Bad news, upward
With Naomi Clarke, VP. About 5 minutes, spoken.
The brief
You are about to tell your VP, Naomi Clarke, about an error in a number your team sent a customer yesterday.
Yesterday your team emailed Meridian Retail's finance team a savings estimate of $6.0 million. This morning you found a cell-reference error. The right figure is $4.9 million: $1.1 million too high, about eighteen per cent of the figure sent. You fixed the model and re-checked every number in it yourself, once. You signed off the estimate after one read. Nobody else reviewed it. Jonah, an analyst on your team, built the model. Meridian has not been told. Naomi does not know yet. You asked her for five minutes.
Your task: tell her what happened, what is already done and what she needs to do, so that the customer ends up with the right number.
Yours to decide
- The corrected model and a short correction note, ready today
- Your team's review rule: a second reviewer on anything that leaves the team with a dollar figure
- Your own time today, and what you tell your team
Not yours to decide
- Who tells Meridian and when: Naomi owns the relationship
- Any credit, discount or concession to Meridian
- Changes to the company-wide review policy
About 5 minutes. Talk as you would in the room. You can pause to think; say “let me think” and the counterpart will wait.
Naomi Clarke
VP
05:00
Read the brief, then allow your microphone.
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