Super Deciders

Chapter 9Managing Change

Ana Procopio Schön, Claudio Feser, Daniella Laureiro-Martinez, and Stefano Brusoni

ΠάvTα ῥεΙ͂. There is nothing permanent except change.

—Heraclitus

Isabelle and Eve connected more and more sporadically. Isabelle didn't have much time. Even though Isabelle loved and missed the conversations with her “little sister” Eve, the CEO job was absorbing every minute of her time. She worked 60–70 hours per week, Mondays to Fridays and sometimes weekends.

Eve missed the conversations too. She admired Isabelle for her decisiveness, strong character, and action-orientation. She looked up to her and wished she had more of all those traits herself. But she was also busy and in the final stages of submitting her post-doctoral thesis and preparing the defense of it.

When they finally connected again, they did so as usual per video conference. They had planned to meet in person, but Franziska, Isabelle's assistant, called on short notice asking to do a video call instead. “Mrs. Dubois is very sorry, but she will be out of the country and asked me to schedule a video call instead,” she said.

When they connected, Isabelle apologized for any inconvenience the change in plans might have caused to Eve.

“No worries. I understand,” said Eve.

Then, they talked briefly about their private situations. Eve had got engaged and had fixed a date for her wedding. Raul, her fiancé, was an academic she had met at a conference on cognitive biases in Madrid a year earlier. “Congratulations! ...