



"A desk (and a conference room) are dangerous places to view (manage) the world." - John Le Carre.

Once upon a time, 32 people from one manufacturing company had gathered in a conference room for an emergency meeting, because a product for a major customer had a serious manufacturing defect. Many meetings had already taken place between the employees of the company, all without resolution. By now, tension was high, and the customer was getting increasingly irritated with the delay.

Intense arguments were going on between all the people who had gathered for the occasion. The record keeper was frantically trying to keep up with the heated discussions, and the timekeeper was desperately alerting the participants to stay focused on the agenda. After patiently listening to the discussions, one new entrant to the scene interrupted and asked three questions:

1. How many of you have visited the customer and seen the problem first hand?

2. How many of you are representing the manufacturing area where the problem is occurring?

3. Of the rest of you, how many have ever seen the exposed glass lid (the defect in question)?

He then excused the rest of the people from the room (including the record keeper and time keeper). There were only 7 people left in the room out of the original 32. Less than an hour later, decisions were made, and the problem was effectively resolved.

(Footnote: That new entrant went on to become a very successful CEO)

Reflection: In his acceptance speech for 1995 American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award, Steven Spielberg said, "One cannot create the great work of art unless he/she has felt/experienced it in some way." Such is also true when creating a good design, excellent product or useful software or solving manufacturing and customer issues.

Sequel: After hearing the above quote, "A desk….dangerous place to view….", one zealous manager decided to take immediate action. Instead of the normal practice of having phone meetings with representatives of overseas companies from conference rooms in the USA, he flew all the way down to Japan for a “first hand investigation”. He summoned the manufacturers to join him in the hotel conference room for meetings and had dialogues across Japanese desks instead of US desks. (But he failed to go to the actual manufacturing facilities.)