Appendix A

IVK Case: A Dialogic Transcript

Crisis
1. Things were going well lately for Barton, IVK, and Carl. Carl had chosen
him [from among others] to come to New York to give a presentation to Wall
Street analysts. In the past three weeks, IVKs stock price had begun to rise,
lifting spirits throughout the company. Also, Barton had been scoring victory
after victory. A recent all-hands IT department meeting had gone extremely
well; he fielded some tough questions at the meeting and handled them well.
Even [adversary] John Cho, IVKs outspoken resident security genius, had
nodded in response to some of Bartons remarks. Bartons resolute actions
had also gained him the confidence of IVKs senior leadership. In meetings of
the group, Bartons views now swayed/persuaded Williams [CEO and Bartons
boss] more readily than anyone elses. He had proven himself to be a quick
study. Barton to New York on the crest of a wave of recovery, Williams felt,
sent communicated exactly the right message. Under his new leadership, IVK
had woken up to a realization of its current size and the consequent need for
a new style of management. The company would mature into a grownup
financial services firm. What had been a freewheeling, improvisational
approach to management would become more professional. Without
sacrificing organization agility, the company would institute more formal
systems and controls. (2)
2. IT was, of course, key to achieving this [goal of instituting more formal
systems and controls without sacrificing organizational agility], an
expression Williams and Barton had begun to use in conversation to describe
where they were headed [with IVK] and which captured their joint vision of
the future, a lean service factory. It was only natural that Barton would
explain all this to Wall Street. (2)
3. While reading his notes and going over his presentation, Barton
receives a call from Bernie Ruben, director of the Technical Services Group
and longtime IVK employee. Ruben is nearing retirement and thus mostly
immune to concerns about risk to his career. He frequently provides Barton
with the candid advice, knowledge, and context he needs to make key
decision. (Inner circle) Barton assumed the call was about advice Ruben
would be giving him about the presentation. (2)
4. Ruben says to Barton, Im afraid weve got a problem, and we felt we
should get to your with an update. Were experiencing and outage this
morning . . . Customer service is down. None of the call center systems are
working, and the Web site is locked up. Oh, Damn. I assume were
executing recovery procedures? Such as they are. This confused Barton

because he had heard time and time again about the call lists and emergency
procedures that assured business continuity in a crisis. (2)
5. Barton asked Ruben what he meant by that statement. Ruben
responded Sorry. Thats my cynicism coming through. The fact is, those
procedures are pretty badly out of date. I dont think we realized quite how
out of date until thirty minutes ago. This angered Barton and he replied
Wish youd flashed that cynicism a little sooner. Ive been taking everyones
word on this. I thought we were prepared for an outage. (2)
6. Ruben, hearing the tone of Bartons voice, pulled back. Were not
completely unprepared, just not as prepared as wed like to be. Weve got
great people on it. But the truth is that outages dont usually happen in a
predictable way. Inevitably, we have to wing it a bit. (3)
7. Barton then asks Ruben (whose area has no operational
responsibilities, and thus should be only peripherally involved), And why are
you calling to tell me? Ruben replies Because everybody else is kind of
busy, frankly. (Barton imagined his team voting on who the bearer of bad
news would be.) Ruben added Fenton (Director of Infrastructure and
Operations. He manages a large and important domain, including IT security,
and is part of Bartons IT team) and Cho (IVKs outspoken resident security
genius) are right in the middle of this. Ripley (described in context) is at the
data center, rebooting things. Juvani (Director of Customer Support and
Collection Systems and port of Bartons core IT team) and his team are trying
to figure out whats wrong with the Customer Service systems. (3)
8. Hearing this, Barton asks Cho Do we think this might be some kind of
security event? Rubens (unlike his usual self) pauses. This communicated to
Barton the gravity of the circumstances more than the words that followed it.
Barton becomes nervous and anxious. Rubens reports that the Customer
Service Department has been receiving recurrent emails that say Gotcha,
gotcha, gotcha.
9. Hearing this, Barton replies What the hell does that mean? He
channels his frustration into an exasperated hand movement which topples
his coffee. Ruben replies, We dont know. It could be a coincidence that CS
systems are down at the same time that we are receiving these e-mails,
but . . . Barton continues But it doesnt sound coincidental, does it? Ruben
replies No. This is the concern. (3)
10.Hearing this, Barton says Bernie, I need more information. I dont
want to take people off their urgent duties, but at some point in the next hour
or so I need a full update> Williams will get wind of this soon . . .
11.Rubens cuts him of and say He has already . . . and I need to know
what to tell him. Continuing, he says Ill pull a group together, and well call

