Learning Curves Page 3

  “Yes, I am,” she said dismissively, then remembered that she was meant to be a typical MBA student too.

  “Me too!” he said unnecessarily. He was carrying four textbooks and a binder stuffed full of notes and labeled very clearly BELL MBA PROGRAM, ALAN HINCHLIFFE. “My name’s Alan, pleased to meet you. So have you done any of the pre-reading? I started on Strategy in Motion but I’d covered most of it already in my business studies diploma, so I focused more on Strategic Business Management—this one . . .” He pointed to the larger of the four textbooks, and Jen looked at them incredulously, then checked herself. I am an MBA student, she repeated in her head. I must pretend to be interested in this crap.

  “I . . . uh . . . you know, dipped in and out of them,” she said carefully, hoping that Alan wouldn’t ask her about any of them. “I’m Jen, by the way. Jennifer Bellman.” She cringed as she said it, but choosing a new name wasn’t as easy as it sounded. She’d left it until she filled in the application form and had spent a good half an hour looking around her flat for inspiration—Jennifer Television, Jennifer Lamp, Jennifer Wall. And then she’d turned to the telephone directory and tried some names in there, but she was terrified that she might choose one and then forget it. So in the end, she’d gone for Bellman, the most unimaginative adaptation of Bell as you could possibly imagine. But at least she could remember it.

  Alan shifted his files carefully onto one arm and held out his hand. Jen stared at it for a moment, then realized that she was meant to be shaking it. She did so and smiled uncertainly at him.

  “Shall we?” she suggested, looking into the lecture hall with trepidation.

  “Oh, yes. Right ho.”

  They walked into the lecture hall and found two seats next to each other. The room was full—there were about fifty people, all in their late twenties or early thirties, and all looking very serious.

  Jen took out her course agenda. Introduction, followed by Strategy in Action, followed by lunch, followed by a meeting with your personal tutor, then an introduction to your team, followed by Strategy in Action recap, then close.

  She looked around the room and waited.

  “Is anyone sitting here?” Jen looked up to see a huge smiley face surrounded by blond hair. “You’re the only other person here in jeans and the only other person who looks vaguely human, so if you don’t mind . . .”

  “I suppose,” Jen said uncertainly. She wasn’t sure she wanted to look human to an MBA student.

  “I tell you,” her new companion continued as she sat down and pulled out pads, pens, books, and folders, “there’s a lot of reading in this course. Have you seen the list? Bloody nightmare.” She looked around the room, frowning. “Not many lookers, are there?”

  Jen raised her eyebrows. “Lookers?”

  “Men. God, that’s the only reason I’m here. I tell you, I’ve tried bars, I’ve tried Internet dating, I’ve tried buying a bloody dog, and nothing. There are no single men in London as far as I can tell. Not sane ones anyway, or ones that don’t look like they’re ax murderers in their spare time. Then I noticed that more and more people were putting ‘MBA’ as an attribute on dating Web sites. And I thought—why wait till they’ve done the course? Why not get in there at the beginning?”

  Jen stared at her. “You’re doing an MBA to meet men?”

  “Of course. Why are you doing it?”

  Jen grinned, relieved to have found a fellow impostor. “Oh, I just had some time to kill. My name’s Jen, by the way. Jen . . . Bellman.”

  She smiled. “Lara. I’m Lara. Pleased to meet you.” A man walked into the lecture hall and stood at the front. Gradually everyone stopped talking and started to look at him instead. He had a very prominent jaw, Jen noticed, and white-blond hair.

  “Good morning, folks,” he said with a New York accent. “My name is Jay Gregory, and I’m the director of the Bell Consulting MBA program. I’m delighted to welcome you all aboard—I know you’ve faced stiff competition to come this far, so we’ve got a pretty good bunch of people sitting in this room.”

  There was a murmur around the room as everyone made little noises to both suggest modestly that they didn’t think they were so great, and to also suggest that, if pushed, they would accent that they were pretty marvelous, actually.

