The Great Rift Valley Incident: Part 3 - The Crisis
Previously: Derek's transformation program is now in full effect. Hunting efficiency has dropped 31%. The tribe is hungry, confused, but committed to the process. Week Two begins.
Opening Narration
The ant is positioned on the performance dashboard cave wall. Several hunter symbols have migrated to the RED column. The narrator's voice carries the weight of impending disaster.
"Week Two. In nature, when a strategy proves ineffective, organisms adapt or perish. The consultant, however, operates under different rules. When a strategy fails, the consultant does not question the strategy. The consultant questions the metrics."
Derek is visible in the background, creating new sections on the cave wall with intense focus.
"What we are about to witness is a masterclass in survivorship bias, selective data interpretation, and the ancient art of moving goalposts. Somewhere in the future, business schools will teach this methodology under the name 'data-driven decision making.'"
A pause.
"The tribe has no idea what is about to happen to them."
Act I: Week Two - Advanced Metrics
Scene: The Methodology Deepens
Monday morning, Derek unveiled Phase Two.
"Last week was foundation," he announced during the Stand-Up (now a consistent fifty minutes). "This week, we go deeper. We're implementing what I call Holistic Performance Assessment."
On the cave wall, he had created a new chart. It had multiple dimensions:
- Kill Efficiency Score (size of kill divided by time spent hunting)
- Resource Utilization Index (meat harvested divided by spears used)
- Team Collaboration Rating (successful group hunts divided by total hunts)
- Innovation Metric (new techniques attempted)
- Safety Compliance (hunts completed without injury)
"What we're doing here," Derek explained, gesturing at the increasingly complex wall of symbols and markings, "is moving beyond simple outcome measurement. We're capturing the full picture of performance."
The narrator: "The full picture of performance, in this case, being so complex that no one—including Derek—can actually interpret it. But it looks impressively sophisticated, which in the consultant's world, is often more important than being useful."
Koro, the Director of Hunting Operations, studied the new chart with visible confusion. He made a gesture that roughly translated to: "How do we measure these things?"
"Great question," Derek said. "That's where you come in as a leader. After each hunt, you'll spend time with your team calculating these metrics. I've created a worksheet—" he held up a piece of bark covered in symbols and scratch marks, "—that walks you through the math."
The hunters would now spend approximately forty-five minutes after each hunt calculating metrics.
This was forty-five minutes they had previously spent actually hunting.
The narrator: "Efficiency, Derek has often told his clients, is about optimizing every moment. He appears not to notice that the optimization process itself is consuming the moments that could be spent on actual productivity. This is not irony. This is the natural state of the consultant."
Scene: The First Red Flag
By Wednesday of Week Two, something had become statistically undeniable.
Hunting success was not rebounding. It was declining further.
The tribe had gone from seven successful hunts per week (their historical average) to four.
Derek sat by firelight, reviewing his bark documentation. The metrics were clear. The trend was unmistakable.
And so, Derek did what any good consultant would do.
He changed the metrics.
Thursday morning's Stand-Up began with an announcement:
"I've been doing some analysis," Derek said, "and I realize we've been measuring the wrong things."
He pointed at the original success metric—successful hunts per week.
"This is what we call a lagging indicator. It tells us what already happened, but it doesn't give us actionable insights. What we need are leading indicators."
On a new section of wall, he had drawn fresh categories:
- Hunting Attempts (total hunts launched)
- Territory Covered (distance traveled)
- Planning Time (hours spent in pre-hunt alignment)
- Tool Maintenance (spears sharpened per week)
- Skill Development (training sessions completed)
"Look at these numbers," Derek said, pointing enthusiastically at the new tracking. "Hunting attempts are up 35%. Territory covered is up 28%. Planning time has increased 200%. These are leading indicators of future success."
The narrator, with exceptional dryness: "The tribe is hunting more, traveling farther, and planning longer because Derek's process requires them to. They are not catching more food. They are, in fact, catching significantly less food. But by Derek's new measurement system, they are performing 88% better than before."
A pause.