you. How about 10:30? Barton says [make it 15 minutes sooner than that].
Ill hold off calling Williams until I heard more.
12.On his way to his room, Barton receives a call from Graham Wells, IVKs
VP of Legal Affairs and General Counsel. Wells tells him in a higher than
normal pitched voice and sometimes incoherently Weve got to reduce our
legal exposure here. We have to take dramatic action, signal that weve done
everything we can. Barton replies We are doing everything we can.
Wells asks Barton Can we shut off power to the computer systems? Or cut
the wires that go to the Internet? Barton replies We could . . . but I doubt
that would be smart. Wells replies Smart doesnt matter. What matters is
what we can say in a deposition. Barton asks Wells A deposition? What the
hell are you talking about, Graham? Wells replies If this is a security
incident, we may be looking at legal implications. Customer lawsuits,
shareholder lawsuits, government penalties, you name it. (4) Barton asks,
Because our Web site is down? knowing all the while it was more than that.
13.Wells replied If this is hackersif hackers are stealing customer data
this is going to be bad. Barton replies that they dont know that yet. Wells
replied Thats why we need to take drastic action. He continues I just got
off the phone with Carl. The last words he said to me were, Call Barton,
make sure he understands the legal ramifications. Thats what Im trying to
do. And my official legal opinion is that we should shut down every computer
in the place until we know whats happening. Can we turn off power to the
entire company? I will now call Carl back and let him know that you and I
have spoken. Barton replied Thanks, Graham.
14.Barton went to his room, still not knowing what to do. He badly wanted
to call [members of the IT team] but decided he didnt want to distract them
[let them do their jobs]. He briefly considered calling his girlfriend Maggie
[very savvy about management, who often gives him invaluable insight,
references, and perspectives (informal inner circle) but time wouldnt allow
this. (5)
15.Ten minutes before he was to receive a phone update from the IT
team, Barton gets a call from his boss, Carl, asking him what was going on.
Trying to respond in a way that would calm Carl and gain confidence, Barton
replied Were trying to figure that out.
16.Carl said that Wells said that Barton was nonresponsive. Then Carl told
Barton never mind. Graham seems to have lost his mind. He continues to
ask Barton what [we] know. (5) Barton replies that the call center systems are
down. Carl responds by saying No kidding, whose guys are just hanging out
down there, chatting, drinking coffee. Costing us money. Barton continues . .
. The Web site is frozen. And were receiving suspicious e-mails. Barton
explains There are many possible explanations for the first two problems,
some of them not very sinister, but the e-mails add a troubling aspect to the

