Between enlightenment and action

One of our business units is failing. Not so you’d notice from a distance, but up-close and over time it has become a drain on the revenue, profit and vitality of the company overall.

At this point, the management team is demanding it be fixed. The problem is made more difficult because the unit is responsible for the manufacture of what we perceive to be our key market differentiator. Make the fix too visible and we run the risk of damaging momentum and morale. Tread too lightly and the problem will persist.

Worse, the unit is mine to fix.

The trick is to try and get to the root of the problem without killing the plant. That means diagramming the costs, measuring the strength of the revenue, assessing the quality and commitment of the team, certifying the validity of the model, reverse-engineering the approach of the competition, simulating a set of scenarios and then, picking one. In this way we can turn a messy, people-driven, three-dimensional problem into a math problem.

From the moment a “problem” is identified, you are on a crash course toward a solution. There is no way to avoid it; all the avoiding is generally done for the months (sometimes years) spent ignoring the problem when it was small and manageable -- when it was tiny not potentially terminal. Sigh.

Contrary to popular wisdom, identifying a problem is nowhere near halfway to fixing it. Maybe 10 percent of the way; 20 percent max. The next 10 percent’s progress comes when the team responsible for the unit under distant scrutiny is told. Add another 5 percent distance traveled when it is clear they allow themselves to hear they need to be fixed.

With change in the air, it is best to get those who will be most affected by it to consider the possible courses of action. The result is an overly sensitive approach – tip toe? – which dovetails nicely with the generally unproductive urge to nibble around the edges of a problem.

A period of unproductive scenario planning, akin to the re-arranging of a certain steamship’s deck chairs, comes next. It will try everyone’s patience but ultimately lead to the productive realization that sometimes drastic measures are not really all that drastic. Now you are half-way home.

Understanding a problem so that it can be solved requires understanding why it broke the surface of corporate consciousness in the first place. Most things that can be fixed never are, they never bob to the surface. Instead they float unnoticed below the waves. They never do much harm but do add to the drag on a company’s market efficiency; they never get solved except by accident or resignation.

I don’t have the benefit of either.

Nor do I have the benefit of time. This problem, like most, is long past the time when it should have been fixed. In my private moments I rail about those who should have seen this coming, those who were in a position to make modest changes that would make unnecessary the larger ones now being contemplated. I wonder: What needs to be fixed in my own house?

What I see is too far along to be fixed without serious change. Not only is it the right thing to do, it is the organization’s expectation and so, anything less, even if it is a better course, would be called the wrong thing to do. This is a tight box with only one way out – what is best for what comes next?

Now you are 75 percent of the way to a solution. No sentimentality, no sacred cows, no limits. Just the mission, the model and the metrics. That is where I am right now, focused on who we are, what we hope to achieve, how we plan to get there and how we’ll know we’ve arrived.

Only one pitfall exists between enlightenment and action. People’s lives are going to be affected, so we try not to think about them as people; not as colleagues or co-workers, either. Instead we squint so as to see them only as a collection of skills and tics that can be stacked and restacked in combinations planned and serendipitous, until what was a problem is again an asset.

It seems a safe and sensible approach until the realization hits that no solution affecting people can hold without the support of those people. There may be numbers involved, but it isn't math. Only then can a solution finally be in reach. So today I traded in the graph paper for a topographical map of the market, the pencil for a point-of-view and the balanced equation for the top-heavy promise of the future. We'll see how it turns out.

Whales, elephants and gorillas

Think of the last company meeting you attended. Think of the moment (moments?) when someone asked a totally appropriate but naive question.

"Appropriate" because it sought to get at the reason for, the meaning of or the origins to a current and particular business problem. "Naive" because the answer it sought would shine a light on one or more of the "protective classes" that seem to root in companies where the ends (revenue, profit, bonuses) justify the means (too much stick, not enough carrot, a quick eye for the weakness in others and a blind eye for the same in yourself).

Think of them as the elephants in the room, the 800-pound gorillas or whales in the swimming pool.

Think of the pay package granted Dick Grasso by the board of the NASDAQ, think of the predatory market practices of Ken Lay's Enron, think of the $2 million birthday party Tyco paid for CEO Dennis Koslowski's wife or think of the "fashion forward" e.mail FEMA's Mike Brown was writing as New Orleans' levees were breached.

In each case, these business actions were not secret, yet drew no response. Then, when what was known internally became public, usually on the strength of a law suit, a leak or a lack of self-control, the force of external pressure had significant effect on employees, customers, citizens, investors, institutions and, ultimately, public confidence.

The story has played out so long and so often -- "Checkers," anyone -- that the painful course it takes now seems normal when, in fact, there is nothing normal about it.

We seems to be able to produce cadres of "boys (and girls) who cry 'wolf!'" but few who are willing to note the emperor has no clothes. Perhaps it is because there is no career advantage to that kind of behavior. How did that happen?

I can't say, really, but it was likely when the reward for going along got higher than the value of going your own way. It was compounded, no doubt, by continual reinforcement of the need to get ahead, stay ahead and never look back. The fear of falling back can be a powerful barrier to getting ahead. The punishment for breaking away from the pack can be worse.

It plays out in daily life, not just business life. A few years ago, New York City newsman and author Pete Hamill wrote in his autobiographical "A Drinking Life," that despite the talk in his Irish enclave that the goal was to get ahead, when he did, he was made to feel a he had taken the wrong course.

In more recent days, we have seen the rise of a movement (and a brisk business in tee-shirt sales) built around the rallying cry "Don't Snitch" -- equating a willingness to cooperate with the police to doing the wrong thing. Again, how did we get here?

One step at a time, really. Think about it the next time you see an elephant, a gorilla or a whale.