"This is what is known in nature as 'fatal delusion.' In corporate settings, it is called 'reframing.'"
Scene: The Intervention
That afternoon, the eldest elder—the one Derek thought of as the CEO—requested a private meeting.
She brought the other two elders with her. They sat across from Derek in his "office" (a section of cave he had designated for one-on-one conversations).
Through gestures, through the few shared words they had developed, through expressions that transcended language, they communicated a simple message:
The tribe was hungry. The stores were depleting. The system was not working.
Derek listened with the patient expression he used for stakeholder concerns.
"I hear you," he said when they finished. "I want to acknowledge that this is a challenging time. Change is always challenging. But let me walk you through something."
He pulled out his latest documentation—several pieces of bark covered in marks and symbols.
"If we look at our leading indicators, we're actually seeing significant improvement. Yes, our lagging indicators—actual food acquisition—are down. But that's temporary. The leading indicators tell us that the foundation for future success is being built."
The elders exchanged looks.
Derek pressed on: "What I'm asking for is six more weeks. We're only two weeks into a twelve-week transformation program. You don't judge a hunt by the first hour. You judge it by whether you bring food home at the end. Give the process time to work."
The narrator: "Derek has just compared a multi-week consulting program to a single day's hunt. The metaphor is imperfect at best, nonsensical at worst. But he has delivered it with such confidence that the elders are uncertain how to respond."
The CEO elder looked at Derek for a long moment. Then she made a gesture—a specific motion that indicated conditional agreement. They would continue. But they were watching.
"That's all I ask," Derek said. "Trust the process."
Act II: Week Three - Breaking Point
Scene: The Dashboard of Shame
By Week Three, the performance dashboard had evolved into something resembling a corporate nightmare rendered in cave painting.
Colors everywhere. Symbols migrating between columns. Sub-categories and footnotes. A legend that required its own legend.
Uktar, the young hunter on his Performance Improvement Plan, was now in the RED column with two marks next to his name—Derek's system for indicating "repeated underperformance."
Uktar had been on five hunts. Two successful, three unsuccessful. 40% success rate.
In the old system, this would have been acceptable for a young hunter still developing skills.
In Derek's system, this was grounds for serious intervention.
"Let's talk about what's happening," Derek said during their weekly one-on-one (a new process introduced in Week Three).
Uktar sat, shoulders slumped, staring at his feet.
"I see you're disengaged from the conversation," Derek noted. "That's concerning. If we're going to get you back on track, I need you present and committed."
The narrator: "Uktar is not disengaged. Uktar is demoralized. Before Derek arrived, Uktar was a promising young hunter learning from his elders, improving with each season. Now, Uktar is a symbol in a red column, a case study in failure, a problem to be solved. His confidence—the essential ingredient for successful hunting—has been systematically destroyed by a performance management system that measures everything except what matters."
Derek pulled out documentation. "Your Innovation Metric is strong—you're trying new techniques. Your Safety Compliance is perfect—no injuries. But your Kill Efficiency Score is below acceptable thresholds. So here's what we're going to do."
He produced a new piece of bark.
"Personal Improvement Contract. You're going to commit to specific behavioral changes. More planning time. Technique practice. Shadow mentoring with DH1. We'll review weekly. If we don't see improvement in thirty days, we'll need to have a harder conversation about whether you're in the right role."
The narrator: "Derek has just threatened a hunter with removal from hunting duties because the hunter is not successfully hunting while being forced to spend increasing amounts of time on activities that are not hunting."
A long pause.
"The irony is lost on everyone involved."
Scene: The Metric Manipulation
Week Three, Day Five. Derek's private documentation now showed a hunting success rate 43% below historical averages.
The tribe was visibly hungry. Stores were at concerning levels. Even Derek, subsisting on his allocation of shared resources, had lost weight.
But Derek's client presentation—the report he had been preparing for the Weekly All-Hands—told a different story.
