Guardian Angel

Douglas Murray, Chief Executive of Guardian Angel, a financial services company selling pensions and life assurance, prides himself on keeping up with the latest management ideas. His company is efficiently run, with a flat management structure and clear lines of reporting and communication. But while turnover is growing, Guardian Angel still lags behind its two main industry rivals. Its senior managers all agree that the company could do much better, but no-one can suggest how to do it. Innovation and improvement have hit a brick wall. Musing on these issues at his desk one day, Douglas is startled by the sudden appearance in his office of an attractive woman. She introduces herself as Lise, a junior communications specialist from the marketing department, and declares that if Douglas agrees to work with her, she can guarantee him insights which will change not only the way he thinks, but the way his company works and take Guardian Angel to the number one spot he covets. Unsure whether he is daydreaming or not, Douglas nevertheless agrees to work with Lise. Over the ensuing chapters, these two characters, widely different in age and experience, engage in a process which challenges many of Douglass assumptions about himself, his managers and the nature of work itself. The story unfolds as a third person narrative. We meet a range of minor characters (principally Douglass wife and colleagues) but Douglas and Lise are at the heart of the action. It is through their relationship, and the intellectual and emotional challenges which Lise sets for Douglas, that we gain access to the insights offered by the book. Fantasy plays a large part in the story. Lise, for example, can read Douglass every thought and take him into meetings where they remain invisible but hear and see all that goes on. Some of these meetings are themselves fantasies like the football dressing room team talk which Lise and Douglas observe early on