Ralph laughs, Lou groans, and I feel pity for myself.
This week, even though we made such impressive progress, one thing was definitely proven-I'm still managing by the seat of my pants.
Take yesterday, for example. If it weren't for Ralph's instinct that something was missing, we wouldn't even have noticed the huge, open opportunities. Or today. How close was I to giving up? If it hadn't been for Lou putting us on the right track...
I must find out just what are the management techniques I should master. It's simply too risky not to. I must concentrate on it. I even know where to begin...
Maybe I was holding the key all along. What did I say to Julie in the restaurant? My own words echo in my head: "When did Jonah have the time to learn so much? As far as I know he never worked one day of his life in industry. He's a physicist. I can't believe that a scientist, sitting in his ivory tower, can know so much about the detailed realities of the shop floor."
And then, the idea of 'scientist' came up again, when Lou and Ralph were arguing about the usefulness of classifying data. And I myself supplied the answer: How does one go about re- vealing the intrinsic order? Lou asked it as if it is a rhetorical question, as if the obvious answer is that it is impossible. But scientists do reveal the intrinsic order of things... and Jonah is a scientist.
Somewhere in the scientific method lies the answer for the needed management techniques. It is obvious. But what can I do? I cannot read a book in physics, I don't know enough mathe- matics to get through even the first page.
But maybe I don't need it. Jonah stressed that he wasn't
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asking me to develop the methods, just to determine clearly what they should be. Maybe popular science books would be sufficient? At least I should give it a try.
I should go to the library and start digging. The first modern physicist was Newton, that's probably the place to start.
I'm sitting in my office, my feet up on the desk and staring blankly into the room.
The entire morning, I got only two calls-both from Johnny Jons. First he called to inform me that the deal with the French is signed. He was very proud of the fact that he negotiated a better deal than expected; in return for the flexibility and immediacy of our response to their future requests, he succeeded in squeezing slightly higher prices.
The second time he wanted to know if he could approach our domestic clients with the same concept. That is, to shoot for a long-term contract where only the overall yearly quantities are fixed, and we promise three weeks' delivery for any specific re- quest.
I assured him that we don't have any problem responding, and encouraged him to go ahead.
He's excited. I'm far from it.
Everybody is busy. Launching this huge new deal has made them really busy. I'm the only one who has nothing to do. I feel redundant. Where are the days of the telephone ringing off the hook, when I had to run from one important issue to the other, when there were not enough hours in the day?
All those calls and meetings were fire fighting. I remind my- self. No fires, no fighting. Now, everything is running smoothly- almost too smoothly.
Actually, what bothers me is that I know what I should be doing. I need to guarantee that the current situation will con- tinue, that things are thought out in advance so fires will not break out. But this means finding the answer to Jonah's question.
I stand up and leave. On my way out I say to Fran, "In the unlikely event that anyone needs me, I'll be at the public library."
"Enough for today," I say and close the book. I stand up and stretch, "Julie, join me for a cup of tea?"
"Good idea, I'll be with you in a minute."
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"You're really into it," I comment as she joins me at the kitchen table.
"Yeah, it's fascinating."
I hand her a steaming cup. "What can be so fascinating about ancient Greek philosophy?" I wonder aloud.
"It's not what you think," she laughs. "These dialogues of Socrates are really interesting."
"If you say so," I don't try to disguise my skepticism.
"Alex, your perceptions are all wrong, it's not at all like what you think."
"So what is it?" I ask.
"Well, It's hard to explain," she hedges. "Why don't you try to read them yourself?"
"Maybe one day I will," I say, "but for the moment I've enough reading to do."
She takes a sip from her cup. "Did you find what you're looking for?"
"Not exactly," I admit. "Reading popular science books doesn't lead you directly to management techniques. But I've started to see something interesting."
"Yes?" she says encouragingly.
"It's how physicists approach a subject; it's so vastly different from what we do in business. They don't start by collecting as much data as possible. On the contrary, they start with one phe- nomenon, some fact of life, almost randomly chosen, and then they raise a hypothesis: a speculation of a plausible cause for the existence of that fact. And here's the interesting part. It all seems to be based on one key relationship: IF... THEN."
Somehow this last sentence causes Julie to straighten up in her chair. "Keep going," she says intensely.
"What they actually do is to derive the unavoidable results logically from their hypothesis. They say: IF the hypothesis is right THEN logically another fact must also exist. With these logical derivations they open up a whole spectrum of other ef- fects. Of course the major effort is to verify whether or not the predicted effects do exist. As more and more predictions are veri- fied, it becomes more obvious that the underlying hypothesis is correct. To read, for example, how Newton did it for the law of gravity is fascinating."
"Why?" she asks, as if she knows the answer but is anxious to hear it from me.
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"Things start to be connected to each other. Things that we never thought were related start to be strongly connected to each other. One single common cause is the reason for a very large spectrum of different effects. You know Julie, it's like order is built out of chaos. What can be more beautiful than that?"
With glittering eyes she asks, "Do you know what you have just described? The Socratic dialogues. They're done in exactly the same way, through exactly the same relationship, IF... THEN. Maybe the only difference is that the facts do not concern material but human behavior."
"Interesting, very interesting. Come to think about it," I say, "my field, management, involves both material and people be- havior. If the same method can be used for each then it's proba- bly the basis for Jonah's techniques."
She thinks about it for a while. "You're probably right. But if you are then I'm willing to bet that when Jonah starts to teach you those techniques you'll find that they are much more than techniques. They must be thinking processes."
We each dive into our thoughts.
"Where do we take it from here?"
"I don't know," I answer. "Frankly, I don't think that all this reading really gets me closer to answering Jonah's question. Re- member what he said? 'I'm not asking you to develop the man- agement techniques, only to determine what they should be.' I'm afraid I'm trying to jump to the next step, to develop them. De- termining the management techniques must come from the need itself, from examining how I currently operate and then trying to find out how I should operate."
"Any messages?" I ask Fran.
"Yes," she answers, to my surprise. "From Bill Peach. He wants to talk to you."
I get him on the phone. "Hey Bill, what's up?"
"I just received your numbers for last month," he says. "Congratulations hotshot, you definitely made your point. I've never seen anything even remotely close to this."