Ronny Richardson tells the tale, which begins with this e-mail to the Walmart.com Help Desk:
I sent a money gram to Cameroon. The local clerk said they could deliver to Yaounde Cameroon and the person I was sending it to could pick up the money at the local Walmart. As far as I can tell, there is no Walmart in Yaounde. Where would they go to pick up the money?
He received this response, which I’ve edited for length:
Fun with PowerPoint:
Draw a circle for each of your direct reports, arranged in a ring. Color the solid performers green and those who present challenges yellow. Your problem children? Red.
Next: Connect every pair of circles with a colored line — green for good working relationships, yellow for those with some friction and distrust, red for pairs who would fight about whether Han shot first. (He did. Don’t argue.)
(Do you need a fourth color — do you need to color any circles or lines gray because you don’t know? Make a note: Unless you’re new, you shouldn’t need gray.)
When you look at the whole picture, what’s your overall impression … how un-green does it look?
