The ABC's are attitude, behavior and communication skills.

Host: The office lights flickered under the haze of late evening, casting long shadows over the rows of empty desks. The hum of the air conditioner mingled with the faint echo of typing somewhere in the next room. Through the glass wall, the city glowed like a field of nervous stars. Jack stood by the window, his tie loosened, his jawline hard in the reflection. Jeeny leaned against a desk, her notebook open, scribbling words that looked more like questions than answers.

Jeeny: “Gerald Chertavian said, ‘The ABC’s are attitude, behavior, and communication skills.’ You’d think it’s simple — but it’s everything we keep failing at in this company.”

Jack: “Simple words always sound profound when you’re losing clients.”

Host: His voice cut the silence like a knife — not out of cruelty, but fatigue. The room felt like it had seen too many meetings, too many promises that ended in polite emails and cold smiles.

Jeeny: “You always reduce things to cynicism. I’m serious, Jack. We’ve been talking about data, strategies, rebranding — but maybe what’s really collapsing here isn’t the business, it’s the culture. The way people act, speak, treat each other.”

Jack: “Culture doesn’t pay invoices, Jeeny. Numbers do.”

Jeeny: “But numbers come from people. And people run on trust, not spreadsheets.”

Host: The clock on the wall ticked — a soft, insistent metronome to their disagreement. The city lights flared against the glass, painting their faces in shifting gold and shadow.

Jack: “Alright then. Let’s play your game. Attitude, behavior, communication. The holy trinity of office life. But tell me, how do you fix an attitude? You can’t teach humility to someone who worships profit.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not, but you can create space for them to remember what they’re working for. Attitude isn’t just personality — it’s perspective. When you remind people they matter beyond their KPIs, something shifts.”

Jack: “That sounds like therapy, not management.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s exactly what leadership should be sometimes.”

Host: The tension crackled — not loud, but steady, like static before a storm. Jack turned, his reflection split by the glass, half light, half shadow.

Jack: “You think positive attitude will save this place? It’s naive. I’ve seen great people crash because they smiled too long at a wall that never moved.”

Jeeny: “And I’ve seen people move that wall because they refused to stop smiling.”

Host: Her words landed like a challenge, the soft kind that makes a man look inward before he responds. Jack sighed, his eyes flicking toward the city below, where tiny figures crossed the streets under neon light — each one a story of struggle, survival, and small victories.

Jack: “Okay. Let’s say attitude’s the engine. Then behavior’s the wheels, right? Still doesn’t matter if the road’s broken.”

Jeeny: “But the road’s always broken, Jack. That’s the point. You keep driving anyway — that’s behavior. What you do when things aren’t easy.”

Jack: “You make it sound like resilience is automatic.”

Jeeny: “It’s not. It’s a choice. Every day.”

Host: The air shifted — a soft breeze from the vent, a change in the temperature of the room, or maybe in the conversation itself. The lights outside dimmed, the city sinking into a deeper tone of blue.

Jack: “And communication? That’s the third one. The most overrated of all. Everyone preaches it, no one practices it. Half our meetings are people talking past each other.”

Jeeny: “Because communication isn’t about talking. It’s about listening. Listening without waiting to reply. That’s the missing part — empathy.”

Jack: “Empathy’s a luxury. In the real world, time’s money.”

Jeeny: “And in the real world, people quit when they’re not heard. Clients walk when they feel unseen. Empathy is profit, Jack. Just not the kind you measure on a chart.”

Host: A pause hung between them — long, weighty, real. The kind that forces silence to speak louder than words. Jack looked at her, and something shifted — not surrender, but awareness.

Jack: “You sound like you believe culture can fix capitalism.”

Jeeny: “No. But it can make capitalism less cruel.”

Jack: “And that’s enough for you?”

Jeeny: “It has to be. Because every time we improve attitude, behavior, and communication — we make the system a little less mechanical. A little more human.”

Host: The rain began to fall, streaking the windows with lines of liquid silver. The reflections of the city lights warped in the drops, blurring, melting — as if the world outside was listening too.

Jack: “You know, I once fired a guy for showing up late three times in a week. Brilliant coder. Quiet, focused, introverted. I assumed he didn’t care. Found out later his mother was dying in the hospital. No one told me. No one asked him. Maybe that’s what you mean by the ABCs — we forgot the human alphabet.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Attitude is how you see people. Behavior is how you treat them. Communication is how you connect it all. Miss one, and everything collapses.”

Jack: “You sound like you’re quoting scripture.”

Jeeny: “Maybe we should. We worship deadlines like gods — maybe it’s time we worship decency instead.”

Host: The clock ticked past nine, the office empty except for them. Papers fluttered on a desk, caught in the airflow from the vent. Somewhere, a cleaning crew laughed softly down the hallway — a small sound, but full of life.

Jack: “You know, when I started this company, I thought success was about strategy, not people. I wanted perfection — efficient systems, sharp minds, no friction. But what I built was a machine. Not a team.”

Jeeny: “Machines don’t innovate, Jack. People do. Messy, emotional, unpredictable people.”

Jack: “So the ABCs are… what? A manual for being human?”

Jeeny: “Yes. In a world that keeps trying to turn us into algorithms.”

Host: The lights flickered again — this time softer, warmer. Jack sat down, loosening his tie completely, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

Jack: “Alright, Jeeny. Let’s start over. Tomorrow, no strategy talk. Just attitude, behavior, communication. We listen. We learn. Maybe even apologize.”

Jeeny: “Now that’s leadership.”

Jack: “No. That’s humility.”

Host: The rain intensified, washing the glass clean, blurring the city’s edges into silver fog. Inside, the two figures sat beneath the glow of a single lamp, talking softly, plotting a different kind of revolution — one built not on profits, but on people.

The camera would pull back then, gliding past the window, over the city, revealing the contrast — the cold lights of corporate towers and the warm light of one room, where humanity had, for a moment, remembered itself.

In the end, the alphabet of success was never about strategy — it was about attitude that uplifts, behavior that respects, and communication that heals.
And for the first time in a long time, both Jack and Jeeny believed the company — and perhaps the world — could be rewritten from those three simple letters.