problem. Carl responds Makes it seem like someone might be doing this to
us? Barton replies, Exactly.
17.Hearing this, Carl asks How can they? Dont we have a firewall?
Barton replies Of course. We have many, but theres no such thing as perfect
security. Carl replies I dont want to hear . . . He stops himself and say he
wants an update as soon as Barton gets a better idea, sometime in the next
30 minutes. Barton agrees. Carl says he has to go because Wells is calling
him.
18.Barton felt that his conversation with Carl had gone well in that Carl
had expressed confidence in him. A few moments later Carl called again. He
assumed Carls call would not be positive. Carl told Barton he had Wells on
the phone and there was another problem. Barton asks what the problem was
because he was expecting an update from It. Carl said the reason they were
calling was because he and Wells werent sure whether Barton should
participate in the update. Barton wonders whether they decided to replace
him in the middle of a crisis.
19.Continuing, Wells told Barton that there were disclosure issues involved
if Barton spoke to the analysts [and had updated information about the crisis
beforehand.] Therefore, Wells and Carl needed to filter what Barton would
know about the crisis before he met with the analysts. Barton indicated to
Wells that the logic of his statement/concern was kind of crazy and
convoluted. Carl adds that Its a legitimate concern and they needed to
think about the [legal] repercussions from the representations Barton might
make during his presentation. Carl said it might be best to have [Barton] go
into the presentation innocent of whats happening right now. Barton was
opposed to Carl and Wells strategy. He asks whether there was anyone else
Carl and Wells could delegate crisis response to but the call came in from the
IT team before he could say anything else. Wells tells him not to answer the
phone. Barton tells Carl this is wrong; to let him take the call and respond to
the crisis, that he would be responsible for it, that he could figure out a
strategy for the analyst meeting, and to let him do his job. Wells stated that
he advised against this. Carl finally agreed. Barton thanks him. Carl warns
him that your butt is on the line here. Your timing could not be worse.
These words make Barton feel as though he had caused the outage. (8)
20.The call is from Bernie. He said he had an update; that Paul and Tyra
(Tyra is director of Loan Operations and New Application Development
Systems. She worked closely with Barton when he was head of Loan
Operations and takes the lead on several new IT projects under his
management) are on speaker; Cho is at his workstation on the line; as is Ellen
Ripley whos over the data center. Raj is with his guys working on Customer
Service systems so hes not on the line but he can be connected if need be.

21.Paul tells Barton that he knows about the e-mails . . . he thinks. Barton
replies Yes. Paul states The Web site is locked up because of what appears
to be a rather sophisticated denial of service attack. He states IVK has
software to defeat ordinary DoS attacks, but this one is coming from many
locations and is attacking with a pattern of traffic designed to defeat IVKs
countermeasures. He said his team is working on that and think they will be
able to neutralize the threat in the next 5 minutes. The Web site should be
operational after that. He continues The thing that has us most puzzled is
the Customer Service system shutdown. They dont know whats causing it.
Theyve tried everything they knew how but cant add new or retrieve
existing customer records. Could be as simple as a transaction thats got
everything jammed up behind it. Or it could mean the database is corrupted.
(8)
22. Continuing, but theres no way of knowing for sure. Normally skeptical,
Cho thinks its malicious and is an exploitation of the security hole hes been
worked about, but hes not commenting. Ruben spoke for Cho. (While
manager of the Loan Operations Barton had shot down a project that would
have prevented the security hole from being breached). Ripley offered a
solution to the database corruption issue by recommending a backup, which
may or may not work. Cho came on line and said that backing up the files
wouldnt work because Were supposed to keep careful records of all files
introduced into production. But we havent. Because sometimes idiots in the
applications groups rush changes in without going through the proper
procedures. Tyra interrupted and said There are good business reasons to
do that sometimes. And its not like others are not on board when we do it.
Everybody knows what we are doing when we do that. Cho replies I never
agree to it. Tyra replies It must be nice never to have to operate under
pressure from a customer. Cho replies Thats a lot of crap. I advise you to
come down here and try this kind of pressure . . .
23.Barton concludes, So, somebody in Tyras group put in a change
without following procedures? Tyra replied, Raj Juvanis group, actually. Its
his system having the problem. But the rush-a-change-into production thing
is not unique to Rajs group. Its been a sore point for years. We have careful
procedures, but when a big customer screams for a change, procedures
sometimes get circumvented. Outside IT, change control procedures tend to
be viewed as a form of bureaucracy. Business unit managers sometimes force
through quick changes that circumvent change control Cho interjects Like
for instance the VP of Loan Operations. Barton had a vague memory of
browbeating Davies (for CIO at IVK who was fired in part because he
struggled with management-level communications. He tells Barton that he
wont last one year in the job of CIO) into such a quick change in the nottoo-distant past. He thought to himself I deserved that. Fenton continues,
As Tyra rightly says, we all know it goes on, and we all acquiesce. In the
minds of many on the business side, this is justified if it makes a customer
happy. Its a business trade-off in effect. Tyra came back on the line and said

