Yu Xiaxing certainly wasn’t going to scold her. On the contrary, her eyes lit up with excitement.
“Go on!” she encouraged.
Mr. Yang let out a sigh of relief and hurriedly continued, “Most of the students’ parents are rather reserved too. By the time they realize there’s a problem, it’s already too late.”
“So I was wondering if we could hold regular lectures for parents, to help reshape their thinking and get them to cooperate with their children’s sex education… At the very least, we could persuade them not to oppose it, right?”
“We might need some funding for printing materials, as well as for renting venues…”
After she finished, she quickly added, “Of course, this is just a personal suggestion. If the school feels it isn’t appropriate at this stage, that’s fine too…”
Yu Xiaxing looked at her with the admiration one might show a trusted minister.
“You should have come to me sooner!”
Who would have thought the school had a spending genius like this?
Mr. Yang didn’t quite know how to react.
Yu Xiaxing immediately called Lu Yanzhao. “Mr. Yang has a fantastic project. Get it approved as soon as possible, and give her a generous budget!”
“And once the project is launched, Mr. Yang will have to be available around the clock. How can we not give her a raise for all that extra work? Redraft her employment contract and increase her salary by fifty percent.”
Once she had finished giving her instructions, she hung up.
Mr. Yang wondered if she had misheard. “Don’t you want to take a closer look at my proposal?”
Yu Xiaxing said, “What’s there to look at? You’re the only person at our school who specializes in sexual medicine, and you’ve also studied the psychology of intimate relationships. I’m not a professional. Why would I give a professional pointers?”
She patted Mr. Yang on the shoulder. “You’re excellent. Our school needs more teachers like you—teachers who take the initiative to spend money!”
If only all the teachers were as sensible as you. Then I wouldn’t have to rack my brain every day figuring out how to spend money!
Mr. Yang was so happy that she felt almost dizzy.
She was just an insignificant workplace drudge who was constantly assigned odd jobs by her superiors, yet here, with Board Director Yu, she was receiving such tremendous attention!
She nodded solemnly. “Board Director Yu, I’ll definitely do a good job!”
“Go ahead, then,” Yu Xiaxing said.
When she turned around, she noticed that Chen Yuru was still there. She hadn’t said a word the entire time.
Yu Xiaxing was a little surprised. “I thought you’d already left.”
Chen Yuru remained silent.
She had been shocked yet again today.
Her husband had once been a teacher in the public school system, so she had also been exposed to the workplace culture in schools. Back then, whenever her husband needed to get anything done, he had to run back and forth between several offices, going through all kinds of approvals. Efficiency was painfully low, and the atmosphere between the teachers and school administrators was oppressively tense.
If any teacher dared to bypass the middle management and go straight to the top leader, that teacher would inevitably be given a hard time afterward.
And yet, St. Virtue really did have an atmosphere of freedom and equality.
Yu Xiaxing had also proved that, under such an atmosphere, she could lead the school through a qualitative leap forward.
Chen Yuru suddenly thought that perhaps times really were changing.
Maybe the old-fashioned workplace culture had simply gone out of style?
—
After leaving St. Virtue, Chen Yuru returned to the company.
Quite a few of her employees were still working overtime.
As soon as she returned to her office, the planner from the branding team came over to meet her. “Ms. Chen, the branding team has finished the new proposal.”
Chen Yuru took it and glanced through it. Then she said to the planner, “The focus of the campaign is too scattered in this version. I can’t tell who the core target audience is. Revise it again.”
The planner glanced at her but ultimately said nothing more than, “Understood, Ms. Chen.”
Chen Yuru could tell that she seemed to have more to say.
In the past, she would never have bothered with it.
But then she remembered Yu Xiaxing saying, “You’re the professional. I’m not.”
The truth was, she wasn’t a professional either.
She had never taken any relevant courses. She had merely entered the industry early and worked hard enough to reach her current position.
The new planner, on the other hand, was the professional one—a master’s graduate who had systematically studied advertising.
Then Chen Yuru remembered that she had promised Yu Xiaxing she would change the way she communicated with people.
She suddenly called out to the planner. “Wait.”
The planner turned back. “Is there something else that needs to be changed?”
Chen Yuru said, “Could you explain why you approached it this way?”
The planner froze for a moment. But when she saw that Chen Yuru’s expression didn’t seem sarcastic, she finally dared to speak.
“Ms. Chen, the campaign focus looks scattered because I did it that way intentionally. I conducted some market research and found that, with the economy in a downturn, our original customer base has shrunk. I wanted to attract younger customers.”
“But if we focus solely on becoming more youthful, it could damage the brand’s original image. So I want to create a two-tiered campaign…”
At first, she spoke somewhat haltingly. But Chen Yuru didn’t interrupt her. Once she realized that Chen Yuru was genuinely listening, she grew more and more confident.
After listening to her explanation, Chen Yuru picked up the proposal again.
This time, instead of focusing on the parts she disliked, she considered the proposal as a whole.
The more she read, the more she realized that some of the planner’s ideas were indeed better suited to the current economic downturn than her own.
Chen Yuru was silent for a moment before looking up. “There’s no need to revise it. Let’s try it your way.”
“…Huh? Oh, okay, okay!”
The planner hurried off happily to get started.
The moment she stepped outside, she excitedly told her colleagues, “My proposal was approved! She didn’t ask me to change a thing!”
“Seriously? Ms. Chen approved it in one go?”
“Seriously!”
“That’s great! You can leave early today.”
“No way. I’m going to go over it one more time. It’s my proposal, and Ms. Chen didn’t change a single word. I have to keep a close eye on it. Wouldn’t it be embarrassing if we messed it up?”
—
Inside her office, Chen Yuru hid behind the door and secretly listened to their conversation outside.
Oh… So that was how it worked.
This was why Yu Xiaxing’s team was so capable!
When a leader exercised excessive control, subordinates wouldn’t care as much about the final result.
After having their work revised over and over, they would subconsciously stop seeing it as their own. They would simply think, “It was the leader’s idea. If it turns out badly, then the leader’s direction must have been wrong.”
But when she gave her subordinates authority, they became even more determined to prove that their ideas were right.
Chen Yuru realized that her trip to St. Virtue today had truly been worthwhile.
From now on, she would slowly try to listen to others and loosen up a little herself.
That way, she could also save more patience for herself—and for her daughter.
—
Chen Yuru quickly packed her luggage for the business trip. Then she picked up the school documents and went to her daughter’s room.
“Lanlan. I talked with Board Director Yu today, and I’ve realized that I was wrong. I really was too overbearing before. I never knew how to help you work through your negative emotions. Mom is sorry. Please forgive me.”
Hearing her mother speak so calmly already left Jiang Tinglan utterly stunned.
And then she heard her mother apologize…
Could this really be happening?
Chen Yuru placed the withdrawal application in front of her.
“So Mom has decided to respect your wishes.”
“If you don’t want to go to school, you can withdraw for now. I’ve already taken care of the paperwork. If you ever want to go back to school, or learn something else, Mom will find a way to arrange it for you. You have your whole life ahead of you. Taking a year or two off won’t matter.”
