It's Not Luck - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [63]
But it’s possible. I know it is.
I start the car and decide to head back. I look for signs. It’s not a bad idea to figure out where I am. Wilmington? Where the hell is Wilmington?
So what am I waiting for? I pick up the phone and call Don.
“Where are you?” He is apparently worried. “The budget committee meeting is supposed to start in ten minutes, I don’t think I can fill in for you.”
“Yes, you can. Just ask Bill to allow it. He will. Oh yuck, at one-thirty I was supposed to have a meeting with the CFO.”
“You’re telling me?” He sounds a little irritated. “Don’t worry, I went instead. It was okay. But where are you? Are you coming back today?”
“I don’t know. Listen Don, remember the Current Reality Tree that I gave you last week? Take it home and study it. By tomorrow morning I want you to know it inside and out.”
Oh, God. It’s Milford. I’m more than one hundred miles away from home!
“Okay, Alex. Can I ask why?”
“You can easily guess.”
“Does this mean we are going to try to figure out how to increase sales?”
“Yes.”
“Hurrah!” I instinctively move the phone away from my ear. This man has well-developed lungs. “We were waiting for it. All of us.”
“See you tomorrow at eight.”
“Should I order a conference room? In your office we are bound to be constantly interrupted.”
“Good idea. And prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
“For a lot of work. We are going to kick some ass.”
19
When the coffee is served, I gather enough courage to raise the real issue. “I want to convince you that we shouldn’t sell my companies. It will be a huge mistake.”
“Alex, we went over it again and again,” Brandon Trumann sounds a little irritated. “This subject is closed.”
Jim Doughty signals his agreement with Brandon.
“Is the subject closed even if the situation has changed? Come on, you’re more open-minded than that.”
“What can possibly change to that extent?” And in a patronizing voice he adds, “Alex, let it go. It’s a lost battle.”
“Just give me some time,” I say, “and I’ll turn my companies into geese that lay golden eggs.”
“And what makes you think you can do it? Two weeks ago you were not optimistic at all.”
“I’m optimistic because of you two. You had . . . ”
“Don’t count on us. We’re the bad guys,” Jim laughs.
“Alex, I thought I explained it to you,” Brandon tries to knock some sense into my thick skull. “We don’t have a choice. The financial situation of UniCo is too fragile. We like you, we appreciate what you’re doing, but don’t ask for the impossible.”
I let him finish and then calmly continue, “You had me do the analysis of companies in the current competitive market. You started it all. Don’t you want to know what came out of it?”
“Oh yes, we do,” Jim says. “But Alex, if you think that some theoretical analysis will cause us to reverse our decision, you are more optimistic than I thought.”
“It’s not entirely theoretical, I had a very real starting point. I have the printing company turnaround to extrapolate from.”
“We appreciate what you have done with that company,” Brandon tries to pacify me. “What you’ve done there verges on miraculous. But do you believe that you can repeat the same thing over in I Cosmetics and in Pressure-Steam? They are very different from the printing industry.”
“And from each other,” Jim adds.
“I know, but I’m not starting from scratch. I’ve used what Pete did as a guide, and continuing our analysis I built a generic blueprint of how to do it anywhere. Having this blueprint, it should be relatively easy to build the specific solutions for the specific companies.”
“Do you really think you can outline the generic procedure for taking a market?” Jim Doughty asks.
“Yes,” I say, confidently. “That’s what I want to show you.”
“Any market? Even if we don’t give you any money to invest and we impose a tight time limit?” Brandon is astonished.
“Depends what you call a tight time limit—but six months should be sufficient.” I have learned what you can accomplish in a company in three months. Most people regard it as nothing, I see it as an eternity.
“I’m not promising