  “D’you think he dyes his hair?” hissed Lara. Jen wrinkled her nose.

  “Would you actually dye your hair that color?” she hissed back.

  “Andy Warhol did.”

  Jen shrugged and grinned at Lara.

  “But what you’ve done so far is peanuts compared with this program,” Jay continued. “This next year is going to be the toughest you’ve ever faced. You’ll be expected to show your commitment, add value, and provide insights at every stage of the way. And you’ll be working in teams so that you learn the value of team-work, the need to work as one unit and not as individuals. You have till June, ladies and gentlemen—nine very exciting months—and I hope you will make the most of it.”

  Jen cringed as a couple of people said “we will,” and Jay smiled appreciatively.

  “And now,” he continued, “I’m delighted to introduce your tutor for Strategy in Action, Professor Richard Turner. Many of you will have heard of Richard—he is one of the leading strategists in Europe and has written more books than most of us have read. I’m sure you are going to learn an awful lot from this guy—so, over to you, Richard.”

  A rather skinny gray-haired man stood up, and Jen noted appreciatively that he looked much more like an academic—he had those molelike features found on people who spent all their time reading books.

  He surveyed the room for several minutes and everyone sat silently, waiting for him to begin.

  “Coca-Cola,” he said eventually. “Imagine that sales are down for some reason. Should it produce generic cola for supermarkets to make up for the drop in brand value that it faces?”

  Everyone looked at one another hesitantly, then Jen saw a guy at the front of the room put his hand up. The professor motioned for him to speak.

  “No, because then why will people buy the Real Thing?” he said and a lot of people started nodding.

  “Kellogg’s does it,” Richard said. “Doesn’t stop people buying Cornflakes, does it?”

  “I think they should,” a girl near Jen said quickly. “People are becoming less brand focused, and more supermarkets are pushing their own brand merchandise.”

  “But then Coca-Cola will lose their differentiator. What’s more, they are beholden to the supermarkets, who can at any time choose a different, cheaper cola provider and no one would know from the packaging. That’s not a situation I’d be comfortable with if I were on the Coca-Cola board.”

  Silence descended on the room and the girl went bright red.

  “Welcome to strategy,” said the professor with a little smile. “And if you take one thing—and one thing only— away from this session, it should be this: You can analyze external factors, you can analyze internal factors, and you can forecast whatever you want. But you can still screw things up because the world out there isn’t interested in your strategy. It changes. Your customers change, your suppliers change. And unless you keep up, unless you are ready to change, to adapt and accept that strategy is a movable feast, then you will end up like the dodo. Do I make myself clear?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Personally,” the professor continued, “I think you’re right.” He was looking at the guy who said Coca-Cola shouldn’t make cola for anyone else. “But that doesn’t mean that tomorrow you couldn’t be wrong.”

  The guy nodded earnestly, and Jen found herself tut-ting in irritation. Who cared whether Coca-Cola made cola for anyone else? It was a horrible, sugary drink that was bad for the teeth. And the fact that this lecture had made her want one really badly was, frankly, adding insult to injury.

  2

  Bloody stupid MBA. Jen dumped four huge textbooks and two binders on her kitchen table and shook her arms, which were tr
embling from having carried the load all the way on the tube. No one had warned her about the sheer amount of reading she would have to do on the course. Or carrying, for that matter. Sod interviews, they should do a fitness test of prospective students. Lugging Foundations of Management around was no easy matter.

  She went straight for the bottle of wine she’d opened the night before and poured herself a glass, sitting down and staring furiously at the books in front of her. She’d had to endure five hours of lectures. Plus an hour and a half of “team building” which had involved her, Lara, and Alan having to go into a room and come back with three facts about one another that they hadn’t known before. Jesus, it was just too soul destroying. What on earth was the point in knowing that Alan liked history books, was born in Hampshire, and spent his childhood holidays in Wales? And while discovering that Lara was a thirty-four double-D was quite interesting, she hadn’t particularly enjoyed conveying this piece of information to her entire class. Especially since she herself was closer to a thirty-four B and just knew that they were all going to be making little comparisons in their heads.

