Great Boss

Dead Boss
Ray Immelman

2
Copyright © 2003 by Raimond E. Immelman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without
permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief
passages in a review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either is the product of
the author’s imagination or is used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons—
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locations are entirely coincidental.

Trademark notice: Product names or corporate names may be trademarks or registered

trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation, without intent to
infringe.

Publisher Cataloging-In-Publication Data

Immelman, Raimond Emile, 1956-
Great Boss Dead Boss: How to exact the very best performance from your
company and not get crucified in the process. /Ray Immelman.
317p 23cm.
C2003.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-9740369-1-9 (pbk)
ISBN 978-09740369-1-5 (digital)
0-620-31878-13
658.4

Printed in the United States of America

Electronic version created in the United States of America.

First Impression 2003

Second Impression 2005
Digital Impression 2013

Published by: Stewart Phillip International LLC

Phoenix, Arizona USA

www.greatbossdeadboss.com

3
 Acknowledgement
Those who love us, shape us forever. My most treasured, now dusty,
childhood memories are of the gentle, shining love with which my mother led me
through the wonder of the written world.
The universe of my bony-kneed youth stretched from 20,000 leagues under
the sea to the planet Krypton–from defeating the Red Baron with blazing machine
guns to walking down the yellow brick road with a gorgeous girl named Dorothy.
Those great penned adventures create a wondrous world of fantasy that is
truly ours, just for our own pleasure–ever fresh and ever new. As time fades our
hopes and ambitions like the colors in a photograph, the inner world remains bright
and joyous–untainted by a slowing, shuffling existence.
Now, when my children look up from the written page, I see the same
shining wonder in their eyes. I smile just like my mother did. Quietly, gently
content that they too have a joyous world of their very own through the magic of
the written word.
As I smile, I’m sure God smiles too–quietly, gently, contentedly.

4
 Chapter One
The man across the desk was breathing hard. The glass in his trembling hand
rattled briefly as it touched the table. The tirade had played itself out and the
tension seeped out of his knotted shoulders, his head down. Greg could see the
bitter frustration on the face reflected in the glass top. He licked his lips, took a
deep breath, and looked up.
“You haven’t heard the end of this, Greg,” he resumed, anger still blazing in
his speech. “I’ve had enough of the backstabbing and the in-fighting. We’re not
going to make it with a full-scale guerrilla war out there.” His voice steadied
somewhat, as did his breathing.
“It’s your job to bring order to this business. I know you’ve been in charge
only a few weeks, but the situation is out of control. You’re the guy with the
power. You have to show it!”
His voice trailed off as he took a long, ragged breath.
‘He’s tired and beaten,’ Greg thought, as he looked into the angry green
eyes still bright with frustration. He chose his words with care.
“Dennis, I know things are tough out there. We’re facing a crisis right now.
Tempers are bound to fray when people are working to such pressure.” His words
sounded hollow and unconvincing, even to himself. “Once we have the
AsiaComNet order out the door, we’ll be in calmer waters. Then we’ll have the
time to review our structures and the chain of command,” he continued.
The renewed disappointment in the grizzled man’s eyes tightened the
corners of his mouth. He looked down at the glass in his hand.
“It’s not a question of once we have the order out, but whether we get it out
at all,” Dennis retorted vehemently. “This issue comes up again and again, but you
continue to place the order deadline ahead of dealing with the problem! This time
it has gone too far. There is such infighting between departments that I expect a
walkout by the end of the week. That’s the end of the AsiaComNet order, and any
repeat business.”
Dennis got up and looked at him with despair. “Come on Greg. We cannot
let this happen. You don’t want a disaster on your hands.”
Greg found it difficult to return his gaze. He made a meaningless note on the
pad in front of him. “I’ll talk to the crew in the morning,” he replied.
Dennis stopped in the doorway. “Don’t let it get out of control. I agreed to
help you, but not to get my head served on a platter to corporate head office. If you
can’t get our people motivated and everyone pulling in the same direction, we’re
dead. I don’t want to be part of the funeral.” He strode down the corridor, heading
out to the parking lot.

Dennis was one of the best troubleshooters in the whole of Intec

Corporation–a reputation earned through dozens of plant improvements. To see
him so angry was unusual. The very existence of the plant was at stake and the

5
stress was taking its toll on everyone. The AsiaComNet order was crucial to get
them off top management’s hit list.
Greg knew Dennis well. In fact, Dennis had hired him for his first job fresh
out of college–him the quintessential rookie engineer eager to apply all the theory,
and a real danger to the company. He started work at one of the very first plants
that made computer chips in large quantities, way back when 48kB of random
access memory was considered to be awesome power in a desktop computer.
From there onwards, their careers had gone in different directions. Dennis
got more involved in the company’s infant microchip factories in the Far East
while Greg was moved from one facility to another as part of the management
trainee program. They occasionally saw each other at the mandatory corporate get-
togethers in some exotic location.
Once Greg was through the management trainee program, which also got
him an MBA from an Ivy League business school, his first management challenge
came as a section manager in one of the smaller printed circuit board
manufacturing plants. At that time, Intec Corporation, the holding company, built
plants in small, underdeveloped towns, driven more by the tax breaks than
common sense.
His boss, the Chief Operating Officer, left halfway through the year and
Greg was forced to assume control while head office decided what to do. He must
have done well in their eyes, for his next promotion came within the year –
Manufacturing Director at the same plant. He did his duty with the same single-
minded dedication that had carried him through the late nights of study at business
school, and the results were noticeable. They won the president’s award for the
most efficient plant in the group. He was the first to admit, though, that the solid
American small town values of honesty and hard work had made a bigger
contribution to success than his managerial prowess.
Then his world changed. A year ago, two months after the president’s award
ceremony, just as he ended the daily production meeting, the telephone rang. He
had his feet on the scratched steel desk in the maintenance office, drinking coffee
with the supervisors when the switchboard operator tracked him down.
Head office was on the line.
The booming Scottish voice on the other end was unmistakable. “Greg, me
bonny lad, am I interrupting you?”
It was the Group Vice President of Global Manufacturing. Greg swung his
legs off the table and sat bolt upright. Sandy McDougall rarely called, and never
directly to anyone at his level in the corporation. This had to be important.
“No, not at all,” Greg hastily replied, dismissing the others in the room with
a wave of his hand.
“I want to see you in my office as soon as you can make it,” Sandy
continued. Greg heard the rattle of Sandy typing. He waited.
“I see our corporate plane is in your area tomorrow,” Sandy continued, “See
if you can beg a seat on it, and inform my assistant when you’ll arrive.”
Greg’s head was spinning. Such short notice could mean anything. “What’s

6
 on the agenda?” Greg asked.
“I’ll fill you in when you get here,” came the clipped reply before he rang
off. Walking back to his office, dozens of possibilities raced through Greg’s mind.

-oOo-

The frost still sparkled in the early morning sunlight as the Lear folded up
its undercarriage and turned into the rising sun. It was a crisp, clear day and the jet
joyously bounded up to its cruising altitude in the cold air. The small country
runway disappeared from view. The plane was nearly empty, with only two other
passengers in the wide leather seats. Greg opened his briefcase and took out the
documents he had printed the night before. It had taken him a while to update and
compile the most recent business statistics and he had gone to bed after midnight.
He thought it prudent to be well prepared for any questions and settled down to
review the financial numbers.
“They’re not bad,” he thought after half an hour. Output was above budget,
expenditure was slightly below budget, manning levels were under control and the
sales forecast looked good. He could find no cause for concern that demanded his
immediate presence at head office. He sighed and started from the beginning again,
looking for anomalies he might have missed on the first pass.
Intec was known and respected on Wall Street for its very tight cost
controls, and the accounting system reflected this. The printout contained an
incredible amount of detail. Again, Greg could find nothing of concern.
He leaned back in the seat, nervously chewing a fingernail, and looked out
the window. The Midwest cornfields formed an endless quilted pattern as far as the
eye could see. He dozed off, his head resting against the interior of the fuselage.
He woke when the pilot announced their final approach into Chicago
O’Hare airport. ‘I should get to bed earlier,’ he yawned, stuffing the thick ream of
paper back into his briefcase. The wheels gently touched the tarmac in a flawless
landing. ‘Let’s hope it’s a good omen for the rest of the day,’ he smiled to himself.
The aircraft taxied to a halt at the doors of the Intec hangar.
He walked to the ground crew’s office and called for a taxi.

-oOo-

Downtown Chicago never ceased to fascinate him. Inside the Loop he

seemed to be in another world—an odd mixture of cool indifference on the outside
and frenetic wheeling and dealing on the inside that belied the sophisticated calm
that greets the newcomer.
The cab dropped him in front of the Intec building. ‘Now I know why the
manufacturing plants have to pay such exorbitant management fees to corporate,’
he thought, craning his neck to look up at the towering glass-encased building. He
walked through the echoing lobby to the bank of elevators that served the top
twenty floors and punched the call button. The doors opened and Greg had to stand

7
aside as a group of executive assistants spilled out and chattered their way to the
entrance.
‘Makes me feel like a real country bumpkin,’ he thought, watching the
electronic display flit through the numbers until it stopped at 63. The receptionist
smiled at him as he walked through the glass door. “Hello Greg. Make yourself at
home. Sandy will be with you in a minute.”
He had barely opened a magazine from the coffee table when Sandy strode
into the foyer. Greg struggled out of the awkwardly low-slung designer-chic chair.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, shaking Greg’s hand. “I’m sure you could do with
some refreshment after the flight. What’ll you have?”
“Coffee, black,” Greg replied, grabbing his briefcase. Sandy passed their
order to his personal assistant in the outer office before he closed the door.
“Let me take your coat,” he offered. As Sandy hung it on the coat tree, Greg
was awestruck by the panorama of Lake Michigan. The water was azure blue and a
speckle of yachts leaning in the wind made a brilliant white contrast.
‘How can anyone do real work in here,’ he wondered, putting his briefcase
on the conference table.
“Sit down, laddie,” Sandy commanded, taking a file off his desk before
joining him. Greg took his own documents from his briefcase and put them down
within easy reach.
Sandy leaned back and looked at him across the table. “I hear good things
about you,” he began. For the next ten minutes they discussed the trials and
tribulations of running a plant in a remote part of the country. Although it was a
pleasant conversation, Greg sensed that the performance of his plant was not the
reason for him being there. Eventually, Sandy leaned forward and opened the file.
‘This is it.’ Greg held his breath, waiting for Sandy to put on his spectacles.
“What do you know about the MicroLogic acquisition?” Sandy asked,
looking at Greg over the top of his reading glasses.
“Probably as much as anyone who takes the trouble of reading the corporate
newsletter,” Greg smiled. “Intec bought MicroLogic some three months ago for
$1.8 billion in stock and cash. The board waxed lyrical about the potential for
synergy that existed between the two organizations. With our manufacturing
competency and their R&D infrastructure, it was a marriage made in Wall Street
heaven. We were going to leave the competitors in the dust with new technology
and be the first to beat Moore’s Law. We would save a zillion dollars in expenses
and stun the world with a dazzling array of new processors–something along those
lines.”
“Marriage in Wall Street heaven?” Sandy snorted. “More like porcupines
making love, me lad!” Sandy sat back, folding his arms. “Here’s the situation.
There is enormous pressure from the board to speed up the integration of
MicroLogic into our business and to show the Street that we’ll deliver on our
promises of higher profitability, increased efficiency and synergy. Last quarter’s
results came out worse than expected, and the analysts were onto us like a pack of
wolves.

8
 In yesterday’s conference call with them, the chairman neatly passed the
buck to Ed Winthrop, our CEO, to explain why the goose had not as yet laid the
promised golden eggs. Ed did a masterful job explaining that this ‘merger of
equals’ will take a while, and that the good times were just a tad late in arriving.
He was sweating bullets, but managed to pacify their concerns.”
Sandy shook his head, lost in thought for a few seconds.
“They grudgingly accepted our explanation about the delay in integrating
the two companies, but expressed concern about our short term production
capability. One of the significant benefits we had promised was an increase in
output from the existing MicroLogic plants.
There is a global shortage of microprocessors, particularly in the cellular
phone market, and we thought our manufacturing expertise would increase their
output overnight. Since it would generate a substantial bottom line impact, the
analysts wanted to know why this was not happening.
Ed was utterly at a loss to give a satisfactory answer, which is something he
cannot tolerate. You know how obsessed he is with being ahead of the curve. To
make matters worse, our stock price took a significant dive the very next morning.
The board went ballistic.”
Greg waited in silence. Sandy leaned forward.
“When the emergency board meeting ended, Ed threw down the gauntlet to
manufacturing. He demanded a significant increase in output from the MicroLogic
plants before the next results were due and made no bones about the dire
consequences if this did not happen.”
Sandy flipped through the file and took out a computer printout. “I had a
look at the production capacity in both of the MicroLogic plants and it seems to me
that the plant in San Francisco has the greatest potential to give us the results we
need in a hurry. The plant is relatively new, the technology is state-of-the-art, and
it has lots of inefficiencies waiting to be exploited. Capacity utilization is low,
output is erratic, and labor turnover is high.”
A look of frustration briefly clouded his expression.
“Immediately after the merger we moved some of our best technical staff
down there to help streamline their operation, but for some unknown reason they
could not get their act together. The more we tried to help, the worse it became.
Labor relations went down the drain, and right now there are rumblings of a
prolonged strike. That would really sink us.”
Sandy put the printout back into the file and looked at Greg. “I want you to
go out to San Francisco and work the same magic that you did at your plant, only
this time you’re promoted to general manager. You have just less than three
months to increase output, keep Ed happy and keep us all gainfully employed.”
Greg was dumbstruck. This is the last thing he expected.
“What about my plant?” he blurted. “I have a whole raft of initiatives in
progress!”
Sandy shrugged. “We’ll find a way to take care of that. Right now, we have
to keep the guy in the corner office really happy.” He inclined his head in the

9
direction of the CEO’s office.
‘And to keep your stock options in good shape as well,’ Greg thought
cynically as he continued. “Initiatives aside, there are a bunch of issues that must
be dealt with before I can get out there. For example, who’s in charge of the plant
in San Francisco right now, what happens to him, who will assume my
responsibilities back home, and what about my family?”
Sandy nodded in appreciation. “I know this is unexpected and we’ll deal
with all the major issues as quickly as possible. Be it as it may, I need you out in
San Francisco in a tearing hurry. While you were on the plane this morning, I
updated the general manager at your plant on the situation. He was really miffed
about losing you. He agreed to assume your duties in the short term until we can
find a suitable replacement. As for the general manager in San Francisco, he will
move to MicroLogic’s R&D division. We have been discussing it for some time,
but this latest decree precipitated the decision. Before you landed in Chicago, I
briefed him that you would be taking over command very shortly.”
Greg looked at Sandy with renewed respect. The tall Scotsman did not let
grass grow under his feet.
Sandy continued. “I suggest you travel to San Francisco every week for the
next month. At the end of the month we’ll have a better idea of the magnitude of
the problem and how long it will take you to work your miracles. That will give us
enough time to move your family down there in an orderly fashion.”

In the cab to the airport, Greg looked at the people thronging the sidewalks.
He wondered how long it would take him to adapt to big city life in San Francisco.
He felt a sense of impending doom.

10
 Chapter Two
The neon-lit MicroLogic sign on the tall column had a halo in the sleeting
rain, not quite hiding the sea air corrosion under the glistening wetness. Greg
pulled the rental car into the visitors’ parking, grabbed his briefcase and ran to the
front door, head down through the rain. The receptionist looked at him with a wide
fake smile. Greg could sense her wariness. The grapevine must have been working
overtime.
In the two days since he had left Sandy’s office, things had moved with
surprising speed. Back at the plant he had cleared out his desk, handed whatever
information he could to the general manager, backed up and deleted his personal
files from the LAN, threw his golf trophies, university diplomas and family
pictures in a box and headed home. After packing his travel bag, he kissed his
wife, Christine, and their two children goodbye and headed for San Francisco. She
was still trying to come to terms with the sudden turn of events.

Greg took off his damp jacket as the receptionist paged the general manager.
While waiting, he noticed a display of certificates on the wall in the entrance hall.
A handful of quality achievement awards from some obscure training company,
tarnished pledges to quality, customer satisfaction and efficiency signed by the
CEO and twelve other senior executives. The employee of the month looked
terrified in the overexposed photograph in the plastic sleeve. The company
mission statement had mold patches behind the flyspecked glass.
Greg had collected as much information as possible about the plant before
coming to San Francisco. He knew that the general manager—Jack Rance—was an
MIT graduate in microelectronics and had been with MicroLogic for some ten
years. He had been deeply involved in the design and construction of the San
Francisco plant.
The inner doors opened with a hiss of compressed air and Greg turned to
meet the man. He was short and dapper with a shock of thick black hair. Greg
again sensed wariness as they shook hands.
“Delighted to meet you,” Jack smiled. It did not reach his eyes.
“Likewise.” Greg returned the smile, instinctively liking the firm handshake.
They walked down the hall to Jack’s office. It was sparse with no personal
assistant in sight. Greg hung his jacket over a chair and sat down. While Jack got
coffee from the vending station in the passage, Greg took out his writing pad and
laptop computer.
Jack put the steaming styrene coffee cup down with care and sat down in the
opposite chair. “Well, where do we begin?” he asked brusquely, a thousand
questions in his eyes.
“Let me start by saying that I did not ask for this assignment. It was dumped
on me out of the blue,” Greg responded.

11
 “Welcome to the rational decisions of the corporate world,” Jack chuckled.
“Sandy told me that you have a great reputation for improving plant performance.
We can surely use all the help we can get to increase productivity. Intec sent some
improvement experts down here just after the takeover, but they quickly alienated
just about everybody around here. They acted like Spanish conquerors, insisting
we implement their improvement plans without involving us in developing them.
From Sandy’s comments, it seems that your style is more collaborative.”
Greg looked uncomfortable, wondering what else had been said. “Most of it
is a gross exaggeration.” He looked down at his notes on the writing pad.
“How long will you still be here before you leave for your new job?”
Jack scratched his chin. “About two weeks, I’d guess.”
“Well, I’ll have to make the most of your time then. I need to learn as much
as possible about the company before you go.”
“I’m not going to Mars,” Jack smiled. “You’ll still be able to reach me by
phone.”
“By then you will have a load on your mind and you won’t have much time
to spare,” Greg countered.
Jack nodded in agreement. “Let’s begin then. I’ve cleared my calendar for
today to help you get acquainted with the business. From tomorrow you will be
working with the rest of the management team. I’ll fill in the missing pieces as you
require.”

The remainder of the day flew by, as they got engrossed in strategies,
budgets, business plans, vendors, and staffing data. It was dark outside when Jack
rubbed his gritty eyes, leaned back and said, “That’s it for today. I’m bushed.”
Greg gathered up the piles of paper and stuffed them into his briefcase.
On the way out, they greeted the night watchman at the front desk. The rain
had stopped. Greg drove to the hotel, checked in and phoned home. It was good to
hear his daughter’s voice. She was excited about the uncomplicated things in life,
like her new dress and her science project that was accepted for the state science
fair. He could hear the pride in her mother’s voice when she came on the line. His
son was grumbling–dragon mom had taken the videogame away again.
Suddenly the small hotel room was a very lonely place. Being a road warrior
did not suit his lifestyle very well. He opened the briefcase, picked a document
from the top of the pile and started reading. He put the light out at two a.m. in the
morning.

-oOo-

He was back at the plant at seven a.m.–just in time to get the last parking
space way in the back of the lot. The shifts changed over at six a.m. in the
morning, and the lot was full. There was a bustle of activity all around.
Jack had given him a copy of the payroll, which enabled him to find the
names of the key people. He asked the receptionist to contact Lee Tanaka, the

12
Director of Operations. She dialed the number and pointed to the telephone at the
end of the counter. Greg picked it up. The oriental inflexion was still present under
the cultured English when Lee answered.
“Hi Lee. It’s Greg. Can I see you?”
“Sure!” Lee replied. “My office is on the second floor. Should I come fetch
you?”
“Don’t worry,” Greg reassured him. “I’ll find my way.” He walked down
the passage, followed by the now-familiar hiss of escaping air as the double air-
lock doors closed behind him. He climbed the stairs and was met by Lee on the
walkway. They shook hands. Greg looked out over the factory. It was an
impressive sight.
Microelectronic plants operate in some of the cleanest environments created
by man, carefully sealed off from the outside world to prevent contamination of the
nanoscale circuitry they produced. The plant was whisper quiet. Only the hum of
air conditioning and the occasional soft metallic rattle from the automated material
handling system broke the silence.
Every piece of equipment was enameled pristine ice white or reflected
gleaming stainless steel. The only contrast was in the rainbow colors of the
different service lines running along pillars or roof girders. A myriad of pipes for
purified water, power, compressed air, gas, acid, vacuum and fire-prevention
snaked through the white equipment.
The sheer size of the facility took Greg’s breath away. Jack had told him the
night before that it was one of the biggest in Intec, and the other plants looked
insignificant by comparison.
Greg studied the cavernous space for a long time, committing the layout to
memory. He fired a barrage of questions at Lee, hardly giving him enough time to
answer one question before the next one followed. After two hours, Greg stood
back from the triple insulated glass wall that separated the offices from the
production floor and grinned at Lee.
“You really know this place well. I’m glad you’re here. It will make my job
a lot easier.” Lee smiled with relief, not knowing why he should feel like he had
just passed some significant test.

