I was aware of Daniel in the third row for the first twenty minutes and then I was not, because the work took over, which is how it always goes.
At the end I took questions. A man from finance asked about measuring the ROI of process improvement, which is the question I get in every single room regardless of industry. I gave the answer I have refined through about eighty iterations of being asked it. People took notes. The room broke at twelve-fifteen.
Several people stopped me on the way out to introduce themselves. An operations coordinator asked for my card. Linda said it was one of the better training sessions they’d run. Daniel waited until the room had mostly cleared and then he came over.
“That was really good,” he said.
It was such a strange thing to say that I almost laughed. “Thank you.”
“I mean it. I didn’t — I knew you were good at this but I didn’t–” He stopped.
“You’d never seen me do it,” I said.
“No. I hadn’t.”
We stood there for a moment in the clearing training room, the chairs at odd angles from the group exercises, Linda quietly gathering materials at the back.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve been an idiot.”
“Yes,” I said. “Let’s talk tonight.”
## The Conversation That Had Been Waiting
We talked for three hours that evening. It was the kind of conversation that is not comfortable but is necessary, the kind that starts in one place and keeps arriving somewhere you didn’t know you were going.