  Jen sighed. This was just day one, she told herself. It would get better.

  But what if it didn’t? What if it just got worse? What if she was stuck doing team building exercises all day and never got close to doing what she was there for— uncovering a conspiracy and showing her father to be the bastard she knew he was. She had no idea how she was even going to start fishing for information, and sitting in a lecture hall all day long wasn’t helping at all.

  Jen downed her wine and poured herself another glass. Maybe she’d turn into an alcoholic, she decided. Maybe if she was drunk all the time she wouldn’t mind sitting through skull-numbing lectures about corporate strategy.

  She frowned. Or maybe not.

  Slowly, she got up and wandered out through her back door into the little area she called her back garden but which was really too small for such a grand name. It was ten feet by five feet, a teeny-tiny little area that over the past few months she’d managed to turn into somewhere worth sitting, complete with herbs and climbers growing all over the place.

  Was she kidding herself, she wondered, thinking that being at Bell Consulting was actually achieving something? Was this really about corporate espionage and bringing her father to justice, or was it rather about her having something to prove? She knew she’d been right to split up with Gavin; knew she had to create a life of her own. But was this the right way to go about it? Wasn’t she secretly deep-down inside doing this in the hope that he’d find out? Be impressed? Realize that he didn’t have the copyright on heroic deeds?

  Jen laughed at herself. Doing an MBA a heroic deed? She really was delusional.

  She looked around her a little disconcertedly. Things were getting a bit out of control. The clematis was getting everywhere, the jasmine needed deadheading, the poor basil was wilting, and the rosemary was drying out. She wasn’t surprised—they weren’t exactly equipped to fend for themselves against the London grime and uncertain weather. Then again, she wasn’t exactly convinced that she was either.

  “What do you say, shall we run off to the south of France together?” she asked her plants conversationally as she put on her gardening gloves.

  Slowly and methodically, Jen watered and pruned her plants, gently aerating the soil, adding compost and fertilizer, and imposing some order back into her little enclave. It was the only thing she ever took her time over, she thought to herself curiously. The only thing she did that she didn’t rush, didn’t cut corners. And one of the only things that she was really, truly proud of, too. It wasn’t like it was some great feat; it was just a few square feet with some plants stuck in it, but she’d planted every single one of them herself. No one had had any influence or input—in fact no one else really knew it existed. It was her little sanctuary. And it came in rather handy when making a mozzarella, tomato, and basil salad, too.

  She sat back and appraised her work. The herb garden was situated in the far left-hand corner, then to the right where her garden got most sun, she’d planted jasmine and clematis that covered the battered fence separating her garden from her neighbor’s. And at the front, to the side of the little paved area onto which she’d squeezed a small table and two chairs, were pots and pots of heavenly smelling lavender.

  All pretty hardy plants, she recognized. Nothing there that would vex the average amateur gardener. But still, an achievement. And nice smells, too.

  Satisfied, she nipped inside to get her wine, then came back out and sat down on one of the rickety chairs. Life seemed so simple when she was out here, Jen thought to herself. So basic—life, renewal, and death were the only real principles. Plants didn’t have to worry about ex-boyfriends, estranged parents, and strategic alignment. They just got on with living, growing up toward the sun, and burrowing down for water and nutrients. They were tough, too—Jen loved nothing more than the sight of a little weed growing through concrete, a small display of power that reminded her that in spite of all the buildings, roads, and computers humans had built, they were never going to be able to tame Mother Nature.

