InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

By Herbert W. Lovelace

hil Whitestone, ou r company president, is a great believer in rotational assignments. He also thinks that if you can manage one function, you can manage any other one. So, it was no surprise when he decided that Charlie Adams, our manager of strategic analysis, would head up one of the smaller business units.

Charlie has forged a bond of sorts with Phil that even Karen Lovell, VP of planning-and Charlie's boss-is at a loss to explain. She thinks Charlie is capable, does what he is told with great enthusiasm and even proficiency, but would never win a prize as a thinker. According to Karen, Charlie's major flaw is that he has grand-sounding concepts, but doesn't have a clue how to implement them. Charlie does, however, do a great job of echoing Phil's ideas and even argues with him just enough to avoid being thought of as a yes-man. All in all, Charlie is the perfect staff manager.

When Phil suggested that Charlie would be the ideal candidate to take over a modestly profitable but rather stagnant business unit, Karen to ld Phil she was uncomfortable with the proposal, but would never stand in the way of advancement of one of her employees. That was all Phil had to hear. Charlie was launched with great fanfare into his new career. The company intranet magazine highlighted Charlie's promotion and Phil's comments about how anyone in the company can aspire to any position.

After Charlie had been in the job for a few months, he called a meeting about a new invoicing requirement from one of his big customers. Because of the difficulty in making changes to the billing system-and my curiosity to see how Charlie would handle himself in his new role-I decided to attend the meeting.

Charlie, with his characteristic enthusiasm, started off by explaining the importance of operating as a team. That was fine. But then he launched into the need to develop a general method to use in solving all problems like this one. Blithely ignoring the risk of missing the customer's deadline, he said that while solving this problem was important, it was best if our goal for this meeting was to define the process for getting early warning on such needs and resolving them generically. His regional sales manager and the account representative looked in wonder at each other, while my IS types struggled to keep straight faces.

Then Charlie said it might be helpful if he explained the context of any potential solution space-or something like that-and delivered a 15-minute analysis of the economy and marketplace dynamics as people slid lower and lower in their chairs. It would have been interesting if it had not been totally out of place.

When he finished, the IS and business people began tossing out suggestions on how to fix the problem. Charlie interjected a few times talking philosophy but was ignored, especially by his own sales people, who understood that their commissions depended on getting a solution. Finally, a workable resolution to the billing problem was developed, and the meeting was adjourned with a sense of accomplishment all around.

I feel sorry for Charlie. He probably thinks his presence was crucial instead of a hindrance. But I have even greater sympathy for all the people in his business unit. Charlie has to learn that generalities are great, but problems have to be solved. If he doesn't, not only will he be toast, but his people will get burned. When Phil winds up being disappointed about Charlie's performance-and he will-the fallout won't stop with Charlie.

Herbert W. Lovelace is CIO at a multibillion-dollar international company. Herb practices his day job under an alias and has changed the names of colleagues to protect the guilty. Send him E-mail at secret@cmp.com . He'll provide real answers-and whimsical comments-to your questions on InformationWeek Online at techweb.cmp.com/iw/current/secret.htm .

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