Best of Bosses 2008(150)

And then, what cheek on Sally’s part to suggest that he was not as tough as he made out. It was utter rubbish!

At the age of fifteen, when his father had gone bankrupt, he’d developed a super-tough outer shell. Since then, he’d hardened even more, had done everything in his power to make sure he never repeated his father’s mistakes.

The traffic lights changed to red just in front of Logan, forcing him to brake sharply. Fingers tapping impatiently on the steering wheel, he watched pedestrians swarm across the crossing—men in business suits, schoolgirls in straw hats and navy-blue uniforms and a family of tourists in jeans and T-shirts.

Through narrowed eyes, Logan watched the tourists—parents with two kids, a boy and a girl. The father’s arm was draped loosely around his son’s shoulders and, as they reached the safety of the opposite footpath, they seemed to share a joke.

Logan and his dad had been close like that.

The traffic lights changed again and Logan accelerated. He drove to the meeting on autopilot, his mind lodged in the past, on the lessons he’d learned from his father.

Dan Black had been loved by everyone for his hail-fellow-well-met bonhomie and it went without saying that Logan had also adored him and looked up to him as his hero. During the football season, they’d gone to every home game, the two of them dressed in the red and green colours of their adored team, the South Sydney Rabbitohs.

Back then, Logan had been blissfully unaware of the dangers of his father’s impulsive, happy-go-lucky nature. It was only later that he’d understood the perils that came when a man’s heart ruled his head.

Dan Black used to joke that he was the most successful businessman he knew who didn’t work to a business plan.

Who needs strategies, son? Follow your heart and you’ll always be right.

Sure, Dad.

For a while Dan Black had done well in real estate. Until there’d been a downturn. He’d come up with a grand scheme for aquaculture and set up a fish farm on the north coast. Six months later it had been wiped out by disease. Another dream, growing hydrangeas for the cut flower market, had been shattered by a hailstorm. Dan hadn’t been insured.

The problem was clear to Logan now. His father had never focused on the main game. He’d never been prepared for potential problems, hadn’t researched projects carefully, and his cash reserves had always been too low, so he hadn’t been able to afford insurance, or to hedge against downturns.

After the final disaster, when Dan had been declared bankrupt, he’d collapsed with a complete nervous breakdown. He’d let his family and his investors down. Friendships had collapsed because Dan had eloquently persuaded pals to invest. Some had actually borrowed money to help him with his disastrous projects.

Logan and his sister had been forced to leave their private schools in the middle of term. Their teachers had been terribly upset, which had only added to their mortification.

Only their mother had adapted quickly to the changes the family had faced. Happily giving up her social life of tennis and bridge parties, she had taken lowly office jobs, intensifying Dan’s humiliation by working for their friends.

The lesson for Logan had been crystal clear and painfully personal. Men who led with their hearts rather than their heads brought humiliation and hardship on the people they loved. It was absolutely vital to be disciplined, to put one hundred and ten per cent into studies and planning and business.

To make this happen, Logan had devised his five-year plan. Only when his finances were secure and he’d reached the very top of his game would he relax and allow himself to think about starting a family of his own.

He wondered now, as he drove into an underground car park, if he should have told Sally Finch about his plan. She’d given him the perfect opening when she’d suggested he was goal oriented. Perhaps he should have told her then exactly what his goals were and what he was prepared to give up while achieving them.

That would have stilled her tongue. He doubted she would have continued then about his hidden softness.

In retrospect, he wished he’d been honest, was surprised that he hadn’t been.

Then again, he thought with a wry smile, revealing exactly how tough he was might have snuffed out the dancing lights in Sally’s eyes.

A man would have to be criminally insane to do that.



That evening, for the first time since she’d come to Sydney, Sally felt strangely unhappy and restless. Lonely too and just a little homesick.

How annoying.

She had been dead set on proving to herself and to her family that she was ‘cured’. And today she’d taken an important step—she hadn’t shied away from the conversation about dancing. She should be celebrating. She’d won a major battle with that particular demon.