The Performance Principle. Mackenzie Kyle
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the problem. “I don’t want to close the plant” wasn’t a terribly helpful way to state the issue. Neither was “We’re not as efficient as we need to be” or “Demand for our products is down,” though all three of those statements were true.
When I took the opportunity to pull Martha aside at her birthday party and broach the subject of my struggles, she put on her regular sarcastic, crusty exterior, but I think it really made her day. I wasn’t sure I should be pinning my hopes for a solution to the problems at Hyler on a woman who was turning 102 years old. But beggars can’t be choosers, and Martha had once been a great source of ideas for me. In fact, as we got talking, I wondered why it had taken me so long to have another serious chat with her. After her regular number of digs and jabs, she had summed things up, as she always did, in a way that made me feel a little stupid.
“So, Willie,” she said, “you’ve described a bunch of different issues, and you’re telling me that things aren’t good at Hyler. Would you say that’s fair?” I nodded emphatically. “OK, well, that’s fine, but I can’t really help you with a bunch of random problems.” She chuckled. “Actually, I probably could. But that doesn’t seem to be why you’re here. So what is it you want help with?”
I stammered, stuttered, and then went silent. Martha had a gift for making me feel like an idiot, and she was in full-on giving mode at that moment. To be fair, I probably deserved it. I had laid out a variety of complaints about everything from the union to the performance management system to how we paid our salespeople, but what was I really asking her?
I came up with a ploy to give myself time to think. I said, “Your beer is looking a little low, Martha. Can I get you another one?”
She snorted. “Take your time, Willie. And yes, I’ll have another one, thank you, while you try to think this through.” I got up and headed for the kitchen.
What was the problem I was trying to solve? What was wrong with the existing situation?
By the time I returned with two more bottles of beer in hand, I had made exactly zero progress on answering that question. When I admitted as much, Martha laughed and said, “It’s not an easy question, my boy. But think on it a bit, and come back and see me when you’re ready to talk some more.” Then she smiled in a rather ghoulish way. “But don’t wait too long, Willie. I might not be here.”
THE FOLLOWING Monday I was in the Hyler main boardroom, staring at an empty whiteboard, trying to figure out how to answer Martha’s question. I’d been sitting there since 6:15 a.m., hoping that an early start would lead to early insight and that by 8:00 a.m. I’d be heading to Starbucks to celebrate with a latte. It was now 9:10 a.m. and progress was negligible.
Misery being what it is, I decided I needed to share my struggle. Ten minutes later I had my senior team sitting around the table. Stu, Amanda, Leslie, Alice, Sheila, Mark, and Luigi stared at me in silence until Luigi ventured, “So this is it?”
“This is what?” I asked.
“The big announcement,” Luigi said.
“Announcement?” I asked.
Stu sighed. “C’mon, Will, don’t play games. The announcement about the plant closing. You called all of us in here with no notice on a Monday morning. What else could it be?”
Alice, as VP of accounting and finance, had the usual stack of papers in front of her. “Funny thing is, things have improved a little in the eight weeks since you’ve been back. But obviously not enough.”
Amanda looked like she was going to cry. Mark Goldman actually had tears in his eyes. “It was a good run, Will,” said Sheila.
I felt like yelling at all of them. Instead, I kept my voice as calm as I could. “Have you guys given up? You think things are that far gone? That I’d be back for only two months and then shut things down?”
Everyone looked at me blankly. Amanda said, “Is that a trick question?”
I looked up at the ceiling. “God help us!” I scanned around the room, looking into the faces of the members of my team. As I made eye contact with each one in turn, I didn’t see a lot of hope in their faces. “No, this is not that meeting. The plant is not closing. At least not yet. We’re here to have a very different discussion. One I hope is going to put that other discussion on permanent hold.” If I had been expecting a rousing cheer after my emotionally uplifting little speech, I would have been disappointed. All it earned was more blank stares.
“So you’ve got some ideas?” asked Stu. “Some new insight?”
“Not exactly,” I told them. “In fact, exactly not. I feel as if I know less than when I got here.”
“Nice, chief. Real inspirational.” Luigi could be a sarcastic bastard at times.
“Not to be negative, Will, but you’re looking at a group of people who have been busting their butts for three years now, trying to make this company work. Clearly we are out of ideas. Having us give it one more good old college try doesn’t sound like the path to success.” I preferred sarcasm to Alice’s more rational truths.
“I’m not questioning anyone’s commitment —” I started.
“— So you’re saying we’re incompetent,” Amanda finished.
“— and I’m also not saying you’re incompetent —” I continued, rolling with the detour.
Alice jumped in again. “Then you’re not making me feel better. If we’re not stupid, and we’re trying hard, the only other conclusion is that this problem isn’t solvable and we’re all on the next boat to India.”
“I think it would be Indonesia, Alice,” said Stu. “India is getting too expensive.”
“I hear Russia is the new spot for cheap outsourcing these days,” Leslie piped up. “Then, in another five years, the U.S. may be so economically depressed that this will be the place to be and we can all come back home.”
“Great,” said Stu. “If we can just hold on long enough, we’ll be the new developing world, and we won’t have to move the operation anywhere. Maybe that gives us some kind of competitive advantage . . . we can stay where we are until the crashing economy makes us competitive again.”
“People!” I interrupted, a little more shrilly than I’d intended. “At the moment, these are not things we care about. As I said, we’re going to stay right here and solve our problems.”
“Right, I forgot,” said Amanda. “With the new ideas that none of us have. Yes, let’s get back to that.”
I stood up and began to pace back and forth in front of the conference room whiteboard. “Not that I want to dwell too much on the good old days, but some of you were around when we dealt with the Windsailor crisis. Remember that? We didn’t know what we were doing then, and we managed to get through it.”
“Well,” said Amanda, “back to my point about ideas. Someone did have ideas then. You had that mystery consultant feeding us stuff.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ve been in touch with the same consultant,” I said.
Suddenly, the mood in the room brightened. “Really?” said Amanda. “Why didn’t you say that?”
I stopped pacing. “Oh, so now you’re all enthusiastic? Like I wasn’t bringing anything to the table? You need a consultant to get you motivated?”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “You already said you don’t have any ideas, princess. And we’ve been coming up empty for a while now. So yes, some outside perspective is attractive. I’ll try harder not to offend your delicate feelings in the future. But cutting to the chase, what has your guy got for us?”
I decided to put my ego aside, at least momentarily, for the good of the team. “She . . . uh, he,” I started, and then had a furious conversation in my head about gender, honesty, and the value in correcting a little