-oOo-

Greg spent the rest of the week systematically working through every
department, getting to understand each one’s role and function. He met most of the
employees, clambered down ventilation shafts, burrowed through warehouses and
stores, inspected underground service lines, kicked weeds out of the ground in the
yard behind the plant and even clambered up onto the roof. There he was treated to
a spectacular view over the Pacific Ocean. “I should relocate my office up here,”
he quipped. The sweating maintenance manager, who acted as his tour guide, was
trying to get his breath back. He could only manage a feeble nod.

13
 The plane back home took off late on Friday afternoon. The workdays had
been long and intense, and he felt the tiredness in his shoulder muscles.
‘Locating the plants in back country areas seems to be a much better idea.
It’s so much quieter and less rushed,’ he though ruefully, massaging his neck. He
closed his eyes and ran through his assessment of the business.
The staff was well trained and the new ERP system integrated the vendors
into the operation - one of the very few successful installations Greg had ever seen.
Demand exceeded supply, and the order book looked good for the foreseeable
future.
Weaknesses, however, were more difficult to pin down and that troubled
him. It felt as if everything was running too well. He knew from experience that
successful manufacturing businesses tended to be pretty dramatic places with
intense pressure and lots of frenetic activity.
He did not sense that at MicroLogic. Instead, he had a distinct feeling that
people were wary and carefully on guard while talking to him. Although he had
experienced courteous cooperation and even amicable interaction, he sensed a
deep, hooded distrust behind the friendly faces. There was some other dynamic at
work that eluded his understanding. A different, hidden set of rules was dictating
their behavior. Not being able to put his finger on it, made him very
uncomfortable.
While picking at the in-flight meal, the intense work pace of the previous
days caught up with him. He set the cutlery down and dozed off. He woke up when
the stewardess removed his dinner tray and asked him to put his seatback upright
for landing.
The aircraft came to a halt at the gate, and he carefully removed the two
shiny gift-wrapped boxes from the overhead bin, smiling in anticipation at the
gleeful delight they would bring.

-oOo-

Saturday morning saw him on the golf course. It was a glorious day to be
outside. After getting home the night before, he had spent a wonderful evening
with the children. They were ecstatic to have him back and fell asleep in his arms,
one on each side.
When Andrew, an old college friend and a software engineer of considerable
capability, phoned early to invite him for a round of golf, Christine insisted that he
used the opportunity to relax and get some exercise. He was grateful for his wife’s
understanding.
Andrew had been his golf partner since college and walking down the
emerald green fairway in the bright morning sunshine with him was like turning
back the clock to their days on campus. He savored the day, like something
precious he was about to lose. He knew that his move to California would probably
make their golfing days very few and far between.
Andrew grimaced as he hit his ball into the rough.

14
 “You’re a true hacker–in and out the office,” Greg grinned.
“You don’t have much to boast about either,” Andrew retorted. “You
needed diving equipment to retrieve your ball at the last hole.” Greg laughed. It
was great to put MicroLogic out of his thoughts for a while.
Walking down the eighth fairway, the conversation turned to business.
Andrew shared his latest breakthrough in programmable logic controllers and how
he was looking for venture capital to develop the new business. He was really
excited about the opportunities the new technology offered in an untapped market.
“Tell me about this new opportunity that takes you to California,” Andrew
demanded. With that, Greg was forced to think about MicroLogic again. He had
immense respect for Andrew’s sober thinking and decided to share some of the
concerns he felt about the company.
“Let me describe the situation at MicroLogic and see what you can add to
help me understand the situation better.”
“Sure!” Andrew replied. “I’ll do my best to wreck your chances of further
promotion.”
“Come on, be serious,” Greg scolded, poking Andrew in the ribs with the
golf club.
“OK, no need to get violent,” he yelped, running around the golf cart and
throwing his hands up in mock defense. “I’ll help you, I’ll help you.”
Greg explained the challenge that Sandy had dumped into his lap.
“What really bothers me is the undercurrent in the organization,” he
continued, a small frown of puzzlement creasing his forehead. “I just can’t put my
finger on it. There is nothing physical that prevents the plant from spewing out tons
of product. The equipment is first-class, the plant is in great condition, the market
is asking for more products and the management team appears to be very capable,
but still they cannot produce to maximum capacity.”
Andrew looked puzzled. “I assume they have implemented improvement
programs?” he asked. Greg snorted in disgust. “Boy, have they implemented
programs! The walls are covered with slogans, posters, scoreboards, awards,
trophies, flags, initiatives, graphs and statuettes. They’ve tried Business Process
Reengineering, Constraint management, Self-directed work teams, Six-Sigma,
Agile, Just-in-Time–the whole gamut.”
“And what was the outcome?”
“The Vice President of Operations says it has had no lasting impact. There is
always a predictable flurry of activity and excitement when the new initiative gets
under way, but it soon peters out and performance goes back to what it was before.
They’ve contracted several outside consultants to help improve performance.
Whenever there was an intervention from outside, the same thing happened.
Things improved for a short while, and then returned to the old status quo.”
“Sounds like the famous Hawthorne effect to me,” Andrew commented.
“Exactly,” Greg enthused. “I don’t doubt for a minute that management’s efforts to
improve the situation were genuine, but the effects didn’t last.”(1)
“You’ll be surprised how many companies have the same problem,”

15
Andrew observed. “Many of the plants that contact us to install computerized
monitoring and control systems seem to consider our option as the last resort–an
expensive effort to gain control over people’s activities. They all want to use the
system to set performance standards and to hold people accountable for deviations
from the standard. They’re convinced that better, more accurate measurement and
control will ensure sustained high productivity levels.”
Greg looked uncomfortable. “I’ve had the same experience with electronic
monitoring. It does nothing to improve intrinsic motivation. Most people think it is
proof of management’s distrust and they feel demeaned by mindless computers
keeping track of them. In fact, they would frequently go out of their way to
sabotage the system just to demonstrate that they won’t allow electronic
performance monitoring to cheapen their value as individuals.”
“That’s true,” Andrew concurred. “We get many calls to repair electronic
sensors that have mysteriously stopped functioning, that have simply disappeared,
or wiring that had gotten scrambled for some inexplicable reason. It happens again
and again in the same plant.”
“I would do the same,” Greg admitted. “Working under the unrelenting
pressure of electronically monitored hourly or daily output targets is a nerve-
racking experience. Sabotaging equipment becomes a very attractive idea.”
They walked in silence.
“Darn it, Andrew!” Greg continued. “I’ve got to figure out this one. There is
something about MicroLogic that eludes me. All the stuff I learnt at business
school hasn’t help me one bit. The traditional business practices I expect to find are
in place, but it all flows like cold molasses.”

He teed up the ball on the tenth, took careful aim and sliced the ball neatly
into the rough. Andrew struggled to keep a straight face, watching Greg castigate
himself. Greg flailed at the ball in the tall grass and eventually got it back onto the
fairway.
With a resolute set to his jaw, Greg marched down the center of the
fairway. Andrew diplomatically continued the conversation. “Well, if it is none of
the obvious stuff, we’ll have to look at this from a different perspective.” For the
remainder of the course they discussed and argued over the possible reasons for the
behavior at MicroLogic. They discounted obvious causes like unfocused corporate
goals, poor strategy formulation and execution, planning and scheduling,
management capability and more. For every one of the potential causes, Greg
could provide evidence to show that that particular aspect was well managed, or
did not relate to MicroLogic’s business. All that remained was Greg’s
uncomfortable feeling that it had more to do with people than business systems.
The concealed wariness, the veneer of friendliness and cooperation and the plastic
brightness of enthusiasm were the only clues that remained.
“Is there conflict between Intec and MicroLogic?” Andrew tried another
tack.
“I have not experienced anything like that,” Greg replied. “When I’m back

16
in San Francisco next week, I’ll do some more investigation. Is there anything else
you can suggest that could be of help?” Greg asked imploringly.
“Frankly, no.” Andrew apologized. “You need to get your hands on more
information.”
As they walked off the green at the eighteenth hole, Andrew suddenly
paused and stood frowning—momentarily deep in thought.
“Care to share that thought, buddy?” Greg exhorted impatiently.
Andrew surfaced from his reverie but still looked pensive. “I don’t have an
answer,” he replied, “but I just thought of someone who might.”
“Well, tell me!” Greg urged.
“Let’s go change first. Then I might consider sharing my brilliance over a
cold lager at your expense.” Andrew replied.

The afternoon sky had turned a cool blue. The brilliance was reflected in
the water hazards along the eighteenth fairway, turning them into pools of ice blue
light. Condensation dewed the outside of the tall beer glasses on the table.
“Well, now you have your extorted beer…” Greg picked up on the
conversation. Andrew grinned as he set the glass down and ceremoniously licked
the foam from his upper lip.
“In my travels to sell process control systems, I’ve seen the inside of many
different plants. Most of them were boringly the same, with zombie-like human
automatons moving materials from machine to machine. On one occasion,
however, I came across an organization that made a lasting impression on me—a
business that simply radiated enthusiasm and excitement, and that’s been a
wonderful business partner to work with. Their enthusiasm was so contagious that
it rubbed off on our people, which in turn inspired us to go that extra mile for
them.”
Andrew took another gulp of beer and continued the conversation. “This one
company made a profound impression on me. It is a small printed circuit
manufacturer that’s growing in leaps and bounds. It seems to be immune to the
massive fluctuations in business cycles that are endemic to that industry.
Even the buyers made me feel as if I was part of the company and not their
sworn enemy, which is unusual. Although they bought very little from us, we felt
as though we made a significant contribution to their business, rather than being
someone they tried to exploit at arm’s length for their own gain. I was fascinated
by the buzz of excitement and the enthusiasm that permeated their activities. It was
a very pleasant place to be, in spite of the state the industry was in. It just felt good
to be there, and I went back again and again, trying to figure out what it was that
made them so different. They were like a lighthouse in a gray fog of boring
businesses. If they were to phone me tomorrow with a request for help, I’d make
our company jumps through hoops to be of service, simply because it’s such a
pleasure to work with them.”
Greg was spellbound. “C’mon, tell me how they do it!” he urged.
Andrew smiled at his impatience. “In spite of me going back time and again,

17
I could not figure out what made them so different.”
Greg’s face fell. “You’ve got to be kidding! All that effort and no answer!
Give me back my beer!” He pointed accusingly at the empty glass.
“Whoa, I haven’t finished yet,” Andrew laughed. “One factor did seem to
play a significant role. The owner is a very interesting and unusual guy and I have
the impression that he was instrumental in creating the ambience of joie de vie that
permeated every part of his business. There was nothing tangible—no formal
program, no consulting project that I could find that made the difference, except
my gut feeling that he was doing something with his organization that was at the
core of its enthusiasm.”
“How, in a million years, is this going to help me with my problem?” Greg
asked crossly.
“I don’t know,” Andrew replied soberly. “All I know is that there was
something there, something profound that might lead us to discover a way to solve
your dilemma.”
Greg snorted in disgust. “I need a solution now—not some fairy tale about a
miraculous happy-happy land business.”
Andrew shrugged dejectedly. “I thought it might help you think about your
problem in a different way.”
They got up, left the terrace and walked back to the parking lot. Greg threw
his arm around his friend’s shoulders. “It is not that I don’t appreciate your help,”
he said. “I suppose I was hoping for a miracle solution to drop from your lips.”
Andrew puckered his mouth. “Like this you mean?” He pulled a grotesque
face.
“Yaaah, get away from me!” Greg recoiled in mock horror. They laughed as
they stowed their golf bags.

-oOo-

Christine was preparing supper when he parked the car in the driveway. The
children rushed out to meet him, followed by the flapping, yapping, salivating
family dog. He swung them high in the air and tucked one under each arm. He
walked into the kitchen, the children screeching with delight, kicking and flailing
to get out of his grip, the dog barking—nipping at his heels.
Christine loved to see him and the children play. In her heart of hearts she
was deeply concerned about the stress Greg was now forced to endure. The strain
lines around his mouth had become more pronounced and his temper had become
shorter. Thankfully, the children still caused an immediate change in him. She
couldn’t help but wonder about the long-term consequences of going to San
Francisco.

18
 Chapter Three
The aircraft was a brand new Boeing 737. The interior had that wonderful
smell of crisp new leather, fabric and plastic. Even the cabin attendants seemed
friendlier and more self-assured, working in a sparkling new environment. Their
attitude seemed to say–‘look at how successful we are.’

Two weeks had passed since he had played golf with Andrew, and it had not
been a pleasant period. In the week following their day on the golf course, Greg
had bid Jack Rance farewell and had gotten down to running the business. The first
part of the week went to formulating his improvement strategy based on the
information he had collected during his reconnaissance. The outcome disappointed
him. The plan had all the traditional stuff–improve customer service, reduce costs,
slash inventories. It seemed just like a business school assignment–totally devoid
of any heart-tripping excitement. ‘Perhaps I should first run it by the management
team to get their input before sharing it with Sandy in Chicago,’ he thought.

He walked into the mid-week production meeting, ready to get into the nuts
and bolts of turning MicroLogic into the star performer that both the Board and the
Street wanted to see. The meeting was held in a glass-walled room on the upper
floor in the production area. From there he could look out across the entire factory
floor. The converse was also true, of course. Everyone on the floor could see who
was in the room. No wonder it was called the fishbowl.
Nearly all the seats were taken, and he was forced to sit at the bottom end of
the conference table. He opened the folder with his business plan and looked
around the room. People from every department were there-purchasing,
production, maintenance, warehousing, distribution and sales. Lee was chairing the
meeting. He tapped his coffee mug on the table and the room grew quiet.
“Let’s start with a status update.” Every participant had a list of critical
action items that they reviewed twice a week. The conversation went round the
room, desultory in its familiarity. Everyone reported on progress they had made
and on new issues that had come up. These were briefly examined, actions
formulated and responsibility assigned. The discussion flowed with practiced ease
and Greg could sense that this had become a comfortable ritual.
The next item on the agenda was the review of order status. Greg picked up
the list of current orders, sorted by customer, product and quantity—part of the
info pack provided to him the night before in preparation for the meeting. The last
column was headed ‘Due’. Greg wasn’t sure what it meant. A lot of the numbers
were negative.
“Lee, could you explain the last column to me?” Greg asked.
Suddenly, the mood in the room changed dramatically. It instantly turned
from a lethargic, low-level interaction into a feeling of high drama. The tension
was palpable. The wariness that had bothered Greg all along was suddenly etched

19
on every face in the room. It was as if they’d all been turned into fighters in a ring,
mentally circling one another. Everyone avoided eye contact. Some were toying
with their papers on the table. Lee looked up, swallowed, and licked his lips. The
silence was deafening.
“It shows the status of orders relative to the promised due date,” he carefully
replied.
Greg looked at the row of figures. “And the negative numbers..?”
Lee looked uncomfortable. “It shows the number of days that an order is
past due,” he continued.
Greg went cold. He scanned the column again. Many of the orders, some of
very significant size, were very late. In total, it seemed that just over half of all
orders were past due. Greg looked up slowly. Every eye in the room was fixed on
him. He didn’t know what to say.

The computer industry is one of the most competitive industries in the world
and dependable delivery is the heartbeat of life. Computer makers go to enormous
lengths to squeeze every penny from their cost and work tirelessly to get products
through their factories as quickly as possible. Since they provided the key
components, microchip suppliers had to be utterly dependable to deliver exactly on
time when needed. Greg could still recall the global chaos when a RAM chip
factory in Taiwan had burnt down some years before. Overnight, the price of
microchips skyrocketed as computer makers tried to secure new supplies for their
plants.
The numbers on the page screamed at him in mute accusation. “I must ask
the obvious question,” Greg started slowly. “Why are more than half of our orders
late to very late?” There was a rustle of agitated shuffling, and Lee looked very
uncomfortable.
“We have problems getting them through the Quality Assurance process fast
enough,” he answered cautiously.
“That’s a lie!” the woman on the right exploded. Maggie was head of
Quality Assurance and took her job very seriously. “We spend a lot of time
checking the product again and again. The number of defects we receive from
production is horrendous. We dare not let up on our control procedures.”
“You know very well that we are within our expected percentage recovery
rate!” This time the explosion came from a bald, handlebar-mustached barrel
chested man in his fifties. He leaned over the table, the veins on his forehead
pulsing. “You simply don’t trust our on-line inspection capability. You always
have to do our work again!”
“Well, if you can get all of us to believe that you can make a good product,
perhaps we can …”
“Get you to believe!!” he roared in response. “You always find some way to
tighten up on the quality specifications, some way to keep us looking bad.”
“Nonsense,” Maggie retorted. “It’s simply your inability to set up and run
the production lines effectively, that forces us to expand the quality assurance

20
scope to forestall the next creative way that you screw up the product.”
Another explosion followed, this time from the maintenance manager.
“Whaddaya mean, unable to set up and run? Every time you tighten the quality
specification, we have to develop new setup procedures. That increases the
changeover times, which wrecks our efficiencies.”
“Oh, so now we are to blame for your changeover problems as well,” came
the tart reply. Greg threw up his hands. “Hold it, calm down!” he commanded.
There was hard, fast breathing on both sides of the table. The air fairly crackled
with tension. “How long have the order due dates been a problem?” he asked,
looking at Lee.
“For about a year.” he replied.
“A year?” Greg sounded incredulous. He looked around the room. The
tension was thick in the air. “Why have you not solved this problem?”
“We’ve been working on it,” Lee said defensively, a small frown of
irritation creasing his otherwise inscrutable oriental face.
“That doesn’t help,” Greg fought to contain his anger. “We need to fix this
right away!” The expressions around the table were cold and withdrawn—arms
folded defensively, eye contact studiously avoided.
“I want the details of every past due order on my desk tomorrow morning,”
he continued. “Lee, I’ll meet with you at that time. Be prepared to explain the
situation to me in detail.” Greg closed his file with a snap, rubbing his face. The
business plan seemed much less important, compared to this new crisis he faced.
Lee closed the meeting and everyone hurried from the room—
eyes averted—in an uncomfortable silence.

-oOo-

Back in his office, Greg could not dismiss from his mind the animosity that
had surfaced in the meeting. He intuitively felt that something very significant had
been revealed to him. He was not sure what to make of it, but he knew that it was
linked to the lingering sense of disquiet that had been dogging him. However, the
past due order situation was a real problem that had to be attended to immediately.
He put the meeting out of his mind, ran his finger down the list of names in
the internal phone directory and dialed the sales manager’s office. He had met Jim
Jones the week before–a gregarious Southerner who immediately made one feel
like friends since the cradle. Jim picked up the phone on the tenth ring. “Jim
speaking.”
“Hi Jim. Greg here. Can I come visit you for a minute?”
“Sure,” came the immediate response. “What is it about?”
“I want to find out more about our customer service performance. I came
across some information this morning that I want to verify with you.”
The silence on the other end seemed to last for long time. “Harrumph.” The
snort of disgust was significant. “You’d better be prepared for a drubbing on that
issue.”

21
 “I’ll wear a hard hat and a flak jacket,” Greg responded. He could hear Jim
chuckle as he put down the phone.

The sales office was located in a separate, smaller building some distance
from the main building. Greg enjoyed the sunshine and paused for a minute to
breathe the sea air before continuing on to Jim’s office. Jim stood up when Greg
entered and heartily shook his hand.
“Sit down, sit down,” he boomed. Greg made himself comfortable.
“Jim, this morning I discovered what appears to be a significant problem
with on-time delivery. Since you’re the one who faces our customers every day, I
thought you’d be able to cast some light on the subject.”
Jim went red in the face, and slammed his fist on the table. “This company
does not know the meaning of on-time delivery,” he replied vehemently. “Our
reputation is in shreds. Clients castigate me day in and day out about our unreliable
delivery promises. It is a madhouse. They yell at me, I yell at the production
schedulers, they yell at the production managers, who in turn yell at the quality
assurance people, who yell back at the production managers, who yell back at me.”
Greg had to smile, recalling the morning’s meeting. He’d poked at a very
raw nerve.
Jim continued. “If the demand for computer chips wasn’t higher than supply
right now, our clients would gladly take their business somewhere else.”
Greg raised his eyebrows. “How did we get into this mess?”
Jim thought for a minute. “Funny you should ask,” he mused. “Nobody
seems to know. Everyone blames everyone else. When we originally built the
plant, we designed it to produce far more than what we are getting now.”
“That’s exactly what Head Office wants us to change,” Greg said. “What
should we do?”
Jim shrugged laconically. “I’ve no idea. All I know is that we in sales get
blamed for all the ills. We are accused of promising impossible deadlines, selling
uneconomical quantities, ignoring production’s problems, and giving the stuff
away at fire sale prices while partying through the night with our clients.”
He sighed bitterly. “When we really need their help to get an important
order through, they seem to delight in finding reasons why it can’t be done. I’m at
my wits end. We have to field all the phone calls from angry customers, unable to
count on support from production. I suggest you begin by whipping the production
guys into shape.”
Greg thought back to the daily production meeting and the dramatic turn of
events there. “I don’t think they need any more whipping,” he smiled. “Can’t you
work more closely with the production planning guys, to get a better idea when to
promise delivery dates?”
Jim snorted again. “When I involve them, they act just like the production
people: How dare we criticize their sacred production schedules!”
“We need to resolve this issue very quickly. I want you to set up meetings
with our biggest customers with whom our relationship is on the rocks. We’ll go

22
see them to establish what we can do to restore our standing.” Greg took out his
smartphone, flipped through his calendar and gave Jim some dates. “Please let me
know as soon as possible which dates I need to set aside.”
Jim jotted the information down on his desk pad. Greg got up. “Thank you
for your candid answers.” Jim looked at Greg’s departing back and sighed, this
time with relief.

