The New Boss

Nothing had been changed at the Manchester office of Hartley Insurance for as long as anyone could remember. The carpets, which had once been blue, were now a tired shade of gray. The coffee machine on the second floor made a noise like a dying animal, and the Monday meeting, which was supposed to last thirty minutes, usually went on until lunch. Nobody complained much. It was simply the way things were done.

So when it was announced that Mr. Pritchard, who had managed the office for nineteen years, was retiring, people reacted as if the weather were about to change permanently. A farewell party was organized, a card was signed by everyone, and a large chocolate cake was eaten in less than ten minutes. Then, on a wet Tuesday in March, the new manager arrived.

Her name was Priya Shah. She was thirty-six, she had worked in London and Singapore, and she was said to have turned around two failing branches in less than a year. That, at least, was what Darren from accounts claimed, and Darren claimed to know everything. "She's known for firing people," he told anyone who would listen. "Wait and see. By the summer, half of us will have been replaced by software."

Priya did not fire anyone. During her first week, she hardly spoke at all. She sat at a different desk every day, asked questions and wrote notes in a small green notebook, which quickly became the most discussed object in the building. It was believed by some that she was listing everyone's mistakes. Others suggested that she was simply writing down people's names, because she had already learned all forty-two of them.

The first real change happened on a Monday. When people arrived, they found that the old coffee machine had been removed during the weekend. In its place stood a shiny new one that could make eleven different drinks. A note had been stuck on the front: "Suggested by Joan, second floor. Thank you, Joan." Joan, who had worked in the post room for twenty-five years and had never been thanked for anything in writing, was seen taking a photo of the note.

The second change was even more dramatic. The Monday meeting, it was announced, would now last exactly twenty minutes and would be held standing up. Anyone who wanted to talk for longer was invited to send an email instead. Darren described this as "a direct attack on democracy". However, it was noticed that he had stopped arriving late, because there was no longer any time to waste at the beginning.

By the end of the month, everyone had an opinion. Some people said that the office felt more alive than it had in years. Others insisted that Priya was moving too fast and that the old ways had worked perfectly well. A rumor spread that the carpets were going to be replaced by wooden floors, then that the second floor was going to be turned into a gym. Neither of these things was true, but both were repeated so often that people began to believe them.

In the end, it was Joan who asked the question that everyone wanted to ask. She stopped Priya by the new coffee machine and asked her, quite directly, what she was writing in the green notebook. Priya smiled, opened it and showed her. On each page there was a name, and under each name a list of things that person had said would make their job better. Some ideas were small, like a new chair or a better printer. Others were bigger, like flexible hours on Fridays.

"I was told that this office didn't want change," Priya explained. "But that isn't what people said to me. They said nobody had ever asked them." Joan was so surprised that she forgot to add sugar to her coffee.

The story of the notebook was told around the building before lunch. By the afternoon, even Darren admitted that the new boss might not be so bad after all. He was later overheard asking Priya whether his idea about a bigger fridge had been written down. It had, she assured him. It was on page fourteen.