The Goal

But then I sit back.

If I were J. Bart Granby III sitting high atop my company's corporate tower, and if my control over the company were se- cure, I wouldn't want to play any of those games. I wouldn't want to see one measurement increase while the other two were ig- nored. I would want to see increases in net profit and return on investment and cash flow-all three of them. And I would want to see all three of them increase all the time.

Man, think of it. We'd really be making money if we could have all of the measurements go up simultaneously and forever.

So this is the goal:

To make money by increasing net profit, while simultane- ously increasing return on investment, and simultaneously in- creasing cash flow.

I write that down in front of me.

I feel like I'm on a roll now. The pieces seem to be fitting together. I have found one clear-cut goal. I've worked out three related measurements to evaluate progress toward the goal. And I have come to the conclusion that simultaneous increases in all three measurements are what we ought to be trying to achieve. Not bad for a day's work. I think Jonah would be proud of me.

Now then, I ask myself, how do I build a direct connection between the three measurements and what goes on in my plant? If I can find some logical relationship between our daily opera- tions and the overall performance of the company then I'll have a basis for knowing if something is productive or non-productive... moving toward the goal or away from it.

I go to the window and stare into the blackness.

Half an hour later, it is as dark in my mind as it is outside the window.

Running through my head are ideas about profit margins and capital investments and direct labor content, and it's all very conventional. It's the same basic line of thinking everyone has been following for a hundred years. If I follow it, I'll come to the

55

same conclusions as everyone else and that means I'll have no truer understanding of what's going on than I do now.

I'm stuck.

I turn away from the window. Behind my desk is a bookcase; I pull out a textbook, flip through it, put it back, pull out an- other, flip through it, put it back.

Finally, I've had it. It's late.

I check my watch-and I'm shocked. It's past ten o'clock. All of a sudden, I realize I never called Julie to let her know I wasn't going to be home for dinner. She's really going to be pissed off at me; she always is when I don't call.

I pick up the phone and dial. Julie answers.

'Hi,' I say. 'Guess who had a rotten day.'

'Oh? So what else is new?' she says. 'It so happens my day wasn't too hot either.'

'Okay, then we both had rotten days,' I tell her. 'Sorry I didn't call before. I got wrapped up in something.'

Long pause.

'Well, I couldn't get a babysitter anyway,' she says.

Then it dawns on me; our postponed night out was sup- posed to be tonight.

'I'm sorry, Julie. I really am. It just completely slipped my mind,' I tell her.

'I made dinner,' she says. 'When you hadn't shown up after two hours, we ate without you. Yours is in the microwave if you want it.'

'Thanks.'

'Remember your daughter? The little girl who's in love with you?' Julie asks.

'You don't have to be sarcastic.'

'She waited by the front window for you all evening until I made her go to bed.'

I shut my eyes.

'Why?' I ask.

'She's got a surprise to show you,' says Julie.

I say, 'Listen, I'll be home in about an hour.'

'No rush,' says Julie.

She hangs up before I can say good-bye.

Indeed, there is no point in rushing home at this stage of the game. I get my hard hat and glasses and take a walk out into the

56

plant to pay a visit to Eddie, my second shift supervisor, and see how everything is going.

When I get there, Eddie is not in his office; he's out dealing with something on the floor. I have him paged. Finally, I see him coming from way down at the other end of the plant. I watch him as he walks down. It's a five- minute wait.

Something about Eddie has always irritated me. He's a com- petent supervisor. Not outstanding, but he's okay. His work is not what bothers me. It's something else.

I watch Eddie's steady gait. Each step is very regular.

Then it hits me. That's what irritates me about Eddie: it's the way he walks. Well, it's more than that; Eddie's walk is symbolic of the kind of person he is. He walks a little bit pigeon-toed. It's as if he's literally walking a straight and narrow line. His hands cross stiffly in front of him, seeming to point at each foot. And he does all this like he read in a manual someplace that this is how walk- ing is supposed to be done.

As he approaches, I'm thinking that Eddie has probably never done anything improper in his entire life-unless it was expected of him. Call him Mr. Regularity.

We talk about some of the orders going through. As usual, everything is out of control. Eddie, of course, doesn't realize this. To him, everything is normal. And if it's normal, it must be right.

He's telling me-in elaborate detail-about what is running tonight. Just for the hell of it, I feel like asking Eddie to define what he's doing tonight in terms of something like net profit.

I want to ask him, 'Say, Eddie, how's our impact on ROI been in the last hour? By the way, what's your shift done to im- prove cash flow? Are we making money?'

It's not that Eddie hasn't heard of those terms. It's just that those concerns are not part of his world. His world is one mea- sured in terms of parts per hour, man-hours worked, numbers of orders filled. He knows labor standards, he knows scrap factors, he knows run times, he knows shipping dates. Net profit, ROI, cash flow-that's just headquarters talk to Eddie. It's absurd to think I could measure Eddie's world by those three. For Eddie, there is only a vague association between what happens on his shift and how much money the company makes. Even if I could open Eddie's mind to the greater universe, it would still be very difficult to draw a clear connection between the values here on

57