-oOo-

Walking between the buildings, Greg was deep in thought. For the first time
there was a knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. He breathed deeply, squared
his shoulders and thrust out his chest. The knot was palpably smaller. Resolutely
he lifted his head and walked into the entrance hall of the main building. The girl
behind the counter beckoned him over. She had her hand over the microphone on
her headset. “It’s Sandy McDougall from Head Office on the line,” she whispered.
“He is urgently looking for you.”
The knot promptly grew bigger.
‘I wonder if Sandy knows about the late order situation,’ he worried,
walking down the hall to his office. He closed the door before pressing the lighted
button on the telephone.
“Hi Sandy!” Greg’s cheerfulness sounded phony even to himself.
“Greetings, me bonnie lad!” boomed the familiar voice. Greg held the
receiver away from his ear. “I was wondering how you are doing. I met Jack Rance
at the Research and Development facility this morning. He was singing your
praises. He reckons you will kick MicroLogic into shape in noo time.”
‘If only I knew what to kick,’ Greg though grimly. “Well, I am getting to
know the facility well,” he responded. “We are setting the wheels in motion to
improve performance.”
“Excellent,” Sandy tersely interrupted him. “You can fill me in on the
details when we meet at the monthly management meeting. Now, I have some
good news to share with you. We have been in protracted negotiation with
AsiaComNet, a big Chinese cellular telephone manufacturer, to supply their
microchips, and guess what?” Sandy did not wait for a reply. “We got the first very
big order from them yesterday. It is a very high-profile success for Intec, bound to
help our stock price and, since you are heading up the improvement effort at
MicroLogic, I told the CEO that your plant should get to manufacture the order.”
Greg felt the blood drain from his face. He had known about the
negotiations with AsiaComNet. Landing the order was a real victory for Intec in
the throes of a cut-throat bidding war against European chipmakers just as set on
getting the business.
“The order is the first one in a series,” Sandy continued. “AsiaComNet
wants to see how well we do on quality and delivery. If we meet their expectations,
we will enter into a long-term supplier contract worth hundreds of millions of
dollars over the next few years as the cellular phone market grows in that part of

23
the world.”
The knot in his stomach was suddenly very big and very real.
“I’ll email you the technical details. Let me know by Friday when we can
ship.” The telephone went dead in Greg’s ear. Slowly he put the receiver back into
its cradle. It rattled briefly.

An hour later, the four people in his office were looking at him with
apprehension. Right after Sandy’s call, Greg tracked down everyone he wanted to
see. On his left was the man with the handlebar moustache. Not surprisingly, he
turned out to be the production manager. His name was Mike Holden. He sat with
his thick, muscular arms crossed over his large stomach, glowering at the tabletop.
Mike had been with Intec for many, many years. Next to him was the source of
Mike’s irritation: Maggie, the red-headed, razor-mouthed manager of Quality
Assurance. The thunderclouds were still hanging between them.
Lee sat diagonally opposite him with the production planner, Ron Jensen, to
his right. Ron was a short, balding, portly man with thick glasses and a phlegmatic
expression. He reminded Greg of a basset hound.
“I apologize for interrupting your day in such an uncivilized manner, but I
need your help right away,” he began. He recounted the details of Sandy’s call and
subsequent email about the AsiaComNet order.
“I came to the realization this morning that we have a very serious problem
with the on-time delivery of products. The AsiaComNet order will exacerbate the
problem.” Turning to Lee, he continued. “We can’t afford to wait until tomorrow
to deal with this problem. We have to start right now.”
Lee kept quiet, his face inscrutable.
“I want you to head up a task team made up of the four of you to deal with
this issue. I suggest you start by finding out why the output is so much lower than
what the plant was designed to produce, followed by a thorough examination of
how orders are scheduled and loaded on the plant. In addition, you must find a way
we can galvanize everyone into action to meet the promised order dates. Once that
is done, I expect you to give me a credible, reliable delivery date for the
AsiaComNet order. That commitment has to be absolutely irrevocable–one that I
can hold you and the plant accountable for.”
An uncomfortable shuffle of feet followed his remarks. Maggie was the first
to respond. “It is pretty simple to fix the late order problem. Identify the persons
that make the most errors in producing the product and retrain or replace them. We
must be losing more than half our lead time advantage due to rework and quality
problems.”
Greg could sense Mike Holden’s blood pressure rise. The handlebar
moustache bristled. “Whoa, hold it!” Greg interjected before Mike could erupt. “I
don’t want to us jump to conclusions here. This is under Lee’s leadership. Discuss
your ideas with him. We’ll meet back here tomorrow morning at eight a.m. to
continue this discussion and thereafter at least three times a week until we have this
problem under control. Don’t forget the late order analysis I asked for this

24
morning,” Greg added, pointing at Lee.

-oOo-

Greg spent the rest of the week unraveling the late delivery problem. He
traced the status for every order promised to a customer. The deeper he dug, the
more concerned he became. It was clear that the problem had been around for a
while and he wondered how Jack Rance had managed to prevent their clients from
crucifying the company. Jim’s comment that alternative sources of supply were
hard to come by was probably the reason.
He added up the production capacity required to complete all the orders and
compared that to the available capacity. It was clear that the plant was capable of
producing more than it actually did. Greg was puzzled. How could a plant with
capacity to spare, get itself into such a mess?
One interesting fact came to light. It seemed that the plant had performed
much better before Intec acquired it. Since then, the performance had spiraled
downwards. Greg suspected that Sandy had known about this before he handed the
reins over to him.
‘Damn his eyes,’ he thought, ‘and now he adds the AsiaComNet order to the
mess.’

-oOo-

After the first meeting, he asked Jim Jones to join the team. That stirred the
simmering animosity with acrimonious accusations flying back and forth. He had
his work cut out to keep everyone going in the same direction. After juggling batch
sizes and shift priorities, many of the late orders had a fighting chance of being
delivered on time. The remaining orders were basket cases. They jotted down the
affected soon-to-be more angry customers and Greg asked Jim to go beg for
forgiveness and to get agreement for new delivery dates.
By Friday, Greg could phone Sandy’s office with a firm commitment for the
AsiaComNet order. The delivery date was 97 working days from that day. He was
confident that the plant could easily make the deadline. Sandy was out of the
office, and Greg left a message to that effect on his voicemail.

-oOo-

Back home over the weekend, they drove the children to Christine’s parents.
It was a two-hour journey and the car was eerily quiet on the way back. In
mitigation, they put the night alone to very good use. On Monday, they flew down
to San Francisco together. The city was bright in the morning sun as they circled to
land. Christine dropped Greg off at the plant and headed out in the rental car to go
house hunting with a local realtor.
Greg felt great. He greeted the girl at the front desk with a warm smile. She

25
smiled back, waved a message slip at him and continued talking to the caller on the
line. She covered the headset microphone with one hand and pointed at the slip in
his hand. “Urgent,” she mouthed and returned to the uninterrupted conversation.
Greg read the slip on the way to his office. Sandy wanted to talk to him
immediately. The knot of tension was back. “So early on a Monday,” he thought
ruefully.
Sandy did not mince his words. “The delivery lead-time on AsiaComNet is
too long,” he said tersely. “You have to get it out in faster. Other vendors promised
delivery in less time.”
“Can you give me any idea of the time frame they expect?” Greg asked. He
did not even try to explain the mess he had found with the order due dates.
Compressing the AsiaComNet order would make things worse for all the other
orders.
“I suspect that sixty days would be the maximum they will tolerate. See if
you can come up with something even better than that.”
The call ended abruptly.
‘So much for a sunny Monday morning,’ Greg thought grimly.
The small-town plant and its gentler life seemed far more attractive than the
pressures of a big plant and a meddlesome head office. He called Lee’s office. Lee
sounded tired.
“I need to meet with you at nine a.m.” he told Lee.
“Let me first attend to the production meeting,” Lee replied. “I can be there
at ten a.m.”
“Good. Please ask everyone involved in our order re-planning process to be
here as well,” Greg replied and put down the phone.
He emptied his in-basket on the desk and worked through the contents. His
mind kept on returning to Sandy’s call and the impossible demand they faced. Jim
had arranged to meet with most of the customers whose orders they could not
deliver on time. He was going to break the bad news to them in person. Greg
wanted to go with him. However, if they were forced to assign more capacity to the
AsiaComNet order, more names would appear on the list of companies to visit.

-oOo-

They looked deeply apprehensive, sitting around the conference table. Greg
wondered when they would begin to trust him. He explained the state of affairs in
staccato sentences—the magnitude of Sandy’s demand clipping his words.
Lee was looking particularly strained. His face was drawn around the
mouth, his cheekbones white under the tanned skin. “It’s impossible!” he said
vehemently. “We cannot achieve this. Changing the production orders yet again
will start a mutiny. This morning we told the production teams what we expected
from them in order to meet the new deadlines. They were pretty upset. The union
steward immediately accused us of exploiting the long-suffering workers. The
clean-room supervisors threw their hands in the air and told us it couldn’t be done,

26
and vilified management for gouging them for yet more production. They have a
pretty poor opinion of our management capability.” Lee’s shoulders sagged,
looking despondent.

“But aren’t they the problem?” Greg retorted. “If they had pulled their
weight, we would not be so far behind.”
Lee shook his head in resignation. “That’s not how they see it. Ever since
the takeover, everyone’s been on the defensive, blaming management for all the
problems,” he continued. “They don’t see it as their problem. It’s us, or someone
else, or the man in the moon for all they care.”
Greg felt his anger rise. The last thing he needed was a million reasons why
the AsiaComNet order could not be completed. “There is no alternative,” he said,
his tone brooking no argument.
“Well, you’ll have to take the flak,” Mike Holden said. Maggie nodded in
agreement, as he continued: “All we can do is move more orders later. That will
incur massive changeover losses, making us even less efficient. The unions have an
overtime ban in place, so we can’t work longer hours. We cannot use temporary
labor on the highly specialized operations, so we can’t introduce more shifts.”
Greg was silent for a minute. “Is this all you can tell me?...That you can’t do
something?”
Lee was on the defensive. “That’s not true. You know the situation.” he
replied.
The light of battle blazed in Greg’s eyes. “Even when we rescheduled our
orders last week, we were working on 60% utilization levels. Can’t we gain better
plant utilization than that? It will give us more capacity right away.”
Lee shook his head. “Equipment utilization has never been higher than that.
We cannot plan and commit ourselves to a higher utilization level than what we
know is possible.”
Greg swallowed hard, keeping his temper in check. “We simply have to find
a way to slot the AsiaComNet order in earlier, without doing too much damage to
the other orders. Darn it, we must be able to manage the plant better— even if it’s
only for a short while.”
His plea met with stony silence.
Lee shook his head again. “You cannot expect my people to work harder. It
would be asking too much.”
Greg felt an artery in his forehead pumping. He swallowed again, fighting
down his frustration. The silence was deafening.
“I’ve had plants in worse condition than this one, and they produced far
more than you do,” Greg said slowly, menacingly, his voice barely above a
whisper.
Lee’s eyes were blazing. “Do you imply that I can’t manage my plant?” he
asked, sitting forward in his chair.
“The way it’s going now, you won’t have a plant to manage for very much
longer!” Greg retorted.

27
 “Who do you think you are, telling me and my people what to do?” Lee was
on his feet, ashen-faced and breathing fast. Greg was on his feet too, leaning over
the table. “I’m the one ultimately responsible for the success of this business. If
you can’t contribute to that objective, I don’t need you here,” he roared. “As of this
moment, I am suspending you from your duties. Plant management will report
directly to me until this mess has been cleared up.”
Maggie’s eyes were like saucers. She was following the shouting match like
someone following a tennis ball across the net, moving her head from side to side.
Mike Holden had both hands over his head like a soldier in a foxhole.
Lee and Greg were both breathing hard. Greg’s voice stabilized when he
continued. “You will limit your activities to special projects until we have better
control of the plant.”
Lee was stunned. He turned around and left the office without a word. Greg
looked at the other two. They swallowed in unison, too awed by the outburst to say
anything. He got up, walked to his desk, pulled the plant telephone directory from
under his phone and called the production planning office.
“Hello, Ron. Please come to my office right away. I want to take another
look at the production forecast.” He put the phone down and walked back to the
conference table. His temper was under control again. In fact, he felt a lot better.
Doing something dramatic got rid of the feeling that he was drowning in molasses.
A few minutes later, Ron hurried in, clutching a thick computer printout
under his arm. He dumped it on the table, dropped onto the chair Lee had vacated
and anxiously peered at Greg through his thick-rimmed spectacles.
“Ron, take us through the production plan for the next forty-five days.”
Ron flipped through the computer printout. “Subsequent to our last meeting
we ran the new production schedule through the material requirements planning
system, calculated the new material quantities and release dates, determined the
new delivery lead times and dates, created a new late order list and I hear I am
reporting directly to you now,” he blurted out in one breathless monotone.
Greg had difficulty keeping a straight face. “Yes, you are reporting directly
to me in the short term. Why do we have a new late order list? I thought we
resolved the problem last week.”
“Some of the raw materials will be out of stock before we complete the
order,” he replied.
“Let me see the schedule, please.”
Ron turned the computer printout around to face him. Maggie and Mike
leaned forward, studying the page as if it were the family Bible.
“If we assume that the plant can work at higher utilization, how much
capacity can we free up?” Ron took a small, worn salesman-gift calculator from his
shirt pocket, his plastic pocket protector coming with it. He stuffed it back. With
practiced ease, he started calculating.
For the next two hours they explored every possible combination of orders.
They examined every option to move the AsiaComNet order into a sixty-day time
window without wrecking the rest of the order due dates. In the end they had a plan

28
that locked the AsiaComNet order down to ship by July 9, barely inside the sixty-
day limit.
As they went through the exercise, Ron gathered more and more confidence
that the date could indeed be achieved. The final breakthrough came when Greg
phoned another plant and arranged with them to take over two smaller orders,
which freed up more capacity at MicroLogic. This finally convinced everyone that
the July 9 date was achievable. Pushing up his glasses, Ron looked at Greg with
new respect.
“I can’t see any reason why we can’t ship AsiaComNet by July 9,” he said.
“If we can get hold of the raw material, that is. Some orders would still be late, but
we can work on those.”
“Run the new plan through the materials requirement planning system and
check whether we can get the raw material in time,” Greg requested, rubbing his
eyes.
They left the office. Ron went to do the computer run. Maggie and Mike
made their way through the airlocks to the plant. Greg headed for Jim’s office with
the new list of late orders.

-oOo-

The rest of the week went by in a blur. Greg and Jim visited the clients
nearest to the plant. They apologized for the supply problem, informed them of the
new delivery dates, listened docilely to the vitriolic criticism and managed to
pacify most of their clients. By committing to sequenced, partial deliveries they
could minimize the damage. In some cases though, Greg had to agree to substantial
penalty payments.
House hunting with Christine in the late afternoon was a therapeutic
exercise that ameliorated his stress. She had selected a few models she liked, and
wanted him to see. By the end of the week they closed on a good Federal style
home in a quiet, leafy suburb. They flew home late on Friday afternoon, eager to
see the children again. Telephone calls were no substitute.

-oOo-

Sunday afternoon saw Greg outside on the deck, talking to the realtor who
was selling their old home. He planned on moving the family to San Francisco
within two weeks.
His cell phone rang. It was Andrew. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“We’re busy packing up to move,” Greg replied.
“No, not that,” Andrew responded. “How is the plant doing? Ever since our
golf game, I’ve been haunted by your problems.”
Greg chuckled. “It serves you right for meddling in my affairs. Well, I made
some management changes which I hope will do the trick.”
“Have you found out what bothered you, though?” Andrew asked.

29
 Greg was quiet for a minute. “You know, I picked up some more clues, but I
haven’t been able to articulate what it is that still bugs me. I’ve been so wrapped up
in resolving a different, more urgent problem, that I’ve not thought much about it
at all,” he confessed.
“I got some more information on the plant that impressed me so.” Andrew
replied. “I went back to visit them, and it was still the same awesome experience to
work with them. I thought you might want to check them out,” he offered.
“Thanks, old buddy, but I first want to see how well my changes work.”

Come Monday morning, he was back on the plane to San Francisco.

30
 Chapter Four
Ron Jensen, the production planner, was sweating profusely. Greg could see
the sheen on his temples. His glasses kept on sliding down his nose, and he pushed
them back with his left forefinger in a reflex motion. He silently mouthed the
numbers as he ran his finger down the columns on the computer printout that
showed the status of all scheduled production orders. He turned the page and
continued to scan the columns.
“Ah!” came the relieved reply as he stopped halfway down the sheet.
“There it is, AsiaComNet.” He looked up with relief. “The shipping date is
scheduled for Monday, August 12.”
Greg looked at the fax in front of him. He suddenly felt old and weary. The
due date promised, in writing, to AsiaComNet was July 16–fifty eight days from
order placement.
“Ron,” he started, trying to keep himself in check. “You assured me that we
would have the order ready to ship by July 9. I added another week, just to make
sure that we don’t miss the due date through some unforeseen event.”
Greg paused. Ron’s sweating became much more noticeable.
“Now I hear that the order will only be ready for shipment by August 12,
three weeks after the promised date!” Greg leaned forward over the table.
Ron looked like a rabbit in a cage, straining away from the butcher’s hand.
The sweaty glasses were pushed up again.
“I try my best,” Ron said plaintively. “The original date was based on
assumptions about available capacity, plant utilization and a host of other
variables. You know that. How were we to know that the union would threaten us
with a go-slow strike, and that our equipment would act up?”
Greg could barely contain his anger. “We are eight weeks away from the
day we have to deliver. Surely we can do something to speed up the process–to get
the order back into the scheduled time slot.”
Ron looked even more defensive. “I am trying my best. If I pull the
AsiaComNet order forward by one single day, we will delay at least six other
orders. You’ve made delivery commitments on those orders which we also cannot
miss.” Greg felt like tearing out hair, but not his own.
“How can that be? The plant utilization is still only at 60% and you tell me
we can’t do anything to speed things up?”
Ron looked affronted. “The plant efficiency has been hovering around that
level for some time now. I’ve been pleading with the production guys to get their
act together, but instead they accuse us planners of wrecking their efficiency by
running smaller batches, changing order sequences at the drop of a hat and
changing delivery dates at will. But, then again, they waste huge amounts of time
by poor changeover procedures and waiting to consolidate orders to get longer
production runs. By combining orders, they completely wreck our due date

31
promises. The distribution manager complains that he gets loads of finished
products but not enough to ship a single complete order.” Ron shook his head in
despair and folded his arms, still looking defensive. “If you want to salvage this,
you’ll have to kick someone’s butt in production.”
“I already have,” Greg thought grimly, remembering the stand-up fight with
Lee Tanaka. Two weeks after the spectacular blowout, Lee had marched into his
office and threw his resignation on Greg’s desk. Greg did not want to lose him, and
tried his best to convince him to stay. Lee was adamant and Greg had to accept the
inevitable with real regret. It left him working two jobs–as general manager and
operations manager. He delegated most of the operational issues to Mike, Maggie
and Ron while he and Jim worked on salvaging their customer relationships. He
wished there were more hours in a day.

-oOo-

Once his family had settled into their new home, he went to Europe for a
week to meet with more of their clients. True to Murphy’s Law, that’s when things
went really wrong. The first inkling of trouble came when Sandy phoned him in
Manchester, England. He was waiting to board the flight back to San Francisco via
Heathrow when his cellphone rang. As always, the conversation was terse. “I’ve
just heard from Kristalline–our largest raw material supplier–that delivery of the
AsiaComNet material has been postponed. What’s going on?”
This was every manager’s worst nightmare. Just when everything ran
smoothly, the unexpected suddenly happens–and him the last to know about it.
“As far as I know, everything is on track,” Greg replied. The knot of tension
was back. “I’ll be in San Francisco by morning. I’ll update you as soon as I get to
the plant.”
“Do that,” was the terse reply.