The DoS attack is under control and the Web site is back up. John is working
on figuring out if bad guys are involved. (10)
24.Tyra received a call from Juvani telling her that his people had figured
out what the problem is. He said Customer Service would be back up and
running in 10 minutes. He told Barton that a database index file had been
mysteriously renamed. Barton tells the team hes got to exit. He says he
needs to update Carl. He tells the team he wants the group to divide into two
different teams, work on two different tasks, and meet up again with him in 1
hour. He asks Paul, John, Raj, and Ellen to give him their best sense of
whether theres been an intrusion and what we need to do about it, whether
were sure or not. Bernie, you and Tyra and whoever else you think might
help you isnt working on whats happened here, I want you to develop some
advice for me on how to handle the analyst meeting, which is at 2 p.m. (11)
25.Ruben asks whether Barton can cancel the analyst meeting, claiming
he came down with food poisoning. Barton says this might seem suspicious,
especially if word get out about the lock out. He further explains the pros and
cons of Rubens strategy and concludes by telling Ruben if he thinks
canceling the meeting is a good option, he should explain why. Ruben agrees.
26.Barton immediately calls Carl with an update. Carl listens and says
little. Barton hangs up and begins pulling together his meeting with the
analysts under various scenarios. (11-12)
27.The meeting to recommend an approach to the analyst meeting was
moved back 15 minutes to give the groups time to send Barton some
PowerPoint slides. Paul finished his update. Juvani, Tyra, Cho and Ripley were
on the line. Tyra was there only to make sure she had the latest information
on what had happened as an input into what to say at the analyst meeting.
There was still no smoking gun that indicated an intrusion, although Cho, as
usual, was convinced that was the case. If so, that was the most serious
worse-case scenario
28.Cho states he thinks, for legal reasons, they need to disclose that
something has happened. Fenton adds they should get legal advice on that.
He adds his interpretation of their obligation is that they have to disclose if
they knew theyve lost customer data. Cho interjects, Actually, its if we
suspect we have. Juvani adds, So what does that mean? You suspect we
have, John, Maybe I dont Tyra defended Juvani by saying We dont know
what people do on the night shift. We dont know a hundred other things. Just
because we cant think of another innocent explanation doesnt mean there
isnt one. (12) How often before have we seen something happen that we
think cant happen, only to discover some complex, idiosyncratic
explanation? (13)

29.Fenton asked whether it might be an inside job. A joke? Cho believes it

was no accident, no joke.
30.Barton asks whether by the evenings meeting they will know whether
theres been a security breach. Or will they ever know? Barton asks what do
they recommend doing in the aftermath of the event. Williams will want to
know what theyre planning to do to avoid a repeat of this. Cho recommends
accelerating the security project theyve got in motion and add some more to
it. He has a wish list of stuff. Hopefully, Carl will sign off on what they really
need now. He adds, theyve got to start following their procedures better.
Perhaps after the crisis, people will better understand why they force
procedures on them. Cho says he agrees with Ellens recommendation too.
(13) That is, shut down the production systems for a period of time, 3-4 days,
wipe production servers clean, and rebuild the production configuration from
development files. Barton questions whether 3-4 days is too long to shut
down operations. Cho agrees with Ripley. Barton asks whether parallel
systems could be built. Ripley said yes, but that would be expensive.
31.Barton goes back over the recommendations (Just so Ive got this
clear). They want him to go to Williams and tell him they need to shut down
production computers as soon as possible and keep them down for 3-4 days.
Barton realized that his team had discussed it already and agreed on this
plan of action. (14) Barton reminded them that it was not their decision, but
Carls. And he told them that he didnt think Carl (or anyone outside of IT)
was going to like it. No one replied.
32.Barton then asked the team for ideas about how to frame the
shutdown from a Public Relations standpoint. No one replied. He then said
Okay. Let me think about it.
33.He then opened up his flip phone to see a message from Ruben with a
PowerPoint slide attachmenta plan for how to handle the analyst meeting.
He had two hours left before the meeting started (15)

