I don't think they got the message, they just seem confused; so I decide to continue a little more bluntly. "It's about time to talk with another manager, we must get a sense of the local poli- tics. Oh, this is very interesting, there are also green circles, and even some green stars. Here's an unidentified shape-never mind, we'll address it later. Now, let's tour the production facili- ties, visit clients, and even some suppliers. We're bound to reveal many more interesting facts." As I talk the board is filled with overlapping shapes.
"Now that we have the full picture, we can take it from here," I finally conclude and put the markers down. "Well?"
The board looks like a nightmare in Technicolor. I take a deep breath and pick up the phone to order more coffee.
Nobody says a word, not even Bob.
"Let's make it less personal," I say after a while. "Suppose that we are a committee that's been given the ungrateful task of 'find out what's going on.' How do you suggest we should start?"
They all smile. Somehow pretending that we're a committee makes us feel much better. "The safety of being part of a herd," I think to myself; the blame will not be aimed at anyone in particu- lar.
"Ralph, will you volunteer to describe the committee's ac- tions?"
"They would probably start in the same way-fact finding. And as you so vividly demonstrated, they would end up in the same colorful ditch. But Alex, is there any other way to start? How can you do anything sensible without knowing what's going on, without having the data?" Ralph is true to his profession; for him, knowing what's going on is equivalent to having the data neatly stored in his computer files.
Bob points to the white board and chuckles, "You call this mess knowing what's going on? Alex, come on. We all know that this nonsense of fact finding will continue until our committee runs out of ideas for gathering further facts."
"Or they run out of time," Stacey adds with a bitter smile.
"Yes, of course," Bob accepts, and turning to everybody he finishes his questions, "What do you think that we, acting as a committee, would do next? We know a committee can't submit this mess."
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They all laugh nervously. I'm really pleased. They've finally started to realize the problem that I'm facing.
"What are they going to do now?" Stacey muses. "They'll probably try to arrange this monstrous pile of facts in some or- der."
"Most likely," Lou agrees. "Sooner or later one of the com- mittee members will suggest organizing the shapes according to their relative size."
"I don't think so," Bob disagrees. "Determining the relative size of different shapes is quite difficult. They will probably de- cide to organize them according to the type of shapes." Lou doesn't seem to accept this, and so Bob explains, "They can ar- range the data by circles, rectangles, and stars."
"What are they going to do with those four arbitrary shapes?" Ralph asks.
"Probably they'll be put in a class of their own, the excep- tions."
"Yes, of course," Ralph agrees. "The major reason for the constant reprogramming are those exceptions that keep popping up."
"No, I have a better idea," Lou says stubbornly. "They'll probably arrange them by color; in this way there will be no ambiguity. Tell you what." He continues when he realizes that Bob is about to object, "Let's arrange them first by color, within color by shape, and within each subclass we'll arrange them by size. This way everybody will be happy." Count on Lou to find an acceptable compromise.
"It's a marvelous idea," Ralph picks up the ball. "Now we can submit our findings in the form of tables and histograms. It will be a very impressive report, especially once I pump up the graphics package. Minimum two hundred pages, guaranteed."
"Yes, an impressive, in-depth survey," I say sarcastically. We all sit silently, absorbing the bitter lesson we've just taught our- selves.
"You know," I say after a while, "It's much worse than just wasting time producing useless, pompous reports. This overcon- cern about the 'proper way to arrange things' manifests itself in other harmful ways."
"What do you mean?" Lou asks me.
"I mean the merry-go-round that we're all too familiar with; arranging the company according to product lines and then
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changing it according to functional capabilities-and vice versa. Deciding that the company is wasting too much money on dupli- cated efforts and thus moving to a more centralized mode. Ten years later, we want to encourage entrepreneurship and we move back to decentralization. Almost every big company is oscillating, every five to ten years from centralization to decentralization, and then back again."
"Yeah," says Bob. "As a president of a company, when you don't know what to do, when things are not going well, you can always shuffle the cards-reorganize." Mockingly he continues, "That will do it! This reorganization will solve all our problems!"
We stare at each other. If it weren't so painfully true, we might laugh.
"Bob," I say at last. "This isn't funny. The only somewhat practical ideas I had in mind for what I should do as the new division manager were all based on reorganizing the division."
"Oh, no," they all groan.
"O.K. then," and I turn back to the white board, which is not so white any more. "What is one supposed to do with this pile of colored shapes, except to arrange them in some order? Dealing directly with the pile is obviously totally impractical. Arranging the facts according to some order, classification, must be the first step. Maybe we can proceed from there in a different way than writing reports or rearranging the company, but the first step definitely must be to put some order into the mess."
As I continue to look at the board, a new question starts to bother me; "In how many ways can one arrange the assembled facts?"
"Obviously, we can arrange them by color," Lou answers.
"Or by size," Stacey adds.
"Or by shape." Bob doesn't give up on his suggestion.
"Any other possibilities?" I ask.
"Yes, of course," Ralph says. "We can divide the board by an imaginary grid and arrange the shapes according to their coordi- nates." When he sees our puzzled looks he clarifies, "It'll give us the ability to construct many different arrangements based on the shapes' relative position on the board."
"What a great idea," Bob says sarcastically. "You know what, I'd rather use the dart technique-throw a dart and start arrang- ing the shapes according to the order in which we nail 'em. All
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these methods have just as much meaning. At least my last sug- gestion offers some satisfaction."
"O.K. fellows," I say firmly. "Bob's last suggestion has really clarified what we're dealing with here. We're dealing with the fact that we haven't got any idea of what we're doing. If we're just looking for some arbitrary order, and we can choose among so many possibilities, then what's the point in putting so much effort in collecting so much data? What do we gain from it, except the ability to impress people with some thick reports or to throw the company into another reorganization in order to hide from the fact that we don't really understand what we're doing? This ave- nue of first collecting data, getting familiar with the facts, seems to lead us nowhere. It's nothing more than an exercise in futility. Come on, we need another way to attack the issue. Any sugges- tions?"
When nobody answers, I say, "Enough for today. We'll con- tinue tomorrow-same time, same place."
"Well, anybody got anything good, any breakthroughs?" I try to start the meeting off as cheerfully as possible. It's not ex- actly how I feel; I spent the whole night tossing in my bed, searching for any opening, which I never did find.