The damage was much greater than he had anticipated. The union had been
quick to turn the delivery crisis into an opportunity to strengthen its position by
calling for a work slowdown. Greg suspected that the sudden increase in
‘breakdowns’ was merely another way to express union support. To make matters
worse, the maintenance crews were up in arms about the additional changeovers
they had to do to run partial orders.
Ron had dutifully done what he does best–he simply rescheduled the orders.
That, in turn, triggered automatic notification for the raw material deliveries to be
delayed. If their supplier delayed the order, it went to the bottom of his priority list,
adding another six weeks before it came up for processing again. How Sandy had
come to know about the delay was a mystery.
Now he was staring at a blue-lined computer printout that screamed at him
that they were going to be horribly late with the most crucial order of his entire
career. He closed his eyes for a minute, breathing deeply, trying to make the knot
in his stomach go away. Ron was nervously licking his lips. Greg exhaled and

32
squared his shoulders.
“Did you discuss the changes to the schedule with Mike and Maggie before
you postponed the delivery dates?” he asked, his voice now calmly under control.
Ron snorted in disgust, haughtily raising his head. “No matter what I do,
they complain about it anyway. Production people always complain about changes
to the schedule.”
“Did you discuss it with them?” he repeated.
“No. Of course not. It’s our job to decide what gets made and when,” came
the defensive reply.
Greg sighed. “Please get hold of Mike and Maggie immediately and meet
me in my office in twenty minutes.”
Seated behind his desk, Greg rubbed his eyes to dispel the gritty tension. He
turned to the desktop computer and launched the email program. “I had better get
this to Sandy in writing,” he thought grimly.
He waited for the server to finish downloading the mass of incoming email
and irritably watched the entries appear on the screen. “I wonder how people find
the time to write all this stuff,” he thought, resting his chin in his hand. One entry
made him sit bolt upright:

Dennis in town

Greg clicked on the message. It read:

Hi Greg!
I’ll be in San Francisco on Monday. Let’s get together
for a drink. I’ll be staying at the Bayside Inn.
Dennis

Greg sat back in a daze. This might be the answer! If one person in the
world could help him get the AsiaComNet order out the door on time, it was
Dennis. He grabbed the phone and called the hotel, nervously tapping on the desk
with a pencil. When the receptionist put him through, it was the same unmistakable
bear-gruff voice that answered the phone. Greg felt elated and relieved.
“Hey, you vagabond!” Greg greeted him.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the wacky whiz-kid himself,” came the bantering
reply.
“What are you doing in town?” Greg asked.
“Right now–nothing. I’m at a loose end, really. We’ve completed the
Singapore plant installation, so I’m waiting for Sandy to assign me to the next
project. I’m attending a conference in town in the meantime.”
“Don’t you want to help a friend in need? You remember the saying–a
friend in need is a friend indeed?”
Dennis snorted. “In my experience, a friend in need is a pest.”
Greg laughed, delight in his voice.

33
 “What is it you want?” Dennis was curious.
“I have a challenge for you,” Greg replied.
“That probably means that you’re in deep trouble, and desperately in need of
help,” Dennis replied.
“That’s closer to the truth than you may realize,” Greg said ruefully.
“AsiaComNet?” Dennis asked. Greg was taken aback. ‘I wonder who
doesn’t know about this by now,’ he thought. The grapevine was astounding.
“Exactly. How did you know I’m having problems with it?”
Dennis didn’t answer. “When do you want to meet?” he asked instead.
“What about now?” Greg ventured.
“You don’t waste time, do you?” Dennis was amused. “I’ve never seen the
MicroLogic plant. I’ll be right over. You get the coffee.”
Greg transferred the call to the receptionist to give Dennis driving
directions.

-oOo-

Ron, Mike and Maggie waited in the outside office for him to finish the call.
They filed in and sat down. Greg joined them at the conference table and briefed
them on the situation, including Sandy’s call. He didn’t tell them about Dennis.
“The situation is really bleak,” he continued. “We have eight weeks to honor
our delivery promise. The production forecast now indicates that we’ll ship three
weeks after that date, eleven weeks from today. You know what will happen if we
don’t ship on time…” The words hung in the air, the animosity and tension
tangible around the table.
“Well, we can’t do the impossible. The production staff is already under
stress from the additional work our previous rescheduling exercise created, and
compounded by the additional AsiaComNet work,” Mike said aggressively.
“Quality is bound to suffer if we produce at faster rates on the bigger
production tools,” Maggie added. Ron nodded in agreement and smirked. “We in
production planning know what can and cannot be done.”
Greg felt his temper rise again. Everybody was on the defensive. “Who is
managing this facility, you or the production workers?” The remark did not go
down well. Ron sniffed and looked pained. Mike stared down at the table. Maggie
studied her bright blue nails.
“Look, we must get this order back on track – and fast.” Greg tried to sound
civil, but it was tough going. “Even though we think factors outside our control
derailed the schedule we developed before, we have to do something significant
right away.”
Mike did not look up when he replied. “You’ll have to talk to the union
about this. If they don’t agree to more overtime hours, there’s no way we can
increase capacity in the short term. You know how quick they are to exploit any
opportunity to their advantage.”
Greg nodded in agreement. “You’re right. I’ll talk to the union

34
representative.”
“The quality assurance teams won’t reduce the standard for acceptance.”
Maggie added.
“Of course.” Greg wondered what prompted the irrelevant comment.

They revisited all the possible options to accelerate the order without
wrecking the other delivery commitments. Throughout the discussion, Greg again
sensed the hooded wariness. It seemed as if everyone was careful to say the right
words, but that a different underlying agenda was at work. It felt as if middle
management was closing ranks on him–working together according to an unspoken
set of rules that he did not know.
After an hour, Greg sat back. They had another, barely workable plan that
needed a lot of fine-tuning. Their success depended on the close cooperation of
many people. Greg assigned tasks to everyone and adjourned the meeting. They
wordlessly left the room.
Greg put his head in his hands. The familiar knot of tension was back. He
rubbed his eyes, wondering how he was going to phrase his report to Sandy. The
plan had a 50/50 chance of success. He needed something much better than that.
The telephone on the desk shrilled. Greg leaned over and picked up the
receiver. It was the girl at the front desk. “Your visitor is here,” she said.
“Great, I’m coming to fetch him.” He strode down the hall. The doors hissed
behind him. Dennis had definitely put on weight, yet the college-quarterback build
still very much in evidence. His hair seemed to be grayer around the temples. He
stood up with a wide smile.
“Well, well, the newest General Manager in Intec,” he laughed, shaking
Greg’s hand.
“Not for long, if things carry on the way they do now!” Greg confided.
“I’m delighted to see you,” he continued, pleasure in his voice. “Come on,
let’s go to my office.”
With fresh coffee on the table, they shared events since they’d last seen
each other. It was great to be together again.
“Well, how’s the plant doing?” Dennis asked.
All the pent-up frustration and concern came flooding out. He told Dennis of
the looming AsiaComNet disaster. It felt a bit like a confessional, with Dennis
sagely nodding his head as every new twist in the tale unfolded.
“It sounds to me like you have a time bomb on your hands,” he
commiserated when Greg concluded with the morning’s events.
“Now that is a truly inspiring comment,” Greg said sarcastically.
Dennis grinned.
“I need your expert help to get us out of this jam,” Greg continued.
“What can I do to help?” Dennis asked–his face now sober.
“The attitude in the plant is awful. It seems that everyone is fighting with
everyone. The distrust is so tangible you can cut it with a knife. When I step in, it
feels like they close ranks against me. When Lee was here, he acted as their

35
representative, but now it is ‘we against them’. It’s becoming just too much to
handle. I’m fighting battles on many fronts while being sniped at by my own
troops.”
Greg was silent for a minute. He licked his lips.
“Dennis,” he started hesitantly, “would it be possible for you to spend eight
weeks here to oversee the AsiaComNet order? Your technical expertise is the only
thing that can save our butts,” Greg finished lamely.
Dennis was quiet for a while, thinking deeply. “Now I know why you were
so anxious to see me. Not for friendship’s sake, but to save your rotten hide!”
If it weren’t for the twinkle in his eye, Greg could have sworn he was deeply
offended.
“There might actually be some merit in the idea. I’m at a loose end right
now, and there is technology used on the production tools here that I don’t know
very well. We’ll be using more of this technology in the next round of equipment
upgrades in other plants. Spending some time here will give me an opportunity to
learn more about the stuff before the process starts.”
Greg felt elated. “I’ll do anything to convince you to stay,” he urged.
“Anything?” Dennis cocked an eyebrow.
“Within reason, of course,” Greg added hastily.
Dennis chuckled. “Let me talk to Sandy about it,” he continued.
“I was going to convince Sandy that you are my ace in a hole, our last
resort,” Greg answered. “Perhaps we can get him on a conference call and talk to
him right now.”
“Let’s try that,” Dennis nodded.
Greg put in a call to head office and got Sandy’s personal assistant on the
line. Sandy was in a meeting. She promised to get him to phone back as soon as
the meeting ended. Half an hour later, the phone rang.
“Have you solved the order due date problem?” was Sandy’s curt opening
statement. The stress was evident in his voice. “I am getting heat from Ed
Winthrop about AsiaComNet. If Wall Street gets wind of this our stock price will
take another drubbing.”
The knot in his stomach was back with a vengeance. Greg took a deep
breath and outlined the framework of the recovery plan–using additional temporary
labor, increasing overtime and shift length, postponing maintenance, increasing
production speeds, committing some lines to dedicated production, and
outsourcing some work to other Intec plants.
“Do you think it will work?” Sandy sounded dubious.
“It’s the best I can come up with right now,” Greg replied honestly. “But I
do have an ace up my sleeve.”
“What is it?” Sandy asked. Greg nodded to Dennis.
“Hi, Sandy, Dennis here….” he began.
“Begorrah, what are you doing there?” Sandy replied, instantly recognizing
the voice.
“I’m attending a conference on optics here in San Francisco. Greg is

36
coercing me into helping him salvage AsiaComNet.”
“I see what he meant with big problems,” Sandy replied. For the next
twenty minutes they discussed Greg’s idea of having Dennis join him for eight
weeks. Sandy reluctantly agreed, provided that he could call Dennis away at short
notice if Intec needed him somewhere else.
“I need weekly updates on the status of the AsiaComNet order,” he
commanded. “I don’t want nasty surprises. You know it’s critical that we get this
right–for all our sakes.” He ended the call.
Dennis got up, and rubbed his hands. “You had better show me what this
circus looks like.”
Greg felt a great sense of relief.

-oOo-

Dennis threw himself into the fray with enthusiasm. Right out of the starting
blocks he ran into a ferocious clash with the union representative. When Dennis
tried to get additional overtime instituted, the union flatly refused. They were
making the most of the problem. In spite of Greg’s explanation of the gravity of the
situation, they were resolute.
“We’ve heard these stories before,” was the laconic reply. “Every time we
put in the effort to get the company out of a bind, management got the praise and
we got nothing.” The maintenance crew was no better. It was unwilling to accept
more changeover tasks to switch between AsiaComNet and other production
orders, and insisted that longer runs were more practical. As much as Dennis tried
to explain the gravity of the situation, the maintenance staff turned out to be as
unyielding as the union representatives.
The production crews were no different. They listened with stony silence to
Dennis’s arguments but did not show any sign of empathy with the situation. The
suspicion and distrust was visible on every face. They thought management was
abusing them even more, with the workload yet again being increased.
Within a week the situation had deteriorated significantly. The stress
between the groups had increased dramatically, and production meetings became
more acrimonious.
“We have seven weeks to go and we are more at war than ever before,”
Greg said to Dennis on their way home one afternoon.
“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced such enmity before. I’ve tried reasoning
with individuals to get them to work outside the union rules, but to no avail.
Clearly, they’d rather follow the union guidelines,” Dennis said grimly. The
tension was starting to show in the lines on his forehead.
“It’s been bugging me since I arrived here,” Greg confided. “There seems to
be an undercurrent of behavior that I cannot pin down. It’s that feeling of ‘us
against them’ that confounds everything we do. If we can only get everyone to
move in the same direction…”

37
 -oOo-

The following morning–after a fitful night’s sleep–Greg arrived at the plant

earlier than normal. He was surprised to see Dennis’ rental car in the lot. ‘He must
be suffering from insomnia too,’ he smiled.
Dumping his briefcase in his office, he hurried out to look for him.
“Have you seen Dennis anywhere?” he asked a passing employee.
“Yeah, heading for the compressor room in a big hurry,” came the reply.
Greg strode through the plant - following Dennis’ trail to the back of the
complex where the huge compressors were housed in a separate soundproof
building. They supplied the production floor with large volumes of cold, purified
air to keep the operating environment of the chip-making tools thermally stable.
He could hear furious, raised voices through the open doors. A group of
curious workers was forming at the entrance. He pushed through the small crowd
and entered the cavernous room. The picture that greeted him took his breath away.
His knees sagged.
The rotary vane turbine, that glossy, green-enameled heart of the biggest
compressor, and of the plant, had disintegrated at high speed. Shards of cast
aluminum, bolts, and pieces of outer casing were strewn all over the room. There
were pockmarks in the walls, shattered windows, and jagged holes in the roof.
The turbine itself was stripped of its vanes. What was left looked like broken
teeth in some monstrous dinosaur jaw. The familiar high-pitched whine of the
compressor turbines was gone. Apart from the voices, the only sound was the thin
whistle of air escaping from a punctured air pipe high up against the roof. The
room felt like a crypt–cold and ominous–filled with the thick stench of hot oil.
Dennis was standing with his hand on a twisted steel pipe, his face blood red
with rage. Every vein on his forehead was visible. On the other side stood the head
of maintenance, a burly Southerner of few words. This was an exception though.
They were both shaking.
“How could you leave the system to run without checking the lubrication
systems!” Dennis roared.
“Because all my men are doing changeovers on your damn production
lines!” the maintenance manager roared back. “They can’t be everywhere at once,”
he yelled.
The gravity of the disaster was stunning. Without pure air, the clean-room
production tools would be paralyzed.
“That’s no excuse!” Dennis yelled. “These compressors are the heart of the
plant!”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” his opponent roared back.
Greg picked his through the debris on the floor. “Whoa, hold it, hold it,” he
interjected. Neither man looked at him. They were both breathing hard. Greg took
Dennis’s arm. “Let’s get out of here, now!” he commanded. Dennis reluctantly
turned away. They walked back to the door, now filled with awestruck faces
peering into the room. The wailing sirens of fire engines grew louder through the

38
factory walls.
“Let’s get this place back to work!” Greg commanded. The rubbernecked
spectators drifted aimlessly away. The clean room crews were standing around the
plant waiting for instructions. Greg told them to gather in the lunchroom.
The fire chief came striding across the factory floor, talking into a handheld
transmitter. Three firemen followed him. He greeted Greg, listened to the update,
and asked the way to the compressor room. They were there for twenty minutes,
making sure that everything was under control.
After they’d left, the maintenance group swarmed into the compressor room,
cleaning up, sorting out and systematically testing every system and circuit. They
brought in a dumpster to collect the debris.
Two hours later, the room was tidied up and the damage assessed.
They gathered in the maintenance manager’s office. Some crewmembers
were standing against the walls with folded arms. Others were sitting on the desks,
swinging their feet. Al Hansen, the head of maintenance was standing in front of
the whiteboard.
Greg opened the discussion. “What can you do to get us back in
production?”
Al looked around the room. He pointed to a man standing to the right.
“Update us on the electrical systems.”
“The main circuits are fine. There is some work to be done to replace the
junction boxes at the compressor. With the right spares and some testing, we can
restart in about six hours.”
Al pointed at another man. “What about the high pressure air lines?”
“We’ll have to replace most of the lines around the base of the turbine.
With pressure testing before restart, we can do it in two days.”
Al pointed again. “What about filtration?”
“We don’t know what contaminants entered the filtration systems. We’ll
have to clean the tubes manually. For the sake of speed, though, I suggest that we
simply replace all the active charcoal filters. It will cost us a bomb but we’ll know
the system is clean. It should take no longer than two days–if we can find enough
replacement filters.”
Al pointed again. “What about the hydraulics?”
“The system will have to be flushed and refilled once we figure out where to
find another compressor. We’ll start replacing the accumulators and line filters
right away. Refitting the hydraulic lines would be done in, say, three days.”
Al turned to Greg. “It seems like we could be back in production in four to
five days.”
“What can we do in the meantime to speed it up?” Greg asked.
“We’ll do a running test on the two smaller compressors as soon as we are
done here. If they are still in good shape, we’ll have 50% air capacity available.
Our only short-term limitation is cleaning and re-commissioning the air filtration
system.”
“If we can find the filters, we should be up and running in two days. That

39
will give us sufficient capacity to run at least half the plant. Obviously, we’ll have
to find another compressor to replace the one we’ve lost before we can get the
entire plant back up to speed.”
Greg nodded, already dreading the call to head office. “Well, I ask that you
help us by working as fast as you can–around the clock if necessary–to get us back
to life.”
There was a feeling of urgency in the room. It was as if the maintenance
team shared a collective feeling of guilt for the disaster.
“I’ll try to arrange the insurance clearance as quickly as possible so that we
may go ahead with repairs,” Greg said. “Al, please complete the inspection and
testing of the remaining systems as quickly as possible. I want an update every
hour. Let’s move.” There was a clatter of boots as everyone headed for the door.
Greg called Mike and Maggie to his office. They’d arranged to send some
people home for the day, keeping others to help clean up. Throughout all of this,
Dennis was nowhere to be found. He had stormed out of the compressor room right
after Greg intervened. Greg wondered where he’d gone.

The telephone rang. It was Sandy. The anger in his voice needed no
explanation. “What in the name of heaven happened?” The grapevine was
incredible. In a matter-of-fact voice, Greg filled him in on the events.
“How will this affect the AsiaComNet order?” he asked–his tone cold and
strained. “I don’t know yet,” Greg responded. “I am waiting to hear from
maintenance how quickly we can get back on stream.”
“Keep me posted,” was the curt reply. “I’ll fly out in the morning to see the
damage for myself.” The phone went dead.
“Oh boy,” Greg groaned inwardly. The last thing he needed was head office
getting in the way.
Dennis strode into the room.
“Where have you been?” Greg asked accusingly, as Dennis sat down.
“You didn’t need me in there. I went looking for a substitute compressor.”
Greg sat bolt upright. “Did you find one?” he asked, anticipation lightening his
voice.
“Indeed, I did,” Dennis smiled, “but we can’t have it.”
“What do you mean, can’t have it?” Greg blurted out.
“I phoned the compressor vendor in Europe–caught them just before they
went home. They have a spare unit in Los Angeles, but it’s booked for installation
at a new hospital in downtown L.A. There is another one in their warehouse in
Germany, which they can get here in four weeks.”
“Four weeks!” Greg was aghast. Dennis nodded. “Then I phoned the
building contractor in L.A. I convinced him to let us use the compressor on a
temporary basis, since it is still sitting in a crate in their yard. Then I convinced the
compressor vendor to help us by shipping the one in Germany as a replacement for
the one in L.A. That means we can keep the one we are getting from L.A.–
provided the insurance will pay for the transportation and costs of changing the

40
specification for the L.A. order.”
Greg whooped in delight. “Dennis, you are a miracle worker!”
“You’d better get onto the insurance company, and fast!” was the reply.

-oOo-

The next two days was a frenzy of frenetic activity. Sandy arrived early the
next morning, inspected the damage and helped arrange the insurance investigation
and authorization of the replacement compressor. Since the insurance company
was also responsible for making good on lost profits, they moved with surprising
alacrity to get the claim for a new compressor approved.
By the afternoon of the second day, the auxiliary compressors were back in
action, with new filters flown in from the east coast. By the end of the week, the
new compressor was gently lowered onto its mounting bolts, hooked up and tested.
Al and his maintenance crew had barely slept throughout the crisis, living off take-
outs and inordinate amounts of coffee.
They worked around the clock, sleeping in makeshift cots in the
maintenance office. When the electrician gave the thumbs-up for the final circuit
testing, there was a loud cheer when the new compressor spun up to its familiar,
high-pitched whine. Grinning from ear to ear, they slapped one other on the back,
followed by great big bear hugs, and gave high-fives all around.
That night the entire maintenance team had a huge celebration barbecue
behind the plant. ‘They’re like college kids,’ Greg smiled, deeply grateful for their
commitment.
As soon as the air supply was restored, Dennis insisted that the production
lines be run at maximum capacity, but the reaction of the clean room teams took
him by surprise. They simply refused to put in the extra effort to catch up on the
lost production time. They shrugged their shoulders, saying that the delay was none
of their doing.
Mike was adamant about it too. In the production meeting he said: “We
won’t expose the production lines to more risk by running them faster. We don’t
want the same disaster here as in the compressor room.”
Dennis went red in the face. “We don’t have the luxury of deciding whether
we will or won’t speed up the lines. We simply have to.”
“Yeah, right. You tell that to the clean room crews. They do extremely
precise work, and speeding things up will make it impossible to do it right.”
“In the Far East I’ve seen clean room crews work 20% faster than what your
crews are doing right now–as normal procedure,” Dennis retorted.
“We’re not like them, we take far more care with our products than they
do,” sniffed Maggie. Dennis went purple in the face.
“Well, then find a way to do it faster, better and more consistently.”
“It can’t be done,” she replied, folding her arms across her substantial
bosom. She lifted her head in disdain. “We in quality assurance won’t allow that.”
Dennis was speechless.

