It's Not Luck - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [95]
I don’t think that I will have any real problems, not when they hear that I have secured a sufficient window of time for them, when they hear that Trumann and Doughty are willing to wait.
At the gate I’m greeted not just by Don; Stacey comes too. As we go to the parking lot I break the good news to her. She doesn’t seem enthused.
“Did you complete the Current Reality Tree of the market?” I ask.
“Are you kidding?” she bitterly answers. “We couldn’t agree even on the market’s UDEs.”
“When will you?” I try to disguise my irritation.
“Alex, you are asking for the impossible. I haven’t even managed to get my people to move seriously on the distribution system.”
“How come? I thought you’d finished hammering out the details over a month ago?”
“Yeah. So what.”
“Stacey, what’s the problem?” I ask. “Do you think that I didn’t buy you enough time? That six weeks won’t be enough to construct your marketing approach? It took Bob’s people only two weeks to polish it.”
She doesn’t answer.
I’m starting to get fed up. “Of course six weeks won’t be enough,” I say in a hard voice, “if it takes you more than three weeks to write an UDE list. Listen, I bust my behind to buy you time. I can’t understand why you allow your people to waste it.”
“Alex, with all due respect, I think it’s you who doesn’t understand. You’re asking for the impossible. Do you know what is going on in my company?” I’ve never seen Stacey so depressed. “Have you seen my last report? Sales are down. Shipping is down.”
“I can imagine that morale is low, it’s understandable.” I try to be responsive.
“It’s not low,” she corrects me. “It’s hit rock bottom.”
This is too much. “Stacey, are you telling me that your people are declaring defeat?”
“What I’m telling you is that they are realistic. They have families to take care off. Many don’t have savings, but they do have mortgages. How can I blame them when all they can think about is finding another job.
“Listen Alex. Since UniCo bought this company four years ago, what have these people seen UniCo do for them? How much did UniCo invest in modernizing this company? Zilch. Not even a penny.
“And now UniCo is going to sell them out. UniCo is going to make a bloody fortune and they are going to be thrown into the streets. Will you please stop pushing for the impossible? Nobody here is willing to collaborate.”
This is a totally defeatist attitude. If Stacey doesn’t wake up, there is only one line of action open to me. To fire her and immediately take her place. I have to talk some sense into her. I hope that she listens.
We reach the hotel. I turn to Stacey and wait until she looks at me. “No, Stacey, you are wrong. Bloody wrong. You are taking from these people the last chance that they still have. And yes there is a chance, a real one. We can turn it around. We can secure these people a good job in a prosperous company, in Pressure-Steam. But not with the attitude you are taking. Not by declaring defeat before the battle has even begun.
“You are the president of this company. It’s your responsibility to make sure that it will continue to survive and prosper. And what are you doing? Deciding a priori that there is no chance? How can you do it?
“So what if upstairs they want to sell you to the cleaners? Does it mean there’s no way to reverse that decision? Of course, based on the current performance there is no way. But in whose hands is it to change this abysmal performance? And who said that we don’t have enough time? If we plan our actions carefully, if we deliver the correct intermediate results, we have all the time in the world.
“You can blame the board, you can blame me, you can blame the market conditions and even your people. But at the end Stacey, it’s all up to you. You can decide that you can, or you