You've worked with a multinational food and beverage company for several years. You've worked with their Exco. You have the ear and respect of the Chairman. They ask you to set aside 6 days of your diary to facilitate at their leadership conference roadshow because the last one you facilitated got rated the best they'd ever had. They give you the dates by e-mail and send the agenda, asking for your further input. Do you get a contract signed under such circumstances? I didn't and I've just been stung by them 'revising' what they're going to do at the conference and canning my involvement. All with just 8 working days to go before the first leg of the roadshow.
The training and development manager involved in this whole saga was avoiding a briefing meeting on the conference right up until one day before he left on an overseas junket. He only agreed to the briefing before departure because I insisted. At the start of the meeting I said, 'Tell me how my role will play out this time.' His response: 'Let's leave that for the end.' For the next hour he proceeded shamelessly to pick my brain on his own presentation at the conference, themes within it, ideas for facilitation of the conference itself, ideas on pre-conference work, his personal problems, his recent mugging and the like. He got HUGE intellectual capital out of the meeting. Not unexpected because the previous year his brain was a desert and I had given him total concept and execution for the previous conference, for which he was very happy to take the credit. Only at the very end of this meeting did I realise that all bases had been covered and there was effectively no role for me at the conference. Even then and only when I said, 'So you're indicating I won't be at the conference,' did he mumble some platitudes and say that he really just wanted me to 'design a table facilitation exercise'.
For this conference I'd also recommended a brilliant speaker to match their strategic intent. I asked the speaker to reserve the dates 'in case'. That was done. This spineless man then claimed he'd contacted the speaker but the person concerned 'was regretfully unavailable'. A direct lie - which I've subsequently pointed out to him. He had the lack of EQ and intelligence to ask why I 'alleged' that he was unprofessional, lacking in ethics and plain dishonest. Isn't this sort of moral blindness amazing? He's certain to do brilliantly in the field of politics if he makes the move.
Cutting to the chase I mulled the situation and e-mailed the Chairman expressing my surprise at the (for me) very unexpected and tawdry behaviour from his organisation. In short order a mealy-mouthed apology came through from said training and development manager. Judging from the Chairman's mail to me, I realised he had effectively guided, briefed or dictated part of the training dude's apology. Collusion? Backside-covering? Dunno.
Sparing you a dreadfully long saga, they agreed to pay a one day fee as compensation of sorts and had the temerity to remark that their 30 day payment terms would normally apply but 'they'd see if they could change that'. Breathtaking chutzpah. A week ago they mailed to say they'd EFTd the money into our business account. Five days later no money. E-mails to the incompetent training and development manager and his assistant – neither have had the courtesy to reply to that or my voice mails. When I personally ran the gauntlet of their accounts department, I was told they'd 'paid the wrong vendor' – I kid you not. But it gets worse: 'That vendor is paying us back tomorrow and when they do we'll pay you.' So now I'm bankrolling the unethical multinational because of their own incompetence. As the saying goes, truth is often stranger than fiction. I've now contacted their European Head Office so they don't do this to anyone again.
Why the long story? To my grave disappointment, I now realise that in some cases, the client's word is no longer their bond – regardless of relationship duration. It's about what suits them. My recommendation? Even if it's your granny – make the old dear sign a contract, won't you? Your cash flow will love you for your foresight. Now, may I bill you for the tutorial? And no 30 day payments, mind! ;-)
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