How to Ruin a Relationship

I hadn’t talked to Ben in a couple of years.  He saw I had peeked at his whereabouts on LinkedIn and decided to give me a call. We each refilled a coffee cup and jumped on a communication app for a nice, long catch-up session.

Since I am retired, my side of the story is usually rather dull:

Are you doing anything today? he asked me.  Playing some golf, maybe taking a nap.

Seeing anything exciting?  We had a 12-foot alligator walk down the street near my postal center.

Any big plans? There’s a new band playing around town that’s pretty good.

So, to keep the conversation rolling, I would need to ask the questions.

You’re still working as a cybersecurity consultant, aren't you?

“Yes,” he replied, “but the reason I even have time to chat with you today is because I am on the beach for the foreseeable future.”

I was surprised.  Ben was one of the hardest of hard chargers and a sought-after consultant.  I asked him to explain what happened, and here are his words:

I am on the beach because I just got unceremoniously kicked off my most recent cybersecurity consulting engagement after just a couple of weeks. Yeah, it surprised me as well.  Everything started off just like usual: intro meetings in a conference room, one-on-ones with the cybersecurity leaders, and an hour with the new CISO.

The first little inkling I had that something was “off” was when I noticed everyone looked and acted genuinely unhappy, even grumpy. Every meeting was met with frowns and furrowed brows. There were no jokes, lighthearted remarks, laughs, or anything funny written on the corner of a whiteboard.  Many employees still had work-from-home arrangements post-pandemic and most of the acres of cubicles were empty.

The fact that many people weren’t in the office regularly made setting up meetings difficult. Sure, you can use an online app. Still, for reviewing risk tables, vulnerability spreadsheets, security policies, and disaster recovery plans with the staff, face-to-face sessions proved to be much more productive. From the outset, the managers made it challenging to arrange on-site meetings. It almost felt like several had other commitments during the day that trumped their full-time job,

When the process became a real tooth-pulling exercise, my go-to has always been to appeal to the senior leadership.  The people paying for the engagement can usually ensure at least reluctant compliance, if not enthusiastic support. But going this route didn’t help either.  You could tell there were festering resentments and unresolved turmoil among them.

The final option was to reach out to our partner responsible for the engagement and determine who was covering the costs of our services. A good senior partner will generally convince the corporate sponsor that constructive compliance would yield a far better outcome than a hostile response to requests.

As it turned out, the new CIO who brought our consulting team into this engagement was a former client who had achieved a positive outcome. He assumed bringing us into his new organization would have a similar positive outcome. Once he signed the purchase order and made cursory introductions, he jumped on an airplane to begin a round-the-world tour of his new organization’s IT centers that would take him out of the country for a couple of months. Scratch that plan.

With no way to resolve the growing tensions, every visit to the site or meeting with the cybersecurity staff was an exercise in frustration.  They didn’t want me there, they weren’t interested in any advice, and they made sure I knew it.

So, I wasn’t shocked when the next call I got from my partner was that I was being pulled from the engagement. I was told they claimed I was being antagonistic and unhelpful. It was where this whole project was headed, in any case.

I heard just a couple of days ago that the CIO had returned from his travels only to be confronted by all the open resentment and hostility to his consultants. I am not sure he has fully realized that this entire engagement wasn’t set up correctly.  Unless he can straighten out the mess and wasted investment quickly, he’ll likely be joining me on the beach next week.

Wow, that’s quite a story, I said.  I hope it doesn’t leave a mark on your resume or your pride.

“Oh, I am grateful for the break,” he replied, “but I hope not to ruin a relationship before it even starts the next time.”