Damage
34.Carl asks (incredulously) Jim Youre recommending that we shut down
the entire business for how many days? Jim replies Not then entire
business, just parts of it, for three or four days total, which, if we did it on a
weekend interrupts the business only a couple of days. And Im not saying we
should do it. Its one of several options already identified. (Barton was
thinking to himself that he had briefed Carl in the wrong way, providing him
with too much information)
35.Carl asks, One of several options? Barton replies letting him know
that it was one of several options that most of his [Carls] staff prefers . . . at
least at the moment. (Barton was thinking to himself that he hadnt been so

uncomfortable meeting with Carl since he offered him the CIO position. He
was now wondering whether Carl was about to fire him)
36.As usual, in the earlier meeting, Carl was staring out the window,
refusing to sit, while Barton, on the other hand, was captive in a chair. (1) He
wanted badly to meet with his team so they could help him come up with a
full slate of options.
37.Barton then asks Carl if he could get back with him in a couple of hours
with all the options. He added they still have more work to do before they can
make a real recommendation. Williams replied I thought you just made one.
(Moments earlier, Barton had said that shutting down the business was not
yet a recommendation.) He assumed Carl was speaking out of frustration and
thought it would be a bad idea to respond in kind.) Instead, Barton calmly
replied that he had only given him an updateonly a discussion about the
least palatable option first so that it wouldnt come as a total surprise. Having
hearing this, Carl nodded to Barton indicating that he approved on Bartons
communication strategy. This made Barton feel as though he had regained
some of the confidence Carl had in him.
38.Carl told Barton he thought he had done a nice job on the analysis
meeting but hed have to wait a few moments until the stock market opened
to see if IVK stock had fallen. Tyras tem had suggested that Barton play it
cool at the meeting, not even bringing up the attack unless someone else did.
If it came up at all, Barton was to acknowledge it, note that denial of service
attacks are extremely common, and that the companys security measures
had handled the attack after a short delay. During the meeting, Carl and Wells
called in and listened anonymously. In the meeting Barton laid the
groundwork for future security measures emphasizing the firms commitment
to security. He prepared the analysists by telling them the firm might shut
down for 3-4 days to reach a higher standard of service for our customers. (3)
One of the analysis asked him whether Carl would approve of that. Barton
said he believed he would if he [Barton] recommended it. Although he said he
didnt think it would be necessary, he told the analysts not to be surprised if
they did shut down. (Barton added the last part mainly for the benefit of the
lurking Williams, who at that time had not heard about any options about
shutting down) Barton saying what he did was an effective moment in the
meeting. It conveyed to the analysis that the CEO had confidence in him, a
new-hire. But Barton wasnt so sure whether this was a past, more than a
present situation. (3)
39.During the meeting, he was resolute in sticking to a general line of
argument: Were in good shape already, but we want to be even better. He
stuck to the script he had prepared before the attack.
40.After the analyst meeting Barton hurried back to his office but there
wasnt much he could do to help. Cho and a couple of other security people

