Vanderkam - Juliets school of possibilities: a little story about the power of priorities

Octobers red and gold leaves blazed bright as Riley Jenkins drove south along the Garden State Parkway. Lovely enough, she thought, but even the fall colors failed to lift her mood. Nor could she summon the energy to be excited about her destination: her firms womens leadership retreat in the little town of Maris, along the New Jersey coast.

It wasnt that she resented working on a Saturday. Riley couldnt think of a Saturday she hadnt worked since landing her job with MB & Company, the consulting firm, after earning her Wharton M.B.A. four years before.

No, it was the opportunity cost of spending her Saturday with colleagues when she should be finding clients.

After all, it was clients who got you ahead at MB, the most elite of all firms. It was clients who gave you power at this place she had long wanted to work. She remembered learning of its mystique in a casual conversation with a professor years ago, back when shed been an undergrad at Indiana University and waitressing to cover costs that her scholarship didnt. MB let you work with CEOs. Prime ministers. You could solve their most important challenges and hence impact the world at a scale few other careers allowed. It didnt matter if you werent yet thirty years old. You could earn copious cash while jetting around the worldin her first year, double what her staid Midwestern parents earned, combined, at their peak. Stick it out to partner and youd take home millions.

Riley prided herself on responding to clients as close to instantly as possible. In her four-year rise from star hire through project manager to an associate partner, she had rarely made clients wait more than an hour. She set up her phone to let her know when they emailed as she drove her rental cars around (having grown up as a small-town Indiana girl, she still felt strange about hiring drivers). Her assistant knew not to book her on flights that didnt have internet access.

But then... Her mind zipped back to last weeks showdown with her evaluator. Jean had guided her into that horrible beige conference room in the NYC office that she sawthankfullyonly when she wasnt at client sites. Riley, she had begun. The older woman had kept taking her glasses off and rubbing her eyes. Riley soon understood why Jean was dreading this conversation. Riley was being put in the Challenges bucket in MBs elaborate rating system. It was below Average and only one step above Resignation Suggested. (MB was too genteel to ever demand a resignation or, the height of tawdriness, actually fire someone.)

Riley played the scene over and over in her mind as the exit numbers on the Garden State Parkway ticked down. I have never been below average in my life, she told Jean.

Well, its Challenges for MB, Jean had said. That doesnt mean you wouldnt be excellent somewhere else.

Was that a threat? Riley didnt want to go anywhere else. Shed wanted to be an MB consultant with the same zeal with which her college roommate and best friend Skip had wanted to protest drone strikes. She couldnt imagine anywhere else offering this pace, this variety, and yes, this paycheck.

I dont get it, Riley had said. I do everything the clients want. I get them just what they ask for faster than they expect it.

Yes, yes. Jean had looked around that beige conference room, as if she thought someone might be spying on them. Then she lowered her voice. Listen, Riley. Heres the thing. Youre four years in. Newly in leadership. Everyone I interviewed said youre floundering in the role.

But Im... She had started to protest. Floundering? Riley Jenkins did not flounder at anything.

Riley, listen to me. I am trying to help you here. Your upward feedback in particular was terrible. Your team members say youre so unfocused and distracted that they work around the clock, but they never know if theyre working on the right things. Lookup until now you could just do what the partners told you to. Which you did. She had taken her glasses off again and searched for the right image. Finally: Youre like the worlds most powerful drill. Point you at something and you drill a hole instantly.

Um, OK.

But at this level you need to think about where the drill should go. And frankly, your clients and your colleagues dont see insight there. You need big ideas. Ideas your teams get excited about. Ideas the clients havent even imagined. Ideas that you can suggestso then they have to hire MB, right?

I see, Riley had said.

Its about the business case, Riley. Making partner is about being able to sell big ideas. Jean had suddenly glanced around, worried. Sorry, convince people that they need to engage MB to study your ideas. We dont use the word sell around here.

Of course. That strange MB fussiness. I will work on that.

Yes, she said. Please do. She sighed. Being in Challenges means I need to document every thirty days that you are making real progress. If you are not, thats when other ratings come into play.

Riley had said nothing. Jean played her cards close, like the big players in the casino where Riley worked one summer years before, but she knew what this meant. If she hadnt made a sale in thirty days, she was out.

That had been a little over a week ago. The truth is, she had no idea how she was going to find space for brilliance. She couldnt not do what her clients and colleagues asked, and their demands already filled every available minute. They filled minutes that werent available. She had been up so late the past few nights working on a proposal for her major client, a chain of extraordinarily hip cafs called The Peoples Coffee Shops (or PCS, for short), that her brain could focus on little beyond finding time for a nap.