My Crush du Jour

This is Richard Olivier. He is the offspring of the actors Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright. He worked in theater direction for 15 years but has since moved into corporate strategy direction. Now, I have sat in various years of corporate management courses for many, many years. Of all those useless courses from which I have gleaned nothing more than a moment of empathy from one speaker who discussed a particularly painful case of shingles, I came away today...inspired. The man above is responsible.

We reviewed political situations in work environments vis a vis the political jostling and characters in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Mr. Olivier recited various soliloquies and passages of the play to take us through the characters, the temperaments, the emotional scale and the focus of a coalition dynamic and their persuasive position. By the time he recited Antony's speech over the body of Caesar ("Friends, Romans, Countrymen...lend me your ears"), I had capitulated. Charisma is the most persuasive medium of all. And his delivery was so natural, he might if been his father in his element. I looked around the room. Some people were moved to tears. What passion, what subterfuge, what cunning. What acting!

At dinner, we split into quartets and at our table, we were honored to have Mr. Olivier as our "table sponsor." He was quite a down to earth bloke, easy and funny and compassionate. We all bared our political issues under the mantle of confidentiality and he engaged with relevant questions and understanding. It was quite an easy night made easy by the fact that he was pretty darn easy on the eyes, being my type and all. Did I mention he was also deliciously charming?

In the end, tomorrow he will offer us solutions for our work problems. And in the end, he will provide me some inspiration in more ways than one.