Everyone thought they were coming to the big quarterly meeting.
The CEO had arranged a lunch more elegant than usual, because now we try to dress fatigue with sushi platters.
Small scenes at work that nobody notices or questions.
And yet, that’s where everything shifts.
The CEO is already seated when the VPs enter one after another, with their notebooks open like shields and these sentences already prepared, the ones we repeat quarter after quarter to prove we are still useful.
The Logistics VP speaks first:
— “The production delay comes from a blockage in Guangzhou, the port is paralyzed, of course it slows down deliveries.”
He has been saying a version of the same sentence for five years.
The HR VP continues, as if it were written in advance:
— “Employees are on the edge of exhaustion, we have to be careful, otherwise we risk resignations.”
We have been “risking” for three years.
Then the Sales VP announces seriously:
— “If we don’t invest in the major distributors, our pipeline will close.”
As if the threat justified the repetition.
We could continue like this for a long time:
finance attributing everything to market volatility,
IT pointing again to a structural dependency on Excel,
and each one patiently explaining that the problem is never them, but “the context.”
The CEO listens for ten minutes.
And suddenly, he simply raises his hand, not hard, not fast, just enough to cut the room in two.
— No.
— No, I can’t anymore. Stop.
A brutal silence, almost strange, almost physical.
— I’ve been listening to you for ten minutes and I feel like I’m in exactly the same meeting as last quarter. And the one before. And the one before that. I know what you’re going to say before you even open your mouth.
No one really responds, because no one knows anymore if we’re talking about container delays or something much older.
The CEO stands up, takes his pen, leaves the room. He goes down to the showroom where the products shine under a light that doesn’t like nuance.
He finds himself in front of a mirror, without any particular intention, just because it’s there.
The reflection sends back a man who still looks like a CEO, but who is beginning to understand:
that by accepting the same sentences, by reassuring the same executives, by preferring loyalty to movement, he has allowed his own Executive Committee to fall asleep.
He stays there a long moment, looking at someone he recognizes without really recognizing himself.
Then the sentence arrives, placed, cold, exact:
An Executive Committee never dies from a lack of ideas.
It dies the day its leader accepts no longer being surprised — and forgets he is responsible.
Seedz / Silent Guest
Not a coach. Not a therapist.
A clear mirror — to see clearly, before choosing.
