Then she deleted the email without sending it. She had no proof, no witnesses, and accusing Claire would only make her look paranoid or vindictive. It would make everything worse. So, she said nothing. She kept her head down.
She worked harder. She stayed later. And she waited for the next attack. The Turner Industries account was the biggest project Sterling Advisory had seen all year. A manufacturing company with 3,000 employees and 17 facilities across the country, they were hemorrhaging money and couldn’t figure out why.
Margins were down. Quality was suffering. Morale was in the toilet. They’d hired Sterling to find the problem and fix it. Marcus called an all-hands meeting.
“This is our flagship project for the quarter.” Everyone's involved. I need analysis on supply chain, workforce management, operational efficiency, and financial controls. We have eight weeks to deliver recommendations. The client is paying us $$400,000. We cannot afford to mess this up.
He started assigning pieces of the project. Jennifer got supply chain. Tom got workforce. David got financial controls. Claire, you'll lead operational efficiency.
That’s the biggest piece. Claire nodded, already making notes. Amara, you'll support Claire. Data collection, preliminary analysis, whatever she needs. Support.
Of course. Always support, never lead. Amara kept her expression neutral. “Understood.” The first three weeks were brutal. Amara spent hours combing through Turner’s operational data looking for patterns.
Claire gave her minimal guidance, then criticized the results. “These numbers don’t match what I’m seeing.” “I pulled them directly from their system.” Well, something's wrong. Do it again. Amara did it again. Same results.
Claire sighed. “I’ll handle the analysis myself.” Just focus on data collection. But when Amara collected data, Claire found other problems. The format was wrong. The categories weren’t aligned.