Despite the win over Wendy and the relief Dorothy felt, she was still worried. The most important thing to her was that her friends knew the truth. Still unsure if her friends had witnessed her slaying of Wendy West, Dorothy sat down in her executive chair in her office and hoped to find a missed call, an e-mail, or a text message waiting for her. To her dismay, there was nothing.

  Dorothy stood up, walked to the wall of windows, and rested her forehead on the glass. She stared down at the tiny cars and tiny people going about their daily business and wondered where they were all going. Without Dorothy hearing, Trent entered the office, quietly approached the window, and rested his forehead against the glass, too.

  “Where do you think they are all headed to?” asked Trent.

  The two best friends slowly stood back upright. Trent noticed a small tear in the corner of Dorothy’s eye.

  “I’m sorry, Trent,” said Dorothy.

  “No, Dorothy, it’s me that should be sorry,” said Trent, with more emotion than Dorothy had ever witnessed him express. As Trent gave Dorothy a hug, over his shoulder she saw Scott Crow and Catherine Lyons standing at the office door, with warm and apologetic smiles on their faces.

  “What about Tim?” asked Dorothy.

  “Yes,” Scott said, “he heard, too, and told me to tell you that we should have listened to you and trusted our friendship. That no matter what, from now on, we have to stick together.”

  Nothing more needed to be said.

  The next day, the group of friends were reunited at lunch as they had originally planned to do weeks ago.

  In the years that followed…

  CHAPTER 14

  Flying East Toward the Sun

  Each of the friends continued on his or her path to success. Dorothy threw herself completely into her role as she felt that the success she had planned for was just within reach.

  The company was advertising an opening for the group financial director role both internally and externally. Fiona Miller spotted the job advertisement on the organisational intranet and forwarded it to Dorothy. It read:

  “Reporting to the group chief financial officer, this role is a high-profile appointment with a global responsibility for The Organisation’s finance function reporting to the CFO.

  The key responsibilities in this role include the overall strategic direction of the group and providing operational leadership to offer strategic direction, financial management, and comprehensive support to the business.

  The candidate will be required to manage the finance function across all jurisdictions, with general accountability for the group’s performance under the guidance of the CFO.

  Knowledge on how to manage finance functions within a global partnership environment and experience in working within a multisite environment would be advantageous.

  You will be a strong financial leader who has the ability to manage and communicate with individuals of all levels and to effectively engage a large number of internal senior stakeholders.”

  Dorothy thought long and hard about applying for the job. She was afraid of what the consequences would be if she applied and then was not successful in being selected for the role. In the past, she had been approached directly for most of her positions. Although in those situations she still had to negotiate her way through the interview and selection process, this time would be different. She would be putting herself forward for a role that another person had not already recommended

  her for.

  A few days after Fiona sent the e-mail link to Dorothy, Fiona called to see what Dorothy thought about the prospect of applying for the role. She thought Dorothy would be perfect as group financial director. Inside information had told her that the current chief financial officer, although extremely capable in all things strategic and financial, lacked in his ability to positively engage those around him and communicate effectively with internal and external stakeholders. He had a reputation for being quite a cranky old man at times. The CFO was in his early sixties and likely only a few years from retirement. Fiona was sure that the board was concerned that if they were to ask him to move on there may be an impact on the share price. So, it was an ideal time for Dorothy to make her move. She would be the ideal candidate to compensate for his gap in behavioural capability for the next few years, and then potentially she could be his successor. That would mean that Dorothy might not only be the first female group financial director but potentially the first female and youngest CFO in The Organisation’s

  history.

  “So what did you think, Dorothy?” asked Fiona, anticipating that Dorothy had already updated her rÈsumÈ and constructed the perfect cover letter.

  “I’m not sure, Fiona,” Dorothy said. “It’s definitely a big job that would be a challenge for me, and I would really be playing in the big boys’ club.”

  “Are you kidding? Take a look around you, girl. We are already playing with the boys!” huffed Fiona. “This is the path you chose to take, and honestly, Dorothy, it’s now or never. The timing is just right, and if you want to get to the top, there is only one way to get there. So start

  climbing!”

  Dorothy knew Fiona had a point. Timing did have a lot to do with it. Dorothy also knew the CFO was not far from retirement age and was conscious of the fact that being successful in
landing this role could mean the difference between achieving success in three to five years and achieving success in eight to ten years, while she waited for someone else to fill the role before her.

  “Do you need me to tell you that I know you can do it and that I think you would be perfect for the job?” asked Fiona, with a tinge of sarcasm. “Because, Dorothy, I know you would be perfect for the job.”

  Dorothy did need Fiona’s reassurance and felt a small boost to her confidence on hearing it. Fiona wasn’t finished. “But maybe you’re not ready to play in the big league if you still need the validation of others to give you the courage of your convictions.” Fiona held a reflection of harsh reality in the mirror for Dorothy.

  “I suppose it’s just that I need to feel that people have faith in me,” Dorothy said.

  “Faith in the business world, Dorothy, is not an intangible hope in some unknown quantity,” said Fiona. “You have to go to that board and prove to them why they should put their faith in you. You also can’t expect for the rest of your career that opportunity will continue to tap you on the shoulder while you’re not looking.”

  The two women talked it through for a few minutes more, before Fiona had to leave for the airport for a business trip, and Dorothy was left with a decision to make.

  The following day, Dorothy applied for the position of group financial director. The board received her application with great interest. The recruitment and selection process was a lengthy one. Over the course of four months, Dorothy faced psychometric testing, 360-degree feedback reports, meetings with the board, and meetings with the CFO. The candidate pool had been narrowed to just two people, and Dorothy was one of them. The final stage of the process was the most gruelling of all: Dorothy would be interviewed by the people who would be reporting to her in the new role.