A Sabot in the Works

While I was at the home office, working "without portfolio" I came across an interesting problem.

Beyond the Immigration and Nationality Department's main offices, front-line immigration staff were — erroneously and discriminatorily — often thought of as confirmed Luddites. At a time when the asylum processing system was in crisis, the perceived unwillingness of outlying units to cooperate with technical and process improvements was both a source of friction and a genuine impediment to the implementation of necessary organisational changes.

Being without portfolio I took it upon myself to visit a certain significant location to find out what the real problem was. Not having a portfolio, and hence being agenda-less, it wasn't too difficult to begin with a simple "exchange of views": I explained the issues as seen from "head office"... and they told me why they weren't interested in any solution emerging from East Croydon. Unsurprisingly (to me) most of their objections were reasonable and they all boiled down to one fundamental issue — no one listened to them and took into account their particular situation.

So I asked them to explain the difficulties they perceived with the technical and process developments being discussed and then asked whether, if I could come up with some way of bridging the divide, they would be willing to discuss matters further. The answer was, of course, yes indeed they would: they were neither Luddites, nor saboteurs; they were, as is usually the case, genuinely committed and working hard to achieve the organisations goals. The only problem was that, based upon experience, whatever was imposed from without

• Wouldn't work
• Would very quickly be replaced by something else
• Would probably leave them worse off than they already were

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I went away and built a prototype system that would interface the centre with East Croydon whilst also providing some buffering, and reflected both the local processes and the needs of head office. I then presented it to them — not by giving a presentation but actually by sitting them down with the prototype and working through some representative cases.

Of course the system was not right — there were mistakes in my understanding and process refinements and subtleties to incorporate — but having clearly seen their input reflected in a technical solution they were then ready to engage... and engage they did. A couple of months later, as the system was being finalised, not only was everybody enthusiastic about the new system, when certain significant technical issues surfaced they were even willing to propose modifications to their own processes in order to make it work — and thus were the so-called Luddites shown never to have been anything of the kind.

Following which, it should then have been And they all worked happily ever after...; alas, owing to a certain Not Invented Here mentality back in East Croydon, the final hurdle to formal roll-out and implementation was never cleared and the effort stalled.

What are the lessons from this?

Firstly, that passive resistance or even active obstruction to business change — whether technical or process — is not proof of corporate treason.

The basic psychology of motivation is this: in order to be motivated to do something one has to believe:

• that the goal is worthwhile
• that the goal is achievable in principle
• that one has the personal capacity to achieve the goal in practice
• and, finally, that the value of achieving the goal outweighs the value of the effort required.

Or, to put it in shorthand: Motivation = Value x Achievability x Practicability x Relative Cost.

Failure to appreciate this is a common problem. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair once famously railed against the workers of the National Health Service for their opposition to what the government perceived to be necessary changes to the NHS; this was both a political mistake and failure of leadership. NHS workers, like the vast majority of all workers, being genuinely committed to their organisations goals would, I am sure, have enthusiastically done what was necessary if they had believed in the achievability of a desirable goal. The problem was that they were not merely unmotivated, they were positively de-motivated to cooperate (which problem Tony Blair's comments only exacerbated).

In the case of the Home Office outpost, the value of the goal was not in doubt — what I did was help the immigration staff see how it could be profitably achieved.

Secondly, do not allow the ultimate goal of perfection to prevent any progress at all*: do what works until you find a better way.

It seems obvious, but somehow those to whom it should be obvious frequently fail to see such things.

* Whilst I first came across the idea that "The best is the enemy of the good" in an engineering context (attributed to Voltaire in the words "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien," but apparently of even earlier origin), the mindset it epitomises is almost universal.

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Negotiating with Jet Lag

I'm summoned to South Korea for a meeting with Samsung, the prime systems contractor for a new South Korean Navy ship. Ferranti had been subcontracted to supply (amongst other things) radar equipment, but at a meeting the previous week Samsung had asked them about "the radar recording equipment." A hurried check of the contract then revealed that Samsung had forgotten to include it in the requirements... but they still wanted it. The only problem was — a standard negotiating ploy — they had no budget for the extra equipment (not that it was very expensive in the grand scheme of things).

So off I set. South Korea is +8 hours with respect to the UK so normal business hours in Seoul are murder for new arrivals.

"Whatever you do, don't have any meetings between noon and mid-afternoon," a Ferranti chap helpfully advises in the hotel bar, "you won't be able to concentrate and they'll walk all over you."

I nod sagely, but before I can say anything in reply up walks Ted, the Ferranti account director, still looking very much the worse for wear after a heavy soju drinking session with the client the night before, one eye seemingly shrunk to the size of a pea — such are the peculiar effects of too much soju.

"You made it! Good!" Ted beams, his one good eye almost seeming to twinkle. "I've arranged the meeting for twelve o'clock tomorrow...."

And so it was that at noon the following day, barely able to keep my eyes open (being then 4am as far as my body was concerned), that I sat down with the intentionally inscrutable Koreans to negotiate the sale of some radar recording equipment, for which they claimed to have no money. Ted had helpfully told me that these Koreans were particularly difficult to negotiate with as they had learned how to overcome the threat of "loss of face" — "I cannot accept this... I will lose face badly for this failure, but I would lose more face if I accepted your proposal." How helpful.

The only other piece of advice I received before the meeting was "Watch out for the silences — they know they make westerners very uncomfortable and tend to lead them into offering concessions they shouldn't make, just to break the silence." I nodded sagely — or sleepily, I can't recall.

And so it was that after various courtesies and formalities, the technical discussions and then the negotiations began. I made my offer, they wanted a discount. What did they think was worth a discount? The promise to buy more equipment "later". No deal — at least not like that. I knew the finance problem was with the first delivery, so I offered to reduce the price on the first if I could add the discount to the second and so maintain the nominal total price.

Silence. A very, very long silence. I raised my eyes to the portrait on the wall. I let them rest there... and promptly fell asleep — fortunately with my eyes still open.

Sometime later, the Koreans started talking again and I placidly rejoined the conversation. There was more haggling, but I was too tired to do anything than out-stare them. A deal was done — on my terms.

"You handled that very well, especially the silences," Ted said on the way out.

"I fell asleep," I told him.

"Whatever works!"

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The Head Count

An agency calls and asks whether I can do UML modelling. I look it up... it's just "a formal language" so I say, "Yes, I can probably do that... but do tell the client I haven't actually done it before..."

Some time later I am called for an interview and after driving half-way across the country I am met by a specialist in UML modelling. Twenty minutes later it's all over.

I am direct, but polite.

"It seems to me this interview was very brief, so I infer that either you have already decided that I would be completely useless or that I would be perfect for the role — but either way no further discussion is required — yet you haven't said whether you think I would be suitable or not. Can I ask what your assessment is?"

"Oh, it's not up to me... that's for Dr Burge to decide. I was only asked to check that you had the right number of heads."

Fortunately, one head was the required number and I then spent two years doing architectures for Peter Burge and UK MoD (during which time UML was hardly ever mentioned).

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