Chapter 18: The Five-Minute Warning

An excerpt from The Accidental Partner
 

"Just show up, Edy. You don't need to read the PowerPoint."

I was technically still on leave when the partners asked me to join an early kickoff meeting for a major retail project. The presentation deck for the session had been built by another manager who would not actually be on the case team going forward. My role for the day was explicitly simple: show up, listen, and get introduced to the client as the incoming project lead. The client CEO had requested an early meet-and-greet before the project officially started, purely to establish faces to names.

So, I sat there in the boardroom while the partner and senior partner ran the meeting and walked through the deck. The atmosphere in the room felt relaxed, and I adopted my passive role, confident that I was just a face in the room.

Then, about five minutes into the presentation, the CEO abruptly stopped the partners.

"We are already aligned on the approach and first idea," he said flatly. "We've discussed this multiple times."

He closed the deck's momentum instantly, turned his head, and looked straight toward me.

"I want to hear from the project manager," he announced.

And suddenly, the entire room became very small.

"Edy," he asked, looking eye-to-eye with me, "what are the actual success factors for entering the Indonesian retail market?"

My ears went hot first, then the rest of me caught up. My mind was a blank sheet of paper.

Continue reading in The Accidental Partner 

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