I could tell Phyllis was tense. The color in her face was grim, her posture perfect.

“Hey, Phyllis, what’s up?” I asked. She took a deep breath. I sat down across the table from her. She stared straight ahead.

“I have to talk to Ben. I know what I need to communicate, but I don’t know what to say. I just found all the inventory reports for the cycle counts in a desk drawer in his cubicle. They’re all blank. It looks like we haven’t had a count for two months. Ben has been telling us that everything was fine and in line with our book inventory.

“Our controller called me in this morning. Something is off on our cost of raw materials and a couple of spot checks showed the inventory isn’t even close. It’s a mess.” Phyllis slumped a little now that she had explained it to me.

“It sounds to me like you know what to say.” I replied.

“Yes, but Ben has a tendency to go off on people. He gets defensive really easy. I am going to need his help, not his anger to get to the bottom of this. The first couple of sentences will be the most difficult and I don’t want to set him off.”

“So, why don’t you ask Ben?”

“What?” Phyllis looked almost startled.

“Sure, ask Ben. Call him into your office. It sounds like this.

Ben, I just found out we have a problem with our cycle counts on our inventory. This is your responsibility, so I thought it would be best if you would tell me how we might go about figuring out what happened.

“Now, Phyllis, you and I both know things will come unraveled at that point, but the responsibility will be in his court to help fix it.” -TF