On the cave wall, he had prepared his weekly report:
TRANSFORMATION PROGRESS: WEEK THREE
- ✓ Process Adoption: 100% (all hunters using new documentation)
- ✓ Metric Compliance: 100% (all metrics being tracked)
- ✓ Leadership Development: Up 45% (more one-on-one coaching sessions)
- ✓ Cross-functional Collaboration: Up 62% (hunters and gatherers in joint planning)
- ⚠ Food Acquisition: Below target (external factors, detailed analysis attached)
Under "External Factors," Derek had listed:
- Seasonal game migration (unpredictable)
- Weather patterns (suboptimal)
- Territorial competition (increased predator activity)
- Sample size (too early to establish statistical significance)
The narrator: "Notice what has happened here. Derek has taken a 43% decline in the primary measure of success—food—and converted it into a bullet point marked with a warning symbol, buried beneath four green checkmarks, and attributed entirely to factors beyond anyone's control."
A pause.
"In nature, we call this 'prey animal deception'—the false signals used to avoid being eaten. In corporate environments, it is called 'executive reporting.'"
Scene: The All-Hands Presentation
Friday evening, the entire tribe assembled for Derek's Week Three report.
He walked them through his metrics. He emphasized the green checkmarks. He spoke at length about "foundation building" and "capability development" and "cultural transformation."
When he reached the food acquisition number, he addressed it head-on:
"I want to talk about the elephant in the room." (The tribe had no idea what an elephant was, but they understood his tone indicated importance.) "Our food numbers are not where we want them to be. But I want to contextualize this."
He turned to a new section of wall where he had drawn a chart—his interpretation of the "change curve."
"This is completely normal. Right here—" he pointed at a dip in the line, "—this is where we are. This is the valley. Every transformation goes through this. And right here—" he pointed at where the line rose sharply, "—this is where we're going."
He made eye contact around the circle.
"I know it's hard. I know you're frustrated. But we are exactly where we should be in the process. This valley is where winners are separated from quitters. This is where transformation actually happens."
The narrator: "Derek has just told a tribe of early humans that their hunger is a sign of progress. Remarkably, disturbingly, some of them are nodding."
Act III: The Meta-Optimization
Scene: The Hunter's Epiphany
That night, one of the senior hunters—a man named Garth who had been observing Derek with increasing analytical interest—approached Koro with an idea.
Through gestures and their developing shared language, Garth explained his concept:
Derek had taught them to optimize everything. To measure, to analyze, to improve through process.
What if they applied this methodology to Derek himself?
Koro, exhausted from trying to enforce a system he didn't understand, was intrigued.
The narrator, with what might be amusement: "In nature, when a prey animal learns to mimic the warnings of a predator, we call this 'adaptive evolution.' Here, we are about to witness something similar: the tribe learning the consultant's language well enough to turn it against him."
Scene: The Optimization of Derek
Saturday morning, Garth requested a meeting with Derek. He brought documentation—pieces of bark with marks that mimicked Derek's metric tracking style.
Garth laid them out and, through careful gestures supplemented by Koro's translation, explained:
He had been tracking Derek's performance.
Derek's Metrics (Garth's Analysis):
- Advice Implementation Success Rate: 0% (no improvement in food acquisition)
- Time Efficiency: Below baseline (meetings consume productive hours)
- Resource Consumption: Above contribution (Derek eats but does not hunt)
- Communication Effectiveness: Poor (most instructions misunderstood)
- Outcome Delivery: Negative impact (tribe worse off than before Derek arrived)
Garth pointed at each metric, then at Derek, then at the food stores, then back at Derek.
The message was clear: By Derek's own measurement system, Derek was failing.
The narrator: "This is the most dangerous moment in any consultant engagement: when the client learns to speak the consultant's language fluently enough to audit the consultant."
Derek stared at the documentation for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
"This is fantastic," he said.
Garth looked confused.
"No, seriously, this is exactly what I was hoping for. You're thinking like a Lean practitioner. You're analyzing processes, measuring outcomes, identifying opportunities for improvement."
He picked up one of Garth's bark documents.
"But here's what you're missing. These are lagging indicators. They measure what's already happened. What you're not seeing are the leading indicators of the cultural transformation that's occurring."
He produced his own documentation.