41
 “Besides, you don’t understand our unique working environment. Our plant
is different from all the others,” she sniffed.
“We have our own operating procedures that work best for us,” Mike
concurred, nodding sagely.
“Have you been to the other Intec plants in the Far East?” Dennis asked.
Mike and Maggie looked at each another. “No,” they chorused. “Then how can
you be so sure that your methods are the best?” Dennis retorted. “Ours are the best
for us,” Mike stubbornly replied, blowing through his moustache.
That was the last straw. Dennis jumped to his feet, towering over the group.
“You can’t be that dumb. Of course there are more effective production methods
than yours – even for this environment.”
Mike shook his head. “It won’t work here, we’re different.”
“Different…?” Dennis could hardly contain his anger and frustration.

The obtuseness of the production and quality assurance groups, the

uncooperative attitude of the unions, the grousing of the maintenance group, the
unrelenting pressure from head office, the self-serving attitude of production
planning and the wariness of the clean room crews became too much for Dennis to
handle.
Each group defended its own turf, setting their own agendas above those of
the company. The compressor room disaster had widened the rift between
maintenance and production. They blamed one another for the disaster, even
though the cause was still unclear. Dennis had stormed out of the last acrimonious
production meeting, directly to Greg’s office, and vented his frustration.

42
 Chapter Five
So had ended the train of events which left Greg alone in his office, staring
at the water glass Dennis had left on his desk. The condensation slowly formed
rivulets, snaking to tiny pools on the glass top. Greg rested his forehead on the cold
table and closed his eyes. His last card in the high-stakes game to get AsiaComNet
shipped on time had failed. They had six weeks left to meet the deadline, and
things looked very bleak indeed. He had underestimated the gulf between the
culture of the original MicroLogic and that of Intec. MicroLogic embraced quality
and precision while the Intec culture was all about low cost, high throughput, and
rapid technology change. He was reaping the bitter fruit of ignoring the oil and
water cultures.
‘I need time to think,’ he sighed. He left the office, told the receptionist in
passing that he’d be back in an hour, got into his car and drove out the gate. He
circled around aimlessly for a while, and eventually ended up on a hilltop
overlooking San Francisco bay. He parked, got out and walked to the lookout area.
The brilliant sunshine shadowed the Golden Gate Bridge in the sparkling azure
water. The light breeze blowing off the ocean carried smells and tastes of long-
forgotten childhood holidays. Cars were moving like ants on Route 101 far below.
Greg stood there for a long time, his mind a jumble of thoughts. He went
over the possibilities again and again, but could not find a way out of the mess. If
only he could get everyone in the plant to pull together. If they did, he was sure
they still had an outside chance to squeeze everything though in time.
Somewhere, among all these thoughts, his last conversation with Andrew
popped up in his mind. Perhaps the plant he had been waxing lyrical about may
have the solution. Greg quickly walked back to the car, picked up his cell phone
and dialed Andrew’s number.
“Hi, Andrew,” Greg started, when he answered the call.
“Hey Greg!” Andrew replied. “Fancy that–hearing from you in the middle
of the day.”
Greg smiled. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure.”
“Remember the plant that you told me about during our golf game, and
during our last call?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“Can I go see it? Right now, I need a miracle to get me out of the biggest
jam of my life.”
“That bad, huh?”
Greg gave him a rundown on the events of the past weeks.
Andrew whistled quietly. “Wow, what a bind. I’m sure I can arrange for you
to talk to them - perhaps even to visit them. I have an appointment with their
management the day after tomorrow to check up on a system we’re installing. Why
don’t you come with me and I’ll introduce you to the CEO.” Greg felt a sense of

43
relief. “That would be fantastic! Where do we meet?”
“Let me call and see if he is available. I’ll phone you back right away.”
The sunshine suddenly seemed a whole lot brighter. Greg squared his
shoulders and felt hungry. His mind had been so occupied with AsiaComNet that
he had forgotten about lunch. He got back into his car and headed for the nearest
fast food outlet.
The phone rang as he was leaving the drive-through window. It was
Andrew. “I got hold of the CEO. His name is Butch Johnson. He is a fascinating
guy and is prepared to give us an hour meeting.”
“Great.” Greg felt encouraged. “Where do I meet you?”
“The plant is in Milwaukee. I suggest you fly out tomorrow night and meet
me for breakfast at the waterfront restaurant south of the new art museum. We’ll
drive out to the plant and should be back at the airport after lunch.”
“I’ll book the flights and phone you back. Thanks a lot, old buddy!”
“No problem.” Greg could hear the smile in Andrew’s voice. “At least I get
to teach you something new.”
Back at the plant, Greg gave the flight details to the girl at the front desk as
he walked in. He had been gone for ninety minutes, and went looking for Dennis to
smooth the troubled emotions. He found him in the clean room section of the plant.
He could see Dennis through the protective glass.
Since the smallest particle of dust that settled on the chip arrays during
manufacture could destroy the performance of the microchips, everyone had to
wear protective clothing and respirators. Dennis was talking to the clean room
supervisor through his facemask. Greg slipped on his own protective wear and
walked through the airlock. The static discharge armband he clipped to the table
next to the supervisor. Dennis looked at him and nodded, but did not interrupt the
conversation.
They were talking about recovery rates of chips. From every silicon wafer, a
large number of computer chips were made. However, close to half of the chips
were discarded due to microscopic flaws in the circuits. Dennis was trying to
understand why so many chips were discarded. Greg instantly understood what he
was trying to establish.
If they could increase the recovery of chips by, say, 30% it would translate
into an instantaneous capacity increase of 30%–something that would go a long
way in helping to save the AsiaComNet order. Greg walked around the machines,
marveling again at human ingenuity that had made it all possible.
“Can I see you when you’re done?” Greg asked, his voice hollow in the
enclosed headgear.
“Sure, let’s go.” Dennis replied.
With that, they returned to the disrobing station. Dennis had regained his
temper from the morning’s outburst and was back to his normal ebullient self.
Greg told him about the opportunity to visit the plant in Milwaukee. Dennis
listened with interest. “Anything that can help us get out of this jam will be great.
We have the place under control now and I can cover for you with Sandy. You go

44
see what we can use.”
“Thanks buddy.” He breathed a sigh of relief.

-oOo-

Greg hurried over to the baggage claim area at the Milwaukee airport. He
expected to wait for his overnight bag. To his surprise, it was on the carousel when
he arrived. Smaller airports had their advantages. ‘I wish MicroLogic could do so
well,’ he thought, heading for the car rental counter.
The sun was rising over the lake as he drove down to the waterfront. The
new art museum was an awesome structure. The roof was suspended with a myriad
of cables from a massive inclined concrete pillar that resembled a yacht mast. The
building itself sat on the water’s edge, resplendent against the boxy regularity of
the ageing downtown office buildings behind it. It was a magnificent work of art in
itself.
He found the restaurant and walked through the open-air barbeque area to
the front door. Large powerboats and yachts were moored all along the walkway
around the restaurant, bringing the early morning breakfast crowd. The place
thronged with suntanned people in designer-white cotton drills and rope sandals,
and buzzed with conversation. The building was glassed on three sides and offered
a magnificent view of the blue water through the sparkling white yachts moored
right up against the windows.
The usher welcomed him with a smile. He asked for Andrew. After looking
at his reservation list, the usher escorted him to a table at the very end of the room.
Andrew was looking out over the bay. He turned around and waved when they
approached.
“So you made it!” Andrew grinned when Greg sat down.
“I wouldn’t pass up the chance to find out what you do for a living,” Greg
parried.
Andrew laughed and beckoned to the waiter. They ordered breakfast and
made small talk about their families and children. When the steaming seafood
omelets arrived, they got down to business.
“Let me give you some background of the company we are visiting. That
will save you some time when we get to meet the CEO. ”
Greg nodded in agreement, excitement rising.
“Butch Johnson is the sole owner of Cape Industries. It’s a very successful
business that manufactures electronic ignition systems for non-automotive engines.
They supply outboard motor companies, small gas engine manufacturers,
agricultural equipment manufacturers and the like. The technology is an invention
of the owner, which has enabled him to keep the Japanese and Chinese competition
at bay. In fact, his patented technology delivers far better fuel efficiency than the
closest competing technology.”
Andrew took another bite of his omelet, and pensively munched for a
minute before continuing.

45
 “Butch is an expatriate South African who has been in more parts of the
world than you can imagine. He’s an ex-army colonel, ex-paratrooper, big-game
hunter, inventor, yachtsman and the hardest drinker I’ve had the misfortune to
cross beer mugs with.”
“Sounds like my kind of guy,” Greg grinned. Andrew nodded in agreement.
“He’s a tough nut, but the most amazing thing about him is his knack of getting the
best out of his employees. As I told you back on the golf course, the business has
an upbeat crackle about it that is contagious. I don’t know how he does it. ”
Greg sat forward.
“There is an enthusiasm about the place that is striking,” Andrew continued.
“It feels as if everyone is personally committed to the success of the business–right
down to the night shift janitors. Even in the area where we were installing the
control systems on some of the automated ‘pick and place’ assembly lines, the
feeling of enthusiasm was noticeable.”
He took another bite of food and continued. “My guys were reluctant to
leave when the job was completed. Working in some of our other clients’ factories
was downright depressing after being at Cape Industries.”
“Sounds like you’ve had a stint in Intec’s plants,” Greg observed.
Andrew looked at his watch and motioned Greg to finish his food. “We have
to get moving. Most of the morning rush hour will have dissipated by now. I don’t
want us to be late. Butch is bound to have you do fifty push-ups in the parking lot
if you don’t arrive on time.”
Greg laughed out loud.
The interstate took them out west, away from the lakefront and into the
industrial area that surrounds the inner city. The traffic was fairly light and they
arrived at the plant fifteen minutes ahead of their appointed time.
“No push-ups for us,” Andrew sighed in mock-relief. The plant was
noticeably cleaner than the surrounding buildings. Even the familiar white, red and
blue flag on the white flagpole was clean and pressed.
As they walked through the entrance doors, a pretty auburn-haired girl
behind the reception desk greeted them with a brilliant smile. “Welcome to Cape
Industries,” she said. “You must be Greg.”
“Yes, how did you guess?” Greg was taken aback.
“I’ve met Andrew before,” she said, “and I knew you were coming with
him.” Andrew gave Greg the ‘see what I mean’ look. Greg was impressed.
“Butch asked me to accompany you to his office. He is out in the plant, and
will be with you in a few minutes.” She got up from behind the desk, and escorted
them to the office in the far corner of the administration block.
She asked for their drinks preference and left. The office was unusually
large, and for a very good reason. Every wall was covered with hunting trophies
and military memorabilia. Pride of place was the trophy of a magnificent male lion.
It was an awesome sight. Hundreds of photographs filled the spaces between the
trophies. Greg’s curiosity got the better of him. He got up and walked over to take
a closer look. One photograph caught his attention. It was a somewhat overexposed

46
color photograph, obviously enlarged from a smaller, grainy original. It showed a
broad-shouldered man in drab brown camouflage standing on the blown-apart
turret of a burnt-out Soviet T-54 assault tank.
Grinning young men–festooned in cartridge belts and weapons of war–
surrounded him. The look of pride and delight was clear on every face. Another
photograph showed the same man–now in full military dress uniform–receiving a
medal from a dark-suited civilian in front of a full military parade. The medal was
being added to two full rows of medals on the tunic. The photograph was crisp and
clear.
“If you can guess where that photograph was taken, I’ll buy you a bottle of
the finest whiskey money can buy.” Greg had not heard anyone enter. He swung
around, feeling as if he was trespassing.
It was the man in the photograph.
He looked about fifteen years older. The eyes were level, clear and
unflinching. His body still looked hard and muscular. As he came around the table,
Greg noticed that he walked with a slight limp. He shook Greg’s hand–the grip
brief and strong. He turned around and greeted Andrew the same way. His sheer
presence dominated the room.
“I apologize for not being available when you arrived,” he said courteously.
His voice was deep and carried well, even though he was speaking quietly. The
accent sounded like a fine mixture of French and Dutch, and was pleasant to the
ear.
“No problem, Butch,” Andrew replied. “Allow me to introduce my friend
Greg here.” Butch looked at Greg again. The clear gray eyes were disconcerting in
their directness. “We are honored to have you visit us,” Butch smiled. “Thank you
for allowing me in,” Greg smiled in return. His liking for the hard, quiet man was
instantaneous.
The receptionist entered with a tray of steaming coffee mugs, which she set
down on the table. “Please be seated,” Butch gestured. They followed his invitation
in helping themselves to coffee and cream.
Butch turned to Andrew. “I must thank you for the outstanding work your
team did on installing the control systems on the pick and place lines. They worked
very hard and our operators were impressed with the care they took to make sure
everyone was properly trained.”
Andrew nodded in respectful acknowledgement. “I told Greg on the way
over that my crews didn’t want to leave here. They say this is one of the nicest
work environments they have ever been in. The spirit of commitment is
contagious.”
Andrew sipped his coffee.
“I wish I can leave some of my other crew members here for a while,” he
continued, “Perhaps they can absorb some of the motivation and commitment.
Even better, I’ll swap you some of my guys for some of yours!” Andrew
suggested.

47
 Butch threw back his head and laughed. Greg couldn’t help laughing as
well. His eyes fell on Butch’s left forearm. It was covered in hard, tight burn tissue
from behind the wrist all the way up his arm, around the elbow and into his sleeve.
A long, jagged scar ran alongside the burn tissue. Large, clumsy inch-wide stitches
had left irregular pockmarks all along the cut. Greg shuddered inwardly. It must
have been an awful injury. He looked up to find Butch looking at him with a
faintly amused expression. “Not pretty, huh?” he smiled.
“No, not at all,” Greg confessed.
“One day I’ll tell you about it,” Butch replied. “I have approximately forty
minutes to spend with you.” Butch returned to the subject of their visit.
“Well, I came to inspect the quality of our installation and to confirm that it
meets with your final approval,” Andrew replied. “You have answered part of my
question already.”
“I’m satisfied.” Butch said, “But you’ll have to check with Yuri, the Chief
Flow Officer, if there are any issues that still need to be dealt with.”
Greg frowned, puzzled by the unusual title.
“Let me see if he is in his office.” Butch got up, walked over to his desk and
dialed a number. “Are you available to talk to Andrew about the control system
installation?” he asked. He listened to the answer for a minute. “Thanks,” he
replied and returned the phone to its cradle.
“Yuri will be happy to talk to you in ten minute’s time. He will call when he
is free.”
Butch sat down and turned to face Greg. “While Andrew talks to Yuri, I am
at your disposal,” he continued. “Andrew said you were in charge of a large wafer-
fab plant out west, and that you were interested in seeing how our operation
functioned.”
Greg nodded.
“I am facing some serious operational difficulties, and if I don’t find a
solution to my problem quickly, I’ll be a dead boss very shortly. Andrew reckons
that your plant is significantly different from every other plant he’s been in. I am
eager to find out what makes your plant so successful.”
Butch looked at him in his calm, calculating way. Then he nodded once.
“Yes, we have managed to create something significant here. We have the
lowest absentee rates in the industry. I have to force people to take leave. Everyone
arrives way before the shift starts and many leave long after the workday ends. Our
output per person has been the highest in the industry for six consecutive years.
Our defect rates are 75% lower than our nearest competitor’s. According to our
customers, our lead-time is the shortest and our on-time delivery is close to 99%.
Plant reliability stays close to 90%. Labor turnover is below 2%.”
Greg got another smug ‘what did I tell you’ look from Andrew over Butch’s
shoulder.
He could not help being impressed. He mentally compared his plant to these
figures. It was sobering to realize that performance at the same level in his plant
would have had the AsiaComNet order out the door already.

48
 He sat forward in excitement. “How do you do it?” he blurted out. Butch
looked at him pensively. Before he could answer, the phone rang. It was Yuri.
“He’s ready to talk to you,” he said to Andrew. “I’ll walk with you to his
office. You had better come along,” he said to Greg. “I’ll take you on a short
reconnaissance tour before we continue our conversation.”
Leaving Andrew with Yuri, Butch escorted Greg through the plant. Like the
outside, it was truly spotless. Wherever they went, they were greeted with cheerful
enthusiasm. It was exactly as Andrew had described it. The feeling of positive
attitude and enthusiasm was tangible. There seemed to be an aura of excitement in
everyone he met. Butch did not spend much time describing the production
process. He let Greg ask the questions and answered them briefly and factually. As
they moved through the plant, Greg again noticed a slight limp in Butch’s step.
At one point, in the printed circuit board testing section, they came across a
small group of people deep in discussion. Butch motioned Greg to wait, walked
over, and joined the conversation for a few minutes. He returned and they
continued their tour.
“What were they doing back there?” Greg asked, curiosity getting the better
of him.
“They’re doing a signification,” was the reply.
“A what?” Greg asked.
“It’s an emotional reinforcement of one of the employees who has
succeeded in mastering a very difficult and complex new procedure.”
“You mean it’s like a quality improvement group?” Greg asked. Butch
looked uncomfortable. “No–not at all. I avoid glitzy initiatives like quality,
business process re-engineering and Six Sigma like the plague. I am not saying that
requirements of high quality, consistency and productivity are unimportant.
Because of the way I have created this organization, those things happen
spontaneously without having to ‘do’ quality, re-engineering and the like through
some formal initiative. All my professional life I have worked at understanding
what I must do to make my business–spontaneously and without intervention–act
in a way that will make it the best in class.”

Greg was speechless. “Are you telling me that the awesome achievements
you described to me earlier in your office came about without implementing
initiatives like business process re-engineering, total quality management,
reliability engineering, and the like?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Butch replied. “In fact, there are some initiatives in our
plant that make those approaches look silly. If I dared to introduce those fads, they
would wreck what we’ve worked so hard to achieve.”
Greg was incredulous. “At Intec it is the opposite. We careen from one
corporate initiative to another. Not only do we try our hand at every new fad that
comes along, we have dozens of initiatives going at the same time.”
Butch threw back his head and roared with laughter. “And what is the
result?” he asked when his mirth had subsided. Greg was quiet for a while,

49
thinking about the question.
“Well, the process seems to be eerily predictable. Someone in top
management hears about some new management fad. Then they send someone off
to a seminar to hear some guru talk on the subject. The delegates come back and
enthusiastically tell management about the immense benefits this fad has delivered
to dozens of other companies. Management does not want to be seen to be behind
the times, so they launch a major initiative to introduce this new approach into the
business. It always seems to involve lots of training classes, consultants crawling
all over the place, many internal implementation teams, new measurement and
recording procedures, and lots of management feedback meetings and report
writing.
After a while, though, it all starts to fade away. The meetings become more
infrequent, management seems to have more pressing things to do, the recording
procedures aren’t updated, and the training comes to an end. Sometime later, the
janitor brings a dumpster to the training room and all the training files, records,
meeting notes, motivational posters and student manuals are unceremoniously
carted away. The entire initiative disappears like it never existed. The business
goes right back to the same old rhythm, doing exactly what it did before, at the
same work pace and performance levels.”
Greg was silent for a minute.
“But worst of all is the cynicism it breeds at the lower levels of the
organization. People feel demeaned and cheated when an endless stream of new
initiatives are forced upon them. Everybody instinctively knows that the business
has to be more competitive, more agile, and more customer-focused. All they hear
from management day in and day out is that they, not management, have to do
better. They perceive the parade of new initiatives with jaded resignation. In fact,
many perceive it as a real threat. In many instances, these initiatives have resulted
in layoffs, downsizing, and an overall decline in the quality of work life.
For most people, work has become more intense, more defensive, and more
scrutinized than ever before. In our company, people refer to new improvement
initiatives as JAP – just another program.” He paused for breath. “Now that I think
about it, it feeds on itself. Managers experience more resistance and less tangible
improvement and, in response, implement yet another improvement initiative in a
knee-jerk reaction.”

Butch looked at Greg with appreciation. “You are one of the few people
who realize that the improvement emperor is indeed naked. What you describe is
something that occurs in thousands of businesses all over the world. Nobody asks
the simple question: ‘Why?’ Why is it that these initiatives have to be launched?
Why does it have to be induced from management or from the outside? Why is it
not something an organization does spontaneously, from its very own soul, from
the bottom up, without inducement?”
Greg nodded with newfound understanding. “Now that you pushed me to
verbalize my perceptions, I realize how little I know about creating truly superb

50
organizations. I have had moderate success in improving the performance in some
of our smaller companies, but that came about because I simply charged at it like a
bull in a china shop. Now that I am at the helm of a significantly larger operation, I
am at a loss. There are undercurrents and power plays that I don’t understand, and
cannot control. The whole thing seems to have a mind of its own.”
Greg was surprised at the depth of emotion in his own voice. He did not
notice that they had walked back to the office block.
Butch was smiling. “You are describing the very thing that makes the life of
many managers a misery. They desperately want to build and manage a superb
organization, but every day they face a cesspool of dissent, non-cooperation,
hidden agendas, power play, concealed realities, backstabbing, and low-level
warfare. It happens between groups within the company, between the company and
its customers, between workers and management, and between the company and its
vendors. Everybody focuses on where the next assault is going to come from and
how their alliances are holding up, rather than putting effort into making the
organization more effective.”

