It's Not Luck - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [84]
What exactly do I want to persuade the board to do? To postpone the sale of I Cosmetics. Until when? Until at least next year, then they’ll be looking good.
No, it won’t do. Oh, my God, I’m in a deeper hole than I thought. If I succeed in convincing them to postpone this sale, I’m dead.
They must take care of the lousy credit rating of UniCo, that I can’t change, which means they must get enough money from selling my companies. They are talking about needing over one hundred million dollars. If I persuade them not to sell I Cosmetics, by that act, I’ve signed the death sentence for Pressure-Steam. Then they will have to sell it to the shredders.
No. I must protect Stacey’s company. Bob is okay. With this beautiful marketing solution I think I can persuade any buyer to allow Bob to continue to run his company without interference. I think that I can even present it in such a way that proper prospects will be willing to pay a higher price. Yes, this I may be able to do.
Shall I leave it at that?
I don’t feel comfortable with it. It means that Bob and his people will have to postpone the implementation until the sale of their company is complete. That is stupid. And I don’t care what our crazy financial statements are saying. There must be a better way.
But there is another thing troubling me also. It’s obvious that the negative branch of this marketing idea was bothering them. Bob, Susan and Jeff knew it all along. How come they didn’t succeed in trimming it?
Their intuition about it is huge. Their desire to protect their company is even bigger. And they know that the only way that they can do it is to come up with a good marketing solution. This is an excellent one—except for this negative branch. According to Jonah, people who have the intuition and drive to the extent that they succeed in writing a Future Reality Tree leading to the desired effect will always succeed in trimming every negative branch. Why haven’t they?
Did he say something about it? I can’t remember. Maybe he did.
I go back to the main building and take possession of an empty office. Everybody is still at lunch. Julie should be at home.
I explain my puzzle to her. She listens attentively. When I finish, I ask, “Did Jonah ever say anything about this?”
“Yes, he did,” she assures me. “He said that often people dismiss an injection that can trim a negative branch.”
“Why should they? We want to trim this negative branch. We want it desperately.”
“He said that it happens when the injection leads to new negative effects,” she explains. “Then people tend to regard the injection as impractical, and they will simply ignore it.”
“I see.”
“From my experience, this is a common mistake. Often, if you stick with such an injection, you find that the negative branches it causes can be trimmed, usually pretty easily.”
“You think that’s what might have happened here?” I wonder. “You think maybe they have an injection that they dismissed?”
“Maybe. Alex, what do you have to lose? Check it out,” she says.
She’s right. I must cut this negative branch. Too much is at stake.
“Yes, I will. Thank you, darling.”
“And Alex,” she gives me some last minute advice, “even if you see that their injection leads to many new negatives, continue the process. At the end it does work. You’ll see.”
“I’ll tell you tonight. Thanks again. Bye.”
I go back to the conference room and write the negative branch on the flip-chart. Starting with the statement in their Future Reality Tree, “Shops drop unneeded inventory,” and ending with the fact that we lose the equivalent of about two months’ sales. Shortly after I finish, they all enter.
“What’s the verdict?” Bob asks.
They are all waiting to hear my answer.
“What verdict?” I ask. “We haven’t finished the analysis yet.” And before anyone has the chance to object, I continue, “We were discussing this negative branch,” and I point