Your article reminded me of something I read. Gelsey Kirkland, a former ballerina for the New York Ballet company, was both loveliness personified and an athlete of rarity. She did movements that defied the laws of physics. In her autobiography, "Dancing on My Grave," she mentions the time she was rehearsing with George Balanchine, the dance master. As they worked out movements, she said to him something like, "I think, maestro, that I should move my hand so." He looked at her in anger and said, "Think! Think! I don't pay you to think; I pay you to dance."

More and more, I see discretionary decision making and independent thinking being taken away from the worker. The reasons given by management for doing so is to better protect and serve the customer, reduce liability, etc. We are slowly transforming companies into Soviet armies--where junior field officers must follow manuals of procedures and the enlisted folks are trained to obey, without creating loyalty.

Roger

Dear Roger:
As frustrated as I was with my airport experience of rote repetition of obviously incorrect information, there's some logic for management to insist on following the rules. Adhering to the procedures of an organization can ensure the quality and consistency of service.

The real question, I think, is which rules should really be rules. All airline pilots, for example, are instructed to go over a written checklist with their co-pilots, even though they may have read the same list a thousand times--and I, for one, am glad that they do. However, there's a very good argument for permitting the person who is directly in contact with the customer to use her or his own judgment when the situation warrants. I have yet to run into a procedures manual, no matter how well written, that can anticipate every situation.

I am of the opinion that the most difficult job in management is to achieve the balance between encouraging personal initiative and insisting that regulations be followed. It's an interesting issue and one that I tried to address in "The Law Of Corporate Failure," in which I discussed the importance of the relative weighting of the rewards for success vs. the punishments for failure.

I'm not a pushy individual; however, I am aggressive. I believe in the service we provide and know that we can help companies save money if they outsource their IT needs.

Hunter

Dear Hunter:
It's good that you have such faith in the service your company provides. You wouldn't be able to sell it if you didn't. I would point out, however, that companies differ in their problems and priorities. You're more likely to make headway with the CIOs upon whom you call if you recognize that it isn't a given that every one of them could save their companies money if only they would outsource their IT. Communicate what you provide rather than assume that your solution is what they need, and they will pay far more attention to you.

The second point I would like to make is that while you have characterized yourself as aggressive rather than pushy, you need to remember that the judgment of the boundaries separating assertive, aggressive, and obnoxious will be made by your potential clients. It's reality that people find it easier to buy from individuals whom they like than from people who rub them the wrong way, so pay attention to their reaction to your sales techniques and adjust them accordingly.

I've written several articles that relate to my experiences with vendors. If you go through back issues of this letters column, you'll find quite a number of exchanges on the subject. You can also see some of the columns that were published in InformationWeek, such as "What Is It That You're Selling?," "Gulf Of Misunderstanding," and "Be Clear--Or Be Deleted."

The computer is left on all the time. Believing the motherboard battery was prematurely failing (and I was experiencing slow performance with 72 Mbytes RAM 60ms), I replaced the motherboard with an ASUS Super Socket 100-MHz mainboard and upgraded to 128 Mbytes SRAM 10ms. No change. Suggestions?

Randy

Dear Randy:
At the risk of receiving a whole lot of technical questions that are better suited to be answered by someone more knowledgeable, it seems to me that you may have spent a bunch of money and time needlessly. Take a look at the power settings in Windows and in the BIOS. Sometimes the Windows 98 display clock stops when the computer goes into sleep mode. The reason is that the version of the BIOS is too old for the Windows 98SR2 Y2K upgrade. If no BIOS update is available, turn off all the power saving settings and you might see the problem go away. If that doesn't work, it's possible that there's a conflict with an installed program such as Norton SystemWorks.

My question is, how do these consultants continue to get hired? I've been in IT for 17 years, seven of those in management. At four different companies where I have worked, major IT consulting firms have been brought in. The firms involved were three of the Big Five. In each case, the price tag was in the millions of dollars, for very dubious value. There was usually bait-and-switch staffing, resulting in the company paying very high rates for recent college graduates. Nearly everyone I've ever met in IT knows these firms' reputations, and in a number of cases, there has been some form of legal action.

How do they continue to get new business? Are the decision makers who bring them in unaware of their reputations? Do they continue to get hired based on the reputation of the accounting side of their business? Do they have more lawyers than consultants to clean up the trail behind them?

Thanks, keep up the good work,
Charles

Dear Charles:
What is the sound of one hand clapping? If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a noise? Why do we elect candidates who lie to us? These and other unanswerable questions join those that you have raised about hiring consultants who don't do the job that's anticipated.

People tend to hire consultants when they perceive that they either don't have the knowledge or the time to attack a task. Rather than sit around and do nothing, they think that bringing in an outsider is a course of action that absolves them of the potential of being labeled a do-nothing. It's a siren song that's hard to resist. IT shop not doing the job? Bring in a consulting firm. Supply chain costing too much money? Bring in a consulting firm. It's been the standard response for a management problem in a lot of companies for as long as I can remember.

Let's recognize, however, that some consulting engagements result in happy clients. Over my career, there have been several times when an outside firm was hired and we were pleased with the results; other times, we were very upset with having spent money for what we perceived was a negative coefficient of assistance. "NCA" is a term that I coined to describe a situation in which, having spent money, you are worse off than you were before. It comes from an experience with a neighbor who claimed to know all about rain gutters and ladders. When we were done, it cost me significantly more to fix the damage than if I had not enlisted his help. Hence, negative coefficient of assistance.

The major differentiation that I have found between those occasions in which a consultant was useful and those in which consultants just mucked up the situation was knowledgeable management participation by our own people. In other words, the disasters all were situations in which we turned over the keys to the kingdom to the consultants. I suspect if you look back over the instances that you cite, you'll find that the turning point into failure was the lack of management review and control.

Thanks,
Susan

Dear Susan:
Probably the easiest way for your company to get the information you need is to purchase Salary Survey 2000 from InformationWeek. Just go to Tools, then Research, at the left-hand side of this page.

The survey will tell you pay by location, job function, and projected salary increases. If you don't want to spend the money ($595), then search the Web and take a look at the various magazine articles that are periodically published about salary ranges.

Herbert W. Lovelace shares his experiences (changing most names, including his own, to protect the guilty) as CIO of a multibillion-dollar international company. Send him E-mail at lovelace@home.com.