They reached Butch’s office. Andrew was still busy with Yuri out on the
production floor. Butch motioned Greg to sit down, and ordered more coffee.
Butch continued his train of thought. “This low-level confrontational
behavior is not limited to the large manufacturing businesses we know. I have
seen the same thing in military environments, government departments, church
communities, academic institutions, telecommunications, research firms, and more.
In fact, I have yet to find an organization where this does not happen. For want of a
better description, most people call it company politics.”
Greg thought of the animosity between the groups in the MicroLogic
plant–Mike in production, Maggie in quality assurance, Al in maintenance, Ron in
production planning, and Jim in sales. Even the clean room workers, loath to help
make up the backlog after the compressor disintegrated, were at odds with him.
“Your company doesn’t fit the mold,” Greg commented. “I can clearly sense
the difference. There is energy about the place, a feeling of commitment and
enthusiasm that is profoundly different from my environment.”
Butch nodded his agreement.
“That is exactly what I set out to achieve. I wanted to create an organization
that spontaneously improved itself. During my military career, I have seen ordinary
people consistently do extraordinary things under extraordinary circumstances. I
vowed that I would figure out what it was that sustained such awesome
commitment, and replicate it in my business.”
They were quiet, sipping their coffee.
“In my past, circumstances had put me in places and situations where no
sane person would want to be. I have killed other humans for a cause, I have found
myself in horrendously dangerous situations, and nearly got killed myself.”
Greg involuntarily looked at the photograph of the wrecked, fire-blackened
battle tank on the wall. Butch followed his gaze. “In those extraordinary situations,

51
the raw, base drivers of human behavior were forced to the surface. I carefully
analyzed the experiences and developed a model that I could apply to an
environment like this.” He absently stroked the scar tissue on his arm, momentarily
far away–his eyes bleak in memory.
“Learning from what people is capable of doing in extreme environments,
made the transfer of my approach to this civilized environment pretty easy. It was
like driving a racing car one day and switching to a pickup truck the next day.”
Greg listened intently, engrossed by the concept. Butch continued.
“During the 1970-1980’s war years in South Africa, every able white male
was put in uniform at the age of eighteen and taught how to kill. The lives of
thousands of young men were badly traumatized throughout the twenty years of
warfare. I ended up in the Reconnaissance Unit–one of the finest fighting units in
the world. We spent years in the African bush, at war with the freedom fighters
backed by the Soviet Union who dumped thousands of tons of armaments on the
subcontinent. It was a dark, terrible time.”
Butch sighed.
“I managed to attend university and graduated with an engineering degree
and an MBA. Even though I attended the top graduate business school, I was
deeply disappointed at the amount of truly useable business education I received.
Professors simply transferred large quantities of sterile information from the
writings of other academics to me, weighed down with loads of utterly irrelevant
research.
The subject of organizational behavior was particularly frustrating. The
motivation theories, and the theories on group dynamics they touted, did not match
my first-hand experience in the bush war. I questioned the professor on this, and
got the age-old answer–education only creates a broad framework of
understanding. That strengthened my resolve to turn what I had learned from the
heroism and sacrifice of ordinary people in the extraordinary circumstances of war,
into a model I can use to build a bullet-proof business.”
They heard Andrew’s voice in the passage. Greg felt a sense of urgency.
The magic of the moment was evaporating. “Will you share your knowledge with
me?” he asked, his desperation adding strident urgency to the words. Butch looked
at him with a calculating expression. He didn’t reply. Greg could hear Andrew
coming down the passage.
“Please,” Greg urged. “If I can get my plant to perform like yours, it would
be fantastic.”
The gray eyes were unflinching. “No, I won’t share my knowledge with
you,” he said flatly. The words hung in the air like ozone after a lightning bolt.

Andrew entered the room. The moment was gone. Butch turned to him and
asked about his meeting with Yuri. Everything was in order it seemed, and
payment of the contract retention amount would be forthcoming.
Greg felt deep, bitter disappointment at Butch’s flat refusal. He intuitively
knew that the answer to his problems at MicroLogic existed at Cape Industries.

52
 The receptionist popped her head around the door. “Excuse me,” she
interrupted, “I have an overseas call waiting for you.”
Butch stood up and extended his hand. “Well, that brings our meeting to an
end.” The grip was solid and Greg realized that he had met someone truly
extraordinary.
“Call me on this number when you get home tonight.” Butch wrote a
number on the back of his business card and gave it to Greg. He walked to his desk
and picked up the phone as they left.

-oOo-

On their way back to the airport, Andrew wanted to know what Greg had
learned. “Isn’t it just an amazing environment?” he enthused.
“It’s really something,” Greg concurred. “You were right when you
described this plant as being unlike anything you have seen before. I must hand it
to you. Butch is an extraordinary person and he’s created an extraordinary
company.”
“So, did you get any pointers, any ideas that you could use back at
MicroLogic?” Andrew persisted.
“No, he refused to share anything with me,” Greg replied glumly. “I can’t
figure it out from the little I saw today. It is far more involved than what appears
on the surface.”
The more he thought about it, the more despondent he became. “In actual
fact, I am now in a worse position than before.”
“Why?” Andrew asked with surprise.
“Well, yesterday I was still convinced that I was doing the right things at
MicroLogic. Now I know that there is something far more profound, far more
powerful that I could do, but I don’t know how!” Greg banged his clenched fist on
the dashboard in frustration.
“Whoa, careful, there is a loaded airbag in there.” Andrew covered the side
of his face in mock protection.
Greg had to smile.

Back at the airport, they returned the rental car and walked to the check-in
counter. After their bags disappeared on the baggage conveyor, they made their
way to the security checkpoint, boarding card in hand.
“Thank you for arranging the visit,” Greg resumed the conversation.
“Well, at least we could do something together,” Andrew commiserated.
“No, really, I have seen something profoundly different today,” Greg
reassured him.
Andrew had to hurry to get to his boarding gate, and Greg waved him good-
bye. He had an hour to kill before his flight departed. He sat down in the waiting
area, took out his laptop computer and systematically typed up everything he had
learnt. He did not have much to share with Dennis, other than some very

53
superficial observations. Frankly, he had no idea what he was going to do. Bitter
disappointment at Butch’s refusal to be of help, welled up in him.

-oOo-

He got home after ten p.m. Rain was pouring down, blowing in from the
ocean in great sheets of hammering water. The pilot had to fight the weather on the
way in, and the landing at San Francisco airport had been a jolting, nail biting
event. The freeway traffic was even worse, crawling along in the blinding torrent,
squeezing past a truck on its side, slewed across three lanes.
He breathed a sigh of relief when the garage door closed behind him, the
rain only a faint drumming outside. Christine was up, warming his food in the
microwave. She had heard the garage door open.
He put his bag down, took off his jacket, and hugged her tightly. He cleared
his pockets one by one, transferring their contents to his briefcase. He found
Butch’s business card in his inside pocket. Butch’s instruction to phone flashed
through his mind.
He sat down to eat, the business card lying next to his plate. All through the
meal he wondered whether he should take up Butch’s invitation. Flying through
two time zones put the time in Milwaukee close to midnight.
He thought of facing Dennis with nothing to show from his trip. It was not a
pleasant thought. He got up with alacrity, walked to his study, and dialed Butch’s
number.

Butch picked up the phone on the second ring.

“Johnson,” was all he said.
“Hi Butch. This is Greg. I hope I am not calling at an inconvenient time.”
“I wondered if you were going to phone,” came the reply. The cultured
accent in his voice was more pronounced. “I just finished talking to a client on the
other side of the world. Your timing is perfect.”
“Thank you,” Greg replied.
“Well, carry on,’ came the terse prompt. Greg was taken aback by the
unexpected response. He had not thought about why he was calling Butch; he was
simply doing as he had told him to do. Greg had to think fast.
“I was bitterly disappointed that you were not prepared to help me create a
winning company like yours,” he blurted out.
Silence greeted him on the other end of the phone.
“And I was hoping that you would change your mind.” Greg sounded
amateurish, even to himself. The silence continued.
“Did I say that I was not prepared to help you?” Butch asked.
Greg was taken aback.
“I asked you to share your knowledge with me, and you refused,” he
reminded Butch.
“Correct,” came the reply.

54
 Greg was feeling more incompetent by the minute.
“Er, now I am lost,” he said sheepishly.
“Good,” was the terse reply.
“Good?” Greg was truly at a loss for words.
“This afternoon, you asked me to share my knowledge with you. I refused.
Sharing my knowledge is not helping you. In fact, I will be putting you at great
risk.”
Greg felt even more helpless.
“The fact that you phoned me this time of night means that you have a deep
desire to pursue this issue. That was your first test. It tells me that you might
actually take this seriously. I liked the unvarnished opinions you expressed out on
the shop floor. It proved to me that you are prepared to honestly speak your mind
and question yourself.”
“But I am, I do!” Greg exclaimed, sensing an unexpected breakthrough.
“Shut up,” came the terse reply. “You would not be wrecking my sleep if
you weren’t serious.”
Greg grinned, his respect for the man increasing tenfold.
“I will help you, but on my terms,” Butch continued.
“Sure, sure,” Excitement rose in Greg’s voice.
The silence on the other side was deafening.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“You are starting to learn,” was the only comment. “Sharing knowledge is
not the same thing as helping you. By giving you information that you don’t fully
understand, you’ll probably destroy your professional reputation if you were to use
it. I am not prepared to risk that with you. Instead, it is much wiser to teach you
how to use it to great advantage.”
The tinkle of ice broke the silence.
“Companies send an endless stream of people to courses, seminars and
training programs but rarely get significant improvement in the performance of the
business in return, simply because knowledge in itself does not ensure effective
application. The same problem exists with college education.”
Greg’s respect went up another couple of notches. “What do you expect
from me?” he asked.
“Do you remember the photograph of the battle tank on the wall of my
office?”
“Yes,” Greg replied cautiously.
“You learn to destroy those by destroying them.”
Greg was puzzled. “So?”
The silence was longer this time.
“You build a superb company by building one,” it dawned on Greg.
“Good,” came the terse reply. “I am prepared to guide you to discover what
I did, but I will not simply give the information to you.”
Greg felt the excitement rise. “That’s fantastic!” he exclaimed.
“Don’t be so sure.” Butch replied. “It may be more than you wished for. Are

55
you really prepared to break down and rebuild the very core of your company?”
“You bet!” Greg said fervently.
“Then you will follow my lead without question,” Butch continued. “If I
think that you aren’t serious, or lack the stamina, then no more help.”
“Where do we start?” Greg asked, barely able to contain his excitement.
“Start by carefully observing the way people behave in your company.
Although you may not think so, you are privileged to have a company that is under
severe stress at this time. It will make your task much easier. Phone me when you
have some answers.”
With that, Butch ended the call.

56
 Chapter Six
The receptionist looked relieved to see him. “Welcome back!” she
exclaimed. “We can’t let you out of our sight for a day or the place goes to the
dogs.” The knot of tension was back. Nowadays it felt like it was rarely absent.
“What happened now?” Greg asked, dreading the answer.
“I think you should talk to Dennis,” she replied, smiling sympathetically.
‘I wonder if she does this on purpose,’ he thought, hurrying down the
passage to his office. He put his briefcase on the conference table, picked up the
phone and called Dennis in his office.
“Hi, Dennis, can I see you?”
“Welcome back!” Dennis chuckled. “Yeah, come on up. I’ll get you some
coffee.”
Greg hurried through the air locks and took the stairs two at a time to the
second floor. Looking through the glass wall, he scanned the factory floor for any
telltale signs of trouble. Everything seemed under control. The faint, high
frequency hum in the air indicated that the plant was running at full speed. It was a
reassuring sound.

Dennis came out of the vending station carrying two cups of coffee. Greg
took one cup from him and they sat down at the small conference table. Dennis had
taken over Lee’s old office. It reminded Greg that he would have to find a
replacement soon. With the dramatic turn of events in the past weeks, it had
slipped his mind.
“Tell me what happened yesterday,” he commanded. Dennis looked taken
aback. “Who said anything happened?” he asked. “The receptionist told me” he
replied, sipping his coffee.
Dennis chuckled. “The grapevine is really working overtime. After spending
the whole of yesterday in the clean room, I figured out how we could change the
process and gain significant improvement in output. I explained the changes to the
supervisor and operators, but they were less than enthusiastic about the idea. In
fact, they were adamant that it would not work at all.
You know I am the most pleasant and docile of persons most of the time, but
to be told that a modification I have made in many other facilities won’t work here,
really blew my fuses.” Greg smiled at Dennis’ description of himself.
“And?”
“Well, I made it quite clear that they had no choice but to implement the
change. Things got quite heated at that point. They found a zillion reasons why
they thought the idea could not be fully implemented immediately. They wanted to
discuss it with the production manager first, try it out on a small scale, or see it
work in another plant. I told them in no uncertain terms that it had to happen. They
did not like my ultimatum at all and complained to Mike, the production manager.
Relationships have been somewhat strained ever since.”

57
 Greg smiled in relief. It was much less of a problem than he expected.
“I had the same attitude problem with Lee Tanaka. He wanted to have
everything perfectly explained and proven six ways before doing something.”
“We should increase the output of silicon wafers by some 20% once we get
the changes implemented. Mike and his crowd will have to toe the line, and fast,”
Dennis continued.
Greg felt a sense of relief. It was great to have Dennis to help him.
“Now it’s your turn,” Dennis continued. “Tell me about your visit to
Milwaukee.”

Greg sat back and told Dennis everything he had seen and experienced at
Cape Industries. Dennis was fascinated by the description of the mood and
ambience, the motivation levels and the sheer joy of work life that Greg described.
“It sounds incredible,” Dennis exclaimed. “Did he tell you how to create the
same environment here at our plant?”
Greg looked crestfallen. “No, he refused to tell me,” he admitted.
Dennis was incredulous. “Why not?” he queried.
“He maintained that it would do us more harm than good if he simply told
us how,” Greg replied, and recounted his late night conversation with Butch.
Dennis nodded his head in appreciation. “It makes good sense to me. So, as
a first step, we should determine how people behave here at MicroLogic,” he
mused.
“Yup,” Greg affirmed.
“Well, you’d better start. We don’t have much time. Sandy was looking for
you yesterday, wanting to know how we are doing on AsiaComNet. I managed to
sideline him for a day, but you’ll have to call him tomorrow. He sounded pretty
anxious,” Dennis continued. “As an ongoing strategy, I will take care of
AsiaComNet if you get Butch to help us as quickly as possible.”
Greg smiled with relief. “I have some administrative work to do, but I
should finish that by late morning. Perhaps we should get together at five to review
what I have,” he added.
“Good idea,” Dennis concurred and Greg left in a hurry.
Back in his office, he rushed through his paperwork and cleared his email
and in-basket by eleven a.m. He opened a new file on his computer screen and
started typing. He set about recording all the human behavior traits that he could
recall. He smiled to himself as he relived the dramatic events of the past few
weeks. The dismembered compressor reminded him of the blackened tank on
Butch’s wall. Life has definitely not been dull at MicroLogic.
By 4:30 p.m. he sat back and stretched his arms. Dennis strolled into his
office, carrying two cups of coffee.
“How did you know I needed that?” Greg asked.
“Well, I smelled burning brain cells all the way down the passage,” Dennis
quipped. “What dazzling insights have you discovered?”
Greg leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head, arching his neck.

58
 “We seem to be plagued by all sorts of irrational behavior,” he mused.
“Listen to some of this, and see if you agree.”
“Fire away,” Dennis replied, carefully sipping the hot coffee.

Greg scrolled up to the top of the document. “People naturally form groups.
For example, the production supervisors form a strong group, and the maintenance
guys seem to do everything as one–even hunting and fishing together in their spare
time.”
Greg glanced up enquiringly. Dennis looked pensive for a minute before he
replied. “That’s true. The production planners act as a group, closing ranks when
anyone questions their precious schedules, and the salespeople seem to be a breed
apart. I think your observation is valid.”

Greg looked at the screen. “I have another one that you missed–the
corporate head office. They seem to be a group apart.”
Dennis chuckled in appreciation. “I’m glad Sandy isn’t here to hear this. It’s
true though. They act as if they are a race apart from us minions down on the
factory floor.”
Greg turned his attention back to the screen. “These groups seem to be
locked into an ongoing low-intensity war. The production planners are forever at
odds with the production supervisors. The production people gripe that the
maintenance people think they’re God’s gift to the factory. Whenever they have a
production crisis, they claim it is impossible to find a maintenance person. To even
things out, the maintenance staff constantly accuse the production people of
vandalizing their precious machinery. The sales staff complains to me about the
distribution staff missing orders and deliveries. The union is constantly at war with
management. The warehousing staff is at loggerheads with the distribution staff.
The list seems endless.” Greg’s voice trailed off.
They were both silent for a while.
“You’re very perceptive,” Dennis concurred. “Even the buyers seem to think
that our suppliers are our worst enemies, and treat them with distrust and suspicion.
Everyone thinks head office only exists to give the plant a hard time. They demand
information immediately, although it takes weeks to collect. When they get it, they
rarely use it. I spend an awful amount of time trying to resolve disputes and
disagreements between different groups in the plant, and find myself constantly
walking a tightrope, wanting to push people to work faster and more efficiently,
but not so much as to aggravate them.”
Dennis was getting more animated.
“It goes further than that. The second shift always finds something wrong
with products made by the first shift. They complain that the quality is bad, the
specifications are wrong, and have a zillion other petty gripes.”
“Remember the huge fight between quality assurance and production?”
Greg interrupted. “Can I ever forget it?” Dennis replied ruefully. “Production
wanted to speed up the production lines, and quality assurance wanted to slow

59
them down. Maggie and Mike were ready to grab one another by the throat.”
Greg nodded.
“The next observation on my list is that these groups seem to develop their
own identity.”
Dennis chuckled in agreement.
“They also view outsiders with some suspicion. They assume that all
outsiders are bad news,” Greg continued. “The first day I walked into this plant,
you could cut the wariness and suspicion with a knife. At the first management
meeting, I felt like a visitor from Mars. Everyone treated me with deep distrust and
suspicion, even though they smiled nicely and were very polite.”

“We’ve been talking mostly about groups of people.” Dennis steered the
conversation in another direction. “What about the individuals? Don’t they also
behave in funny ways?”
“I typed up some thoughts on that.” Greg scrolled down the screen. “I
remember reading an incident many years ago, when a plant was on the verge of
taking a union vote. The owner explained very carefully to every individual what
negative effects unionization would have on their ability to give wage increases,
pay individual incentives and so forth. Every single individual, in private, agreed
wholeheartedly that unionization was a terrible idea. The next day they voted 80 to
20 in favor of unionization. They handed management their head on a platter.”(2)
Dennis grinned. “That must have dented his ego.”
“It surely did,” Greg agreed. “I concluded that individuals prefer to
subordinate their desires to that of the group, rather than take an individual stand.”
Dennis looked at his watch. “I hate to interrupt you, but I’d better leave. I
have a date tonight.”
Greg’s eyebrows rose. “The bachelor has a date?” he queried.
“So?” Dennis retorted, looking uncomfortable. “I’m not made of stone you
know.” Greg grinned. “I should also be going home. Before I spend more time on
this train of thought, I’d better check with Butch if we are doing this right.”
He shut down the computer, and they left together.

-oOo-

It was a beautiful late afternoon over the bay. Greg took a deep breath,
marveling at the crispness in the air. The afternoon traffic had subsided and his
drive home was quick and uneventful.
After dinner, he played with the children for a while. The family had settled
into their new home quite comfortably. By nine o’clock, he went downstairs to his
study, took out his diary and phoned Butch’s home number.

Just like the previous night, he answered after the first ring.
“Hi Butch. It’s Greg” he began.
“Hello Greg. Have you done what I asked?” Butch replied. Greg was

60
immediately on the defensive. ‘This is not a man of many words,’ he thought.
“Yes, indeed,” he replied. “We spent the better part of the afternoon
analyzing the way people behave.”
“And?”
“Well, I wanted to run our initial analysis by you to ensure that we are
heading in the right direction.”
“Go ahead.”
Greg recounted the observations they had made. As he described them, they
sounded pretty superficial, but Butch listened without interruption. There was a
prolonged silence after Greg had finished.
“These groups that you are talking about, are they related to your formal
organization structure?”
Greg thought about that for a minute.
“No” he replied, “they seem to be all over the place, but exist mostly by
function or activity. The truck drivers act as a group. The maintenance staff acts as
another group, and so on.”
“Did you deliberately create these groups?”
“No. They seemed to have come into existence by themselves.” His mind
was racing to find the train of thought that Butch was following.
“So, in spite of your efforts to create an organizational structure that is
supposed to define the relationship between individuals, they prefer to create their
own relationships and association.”
“I suppose so,” Greg replied cautiously.
“Yes or no?” came the terse reply.
“Yes,” Greg replied lamely.
“Then you must be missing something about structuring your organization.
Go think about that. You’re doing well so far. The observations you have made are
significant. You are on the right track.” Greg felt a rush of pride and gratitude,
which surprised him.
“What is the oldest form of organizational structure?” Butch asked. Greg
was caught off guard by this new angle. He thought for a minute. “Well, during my
MBA studies, our professor had us study the latest research on organizational
design. We were looking at matrix structures…”
“That is not what I asked you,” Butch interrupted. “Find out what the oldest
form of organizational structure is, and phone me back. In the meantime, continue
your observations on how people behave.”
The line went dead.
Greg sat at his desk, staring at the photograph of his smiling wife and
children in a silver frame on the wall. ‘Where would I find a description of the
oldest organization structure?’ he thought to himself.
He got up and looked through the bookshelves. The prescribed books he had
used for his MBA studies were neatly sorted and arranged together. He thanked his
lucky stars for his wife’s neatness.
He found three books on organizations and plunked them down on the desk.

