A wary, fairytale, of sorts

For Sunday, September 7, 2008

Bottleneck Bill. Bottleneck Bill. Let me tell you the story of Bottleneck Bill. Bottleneck Bill took a job one day at a fictional company far, far away. The company’s name was Widgets and Floss, and Bottleneck Bill was to be their boss.
He was assigned to the department of Gadgets at Large, with the delegated authority to be in charge. His first rule of order was to change all procedures with new ways of doing every single feature. He had his ideas and some life-long habits that he picked up way back when he used to raise rabbits. The rabbits never argued, and most had survived, so Bottleneck Bill kept his approach alive.
That approach was to do whatever he decided with the expectation that everyone abided. To learn how the Gadget Department was working for the last 50 years seemed to him to be shirking. “Time’s better spent,” said Bottleneck Bill, “by moving ahead the way I will. And don’t give me trouble. I don’t want your advice, because I’m in charge, I told you that twice.”
“Blue boxes will be red, now, and stacked in the back. Numbers will be letters, and white will be black. We’ll no longer write using check marks,” he said. “We’ll start using X’s as of yesterday instead. And boxes will be green now because I changed my mind about red.”
The people in the Gadget Department complied, though many of them grumbled and some of them cried. They went home befuddled, congested, and tired, but dared not complain, not wanting to be fired. The sparkle and spunk and chatter and joy that once went with the job was replaced with annoy. People came to work and did what they must, but the desire to do more had dissolved with the dust.
Gadget sales slid to the nadir of the chart. Performance was off. Things all fell apart. Bottleneck Bill never checked on the quotas, so when production went down, he never noticed. Bottleneck Bill pushed on with his plans, which he made up alone with his own little hands.
One day came to pass when Bottleneck Bill broke down on the highway. His car lost a wheel. He was driving home late after deleting the work done by an employee who was a mere clerk. The clerk had typed sales up in rows just the way it’s always been done since Roosevelt’s day. Bottleneck Bill, he changed it to columns, and ran out of paper and then put a call in. “Come in early tomorrow, and do this again. And this time use Roman Numerals and Braille. The end.”
So parked on the edge of a highway so dark, Bill found his cell phone had nary a spark. He sat there and sat there and sat there and raved, then saw bright lights coming and jumped up and waved. A wizened old man pulled off to the side, unlocked his doors, and gave Bill a ride.
While driving along Bill told him the story of how hard he was working, but couldn’t find glory. The old man, he nodded, because he’d heard it before. He was once general manager of a fishing bait store. He’d long since retired and was living on pension, free of the stress and the strain and the tension.
He explained to Bill the nature of power. He put it quite simply because of the hour. “There are two kinds of power at work here, my friend. And they’re both complimentary, not at opposite ends. One is the power bestowed by position, delegated authority we called it while fishing. The other is knowledge power, you see, that comes from experience, that doesn’t come free.
“Delegated power is transient, it comes and it goes, one day you have it, and that day it glows. But there’s often a lingering fear in one’s mind that it could suddenly vanish and leave one behind.
“Knowledge power is different. You have it for life. It brings confidence, comfort, calmness, no strife. Knowledge power is delegated power’s best friend. It’s there to instruct, to suggest, and to mend. Great leaders and kings and corporate execs surround themselves with experts to give them the specs. A cabinet of wise men can give good advice, making delegates with power look very nice. Don’t push them away. They are not a threat. They know you’re the boss. Be a sponge and don’t fret.
“And this is quite certain, you have a great gift, to delegate authority to those you work with. Empower your workers, involve them in plans, great weights are high lifted when you use many hands. Include, don’t exclude. Take criticism gladly. If you block all that out, it could turn out badly. So, listen, my friend, and take my advice. I’ll letting you out now, so I can’t tell you twice.”
No Bottleneck Bill went to work the next day and opened his doors and gave people say. He passed out permissions and passwords and keys, and trusted his workers to do their jobs as they please. He made them all equals in the success of the business, and turned things around, what kind of fairy tale is this?