HOW TO CONQUER A CONTINENT .. AND BEFUDDLE A BEANCOUNTER

     Here's an extraordinary phone conversation for the ages, from ages ago; specifically from early 1971. It came into my office in New York City; and the caller was calling on behalf of my favorite client. I remember it almost word-for-word because .. well, how could I forget it?

     Good morning, sir. My name is Richard Kingsworth. I'm Director of Internal Auditing for Xerox Corporation. I understand you are our consultant for TV programs and report to our Vice-President of Corporate Communications. Am I correct?
     That's right. What can I do for you?
     Well, first, sir, thank you for taking my call. We certainly think you've done some wonderful things for Xerox. And they're much appreciated. In fact, my family watches everything we sponsor, including some of the controversial stuff .. if you know what I mean. But of course that's not why I'm calling. I actually wanted to ask you a few questions about ...
     Wait a sec, I say. If you're an auditor, shouldn't you be talking to my accounting department? That way you can talk bean to bean, so to speak. Why don't I just transfer you over there?
     (But I'm thinking: Why's the head of auditing calling me directly? It's like getting a call from the head of the IRS or the Internal Affairs Division of the NYPD. And what's with the compliments?
     I don't like this at all.)
     No, please! Don't transfer me! I'm calling about the recent invoices you've been sending to Peter McColough.
     (Ah ha! Now I get it. He's snooping into the expenses of his own CEO .. the big boss .. the capo di capos. That takes chutzpah. But he has to tread VERY carefully. That's why the butter-up.)
     What about them? As far as I know, they've all been paid on time.
     Slightly insulted, he says: Of course they have! But they don't seem to relate to anything .. and they're in addition to your television fees. I mean .. we can't find any documentation on what they're for. All they say is 'monthly retainer' .. and I'm afraid we need more information than that .. for our outside auditors also.
     Okay, I can understand that, I tell him. But there's nothing to find. I have a handshake deal with Peter .. all verbal. Nothing's on paper.
     Forgive me, but to do what exactly? And for how long? I mean, for what period of time?
     I pause, perhaps a beat too long, and tell him: I'm thinking.
     He pauses too: I beg your pardon. Did you say you're thinking?
     That's right. That's what the invoices are for. Thinking. It's a little unorthodox, but there it is. You know how the company has a long-term planning department? ... like an in-house think tank? Well I'm kinda the outhouse .. different but the same if you know what I mean.
      (Mr. Kingsworth, despite being a beancounter, is not an unintelligent man. So by now he senses I'm playing games with his function. And I know he'll be persistent because that's his job. But I have the ear of his ultimate boss; and I'm young and cockier than I have a right to be.)
       And call you tell me what you're thinking about? he asks. After all we're talking substantial sums here, aren't we?

     He's right and his question forces me back to a night six months earlier when Peter McColough and I had dinner at the Harvard Club; not exactly my idea of a gourmet restaurant but at least quiet ... and given the food, nearly empty. He'd just gotten off the plane from his first tour of new Xerox subsidiaries in South America. And while enthused about their potential, he was worried about one issue. In fact, more than worried .. because there seemed no way around it.
     There's no X in the Spanish language, he told me. People can't seem to pronounce our name right. All they do is make a hissing sound.
      He was mostly accurate, and only a little wrong. I'd lived in Spain for a while and knew that Spanish does have an X. But it's seldom used and when pronounced -- depending on the country -- sounds most like 'Shhh'. So Xerox would be pronounced something like 'Share-osh'. It sounded in my mind like a salt marsh at slack tide.
       I want you to come up with something, McColough said. I have no idea what, but we can't do business if nobody can say our name. And we can't change that. So I want you to figure something out.
See if you can find some way to get them to say Xerox like we do. Not like they're using mouthwash.
     Among other things, I liked McColough because he never demanded instant reactions from people. So I was able to push around the worst baked Alaska I'd ever tasted while I thought about the problem.
     Finally, I said: God, Peter, I wouldn't even know where to start. I mean .. I can't imagine what we could do. Every country down there has one or maybe two TV stations, but they're either government-owned or government-controlled. Half of them are banana republics or military dictatorships ... I guess there's a few democracies if you want to call them that .. but most of them hate each other. Mexico thinks Argentina is retarded .. and Argentina thinks Mexico is neanderthal. It doesn't seem to matter who .. Chileans .. Venezuelans .. whatever. They all think they're different or better than anybody else.
     I know all that, McColough said grumpily. But there's got to be a way around it. That's what I want you to tackle. You can deal with me directly and bill me for your time. Give me a rough number .. a ballpark figure .. so I can think about it.
     My reaction was that I wanted no part of it. For openers, even we pronounced Xerox -- a word derived from the Greek words for 'dry' and 'writing' -- in a weird way. We made the first X sound like a Z and the second like an X: Zee-rox. Pretty silly, huh? And we're going to teach trhe Spanish-speaking world how to say an invented word that we ourselves pronounce illogically? Fat chance!
     What McColough wanted from me looked like a lose-lose situation. What's the use of taking a job that can't be done? I asked myself. And then having to admit failure? And losing the credibility I'd earned with him? No thanks. I wanted to stick with what I knew: television programming on the American networks.
     That's when I decided on a sneaky way out. I'd quote him an outrageous number. Something sky-high and beyond reason.
     Peter, you'd have to pay me too much, I said. I was smiling, as if were a joke.
     How much? he asked again.
     How about $25,000 a month?
     Fine. Send me the bills marked 'monthly retainer'.