continued to examine intrusion detection logs but had found nothing. Fenton,
Tyra, Juvani, and Ruben had stayed around, awaiting Bartons return, but only
Fenton and Juvani could really help with the technical details. Everyone
wanted to be supportive, but at some point too many managers just got in
the way. Barton chose Tyra and Ruben to lead a complete review of the
business continuity and emergency response measures, which were out of
date. (3) Next, he sent them home for the evening. Fenton and Juvani sent
most of their people (those not from or useful to the security group) home,
the two of them and Barton were gone half an hour later, with a plan to begin
early the next morning. By then, they hoped there would be more information
about what had happened. It made little sense to charge ahead with the
really big decisions until they had better information (4)
41.Barton was back at work by 6:30 a.m. the next day. Cho still had found
nothing. He and a small group had been working all night. When Tyra, Fenton,
Juvani, and Ruben arrivedall by 7:15 a.m., theyd begun talking through a
list of issues. Rirst, they needed to identify the remedial security measures
they wanted to implement to reduce the risk from future attacks. Barton
wanted to also know what that would cost, and what they could do to avoid a
repeat of the events of the day before. Second, they needed to decide what
should be done to make the company secure against additional mischief from
the attack that had just happened, which seemed as though it was
deliberately done. Barton didnt think it was a coincidence that Gotcha
emails were coming in. Others varied in their opinions, Tyra said Just
because we cant think of how it happened, doesnt mean somebody did it.
She said she was speaking from experience. Third, they needed to figure out
what to recommend to Carl and the rest of the leadership team about what, if
anything, they need to disclose outside the company, and to whom. (4) They
didnt want to underreact nor overreact. Without hard evidence of intrusion, it
was hard to know what over or under reacting even meant. (5)
42.Barton felt as though the third issue was the real nightmare because
Williams would have the greatest difficulties with it. It could cause people to
get fired and shut down IVK.
43.Barton had always made it a policy to let Carl know of the least
palatable options and possibilities. He realized he was actually breaking his
long-standing personal rule by not bringing up the disclosure issue. It was in
his interests to do so. The longer he went without raising it, the harder it
would be to discuss. He speculated that Wells might be harping on the issue
already in his own conversations with Carl. Carl had written on his whiteboard
Always tell your boss the bad news first; tell him as soon as the possibility is
known, dont put it off until you know it for sure. But SYH2DP. Sometimes
you have to duck a punch. (5)
44.Options were shaping up. Cho still hadnt found evidence of intruders
and had, in fact, declared it unlikely evidence could ever be found. Cho had

been up for nearly 40 hours. Barton was sending him home but Cho planned
to come back in later that night. (6)
45.Tyra and Ruben would work on future event avoidance on a less
urgent timeframe, but they had to deal with the other two issues, recovery
from the attack and what to disclose now. Three options were shaping up: 1.
Do nothing, 2. Shut down the company, except for operations that could run
manually, as soon as possible and rebuild critical production systems from
development files, and 3. Build a mirror site from development files and shut
down the original product systems; rebuild original production systems only
after the mirror site is up and running. (7) Bartons team recommended
Option 2playing it safe. Cho concurred. (7)
46.The disclosure issue was more complicated. Some argued for coming
totally clean concerning the possibility of an intrusion. Barton couldnt quite
imagine recommending this to Carl, though. The most popular position called
for contact customers whose records had been accessed on the day of the
attack and perhaps some number of day6s before and warn them that their
information might have been compromised. A few argued for no disclosure at
all, wishing for the best.
47.After much discussion, Barton settled on the immediate rebuild option
(similar to what he had warned about at the analyst meeting), and a limited
disclosure to customers only, at a time not too far in the future when the
news situation was favorable to IVK. (9) Barton thanked them and sent them
all home. Fenton and Cho would be back later that evening and he suspected
Tyra and Ruben had planned to come in on Saturday morning. Now it up to
Barton on what to recommend. The teams had done all they could. (9)
48.Later that day, after 4:30 p.m., Barton called Williams to say that he
was ready to discuss options. Carl told him that the entire senior leadership
team of IVK would convene at 8 a.m. on Saturday to decide what to do. We
could do it this afternoon but I think you should sleep on it. So you can be
really certain of what you recommend, Carl said in a clearly threatening
voice.
49.Before he left for home, Barton called Maggie (his management savvy
girlfriend). He had already made her generally aware of what was going on,
but he felt he needed to talk through the options with her first. When Barton
explained to her what seemed to be the choice of his IT team, she said
youve got to be practical here. Whats Carl going to be okay hearing?
Barton replied that he didnt know, but that there were legal issues that came
into play around the disclosure. Maggie told him she didnt think it likely hed
end up in jail. But she agreed with him that he might be fired. Barton asked
Maggie what she recommended. She said Moderation. A reasonable middle
option. She then told him not to make an extreme choice when he was out of
sorts. She said it was possible he would survive this. (9)

