The one that belonged to the version of her that existed when she stopped performing and started being. "Okay," she said. He reached across the table and covered her hand with his. Not briefly this time. He left his hand there and she turned her palm up and held it.
And they sat like that in the kitchen while Jaylen's game played in the other room and the California Evening moved outside the window and neither of them said anything else for a while because nothing else needed to be said. Two weeks later, Marcus met with Ranata Simmons in person for the first time. She flew in from Chicago, which he had not expected, and which told him something about how seriously she was taking the consultation. They met in a conference room at the hotel, his conference room, on his turf, which he suspected was also deliberate on her part, and which he appreciated. She was a compact, precise woman in her late 40s who shook his hand firmly and got to the point within 30 seconds of sitting down.
I want to show you what we've been working from, she said, and opened her laptop and turned it toward him. Marcus looked at the template. He read it carefully. The way he read anything that was supposed to tell him about a system, looking for where it was accurate and where it was carrying assumptions it hadn't earned. He read for about 4 minutes while Ranata waited without fidgeting, which was how he knew she was good at her job.
This measures output against a standardized role definition, he said finally. Yes, but it doesn't account for the delta between what the role is defined to do and what the person actually does when the role definition is inadequate. He pointed to a specific section. This section here, this is measuring cost against a benchmark that assumes a reactive maintenance model. My department runs a predictive model.
The benchmark is measuring the wrong thing. Ranata leaned forward. Explain what you mean by predictive model, he explained. He talked for 20 minutes and Ranata took notes in a legal pad with the focused attention of someone who was genuinely capturing information rather than performing the act of capturing it. She asked three questions.
Each question was precise and went directly to the gap in what he just said, which meant she had understood it well enough to identify where it was incomplete. When he finished, she closed the legal pad and looked at him. How much of this do you have documented? My department records, four years of them. And the predictive model, is that something you designed?
Adapted, he said. I read about predictive maintenance applications in industrial settings and modified the approach for hospitality operations. Where did you study that? I didn't. I read.
He met her eyes. I read a lot. I have a lot of time on early mornings. Something moved through her expression. Marcus, I want to ask you something directly and I'd like a direct answer.
Go ahead. Have you ever considered that the work you've been doing for the past 6 years, the systems approach, the predictive modeling, the performance tracking has significant value beyond the scope of your current position? He thought about four pages of notes on his kitchen table. He thought about Patricia Holtz card in his jacket pocket. He thought about Clare saying, "The job title is not the ceiling.