61
He switched on the brass banker’s lamp and opened the first one. The yellow
highlighter marks have faded to light beige and the notes in the margins made little
sense now. He began to read.

Two hours later he closed the last book and sat back. None of the academic
books made any reference to the oldest organizational structure. In fact, they were
devoted to describing only the latest organizational thinking. Matrix organizations,
radial organizations, and self-renewed organizations were all supposed to be the
latest and the best, but nothing was said about the oldest organization structure.
He turned to his computer, went online and sifted through dozens of web
pages with little success–all about the ‘latest’ stuff. It was close to midnight and
the house was quiet when he sat back and rubbed his eyes. They were gritty with
tiredness.
He switched off the computer and put the books back on the shelf. ‘Where
would I find a reference to the oldest organization structure?’ he asked himself
again. ‘Perhaps I should phone the anthropology department at the university
tomorrow.’ He shook his head. He was in a hurry. ‘What is the oldest text I have
here in my library?’ he thought, looking through the shelves. His eyes fell on the
Bible. ‘That’s it! There should be a clue in there somewhere,’ he thought with
relief.
Tucking the book under his arm, he turned off the lights and went to bed. He
crawled in next to his sleeping wife and opened the Bible. He flipped through the
gossamer pages. ‘I haven’t read this in years,’ he thought with a twinge of guilt,
remembering his youthful days in Sunday school.
‘Where do I begin?’ he wondered. ‘Probably at the beginning,’ he smiled to
himself. He opened the Bible at the book of Genesis and started reading.

-oOo-

MicroLogic seemed to be more dramatic than ever. Greg was barely in his
chair when Mike unceremoniously burst into his office. Greg looked at him with
trepidation. He was clearly upset.
“Hi Mike, sit down,” he greeted the production manager, deciding not to
comment on the unannounced interruption.
“I’d rather stand,” he replied. “I want to lodge a complaint about Dennis
meddling in our operation in the clean room.”
“Meddling?” Greg asked incredulously.
“Absolutely,” Mike fumed. “Two days ago, he was in the clean room nosing
around in our production process. He was highly critical, saying that we are losing
lots of capacity because of the way we do things in there.”
“Well?” Greg asked, “Did he show you where the capacity losses
occurred?”
“I wasn’t there at the time. He spoke to the production staff. I heard about it
afterwards.”

62
 “And was he right?”
“I don’t know. We know what we are doing. We don’t need an outsider to
tell us how to do our work.”
Greg, chin in his hand, looked at Mike with interest. He was not concerned
about the issue of Dennis meddling in the clean room. His conversation with Butch
about human behavior has sensitized him to the way people behaved, and Mike’s
behavior did not appear rational at all. He was clearly upset about what he
considered to be an invasion of his territory. Although Dennis actually contributed
something significant to making the clean room more efficient, Mike perceived it
as something that belittled him. He made a mental note to add this observation to
his list.
He had to deal with this issue first, though. For that, he had to establish
Dennis’s position as the de-facto authority. Although he had called a plant-wide
meeting to explain what Dennis was doing at MicroLogic, he had left the meeting
with an uncomfortable feeling that Dennis was perceived as an outsider and
therefore not accepted. Mike’s behavior was proof of this.
His first impulse was to simply reinforce the fact that Dennis was in charge;
that he had every right to change whatever he wanted and Mike was to respect that.
But his experience at Cape Industries made him hesitate.
‘What is really upsetting him?’ Greg thought to himself. ‘He feels his
authority has been usurped, and that his standing with the production workers has
been lowered. Somehow that is seen as a threat.”
Mike was still puffed up in anger.
“I’ll talk to Dennis,” Greg began. “He should have spoken to you before
recommending the changes. However, you know we are under enormous pressure
right now and I am sure he was acting in the company’s best interest when he
insisted on the changes.”
Mike looked somewhat mollified. “Yeah, I know, but he’ll be gone shortly,
and then I will have a devil of a time to get people to take instructions from me
again. Right now, they are not sure who is in charge.”
Greg nodded in sympathy. “I understand. However, right now Dennis is the
ultimate authority,” he added.
Mike looked a bit happier when he left.
‘Phew, I have to be a diplomat as well,’ Greg thought. He got down to
finishing his administrative work.
By mid-morning, he joined the daily production meeting. He owed Sandy a
phone call, and wanted to have his ducks in a row. For that, he needed the status of
the AsiaComNet order.

The meeting had just started when he walked into the room. The entire
production management team was there, with Dennis chairing the meeting. Ron
was sitting at the opposite end, pushing up his glasses while reading the perennial
computer printout. Mike and Maggie were sitting in their usual places. Greg sat
down next to Dennis, who tapped his pen on the table. The buzz of conversation

63
died down. “Let’s deal with our biggest problem first,” he began. “..the status of
the AsiaComNet order.”
He looked enquiringly at Ron, who promptly pushed his glasses up his nose
in nervous response.
“The forecast shows that the order is scheduled for delivery on August 6,”
he reported. It was an improvement on the previous forecast but still far from the
date promised to the client. “We’ve made up some of the backlog, but we are still
not able to supply on time,” Ron stated the obvious.
“Well, a one week gain is already a significant improvement,” Dennis
commented. “How are the changes in the clean room coming along?” he asked,
looking at Mike.
“We’ve started work to adapt some of the wash bays, but the conversion
won’t be completed for at least two weeks.” Greg saw the color starting to rise in
Dennis’s face.
“I’m sure we can deal with that later,” he jumped in quickly, steering the
conversation away from the subject, but Dennis had the light of battle in his eyes.
“Why can’t we change any faster?” he asked, looking Mike squarely in the
eye.
“We have to test the first conversions to make sure they work properly,
before we convert the rest of the lines,” he replied, folding his arms.
“But I assured you it will work,” Dennis said. “I have done the same
conversion before on the same equipment.”
“Yes, but our situation is different,” Mike retorted.
“How is that?” Dennis asked, ominously, softly.
“Well, we in production here don’t like doing things without knowing
exactly what we are letting ourselves in for. We have to understand all the possible
consequences before we make such a significant change.” He paused for breath and
continued. “We can’t just take your word for it. We have to try it out for
ourselves.” Maggie nodded vigorously, studying her now-green nails.
Dennis went beet-red. Greg intervened again. “There seems to be some
unresolved issues here that we need to discuss. I propose we arrange another
meeting to review the changes.” He looked at Dennis warningly, and continued.
“Thank you for putting in all the effort,” Greg concluded, closing his
notebook. Dennis was still on the warpath, though. As he opened his mouth to
speak, Greg kicked him hard under the table. He winched and closed his mouth in
a thin grim line. “Dennis and I will discuss the changes to the wash bays. Let’s
move on to the other items.”
Jim Jones put up his hand. He had done an admirable job of re-negotiating
the remaining orders. With the exception of only two, it seemed like AsiaComNet
was their biggest headache.
Greg looked at him enquiringly. “I had to make promises about delivery
dates that would make a marble statue blush. I have used up years of careful
relationship building to pacify our customers. I know how important the
AsiaComNet order is, but I must warn you–if we miss the renegotiated dates on

64
those other orders, we can kiss this business goodbye.” He looked pointedly at
Ron, who nervously pushed his glasses up his nose. “We in sales have done our
best. Now it is up to you,” he added.

Coming out of the meeting, Greg thought about Mike and Maggie. In all the
previous meetings, they had fought like cat and dog. In this meeting however, it
seemed like they ganged up on management. He made a note to add this
observation to his list of unusual human behaviors.
Back in his office, he sat down and motioned Dennis to do the same. He
recounted Mike’s earlier conversation with him, and linked it to his behavior in the
meeting. Dennis listened with a frown–clearly not happy with the purple bruise on
his shin. “Mike will have to obey my orders on the wash bays pretty quickly,” he
growled. “I can’t wait for him to make up his mind one day. We only have six
weeks to complete the order.”
“I know,” Greg responded. “But he behaved in a very interesting way.
Remember what Butch told us to do–to observe and record the way people
behave.” Greg also described the sudden switch in alliance between Mike and
Maggie. Dennis listened with interest. “Perhaps the best thing Butch has taught me
is to first examine the person’s behavior before I react.”

Greg phoned Sandy and reported on the status of AsiaComNet. He could

sense that Sandy was still dubious about them getting the order out on time. To
counter this, he confidently described the one-week gain as an example of
progress, even though in his own heart of hearts he had grave doubts that the order
would be completed on time.

-oOo-

He got home at seven p.m., had dinner, and flopped down in front of the TV
for an hour. The children crawled all over him, happy to have his undivided
attention. Once they were in bed, he fetched the Bible and continued reading. His
wife looked on with some surprise.
“Are you looking for a miracle in there?” she quipped. Greg grinned.
“No, just doing some research.” He skimmed through the text, looking for
clues on organizational structures. The great stories of the Old Testament brought
back the images of childhood. How big was Noah’s ark? Why did Esau really kill
his brother? In the second book of the Old Testament he found something. He was
reading the King James’ version of the Bible. Written in beautiful, colloquial
English, it significantly slowed his reading.

In the book of Exodus, Moses conversed with God on Mount Sinai, and in
honor of the event, built an altar. What grabbed Greg’s attention was the reference
to the twelve pillars ‘according to the twelve tribes of Israel,’ that supported the
structure. This was the first reference to an organizational form other than the basic

65
family. He continued to read.
More and more references to the tribes of Israel popped up. When he got to
the book of Numbers, entire chapters were devoted to describing each of the tribes.
‘This must be it!’ he thought. ‘Tribes must be the oldest organizational structure.’
He closed the Bible and mulled over this conclusion.
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like a feasible idea. Even
to the present day, the North American Indians lived in tribes and were known by
their tribal identity.
‘Is this what Butch had in mind?’ he wondered. ‘I’ve seen television
programs of researchers living with primitive communities in the Amazon jungle.
They’ve had no exposure to civilized society and modern organizational design,
and they naturally exist as tribes. Therefore tribes must be the default natural
organizational form.’
Greg was deep in thought. He could see no connection between his
deduction about tribes being the most basic organizational form and the problems
he had at MicroLogic. He decided to call Butch. He went down to his study in the
basement and dialed Butch’s home number. The phone seemed to ring for ages.
Just when Greg decided to hang up, Butch answered. He was breathing rapidly.
“Johnson,” came the curt greeting.
“Hi Butch, it’s me–Greg.”
“I’m just back from my evening run,” Butch replied, his breathing slowing
to normal. “Phone me back in ten minutes.” The line went dead.
Greg jotted down some notes before he called again. This time Butch
answered on the first ring.
“I’ve found the earliest organizational structure,” he blurted out.
“Tell me.”
Greg proceeded to share his insight about Moses and the tribes of Israel.
There was short silence.
“You are in a hurry,” Butch commented. “Indeed, tribes appear to be the
oldest organizational form, and they still exist in this modern day and age. I came
to realize how deeply ingrained it is in people’s behavior through my experience
with tribes in Africa. In many cases it outlasted more modern forms of civilization.
For example, where the British and French introduced democracy after colonialism
came to an end in Africa, it quickly became a way to legitimize age–old tribal
behavior.
In one African country I’d visited–a nation of 14 million people– society is
made up of two tribes. They are geographically and historically divided into
residents of the north and residents of the south. Every four years, they dutifully
have a democratic election. If the ‘other’ tribe wins the election, they promptly
throw everyone out of the civil service and appoint their family and tribal members
to government posts. Those that were forced to relinquish the reins of power and
privilege ended up begging on street corners. Four years on, the situation is
reversed again. Needless to say that, with no continuity of governance, the
economy was a mess.

66
 “Why are tribes so important?” Greg asked curiously.
“Because you are also dealing with tribes in your company,” came the terse
reply.
Greg was taken aback. “You can’t be serious!” he exclaimed. “This is one of
the most civilized countries on the face of the earth. We have long since outgrown
tribal behavior!”
The silence hung in the air. “Or maybe I’m wrong,” he hastily added.
“Have you watched the crowd at a Superbowl game?” Butch asked.
“Been there myself,” Greg replied.
“Do you think people behave the same way at work as they do at a football
game?”
“No.”
“Exactly. Even though we don’t call them tribes any longer, people still
behave according to deeply engrained tribal rules. In fact, once you understand
tribal behavior, it seems to be the only workable model for successful social
interaction.”
Greg was thunderstruck by the concept, his mind racing.
“Surely we have modern organizational structures to replace tribes.”
“You’ll recall that I asked you if people behaved according to the formal
structure in your company, and you admitted that they did not. It is proof that some
other, more powerful, dynamic is at work.”
Butch continued. “Most people seem to think that only two organizational
structures exist. One is the formal functional structure. Judging by the incessant in–
fighting and political maneuvering, it does not seem to be very effective. The other
is the ubiquitous team. Everybody seems to be part of a team these days. However,
teams are short-term structures that offer no permanent relationships. I contend that
a third, very powerful and basic organizational form exists in all organizations–the
tribe. It is a social structure as old as time itself, and to this day governs our
behavior and social interaction, no matter how civilized we appear to be.”
“I still don’t understand,” Greg interjected. “How does it relate to my
business?”
“All the behavioral traits you identified and described to me in our previous
conversations are symptoms of deep-rooted tribal behavior. If you don’t
understand this visceral social dynamic, you cannot manage it, or use it to your
advantage.”
Suddenly it dawned on Greg. “You mean if I can understand this hard-wired
social tribal behavior, I can build my own tribe?”
“Exactly.” Butch sounded mildly enthusiastic. “By understanding this
untapped and incredibly powerful behavioral trait, you gain access to the deepest
and strongest motivators that humans possess. And if you do it correctly, you can
build an organization that is so motivated, it is virtually unstoppable.”

Greg intuitively sensed the profound truth of Butch’s statement.

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 “Let me give you an example from military history,” Butch continued.
“Have you heard of the charge of the Light Brigade?”
“I recall some of it, but I don’t know the details.”
“On October 25, 1854, the British Army faced the Russians in the battle of
Balaclava in the Crimean war. Some 30,000 Russian Cossacks and troops had dug
themselves in along the sides and at the end of a valley, forming a perfect ambush.
The Thirteenth regiment of the Hussars, consisting of the Heavy Brigade and the
Light Brigade, were ordered to attack the Russians. Captain Nolan, who delivered
the battle order to Lord Lucan, the commanding officer, pointed out the Balaclava
valley as the target of attack–into the jaws of the enemy stronghold. To this day
controversy rages whether Captain Nolan pointed out the wrong target. Be it as it
may, Lord Lucan summoned Lord Cardigan, commander of the Light Brigade, and
ordered to him to attack the Russians. There was one problem though.
The British were completely outnumbered.
The Light Brigade consisted of some 673 officers and men, against 30,000
Russians with large gun placements at the end of the valley. However, in the best
British military tradition, the soldiers mounted up and promptly launched the
attack.
As the regiments headed down the valley, Captain Nolan was seen darting
out ahead of the formation, wildly waving his sword, pointing in the direction of
the Causeway Heights, located away from the valley, trying to communicate what
is now thought to have been the actual target. It was too late though. The Russian
guns opened fire and Captain Nolan was killed instantly. His sword fell from his
hand, but his arm remained upright, his legs clamped around the horse. The horse
wheeled and galloped back through the formation with the dead officer still in the
saddle.
The Russians fired from all sides, but still the Light Brigade kept going.
Within half an hour the regiment was completely decimated. Still they pushed on,
eventually reaching the Russian artillery positions. Afterwards, the only officer to
ride through the entire charge and back to British lines on his original horse, found
only fourteen men still on horseback– one on a Russian horse he had caught after
his own was killed. They retreated and regrouped. The enemy cavalry, both
regulars and Cossacks, brutally butchered the wounded and horseless British
soldiers left on the battlefield.
The Heavy Brigade, approaching from a different direction, ran into Russian
gunfire and retreated, not wanting to suffer the same fate as the Light Brigade. The
Eleventh and Seventeenth Brigades joined the battle. Together, they pushed
through and engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, eventually defeating the
Russians.(3)
What is significant about the event is that nobody broke rank and fled during
the offensive. In spite of the overwhelming enemy force, nobody retreated. As
soldiers were killed, the Light Brigade simply closed ranks and continued the fight.
The commitment and motivation was extraordinary. Heroism aside, it is an
example of what strong tribal behavior will accomplish.

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 I encountered the same phenomenon in the South African bush war. For
hundreds of years, the small European population–less than ten percent of the total
population of South Africa–had held the reins of power. This was not by choice but
from sheer necessity as it seemed the only way to preserve their culture, society
and value system. For three hundred years, white South Africans poured
everything they had into protecting their ‘tribe.’
After the first fully democratic election in 1994, when the reins of power
were relinquished to a black government, their worst fears came true. Since then,
their language has been banished from most schools, the history books have all
been rewritten and highly qualified and competent whites were forced out of jobs
to be replaced by tribally acceptable blacks.
White farmers were systematically murdered to scare farmers and their
families off their land. Cities and towns established by whites were renamed with
African names. Crime skyrocketed–so much so that South Africa now has the
worst crime record in the world.
As with the Light Brigade, many, many young white men died in the thirty
years of bush warfare in defense of the white tribe. Unlike the Light Brigade, their
heroism was simply forgotten and erased from societal memory.

Israel is another example. Ever since the creation of the State of Israel in
1948, the onslaught against it has been unrelenting. Against all odds, the Jews are
tenaciously fighting to secure the prosperity of Israel, with huge sacrifice of human
life. Many young men and women have died for the survival of the Jewish tribe,
but nobody thinks of giving up. The Arab-Israeli tribal conflict is identical to the
black-white conflict in South Africa–one small tribe fighting for its survival
against huge odds, against much larger tribes.
The white South African tribe caved in under international pressure and
sanctions, and relinquished power to the black majority. The result has been the
systematic destruction of their tribal identity. With no tribal or societal place of
their own, millions of whites scattered around the world in search of a new cultural
home. In a traumatic effort to seek a better future for their children, many left
families, friends and elderly parents behind to fend for themselves in a crime-
ravaged society.
The same fate may befall Israel if it loses the support of the strongest tribe in
the world–the USA. If that happened, the Jews may again see the destruction of
their tribe, and again be forced to scatter around the world.”

Greg was struck by the dispassionate description of such dramatic events in

world history. “Why does tribal behavior continue to exist in this modern day and
age?” he asked.
“It seems to be an inborn societal trait that existed since the beginning of
time,” Butch replied. “In fact, it is the single biggest problem humanity faces
today. Because we cannot manage tribalism on both a small and large scale, we
have all the problems of war, poverty, disease and human misery. In many places

69
governments act like a tribe against their own citizens, the rich act as a tribe against
the poor, blacks act as a tribe against the whites and vice-versa.”
“But surely, setting proper objectives in a company would eliminate such
tribal behavior.” Greg countered.
“How many mission statements have you seen?” Butch asked.
Greg immediately thought of the mildewed frame hanging in the entrance
hall at MicroLogic.
“Many,” he replied, “and none serve a meaningful purpose.”
“That’s been my experience too. They describe an end state, rather than a
steady state. In my opinion, mission and vision statements are kindergarten
attempts to provide some structure to organizational tribal life. In fact, it is a
meaningless top management tribal ritual that the employee tribe has no option but
to endure.
Most organizations exist in a somewhat steady state. Everyone knows that
the company will function in much the same way from one year to the next. In this
corporate equilibrium, tribal membership, tribal identity and tribal interaction are
the only social mechanisms people can use to define their identity and associated
behavior.
The scary part is that management has zero experience in dealing with this
social phenomenon. A few managers develop an intuitive understanding of tribal
dynamics, figure out how to turn it to their advantage and become respected
bosses.”
“Ouch,” Greg responded, thinking of his fruitless efforts to formulate the
ultimate vision and mission he thought would inspire people to unbridled
enthusiasm and commitment. “When you describe it so dispassionately, it seems
really pathetic. I put a lot of work into those vision and mission statements, you
know.”
“Did it cause people to work together more effectively?” Butch asked.
“Not at all.”
“I bet you thought that if you could only get them to rationally ‘understand,’
they will throw their weight behind your wonderful words in the mission
statement,” Butch observed.
“That’s true,” Greg admitted ruefully.
“It will never happen,” Butch said flatly.
“Why?” Greg asked, surprised by his vehemence at feeling belittled.
“Because you are up against the tribes in your company.”
Greg again thought of the production group, the maintenance group, the
planning group, and the buyers. ‘It’s true,’ he thought, ‘they act like small tribes,
looking mostly after their common interest and survival.’
“You’re right,” Greg admitted. “How can I change the situation?”
“Rather than writing useless mission statements, work at building a new
tribe,” Butch responded, “one as utterly and completely motivated as the Light
Brigade, the Israelis or the white South Africans. Such an entity feeds on its own
energy, driving all its members to tremendous commitment and performance.