50.Later that evening Barton went to the bar to have a drink and ran into
the kid The kid asked him what was up but he couldnt share the details. He
conveyed to the kid that there had been a major problem and that the CEO
was upset enough to call an 8 a.m. meeting on Saturday. Barton implied to
the kid that there might even be legal concerns involved.
51.The kid recommended to Barton that he should recommend nothing
that might endanger his turnaround of the company. Keep up appearances.
Thats what Carl would prefer. Finally, he told Barton not to listen to him but
to trust your gut. The kid told him he had to leave but asked Barton to
come by next week and give him an update. (11)
52.The next morning at the meeting Barton recommended to him that
Carl should shut major parts of the company down so that they could be sure
they didnt have any further problems as a result of the attackif there was
an attack and explain the outage as a service upgrade. He also suggested
that they wait a few days to begin contacting customers, try to coordinate
those contacts with a busy news day, and maybe spread them out a bit over
time so that the number of people theyre contacting will be difficult to
discern. (11)
53.After this, the leadership team members became silent. The team
consisted of VP Corporate Planning, VP Financial Management, VP HR,
Director of Collections, VP Capital Markets, VP Legal Affairs, VP Business
Development, VP Customer Service and Head of Loan Operations. They all
nodded, murmured, agreeing with Barton and Wells.
54.Carl asked everyone again whether they thought this was the way to
go. They nodded in agreement. Carl asked them what if an employee leaked
the problem out to an analyst. Finally, Carl asked for a show of hands who
thinks they should adopt the plan that Barton recommended. Hesitantly,
there was unanimous agreement.
55.After some pause, Carl said he didnt agree. He then shouted I WAS
HIRED to turn this company around. Thats just what Im going to do. We will
NOT shut the company down. And we will NOT say to anyone that we think,
maybe, possibly we might haveperhaps, perchance, conceivablylost
customer data. That would indicate we didnt know what we were doing; that
we were unprofessional, incompetent. He said it doesnt rise to his standard
of performance. He said Carl Williams doesnt run companies that way. (13)
56.Suddenly, Wells said he couldnt go along with Carl on this, that it was
too dangerous. He said At least I think youre proposing it. Wells says we
need to play it safe here. Carl responded by saying Youre not the CEO. Its
my decision. Wells replied, That may be, but its my career that youre

putting at stake, and those of all the rest of us. My professional ethics too. I
cannot go along with this. (13)
57.Williams asked him, calmly, whether that was what he thought. Wells
said yes, and Hansen agreed. He said We need to choose a strategy that
allows us all to move on to our next job, even if this one doesnt work out.
Hansen continues to nod but none of the other members of the leadership
team do). He then fired both Wells and Hansen and cautioned them about
making slanderous comments about the company.
58.When the HR chief told Carl that we should let things settle down a bit,
he looked at her in a deranged manner. Suddenly, Williams swelled up, raised
his right arm horizontally, index finger outstretched and pointed to Barton. He
said YOU . . . (with head rolling on neck) will need to take over Loan
Operations again until I figure out who to turn it over to. Do NOT let Loan
Operations distract you from your duties in IT. And DO NOT let this ever
happen again. Do you understand? Barton replied yes. Barton adjourned the
meeting
59.Barton overhears Carl on the phone telling someone they needed to
put together a crack legal team to help them with a little emergency and that
Wells had been fired. Walking down the hallway back to his office, Barton told
some of his peers alongside him he was sorry about all this. They were silent.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Communication
60.Barton reflects on the goings on in the meeting. He didnt understand
why he was not fired, but Hansen (popular with his employees) had been. He
felt that Wells had never been much more than a bureaucratic annoyance
(always following the rules). (Communication 1)
61.Carl had communicated to Barton in a lengthy e-mail hed composed
himself asking Bartons opinion of Linda Trilling as his choice to take over
from Hansen. Barton thought it was a good choice (one he would have
recommended had he been asked) and he told Williams that in an e-mail he
sent immediately. (Communication 1)
62.Attached to the e-mail that Carl had sent Barton was a list of
references about IT management strategies. Barton did not think very highly
of the literature. The e-mails suggested to Barton a colossal absence of
confidence in the CIO and IT function. He no longer trusted anyone else to
assist the CIO. It signaled a dramatic fall from grace for Barton.
(Communication 3). This indicated Barton could expect to get more advice
from Carl. From now on he would need to do more than inform Carl of what
was happening in IT and recommend plans of action. Hed also have to

