Never Say Sell

CHAPTER 19The Power of Peers

Errol Rice bends over his desk and stares at his facilitation map – a matrix of interview notes and the names of executives who plan to join a call. His knee bounces as he ignores people passing his closed glass door. Outside, gusts blow down from the Bridger Mountains, which are obscured by a leaden blanket of mid-January snow clouds.

It is 10 minutes before the hour, and Errol is getting ready to dial into the call he will lead on behalf of Grant Thornton's manufacturing practice. They have contracted with PIE to pull together a group of manufacturing company CFOs with whom they would like to do business. Errol's job will be to facilitate a discussion of best practices. He's spoken individually to each CFO in advance to ask them about their interests and priorities, and he'll use their questions to each other as the agenda for today's discussion.

His Carhartt jacket hangs on the hook next to his door, snow still clinging to it. Lean, with close-cropped hair and wind-burnt cheeks, Errol brings a good-natured earnestness to his work – a kind of range-riding version of Atticus Finch.

A ranch kid, Errol came to PIE after running the Montana Stockgrowers Association, where he represented an always-shifting coalition of cattle and sheep producers to foreign markets, financial markets, regulators, and Congress. It's the perfect background for wrangling executives on a call.

His mission: Make this call a useful hour for the CFOs who will join.

Outside ...