Perry Marshall: The man with a steel post in the middle of his cubicle

When John Paul Mendocha was competing for defense contracts, there was a guy in a V-neck sweater.

Many times there would be 30-40 people in a meeting. The man in the V-neck would always be at every one of them. He never said a word, he just quietly sat on the edge of the room and took notes.

Since John made it a point to know the names of every single person at every meeting, he began to wonder who this guy was.

He inquired. Found out his name was Lester. Lester worked in the middle of a vast cubicle farm in building #19. A white steel beam pierced the center of his 6×6 office.

All day he worked with back of his chair chafing against that steel post as he faithfully performed his job on a desk the size of a TV tray.

John’s boss, Liz, said, “Don’t waste your time with that guy. He has no purchasing authority.”

John takes Lester to lunch. In direct defiance of orders.

“Lester, you must talk to a lot of vendors.”

“Yes, I do.”

“What’s your job here?”

“I’m Logistical Support. My job is to keep track of where the equipment is, who’s in charge of it, who owns it, the spending profile, what programs it’s associated with, whose budget it’s under.”

“Wow Lester, that sounds like a big job.”

“A few months ago, one of our suppliers shipped a fifty dollar part 72 hours late. I reported it to the purchasing department and it cost them a $4.7 million contract.”

“You must know the inner workings of everything.”

“Yeah. I’m in charge of taking the printouts off of the VAX mainframe computer and scouring them for inconsistencies. When I find a problem, I notify the affected departments.”

“Wow, that’s an important job,” John says.

Lester says, “When we get back to Building 19, I’ll show you how I do it.”

They go back to Building 19 and Lester shows him a gleaming new DEC VAX mainframe. He produces a report on the tractor-feed printer and shows it to John. Then he walks John around the computer room showing John every VAX, each model, the entire configuration, the peripherals, everything.

A few weeks later, Liz fires John for spending time with low-lifes like Lester. She had instructed John to only work with “Decision Makers.”

John takes a job at a new supplier, one that also sells to this same Fortune 500 company. John starts taking Lester to lunch every week.

Lester’s information on all the equipment in the office frankly isn’t all that useful. But Lester also has a list of all the program managers and all the players. Lester gives him the names of all the young up-and-comers in the organization. He does profiles on probably 50 guys for John.

He even gave John copies of the interdepartmental newsletter. Against company policy, I’m sure.

But here’s the thing: John was the only man in on earth who acknowledged the importance of Lester’s job. Even though Lester had no official power whatsoever, he knew where all the bones were buried, all the cogs in the machine.

So when John finally got the $20 million contract to sell 944 computers to Lester’s company, how important did those lunches turn out to be?

If you sell complex stuff to complex organizations, there’s probably a Lester somewhere, with a proverbial steel beam piercing the center of his 6×6 office. There’s even a possibility of having a John in your life who talks to the Lesters – and negotiates with the “Decision Makers.”