270 Don't Confuse Effort With Results

"Yes, Mr. CEO!" All three of them replied simultaneously, excited about what's to come.

"Good, I believe there is no need to remind you of the consequences in case any secret leaves this room after today… which is… the dismissal of all three of you! Virus Industries does not need any disloyal employees." Uttered the CEO ugly in a very cold tone.

"Yes, Mr. CEO/sir!" A shiver went down the spines of all three of them as they almost screamed in obedience.

"Good!" Mouthing this in contentment, he turned his head toward the Legal ugly and began talking, "So, how are you dealing with the legal issues of buying the lands with mining potential?"

"They're all almost done, there shouldn't be any possible issues rising up from the legal aspect even if we reveal the secret to everyone." Voiced the Legal ugly in confidence.

Prior to this confidential meeting, to this very day, in order to be as secretive as possible per orders of their master, the CEO ugly and the Legal ugly had dealt with the purchase of land mines almost entirely on their own.

The process included the CEO ugly directly contacting the owners of the lands and persuading them to sell their lands at twice or even thrice the original price of their property.

Then, in case those owners were persuaded and agreed to sell their property, which was successful sixty percent of the times, the CEO ugly would send the Legal ugly together with the money for buying the land to the presence of that owner so he would deal with the buying process before proceeding to deal with the other necessary paperwork and legal problems.

And today, after numerous days of non-stop working without any rest 24/7, they were finally almost finished and ready for beginning the next phase of the plan.

Nodding his head, the CEO ugly inquired further, "How much did this phase which consists of negotiating, purchasing, and doing the paper works of the lands cost exactly?"

Hearing this, still wearing an emotionless ugly face, the Legal ugly placed his fingers under his chin as he began elaborating, "Hmm… the negotiation part itself cost us around a billion dollars. This includes, in some situations, we had to bribe the owners' closest relatives in order to persuade them to sell the land, in some others, we had to bribe government officials to pressure them to sell their lands, or even hired some expert negotiators for convincing the landowners to sell their lands. There were a few other fields too which were ownerless legally… in regard to those, we had to bribe some government officials with very high statuses in the said country very handsomely for successfully convincing them to sell those fields."

Not stopping there at all, he continued, "The purchasing part cost us around 21 billion dollars, this includes buying those massive lands at twice the cost, sometimes thrice the cost, and in some rare cases much higher than that. There were also many other normal lands with no mining potential which we bought together with the valuable ones in order to confuse the people keeping an eye on us… as you know, we did this in order to lower the risk of our competitors and those keeping watch over us from realizing our true intentions for buying those lands. Also, buying these useless lands isn't without any benefits either as we can build our new factories on them if we want."

"Hmm, right. So, these two parts of this phase together cost us 22 billion dollars… not bad… what about the last part of this phase? How much did the paperwork and the legal stuff fetch us?" The CEO ugly inquired further.

By the sides, the other three department heads were dumbstruck after hearing the astronomical figures ranging in billions, lands with mining potential, and the act of bribing officials; however, they listened carefully without interrupting at all.

When they heard the words 'lands with mining potential' they were skeptical of them as they wondered to themselves, "Who knows if those fields can truly be developed for mining… most of them are probably entirely useless… sigh… why is the company gambling on such a large scale in this way?"

"The last part… hmm, in order to quicken the whole legal process which otherwise might have even taken a whole year, we had to spend and bribe a lot of people in authority again. This again amounts to less than one billion dollars."

"Anyway, the total cost of this phase nearly reached 23 billion dollars altogether. Now, although the legal paperwork isn't entirely finished, in general, they are sealed so there shouldn't be any problems rising regarding them until the whole process is naturally completed." The Legal ugly concluded.

"I see… well done! This phase was of utmost secrecy and we successfully finished it! Now, the next phase which is far less confidential requires the help of you three." Turning his head toward the three heads of Accounting and Finance, Human Resources, and the Purchasing departments, the CEO ugly voiced.

"Please go on, Mr. CEO, we will try our best in order to accomplish the tasks and duties we've been handed over." One of the heads mouthed, trying to impress the CEO ugly with his words.

However, hearing this, instead of being impressed, narrowing his eyebrows, the CEO ugly replied back, "Don't try your best, just finish the job perfectly! I don't need your efforts, I need results. So don't confuse effort with results, do you understand?"

In a few situations before, the CEO ugly had seen many employees failing at their tasks and when they were summoned for questioning, almost all of them had replied that they had truly tried their best. It was from that moment onwards when the CEO ugly started caring about the result rather than the effort put in the process.

Instantly, a few droplets of sweat appeared on that department heads forehead listening to the CEO ugly's words as he answered while nodding his head repetitively, "Yes, sir. I'll do the job perfectly."

"Good…" He continued, "Now that we have the lands at hand, we need two essentials in order to start the mining process in those properties… the first one is manpower which will be dealt with by the Human Resources Department, and the second important thing we need is tools… tools and technologies for mining, developing, setting up, and maintenance of our mining branch, this task will be handed over to the Purchasing Department."

"So, Human Resources will start hiring large numbers of employees, while the Purchasing Department will start buying every necessary tool and technology required for the mining branch. Meanwhile, the Accounting and Finance department will be in charge of distributing the funds to both of the other departments. Are my words clear?" He finished talking.

"Yes, Mr. CEO." All three of them responded at the same time.

It was at this moment when the head of the Accounting and Finance department started asking, "But, sir, we don't have that kind of capital at hand. How-" However, just as he was about to finish his question, raising a hand, the CEO ugly interrupted, "Don't worry about the funds and the capital… soon, I'll transfer 70,000,000,000 US dollars in cash to the company's account. If there is a need for more, just ask me and I'll transfer more."