'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.'
'Thank you,' I say pleased. 'By the way, what are the results at Hilton Smyth's plant?'
'You must turn the dagger, huh?' he laughs. 'As you pre- dicted, Hilton is not doing too well. His indicators continue to improve, but his bottom line continues to sink into the red.'
I cannot contain myself, 'I told you that those indicators are based on local optimum and that they have nothing to do with the global picture.'
'I know, I know,' he sighs. 'As a matter of fact, I think that I knew it all along, but I guess an old mule like me needs to see the proof in black and red. Well, I think that I've finally seen it.'
'It's about time,' I think to myself but to the phone I say, 'So what's next?'
'This is actually why I called you, Alex. I spent the entire day yesterday with Ethan Frost. It seems that he's in agreement with you, but I can't understand what he is talking about.' Bill sounds quite desperate. 'There was a time that I thought I understood all this mumbo jumbo of 'cost of goods sold' and variances, but after yesterday, it's obvious that I don't. I need someone who can explain it to me in straight terms, someone like you. You do un- derstand all this, don't you?'
'I think I do,' I answer. 'Actually it is very simple. It's all a matter of...'
'No, no,' he interrupts me. 'Not on the phone. Besides, you have to come here anyway-only one month left, you should get familiar with the details of your new job.'
'Tomorrow morning okay?'
'No problem,' he answers. 'And Alex, you have to explain to me what you've done to Johnny Jons. He goes around claim-
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ing that we can make a lot of money if we sell below what it costs us to produce. That is pure baloney.' I laugh, 'See you tomorrow.'
Bill Peach abandoning his precious indicators? This is some- thing I have to tell everyone; they'll never believe it. I go to Don- ovan's office, but he's not there, nor is Stacey. They must be on the floor. I ask Fran to locate them. In the meantime I'm going to Lou to tell him the news.
Stacey reaches me there. 'Hey boss, we have some problems here. Can we come in half an hour?'
'No rush,' I say. 'It's not so important, take your time.'
'I don't agree,' she says. 'I'm afraid that it is important.'
'What are you talking about?'
'It probably has started,' she answers. 'Bob and I will be in your office in half an hour. Okay?'
'Okay,' I say, quite puzzled.
'Lou, do you know what's going on?' I ask.
'No.' he says. 'Unless of course, you're referring to the fact that Stacey and Bob have been busy for the last week, playing expeditors.'
'They are?'
'To make a long story short,' Bob concludes the briefing of the last hour, 'already twelve work centers are on unplanned overtime.'
'The situation is out of control,' Stacey continues. 'Yester- day one order was not shipped on time, today three more will be delayed for sure. According to Ralph, we're going downhill from there. He claims that before the end of the month we'll miss the shipping dates on about twenty percent of our orders, and not by just one or two days.'
I'm looking at my phone. It won't take more than a few days and this monster will ring off the hook with
