“Honored CEO, sir, may we begin with the meeting?" Colette asked. As it was proper, the whole Executive Team was already seated and the Zone's scale model was also present. Someone even provided nicely painted figurines of different creatures, probably symbolizing the prospective new hires. Burke was chewing on some plant – since neither of his employees needed to eat, it was probably just for recreation or a tick he had. Like the speech impediment, he had last time.

  Poor guy. Or rather, poor HR – with two confirmed impediments, it would be excessively hard to fire him. A lawsuit and bad press would be almost guaranteed.

  While one or another of the managers talked about something, Zoli surveyed the scale model. According to the attached ruler, Zone 5 was the almost usual two-and-a-half by two-and-a-half kilometers, consisting mostly of a plateau. It had a smaller hill in the North, a steep slope with occasional cliffs in the East, and even a deep crag, going from the East and almost completely outflanking the small hill.

  Right next to the hill, opening from the valley was the most distinctive feature of the Zone: an extensive cave. There was also a small pond with a submerged cave in the East, right below one of the cliffs.

  Zoli was even provided with a scale model for the large cave. To be honest, it looked like the representation of an intestinal tract. Maybe there was a way to streamline it?

  “These employees look quite large in contrast to the Zone." Zoli put one figurine (a dog) on the Zone's model. It looked like that lizard from the movies – absolutely huge. Zoli wasn't certain if such a humongous employee would work out.

  “Honored CEO, sir, the figurines aren't to scale. The model is 1:1200, and the figurines 1:16," Winston informed him.

  “Working with two different scales would only cause misunderstandings." Zoli declared while petting the dog figurine's head.

  “Of course, sir. We have a 1:1 model of both the terrain and the employee. Should we use that?”

  “Hmmm… No. That scale would be too unwieldy and wouldn't fit into the conference room. Please investigate, which scale would be large enough for the model, but small enough for the figurines. This is a priority!"

  Of course, it was a priority to make presentation tools standardized! How else could the meetings administrate accurate architectures without misunderstandings in the conceptualized channels? Even if the Engineering Department had to extend work hours and postpone other, less important tasks? Of course, corporate excellence meant, the department could complete extra tasks at the same time.

  “Don't forget to coordinate with the other departments!" Zoli warned "I'm sure, O&A, Quality Management, and Marketing, for example, will have valuable input. Raymond, you will be the leader of the project!"

  Clearly, the manager of Finances had the best grasp of numbers, so it was obvious to put him in charge of a project, where everything was about numbers!

  “All right, until the project is finished, and we have a common scale, everyone agreed upon, the meeting is adjourned." While Zoli felt the importance of continued growth, that growth had to be planned and represented by fixed metrics, planned in detail, and presented in expertly made slideshows. If the departments couldn't even agree on a common scale for the planning tools, growth would be certainly stunted.

  “Honored CEO, sir!” Egon quickly interjected before everyone could leave “There is still the topic of botanical applications.”

  “Boss, we also have completed the… plan… for the cave system in Zone 1," Burke added.

  “Does any of that involve scale models of different, random scales?” Zoli asked to clarify. If they were, they would have to be postponed till the scaling project was finished too.

  “No, Boss. We can do without.”

  “No, honored CEO, sir.”

  “Continue.”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  “After you, man.” Burke waved to Egon and his gang of other Managers.

  “Sir, the preliminary Org Chart and Process Map we completed point to distributing an expanded array of deliverables to the already completed Zones, and do so with every subsequent one too. We envisioned patches of mixed medical, crafting, and diverse other plants, distributed evenly. In order to enable cooperative expertizes, we would place them either in hard-to-reach places, next to senior employees, or both. For example, here, in Zone 2, we would place the patches on the Eastern cliffs. There are currently underutilized ledges and cracks." Ellen started the presentation.

  “Also, providing highly evolved rare plants in even more hidden or almost unreachable places would uniquely incentivize dynamic testing procedures.” Colette continued.

  “We propose to mix and match similar plants with wildly different properties in the patches." Egon added "For example, take these two apple trees. While Jonathan's Apples are sweet and nourishing, Adam's Apple is highly poisonous. Only appropriately cultivated backend core competencies will allow the customer to pick the right ones."

  “Or the Sauerbirnar." Burke interjected, "It's mostly useless but can be refined into excellent booze, or so I was told."

  “An assertively benchmarked business scheme.” Zoli congratulated the department heads “Make sure to credibly cloudify covalent content!”

  “Yes, honored CEO, sir. We will make sure to appropriately and inconspicuously distribute the merchandise." The heads nodded "However, we would like to point out, that researching and enhancing the plants will need time and would clog the research schedule."

  “How long?”

  “If we focus only on maybe a dozen plants, maybe a year or so," Egon informed his boss.

  “ONE YEAR?!?!”

  “Yes, honored CEO, sir. Not counting other, important and pressing research, like your sailing boat or the different employees’ on-employee assets or provided services. If we take the current precedent as a guideline, we are looking at five to ten years.”

  “FIVE TO TEN YEARS?!?!?”

  “Yes, sir. In an optimal situation. Still not counting rush orders for unforeseen challenges.”

  “And if you research all the plants and materials you found?”

  “Decades, sir. Probably more, than fifty or sixty years. Could be a hundred too.”

  “All right. Prepare a detailed proposition on the timeframe, specimens, and the sequence of competently enabled diverse imperatives."

  “Actually, sir, we have that proposition already ready. Harold, could you please put the schedule on the screen? Thank you."

  Zoli was confronted with an expertly done flow chart, with colorful pictures, colorful arrows, and little boxes. It really looked professional – he decided to get a Chart Guy for himself, so he could let him make charts of things to be distributed to the departments. He wasn't sure, what kind of charts his Chart Guy would make, but that was just a minor inconvenience. The main benefits were the charts, he could distribute, and the content was incidental.

  While the presentation was masterfully done, he had not the faintest idea, of what the different specimens did. How and why should a CEO know, what Rosemary, Hyacinth, or Anise did? Or that blueish-grey bark. Or that other little red fruit, that was similar to Redcurrant, but was a completely different plant?

  Anyways, that was, why he had dedicated departments. If they presented a presentation, they surely had researched the issue, called meetings, and discussed the possibilities beforehand.

  “Implement the enterprise-wide network scheme and the synergistically optimized flexible process improvements.” Zoli directed.

  “Yes, honored CEO, sir. We will plant the weeds and research the enhancements.”

  “Do we have any more points on the agenda? No?”

  “Yeah, boss we still have the cave system in Zone 1.” Burke destroyed any hope of retiring after a hard and exhausting day of work. Zoli waved to the Manager for Being Creative to continue. Hopefully, the whole issue was over in a few minutes.

  “So, Boss, the devs want to rebuild the whole hole. Make it bigger. Multiple levels. Pack it full of 'natural' traps, hidden passages, and stuff. Oh, and make it a separate Zone."

  “Do you have a presentation ready? If you want to present a scale model, you should coordinate with the project team first, and use the corresponding, company-approved scale. Also, a slideshow with the most important points is mandatory at this point, I think. We aren't some small-time family shop!"

  “Well, Boss, I can do better. The devs and IT put this awesome little show together. We call it a ‘teaser’. Name pending. It shows the basic outlay and the proposed MOB. Shall I start it?”

  Zoli wasn't sure if showing a few minutes of moving pictures classified as proper corporate technique, but if it was accompanied by compelling vortals and a proper slideshow, it was probably acceptable.

  Especially, if the graphics were good and the action scenes heroic. With epic background music.

  “Let the show roll!”