It's Not Luck - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [75]
“No, that’s just the way to pick a starting point. It really doesn’t matter.” “Whatever you say.” He flips the dime. It comes up heads. “Okay. So let’s assume it’s a go. Start by listing all the positive things you see in the idea.”
After writing two lines, he hesitates.
“What’s the matter, Dave?” I ask. “Are there some positives you don’t want to tell me?”
“Sort of,” he grins.
Even better, I think to myself. “Let me describe a situation very similar to yours when I used this technique. I think I even have the work I did.”
As I look for it, I start to tell the story. “It happened about four years ago, when we were still living near your uncle Jimmy. One day he came to me and suggested we buy a boat together.”
“What a neat idea,” Dave says.
“Yes,” I agree. “It had a lot of pluses, but similar to your case, I felt uneasy about it. Let me show you what I did. Where is it? It must be somewhere here in this drawer.”
I flip through the papers. I forgot how many interesting things are stored here. Dave almost gives up.
“Ah, yes, here it is. Of course, at the bottom. The first page is a list of all the positive aspects of buying the boat.”
“You flipped a coin before you started this list?”
“Probably. I don’t remember. In any event here are the reasons to buy a boat with Jimmy: I will have a boat in my possession; I will share the financial burden of purchasing and maintaining a boat—the only realistic way to make it possible.”
“Those two are identical to my situation,” Dave interrupts.
“No wonder, the situations are very similar. Probably the other positives are applicable to you as well. Like: I don’t have to do all the maintenance myself; or due to Jimmy’s superior mechanical ability, the boat will be well taken care of.”
“No, that last one is definitely not applicable,” Dave laughs.
“Here, read it yourself.” I hand him the page.
He glances at it. “Yes, most of these points are good for me, except for the last one.” And, grinning, he reads, “ ‘I will have an ally to help persuade Julie to allow me to spend money on my dream, a boat.’ Quite a persuasive list, so what happened?”
“Look at the next page, the negative list is not less persuasive.”
“ ‘We might disagree about the selection of the boat,’ ” he starts reading. “I don’t have this problem, we already know what we want to buy. Next. ‘We might disagree about who will use the boat when.’ Yes, that’s a problem, but not as big as in your case. We are double-dating.”
“Even in our case,” I say, “it wasn’t a big problem. You know your mother likes to spend time with her brother, and I like him too.”
“Yeah, but what about Aunt Jane?”
I ignore his question. “Read on.”
He continues down the list, making funny remarks. I don’t know who enjoys it more, him or me.
“Nice,” he says when he finishes. “A nice summary. But how did it help you decide? Now it looks even more difficult than before you started.”
“This is not the end,” I tell him. “It’s just the beginning. Now, starting from, ‘We agreed to buy a boat together’ I have used if-then logic to reach each of the negative arguments. The same way I did when you asked to use my car. Remember?”
“Yes, Dad. And thank you. There was no problem, was there? I did take care of the car. And I don’t bug you for it now.”
“No, not more than before,” I admit. “So when I finished connecting to each one of the undesirable effects, I started to check whether or not I could take actions to trim them.”
“What do you mean by trimming them?”
“Figuring out if I can take an action to guarantee that the negative will not happen. For most of the negatives it was possible. But for one, every idea I came up with needed Jim’s collaboration.”
“Which one?”
“The one that says it would be a problem if one of us had to sell his share.”
“You were thinking long term,” Dave is impressed.
“Is there any other way?” I ask.
“Probably not,” he admits. “Anyway, what did you do?”
“I slaved on it some more, polishing the words so that when I showed it to Jimmy, he wouldn’t be offended. Here, look at it.” I hand him the negative