I decide to start the meeting with the most naive questions. Initially they might think that I've lost all my self confidence, but I must expose to them the magnitude of the problem I'm about to face. Otherwise I'm going to end up, at best, with some frag- mented, vague suggestions.
"What are the first things I should do when I assume my new position?" I ask them.
They look at each other, and then Bob says, "I'd start by visiting Hilton Smyth's plant."
After the laughter dies, Lou says that I should first meet with my staff; "you know most of them but you've never worked closely with them."
"What is the purpose of these meetings?" I innocently ask.
288
If this question had been asked under any other circum- stances they would have taken it as a clear indication of a total lack of managerial knowledge. As it is they play the game.
"Basically you should do general fact finding first," Lou an- swers.
"You know," Bob adds, "like where the entrance is, where the toilets are..."
"I do think that meeting the people is important," Stacey interrupts the laughter. "Financial numbers only reveal a small fraction of the picture. You have to find out what the people think is going on. What do they see as problems? Where do we stand vis-a-vis the clients?"
"Who has a grudge against whom?" Bob contributes, and then in a more serious tone. "You also have to get a sense of the local politics."
"And then?"
"And then," Bob continues. "I'd probably take a tour of the various production facilities, visit some of the big clients, and probably even some suppliers. You've got to get the full picture."
Maintaining my poker face I ask, "And then?"
At last I've succeeded to provoke them, since both Stacey and Bob answer vehemently, "And then you'll take it from there!"
How easy it is to give advice when the responsibility is on someone else's shoulders. Okay wise guys, it's time to turn the table, and in a calm voice I say, "Yes, what you suggested just now is the usual line of action one takes when he is told to 'go there and fix it.' Let me play it back for you, but in a more schematic way. Where are the colored markers?"
I grab a red marker and turn to the white board.
"The first step, as you all have pointed out, is fact finding. I hold a staff meeting and what do I find? Oh, here we find fact A," and I draw a nice red circle. "And here are three somewhat smaller circles. And here is a tiny one and there are two which are overlapping. Now let's talk with another manager, this is very helpful. You see, this circle, he claims, is not as big as we were led to believe. And here, in the left upper corner are two more big- gies. Now, someone else reveals to us that some rectangles exist. We check, and yes, he's right. Here there is one and here and here and here. We're making progress, the picture starts to un- fold."
What they actually see is how the white board is getting the
289
measles. It looks like one of the drawings my kids used to bring home from kindergarten.
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."
290
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