Javier might make a better head of engineering than Alan. Maybe. It was premature. James needed to watch him for a while. Javier was not a follower; he would try to impose himself on the company. That would cost stress and effort to restrain. But better a strong beast you had to fight to keep in harness than an obstinate little mule with no imagination who only ever said that it couldnât be done.
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He couldnât see how it made any difference to Tescoâs grand plans if he gave his presentation on Friday instead of tomorrow. But his manager insisted. It was irritating to be subject to someone elseâs arbitrariness. It was just a culture of performative zeal. McKinseyites were supposed to be the shock troops of capitalism, sacrificing themselves to smash through problems. James was supposed to be eagerly hurling himself into the fray. But he couldnât quite get himself geed up.
science. Really, this was a lesson in humility. You couldnât blame the outside world for not conforming to your ideas. It wasnât the world that was wrong, it was you. Either you could be humiliated and angry and hurt, or you could let that go and start building a better model. He began to search where he always had: within himself. In some ways, it wasnât complicated: if tidal energy wasnât going to beat gas and coal on price, and you still needed tidal to win, you had to assume that gas and coal were finished.
And he insisted with every tool of his personality that they see the situation as he saw it, that they feel as he felt or as he convinced himself he did. As he worked on them, they began to tentatively sense â not as with James, that they were led by a man of admirable vision and ability â but that they were in this together, and that they wanted themselves to succeed.
James didnât worry. What greater purpose could these people find? And with so many minds applied, the pace of improvements to the machine was accelerating into another order of magnitude. He wasnât having to shove things forward any more; the company was moving of its own accord.
James was suddenly, utterly, exhausted. He should have foreseen this. Everyone loved Roland. James loved him. For the first time since their trip to Lochnagar in the purple Lamborghini, he felt himself to be alone in the world. Nothing had changed since he was a teenager. He hadnât, after all, left himself behind. Slowly, he reasoned his way through the matter at hand. Perhaps if heâd been less reasonable, heâd still have her. âWell, if Alice and me didnât match up, that doesnât mean you and her shouldnât try. Itâs a question of compatibility not⌠possession. Itâs not like Iâve got any claims on her.â