explain and justify not following the CEOs advice, which he though was of
questionable value. (Communication 3)
63.Barton finished reading the lengthy email, Barton goes to Rubens
(Director of Technical Services group) office and tells him about the e-mail,
the blogthat Carl had lost confidence in him. Ruben tells Barton that he had
heard that Wells and Hansen had threatened to mutiny and Carl wouldnt put
up with that. (Communication 3)
64.Ruben then told Barton they had to improve things, but that they also
had to communicate what they were doing to Carl and others in a systematic
step-by-step way that builds confidence. (Communication 3) Ruben had sent
Barton a draft of the plan the day before and he said he liked it.
(Communication 4)
65.The plan was about firewall upgrades, digital file fingerprinting,
better intrusion detection, purchase of additional processing and disk
capacity to allow more logging, additional third-party security audits,
procedures to make sure emergency manuals were up to date, training,
rehearsal of emergency procedures on a regular basis, and renewed
emphasis on change control. The goal was never again to be in a situation in
which they didnt know what to do in in an emergency or couldnt tell what
should be running on production computers. Barton thought that Carl would
agree to the plan and wouldnt mind spending what it took to put the plan in
motion.. (Communication 4) Ruben agreed and added that A big number
should help with the confidence issue.
66.Ruben suggested briefings. Barton pointed out that frequency of
communication was an issuethat isgo away and fix a lot of things, then
come back to Carl when they could claim progress. Barton suggested an
alternative approach would be more frequent and incremental updates
maybe once a week, a regular agenda item at the leadership team meetings,
and an additional meeting every week with Williams. Both men agreed that
Carl wouldnt like the latter but that they could insist. Ruben suggested
waiting for things to settle down first. (Communication 4)
67.Barton meets with Maggie that same evening. He asks her whether he
should bypass Carl and update the board through board member Francesco
Carraro. Maggie didnt think this was a good idea. (Communication 7) They
both agreed that Barton was totally screwed and that he should consider
quitting. (Communication 8) Barton disagreed.
68.Barton asks Maggies advice for a communication plan to rebuild
confidence in IVKs IT capabilities. (Communication 8) She suggested
stakeholder analysis. She said it was systematic. Generally, first, you
identify stakeholdersthe people who can influence the outcomes you care
about. Second, you map stakeholders into categories, like allies and

blockers. Third, you formulate independent strategies to deal with each

category, or even each stakeholder, if the persons influence warrants that.
(Communication 8)
69.Barton asks Maggie how often she thought the team should
communicate with Carl and the rest of the leadership team. She said
frequently, using an array of media as needed. (Communication 9)
70.The next morning Barton reflected on the conversation he had had
with Maggie about whether he was totally screwed. (Communication 10)
71.Barton met with for IVK CIO, Bill Davies, to get his advice about what to
do. He learned that Davies (through IVK employees) knew a lot about the
situation. Employee leaks to Davies was against company policy but Barton
felt little could be done about it. Davies recommended that Barton not meet
with Carl regularlybut only when he had accomplished something. He
referred Barton to the Doctrine of Completed Staff Work. (Communication 12)
72.Later that evening Barton went back to Vinnies [bar] and met with the
kid. The kid told him that Carl might be keeping him around because he
genuinely needs you. Barton tells the kid he was disappointed that Carl had
overruled his recommendation but that he wouldnt quit. (Communication 13)