     I was re-living my shock when the auditor's voice recaptured my attention.
     As if clairvoyant, he said: I would presume $25,000 a month buys something more ... uh ... concrete than just thought. As I said, we'll need some specifics to fill in the blanks.
     Sorry, I can't give you any information without Peter's permission.
     Well, can you tell me generally what we're dealing with? Are you talking proprietary technology .. patent issues .. mergers and acquisitions .. new imaging processes? If I can call it something I may not have to question Mr. McColough about it.
      Now I'm beginning to feel sorry for this guy. It's no easy thing to question the man who ultimately controls your career. But I was already in for a penny, and thus for a pound.
     Nothing to do with any of that stuff, I tell him. All I can say is Peter asked me to come up with an idea for him.
     An idea? One idea?
     I don't answer because I've already done so .. and because I sense he's befuddled and grappling with an alien concept; something beyond his professional training and certainly beyond his personal experience. And I'm right because his next question stuns me. It's a voyage into the unknown; an epistemological miracle.
     How long does an idea take? he asks.
     And suddenly we're confronting something worthy of Aristotle .. or Albert Einstein .. or maybe even God!
     HOW LONG DOES AN IDEA TAKE? I'm tempted to ask 'just a run-of-the-mill idea or a really good one?' And I want to tell him 'somewhere between a split second and forever'. But I'm also wondering whether an idea is like a pyrophoric substance that explodes the instant it's exposed to air or whether it's like a compost heap whose long, slow fermentation eventually self-ignites.
     HOW LONG DOES AN IDEA TAKE?
     How the hell should I know?
     But the auditor himself recognizes the absurdity of his question and in his confusion tries to retreat to something more familiar; something perhaps quantifiable.
     Or should I ask how much an idea costs? he asks.
     Again, there is no answer and, suddenly, I want out of the conversation. So I apologize for taking his time and cut him short. My final words are, Talk to McColough.

      But to be honest, that specific question -- how much does an idea cost? -- has in its own way been bugging me for months. Because I still don't have the faintest idea how to make a salt marsh at slack tide sound like a modern corporation. I've done extensive research, read deeply, talked with experts, solicited diplomats, traveled, dreamed, hoped, cursed and gotten drunk more than once in the search for a solution. But nothing has surfaced. I've been paid a small fortune and still haven't a clue.
     What's worse, I'm being dogged day and night by an insidious and unavoidable sense of futility.
I simply hate my looming failure.

    Then, a week later, Mike Dann calls. Mike Dann .. of all people! The little Napoleon of CBS whose quick patter and elliptical monologues are famous for confusing everyone but himself. I never could have dreamed he'd suggest an idea that could solve 'The X Problem'. Never in a million years.
     But he did.
     And together -- with more optimism than good sense, and with differing interests but one complementary purpose -- we set about to conquer the land mass of our hemisphere all the way from El Paso, Texas, to the turbulent waters of Cape Horn.
      My next posting will tell how.

      Thanks for reading.