  Jen sighed and took another gulp of wine. Taming her own mother was just as hard, she realized, as her eyes rested on the clematis for a moment and her brow furrowed a little. The plant had wrapped itself around the wires she had carefully positioned to support it, but was equally as wrapped around the jasmine next to it, which in turn had buried itself into the fence, taking advantage of every crack and hole. And there, at the base of both plants, was a small gardenia, its feeble attempts to grow being thwarted by the greedy climbers.

  She hadn’t even noticed the gardenia before—certainly didn’t remember planting it. Quickly she took out her trowel and, feeling her way with her bare hands, gently scooped out the roots and lifted the plant out of its resting place.

  She frowned, wondering where to put it. The left hand side of the garden was too shady and the right-hand side would leave it at the mercy of the various climbers that were ruthless in the pursuit of growth.

  “Where would I want to go?” she asked herself out loud. “Shade or sun? On my own or fighting for space?”

  Finally, she decided on a little space about a foot away from the clematis and dug a hole. Filling it with compost and earth, she eased the little plant in, gave it a quick blast of water, then sat back and let the last minutes of the autumn sun warm her face before it disappeared behind the wall.

  Just as she started to relax and let her mind drift far away from thoughts of her mother and Gavin, the phone rang, shattering her peaceful reverie. Jen reluctantly went inside to answer it.

  “So how was it?” Jen heard her mother’s voice and half wished she’d left it after all. Maybe she could learn something from the gardenia—if she’d ignored Harriet’s calls a bit more often she might not be doing the MBA in the first place, which would mean no aching arms and sore head.

  “Oh, Mum. Hi. Yeah, it was . . . well, you know. It was okay.”

  “Did you see your father? Did you find out anything?”

  Jen sighed. “Mum, I’ve been there one day. No, I didn’t see him and no, I don’t know anything yet. I’ve been in bloody lectures all day. I’m knackered actually, and I’m getting a real headache. . . .”

  “Oh dear,” Harriet said, rather unsympathetically in Jen’s opinion.

  “So anyway, how are things with you? Anything happening at Green Futures?” Jen asked conversationally. She wanted to hear about something other than corporate strategy and was even prepared to listen to one of her mother’s tall tales if that was all that was on offer.

  “Oh, you know, the usual sort of thing. We’re having a meeting next week that you might want to come along to—on the Sacred Feminine. You remember, it came out of our book club when we were reading The Da Vinci Code. We’ve got a meeting to work out strategies for building business success through empowering the Sacred Feminine in all of us—and in our clients. I think this could be really
big for us.”

  Jen wrinkled her nose. This wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind for conversation.

  “The Sacred Feminine?” she asked, staring at her nails and wondering how Lara got hers so long and shiny. Jen had never really been the long-and-shiny nail type and she didn’t particularly want to start now, but she was still curious. “I thought The Da Vinci Code was fiction.”

  Jen heard her mother snort contemptuously.

  “Fiction? Is that what you thought? The greatest conspiracy of our time uncovered, and you think it’s fiction?”

  Jen smiled to herself as Harriet launched into a defense of the book and its theories.

  “And you think it’s going to help you get more business?” Jen asked eventually.

  “I know it will. I had the idea when I was choosing crystals with Paul and it almost felt like a vision, it was so clear.”

  Jen groaned. Her mother’s whims were one thing, but the whims of Paul bloody Song, feng shui expert and Harriet’s latest guru, were quite another. Jen knew she should be more charitable, but anyone who walked around in long, flowing trousers talking about crystals and meditation just shouldn’t be taken seriously in her book. Her mother had only known him for a few weeks and already she was dropping him into conversation like she’d known him all her life.

  “You’re choosing crystals with him now. How romantic,” Jen said sarcastically. The tone wasn’t lost on Harriet.

  “I know you’re at an age when everything seems to be about sex, darling, but some of us have moved beyond the physical to the spiritual,” she said crossly. “I don’t know why you don’t like Paul, but I think it reflects badly on you. He’s a wonderful support, really. And he understands me in a way that no one else does . . .”