Lo and Behold, X! — Denizens of the Ivory Fortress

Book 1 of a Business Fable of Change and Intrigue

by Isaak Tsalicoglou, OVERBRING Labs

121 pages, 36'360 words

A young, impressionable scholar stumbles upon a hallowed anthology of articles describing "X"—a fabulous, counter-intuitive "thing" every company should be "doing" (duh!) with the potential to change the world of business. Will his "X transformation" succeed? And what will he discover about X, organizations, business and, ultimately, himself?

From deep within the bowels of the capital of a prestigious kingdom of enterprise, Nathaniel Lee Abel, aka "Nate," embarks into an ambitious crusade of vocal persuasion and hands-on impact. The journey of Nate and his team of X acolytes is strewn with great ideas and occassional missteps, unfolding in bursts of progress and in the face of mounting setbacks, as Nate relies on the mischievous, good-natured guidance of the wise Master Robert Daniel McBarkle the Fourth (aka "Bob") and the wavering aegis of the cunning Lord Baron Richard von Kopf. These towering figures of the kingdom's past and present wage a battle over the kingdom's future through Nate, and under the watchful eye of King Augustus Giles.

Will Nate manage to transform the kingdom with X? And what will he learn in the process, about X, the nature of kingdoms, the follies of enterprise, and himself?

❇️❇️❇️

While reading this novel, you might sympathize with Nate and his team, or even with Damon; you might wish you had a Bob or two in your life; you might recoil at the idea of working under the aegis of a Richard von Kopf; you might have had the pleasure of working at a place led by an Augustus Giles. Any, some, or all of those characters, their thoughts and words, the situations they find themselves in, and the opinions or views they express, might ring a bell.

Alas, it will have merely been a coincidence. While this novel represents an tongue-in-cheek exploration of the periodic waxing and waning of fads within organizations and across entire industries, sometimes even across the entire business world, and the political ramifications encountered by well-meaning professionals who want to bring any given "X" into their organization, it remains entirely fictional.

In fact, this book is heavily inspired by the torrent of nonsense spread on LinkedIn, such as the breathless hype about any given X, the countless "X is dead" posts, the "my X is better than your X" comments, the "this is not true X, true X is what Waseigo does", etc.

Still, for the maximum enjoyment and learning impact, an imaginative extrapolation of the story onto your own work experiences, should, ideally, be attempted.