A Desk is a Dangerous Place to View the World ...

"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.)

Comments

[Theresa]

Hi.I am in Manila. right now there is a big typhoon and we are all stuck in the offices. To be honest, currently the desk is the only place to view the world. Ha! Ha! Got you....

[KS Shim]

As every week, thanks for opening our minds.

[Jeff]

Bottom line - I'm an old fashioned salesman although in our brave new world I'm referred to as an "account executive".

When a client calls me and says "I've got a problem", my response is 'I'll be right over".

My client base is kept small but successful. I do have the luxury of my clients being within a 1-2 hour drive of my office. I never handle issues over the phone when I have the choice of sitting in front of the client and seeing first hand what they're having a problem with.

And frankly, that should be law.

[Rohit]

In my previous company,we used to have borrel with beer to discuss weekly issues and that was more productive than conference room meetings...

Becoming An Entrepreneur: http://joshiventures.blogspot.com/

[Roy]

Meetings are the way of life in my company. That is our culture. The key issue that needs to be addressed is having effective meetings. If we do that, there would be increase productivity. Travel to overseas sites costs a lot so the best is to have discipline of effective meetings.

[Jason M]

Having a day without meetings? Are you kidding me? Many employees will have to be treated for depression...We are in new age. Called information age. Today's Maharaja engineers and Emperor managers want infomation served to them on a silver plater, right at their desktop. Walking on production floor, dirtying your hands? Such an unholy and below dignity thing to do. I think you are out of touch with reality...Conference rooms are the best places for high visibility.
Teh author needs some real life expereicne in today's companies.

[Sam from Sicily]

There is one famous lesson from our history: When Rome was burning, Nero was fiddling....We must avoid falling in the trap of developing last of the Roman culture in corporations. Executives need to stay close to the voice of the people. Successful companies do very well in this area.

[robert mittoo]

while first hand experience cannot be discounted as intrinsic part of the decision making process in today's corporate world it is almost impossible to CEO's to visit every location to deal with a problem or arrive at a business decision.
In's a great quote be Le Carre by does not apply universally.

[New Jordans]

It's great to hear from you and see what you've been up to. This blog makes me realize the energy of words and pictures. Keep coming up with ideas.

[Andrew]

Hello, I found your blog in a new directory of blogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, Your blog looks good. Have a nice day.

[anand]

Thanks to all for your comments.