"Look: knowledge transfer is up 300%. Critical thinking is up 180%. Leadership capability development is up 220%. You're literally doing right now what I taught you to do. That's the real outcome. That's the transformation."
The narrator: "Derek has just argued that teaching the tribe to question his methods is proof that his methods are working. This is not logic. This is something beyond logic. This is a level of self-justification so advanced that it loops back around to become almost admirable."
Garth listened, looked at his documentation, looked at Derek's documentation, and appeared to be considering this argument.
Then he made a gesture that could only be interpreted one way:
This is bullshit.
He turned and walked away.
The narrator, almost proudly: "In this moment, Garth has achieved something remarkable. He has, through two weeks of immersion in corporate methodology, developed the ability to detect bullshit despite not speaking the language in which the bullshit is delivered. This is, genuinely, an evolutionary leap."
Act IV: The Divergence
Scene: The Secret Hunt
That afternoon, while Derek ran his scheduled "Continuous Improvement Workshop" (attendance: three people, down from the mandatory full tribe), something happened.
Garth gathered five of the senior hunters. Without documentation, without pre-hunt alignment forms, without updating the performance dashboard, they left the settlement.
They hunted the old way.
They read the wind. They tracked patterns. They moved silently. They made decisions in real-time based on observation rather than process.
They returned four hours later with a successful kill. Significant meat.
They had not told Derek.
The narrator: "The rebellion has begun. Not with confrontation, not with argument, but with the simple act of ignoring the consultant and returning to what works. This is the beginning of the end of Derek's transformation program."
Scene: Derek's Discovery
Derek discovered the unauthorized hunt during his evening metrics review. The food stores had increased, but his dashboard showed no corresponding hunting activity logged.
He called an emergency meeting with Koro.
"We have a process compliance issue," Derek said seriously. "There was hunting activity today that wasn't properly documented. No pre-hunt form. No metric tracking. No performance assessment."
Koro looked at Derek with an expression that was hard to read.
"Here's what concerns me," Derek continued. "We're three weeks into transformation, and we're seeing people revert to old behaviors. This is exactly the moment where we either push through or lose all the progress we've made."
He pulled out documentation.
"I'm implementing a new protocol. All hunting activities must be pre-approved by you as DH1 and logged with me before departure. No exceptions. This isn't about control—this is about maintaining the integrity of the system."
The narrator: "Derek has just responded to the first successful hunt in three days by implementing more restrictions. The tribe is hungry. The old methods still work. And Derek's solution is to ensure the old methods cannot be used."
Koro looked at Derek for a long moment.
Then he stood and walked away without the gesture of acknowledgment Derek had come to expect.
The narrator, quietly: "In nature, this is called a 'warning sign.' The prey animal showing its teeth. The herd animal separating from the herd. The moment before the predator realizes it has become the prey."
"Week Four," the narrator continues, "will bring a reckoning."
Closing Scene: Derek's Journal
That night, Derek sat alone, writing in his bark journal by firelight.
He wrote: "Week Three complete. Facing expected resistance to change. Some team members regressing to old patterns. Leadership development proceeding on schedule. Cultural transformation entering critical phase. Recommend holding firm on process compliance."
Under "Outlook": "Six-week timeline still viable. Expect breakthrough in Week 4-5 as new habits solidify."
The narrator: "Derek's documentation and reality have now diverged completely. In his notes, transformation is proceeding according to plan with expected challenges. In reality, the tribe is on the edge of abandoning his entire program, half the hunters are considering mutiny, and the only thing that has successfully been optimized is the tribe's ability to recognize corporate nonsense."
The camera pulls back to show Derek writing by firelight, completely alone, surrounded by his cave wall metrics and documentation.
In the distance, the hunting party sits together around a different fire, eating the meat they caught using the old ways.
"Sometimes," the narrator says softly, "the most successful transformation is returning to what worked all along."
To Be Continued...
Next and final in the series: Part 4 - Legacy, where Derek returns to 2024, the tribe recovers, and archaeologists thousands of years later discover evidence of "the incident."
Coming next week.