Chief of Staff Handles Architecture, Boss Handles Vision

"This is the essence of achievement: recognizing that any plan, grand or otherwise, while daunting in its entirety, is achievable, as long as the planners break it down into groups of smaller goals that together achieve the big goal. So, to Desmarais’s “I want to do this,” Parisien would define who had to do what, when, why, how, and for how much money."

"When David Kilgour resigned at the end of 1970, he was replaced by James Bums, who had been Great-West’s u.s. director of Mar¬ keting. A man who enjoyed Desmarais’s support and confidence, Bums orchestrated one of Desmarais’s prime intentions for Great- West — penetration and expansion into the huge, lucrative u.s. mar¬ ket. Desmarais’s other intention, amalgamation of Great-West Life and Imperial Life, never occurred as it was blocked by the federal insurance regulatory agency. It may seem that acquiring and integrating Great-West into Power would be enough to occupy one man’s attention and satisfy his am¬ bitions, especially considering that this was all occurring during the fundamental restructuring of Power. Such is not the case. Desmarais had Jean Parisien, trusty chief of staff, to depend upon to deal with the details of corporate architecture. Parisien, in turn, had inherited the staff of Power and had conducted his shuffling, bringing in some people from his support staff at Trans-Canada, moving out some of the Power staff that didn’t fit in to the new regime, and generally"

"During the Power turnaround years, he had continued his habit of travelling extensively overseas. He was able to do so because Parisien was the man on site who oversaw the technicalities of implementating Desmarais’s plans. So Desmarais explored. He discovered opportun¬ ities in the Middle East, in transportation, energy and the provision of financial contacts and services to oil-rich countries. So excited was he about these opportunities that, in 1972, Desmarais directed the pilot of Power’s corporate jet to have extra fuel tanks installed so they could fly non-stop from Montreal to Beirut, Lebanon. Overall, the formula that had worked for Consolidated-Bathurst would work for Power: retrench and consolidate the core of the com¬ pany; ensure it was stable and reasonably secure; then expand to the big markets, Europe and the United States. But the terrain had to be reconnoitered, contacts made and developed — overseas expansion of Power’s business opportunities would take time to develop. But"