70
 It is impossible to ‘manage’ people to behave in this manner, which is why
MBA programs are useless. Students are taught how to be members of the
universal management tribe, not how to leverage the most from people under their
command.”
“Is that what you did in your company?” Greg asked.
“Indeed,” Butch replied. “It will make you a truly great boss.”
“How do I do it?” Greg asked, excitement rising in his voice.
The silence was deafening.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“Phone me back when you have identified some of the attributes of a very
strong, highly motivated tribe,” Butch continued. “However, for the sake of
expediency, I’ll give you a hint. There are five dimensions and twenty two
attributes that you must identify, understand and be able to use before your
company will behave like Cape Industries.”
With that, he put the phone down.

Greg sat staring at the telephone for a long time, his mind in turmoil. It
seemed so base, so banal, to think of tribes as the most fundamental organizational
structure, but his common sense told him there was profound truth in the concept.
He stretched his arms above his head to relieve the strain in his shoulders. He got
up to go upstairs. His eyes fell on the children’s toys scattered under the stairs.
Building blocks and action figures lay strewn on the carpet. Christine had
mentioned over dinner that the neighborhood boys had been playing downstairs
earlier in the afternoon. However, what stopped him in his tracks was the sign
pinned above the stairwell. Scrawled in bright red crayon letters, it said:

Greg stared at the sign. Nobody had told the boys that the girls were their
enemy. Still, they must have had some strong motivation for posting the sign.
‘Could this be an attribute of a successful tribe?’ Greg thought. ‘Could it be,
that for successful social interaction, we need a common enemy?’
Greg’s mind jumped from thought to thought. He recalled how his parents
and their friends roundly criticized the government for what they thought it was
doing wrong, irrespective of who was elected at the time. Blaming an outside party
seemed to provide some reassurance, and a way to share thoughts and opinions
without confrontation. Thinking back of Butch’s examples, it made sense. In South
Africa, the whites were the common enemy of the blacks, and vice versa. In the

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Middle East, the Jews are the common enemy of the Arab world, and vice versa.
Greg found a yellow Post-It pad in the desk drawer and wrote:

Deep in thought, Greg switched off the lights and went upstairs to bed.

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 Chapter Seven
“Tribes?!!!!” Dennis looked incredulous. “What do you mean–tribes? Are
we going to have a ceremonial bonfire in the factory and dance around it with
loincloths and spears?” Dennis did an impromptu war dance around the conference
table, waving his arms, pens flying out of his shirt pocket. At that very moment,
Maggie put her head around the door. For once she was speechless, staring at the
bouncing, gyrating, flailing Dennis.
“Come on woman,” Dennis roared, “come dance the new war dance with
me!” Grabbing her by the arm, he pulled her into the room.
With a twinkle of delight in her eyes, she took up the challenge. The two of
them gyrated a mixture of waltz and football cheerleading around the office. Out of
breath and laughing hysterically, they flopped down in the conference chairs.
Greg was taken aback and somewhat miffed.
“Ooh, we should do that more often,” Maggie exclaimed, gasping for breath.
“This makes work much more fun.”
Dennis pointed at Greg. “Thank him. He’s the one with the crazy idea!”
Maggie got up, still smiling. “I came to remind you of the production
meeting in an hour. Call me when you want to do this again.” She winked at
Dennis and left.

Dennis looked at Greg. “You’ll have to run this tribe thing by me again,” he
said, incredulity frosting his tone. Greg repeated his conversation with Butch,
making sure that he covered all the details. Dennis listened intently, a small frown
creasing his forehead. As Greg recounted his research and Butch’s comments, his
expression went from incredulity to dubious acceptance. “It sounds credible, but
how do we create this motivated tribe in MicroLogic?”

“I don’t know,” Greg confessed. “All I know is that Cape Industries is an

awesome company. If we can be anything like that, we’ll be a winner. I am going
to find out how Butch did it, with or without you.” Dennis’s eyebrows nearly
disappeared into his hairline. “I get the message,” he replied frostily, “Let’s go do
it then.” Greg grinned from ear to ear. “I knew you would not be able to resist the
challenge.”
“We’d better find a tribe to study, to discover all those attributes,” Dennis
commented. “Let’s deal with the production meeting first!” Greg replied, walking
to the door.

-oOo-

The conference room was packed. Greg chaired the meeting.

“Welcome all. Let’s get down to business. How is the AsiaComNet order
doing?” he asked, looking at Ron, who promptly pushed up his glasses in response.

73
 “The order is still on track for delivery by August 6,” he replied.
“That’s still two weeks after the promised due date,” Greg retorted. There
was an uncomfortable shuffling. Greg remembered the tribal discussion.
‘Where will I find a common enemy?’ he thought.
“I’ve had head office on my tail every day about this order. If we don’t do
something fast, I don’t think any of us will be here for very long.”
There was an agonizing silence.
“Head office is not our biggest enemy though. It is our own commitment
that counts,” he continued. “This is one of the best wafer fab plants in the country,
but we’re not able to get our act together. Our competitors are just waiting for us to
screw up on the AsiaComNet order.
Our poor delivery performance and all the reprioritization we had to do on
existing orders have made many of our customers jittery about our reliability. They
may just listen with interest to what our competitors have to offer. When that
happens, the competition will not only take the Chinese business away from us, but
will use our failure on AsiaComNet to systematically discredit MicroLogic’s
standing with all our other customers.”
He looked around the room, in the glare of their undivided attention. “If they
discredit us, we will lose even more business, putting us into a death spiral from
which we will never recover.”
All eyes were riveted on him. “Let me tell you who we are up against.”
Greg proceeded to describe the production capacity, marketing strategies
and size of the companies around the world that posed a significant threat to
MicroLogic. Judging by the rapt attention, it was clear that nobody had taken the
trouble to do so before.
“If we don’t work as one in the face of such predators, and get our act
together, we’ll be destroyed.”
There was dead silence in the room.
“I know that a change in management is frequently perceived as a threat,
and my arrival here was no different. It is natural for you to feel secure in your peer
group, in an existing order, but I am not your common enemy.” A chuckle went
around the room.
“Head office is not our common enemy either. Although they love to
meddle in our affairs, they are not out to destroy us. Our competitors, however,
will not hesitate for one minute to run us into the ground. We should be focusing
our attention on beating them at their own game, and not on our internal
squabbles.”
The mood in the room was different. Instead of the hooded wariness he
sensed before, there was a genuine intellectual engagement from the group.
“I’ll see to it that all of us have access to as much information about our
competitors as we can get hold of. That way we will know our true enemy.” There
were nods of appreciation all around. “And if you can find more information,
please add it to our understanding of our competitors.” he added.
Al, the maintenance manager put up his hand. “We’ll do some research with

74
our counterparts in other plants and see what we can find.”
Greg was taken aback. Al’s familiar dour, glowering attitude had changed.
The light of battle was in his eyes. Dennis’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline
again.
“Er, that’s an excellent idea,” Greg enthused, momentarily at a loss for
words.
“I know that many of our competitors use the wash bay technology we are
trying to implement,” Dennis remarked pointedly. Again, Al responded. “Would
that help us against them?”
“Most certainly,” Dennis replied. “In fact, it might get us ahead on
AsiaComNet real fast.”
“Who is working on implementing the changes?” Al asked.
“Mike and I have been working on it,” Dennis responded.
”Let me have the specification and we’ll see that it gets done,” Al said with
finality.
Greg could not help smiling. The atmosphere in the room was markedly
different. For the first time he sensed a real change in the mood.

-oOo-

Walking back to his office with Dennis, he sensed that the change in attitude
had impressed him. “That was amazing,” he burst out. “If this tribal stuff has such
an impact, we better get it all in here as quickly as possible.”
Greg nodded in agreement.
“Most certainly. However, we have to figure it out for ourselves, so I
suggest that we go find that reference environment we were talking about.”
Once in his office, Greg called the financial department. He gave
instructions for them to dig up as much information about their competitors that
they could legally lay their hands on.
“I’m going to make our common enemy as tangible as possible,” he said. “I
want people to know exactly what we are up against.”

For the next hour they discussed the concept of tribes. Greg was surprised at
the number of tribes they could identify in society at large, which ranged from
health and fitness clubs to women’s volunteer workers, from Freemasons to frat
houses, and dozens of others.
“It seems that tribes are everywhere,” Dennis remarked thoughtfully.
“Butch made a comment that I did not really appreciate at the time. He
maintains that we cannot function effectively as humans without some tribal
context–no matter how sophisticated and well educated we are.”
“There’s profound truth in that,” Dennis concurred.

They explored the idea of using NBA basketball teams as a tribal reference
environment. They wrangled for a while about which team to pick for analysis.

75
Greg was an ardent Chicago Bulls fan, while Dennis swore by the virtues of the
Boston Celtics. The discussion got quite heated.
“The Bulls can’t find their way out of a paper bag!” Dennis proclaimed.
“Nonsense! The Celtics can’t find the bag to begin with!” Greg retorted.
Suddenly, Greg put both hands over his mouth. Dennis looked at him in surprise.
“What we are doing?” Greg exclaimed, dropping his head in his hands.
“You’re realizing the folly of defending that dumb team of yours,” Dennis
jeered.
“No, no, no!” Greg jumped to his feet. “We are behaving like tribal
members. Can’t you see it? Neither one of us can play basketball to save our lives,
but we have a million opinions about the subject.”
Dennis laughed in agreement.
“There is a lesson in there somewhere.” Greg was pensive for few minutes.
“What do we gain from supporting a team?” he asked, looking at the wall.
Dennis scratched his chin, dutifully looking at the same spot on the wall for
inspiration.
“By supporting a basketball team–or any other team for that matter–we gain
a sense of identity and something we can associate with that offers a sense of
individual value. We can express opinions that make us feel good without ever
being at risk of looking foolish.”
“Yours is still a bum team,” Dennis replied. He ducked just in time to dodge
the Post-It pad that whistled past his ear.
“Be serious now,” Greg scolded.
“OK,” Dennis replied, his head under the table. He reappeared, holding the
battered yellow pad.
“What’s the difference between a basketball team and us?” Greg mused.
“We don’t have to wear those funny, multi-colored uniforms all day.”
Dennis replied.
“That’s true,” Greg observed. “So why do they wear them?”
“To be recognized, dummy,” came the sarcastic answer.
Greg gave him a scornful look. “The team outfit seems to be important
though. Fans buy footballs shirts, caps and dozens of items that carry the team’s
logo and colors.”
“They want to show their allegiance,” Dennis replied. “People signify their
membership of a tribe by associating with its symbols.”
This time it was Greg’s eyebrows that did a disappearing trick. “You’re
right!” he exclaimed. “The only way that I can signify my membership of a tribe is
to associate with its symbols.”
“It’s like my brother,” Dennis observed. “He drives only Chevrolets.” Every
month, he goes to a Chevy club meeting and all they do is badmouth Fords. They
all feel better for it.”
“Pass me the pad,” Greg commanded. Dennis complied with vigor. Greg
ducked, and the paper pad hit the wall behind him with a loud smack and bounced
back onto his desk. “Bad choice of words,” he commented to the grinning Dennis.

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He wrote on the top sheet and stuck it on the white board next to the first note he
had brought from home. It read:

Greg looked at his handiwork on the yellow square. “Yes, that’s true. It’s
like the American flag. Whenever I see someone burning our flag in some obscure
third-world country, I feel like nuking them. The flag is the symbol of one of my
tribes–the American nation.”
“And the capitalist, prosperous American nation is the common enemy of all
those poor flag-burners eking out a living somewhere in a desert,” Dennis
remarked. “They demonstrate their hostility by burning the enemy tribe’s symbols.
Tribes rule.”
Greg nodded. Suddenly, his face fell.
“What now?” Dennis asked despairingly.
“If our deduction is correct, then the opposite must also be true. By
introducing symbols, we actually create tribes.”
Dennis looked puzzled.
“Look, we keep on complaining about the wariness our employees have of
management, but we instruct them to wear uniforms in the plant, complete with
name badges on their chests. We in the front office don’t do the same. Instead, we
wear what we like. The difference in clothing makes us two different tribes. By
doing so, we symbolize the rank difference between management and others. By
making them wear nametags, we are saying to them: ‘I’m not bothered to learn
your name–which is why you have to wear it where I can see it. That way I don’t
feel embarrassed when I greet you. I am going to break down your self-worth even
more by forcing you to wear the same clothes as everybody else. And to crown it
all, I expect you to know my name, since I don’t demean myself by wearing a
nametag.”
Greg shook his head in disbelief.
“If our understanding of the need for a tribe to have a common enemy is
true, then it is logical that the symbols we force them to wear, turns them into a

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strong tribe with us as the common enemy!”
Dennis was deep in thought.
“You are on to something there. I’ll give you another example. Everybody
in production complains about maintenance, which treat production as if they’re
doing them a favor by helping them. They act like two different tribes, supported
by separate tribal dress–one with blue two-piece work suits, the other with white
two-piece work suits. Do you remember the first things we wrote down when
Butch told us to observe human behavior? We deduced that groups develop their
own identity. Well, it seems like we found one of the reasons. By introducing some
common dress, or identification, or symbol, we create a tribe that provides a
common identity.”
Greg nodded in agreement, still deep in thought.
“By being part of a tribe, we seem to gain a sense of identity, a way of
defining ourselves through the tribal affiliations we maintain.”
Greg sat forward, the light of discovery in his eyes. “Think about the issue
of functional silos. Everybody complains about functional silos and ‘throwing
things over the wall’. Somebody has yet to explain why people do that. I think
people form small tribes around their area of responsibility or job skill. It’s the
only way they can interact effectively.”
He pointed an accusing finger at Dennis. “I bet you belong to more tribes
than you realize.”
“Who? Me?” Dennis looked dubious.
Greg walked to the white board, picked up a dry erase marker and started
writing:

Member of the Intec tribe

Member of the Intec management tribe
Member of the micro-chip manufacturing tribe
Member of the Intec old-boys tribe
Member of the Michigan State University tribe
Member of the Michigan State University football tribe

He swung around, pointing the marker at Dennis. “Tell me what you do for
fun, things that interest you.”
Dennis looked pensive. “Well, I am a member of the Lake Forest Golf Club
outside Chicago, I support the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, I’m a member of the
American Society of Manufacturing Engineers, I belong to the National Rifle
Association…”
Greg was scribbling furiously, adding the tribes to the list on the board. In
half an hour they had more than twenty tribes that Dennis had some relationship
with. They ranged from the middle school science club to the Intec credit union.
They did the same for Greg, with roughly the same result.
Dennis frowned. “My gut-feel tells me we are on to something, but I’m not
sure I understand what it is.”

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 Greg was pacing up and down.
“Remember the NO GIRLS sign my son put up in our basement?” he asked.
“Yeah?” Dennis looked more perplexed.
“It seems to me that throughout our lives, our social identities are made up
of all the tribes we mentally and emotionally associate ourselves with. If I had to
start criticizing the Michigan State University School of Engineering, how would
you react?”
“I’ll be mad as a snake,” Dennis retorted. “It is one of the best engineering
schools in the country. I sweated blood to earn my degree there.”
“Exactly!” Greg continued. “Your individual value is defined by your
association with that school, and your degree certificate is the symbol of your
association. You’d feel personally affronted if I denigrated the University.”
Dennis nodded in agreement. “Basketball fans and sports fans in general do
the same. Look at the football riots we see so often on TV. Spectators identify so
strongly with their teams that it motivates ordinary pot-bellied, couch potato
citizens to physically attack the other team’s supporters. Those are tribes engaged
in open warfare.”
Greg nodded enthusiastically. “Butch made the same comment about the
Superbowl crowd, and then added something profound. He said that people’s
behavior changes dramatically when they moved from tribe to tribe. We derive an
identity, a sense of self-worth from our tribal affiliations. The more tribes we can
mentally and emotionally belong to, the better we are defined as individuals and
the more self-confident we become.
Butch then described the charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean war,
adding a postscript without further explanation. At the end of the first day of the
devastating engagement, the Russian enemy sent an officer under a flag of truce to
arrange for the burial of the British dead and to provide care for the wounded.
It is a gruesome example of how behavior changes when people move from
tribe to tribe. In the heat of battle they acted as members of the British and Russian
armies, but afterwards they acted as members of the brotherhood of soldiers,
allowing one another to honorably take care of the dead and wounded.”
Dennis shook his head in wonder at the bizarre dichotomy.
“How do we use this insight to our advantage here in the plant?”
Greg had to think. “I’d guess we have to provide individuals with a sense of
significant self-worth by being associated with us–know how membership of our
tribe helps to define people’s identity.”
Dennis shifted around uncomfortably. “Many employees say that all they
want is to earn their wages and go home. They don’t want to be involved in teams
or company activities. How do you explain that?”
Greg was quiet for a while. “Well, if I derive some positive benefit from
being associated with one tribe, I might experience negative benefit from being
associated with others.”
He nodded with finality.
“Many people don’t have the qualifications to move ahead, and have no

79
choice but to work here. They feel frustrated and experience a loss of individual
value–being in some way demeaned by their work.”
“They’re the first to join the union,” Dennis observed.
“True,” Greg replied. “The union is another tribe that offers a stronger sense
of individual value than merely being an employee of MicroLogic.”
He took another yellow note, wrote on it, and stuck it next to the other two.
It read:

Dennis had been deep in thought. “You know Greg, when we employ people
from outside the company we spend the most time on showing them how to do
their work. We may tell them something about the history of the company, but
that’s about all. We do nothing to secure a strong tribal association with us. No
wonder the highest labor turnover has always been amongst our new hires.
We make no effort to identify the tribes a new hire belongs to, and how
those tribes define their identity and associated behavior. Since we don’t
understand the individual’s tribal association, the only mechanism we use to deal
with unacceptable behavior is disciplinary action of some kind. Either they get
‘advised’ by their immediate supervisor, or they receive some formal warning. It is
a negative experience and must result in a loss of individual value. We do nothing
to constructively build positive individual value from being associated with us.
Perhaps there is a new role for the human resource managers here. Rather
than dealing only with all the mundane hire and fire paperwork and legal stuff,
they should develop the skills to make individuals part of our tribe much more
effectively.”
Greg was lost in thought, his mind racing.
“No wonder companies have such problems with building employee morale
and motivation. I remember an incident I observed on the factory floor at Cape
Industries. A group of people had gathered around one person. Butch explained
that the individual had mastered a difficult work procedure, and that they were
involved in a signification exercise. It’s a process deliberately aimed at reinforcing

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positive individual value.”
He rummaged around his desk drawer, and held up a newspaper article. “I
found this article in the USA Today last week,” and handed the ragged strip of
paper to Dennis. The headline read: Firms spend billions to fire up workers-with
little luck.
Dennis read the article with interest. It described the billions of dollars
companies spent on motivational activities in an effort to energize employees to
higher levels of commitment and performance. Some even had employees walk on
a bed of hot coals. In spite of such extreme measures, and the huge amounts of
money invested, motivation remained low and corporate commitment was non-
existent.(4)
“Cape Industries does not fit this mold,” Dennis observed.
“Exactly!” Greg exclaimed. “Butch remarked that we cannot ‘manage’
people to be highly motivated. It can only come from belonging to a strong tribe–
one that gives an enduring sense of increased self-worth. That’s what I found at
Cape Industries–a pervasive sense of strong self-worth with everyone.”
“No wonder the billions spent on motivational speeches and events go to
waste.” Dennis tapped the article with his index finger. “The management tribe
sends the employee tribe off to be ‘motivated’, which probably increases the
division between the tribes. High motivation levels come from building a unified
tribe, and not from manipulating individuals. No wonder the published research
shows that only 26% of all employees are emotionally engaged in their job.”
He continued reading the article. “The author says here that most employees
perceive individual performance rewards akin to paying children to do chores
around the house. Obviously, it makes those who do not receive a prize or bonus
experience a sense of negative self-worth.”
He shook his head in amazement. “It’s obvious. They belong to tribes that
provide a much stronger sense of self-worth that work, and management does not
even realize that separate management and employee tribes exist in their
environment.”
Greg nodded in wry agreement. “I think people find a way to protect their
individual value, or IV for short, by not doing something. It is a way of saying ‘I
may have sold my birthright to be chained to this machine all day, but I can still
make myself feel good by exercising my power to not do something.’ Lack of
motivation is a huge, common, positive statement of IV, which management does
not understand at all.”
“How do we put our deductions to good use?” Dennis asked.
“In two ways. Firstly, we need to identify and understand all the tribes that
exist in our company. Secondly, we start working on designing a new tribe that
offers more positive self-worth than the existing ones, thereby creating the
motivation levels required to turn MicroLogic into another Cape Industries.”
“Well, we’ve only identified two tribal attributes. Is that sufficient?”
“It’s a place to start while we work on finding the rest.”
Dennis nodded. “You’ve already defined our common enemy–competitors

81
that will jump at the chance to take our market share away from us.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Greg commented. “We have to make the
common enemy as real as possible. I think we should have photographs of their
plants, their CEO and top managers, their financial performance, their productivity
levels, their product range and lots more visual things that will help make them a
living, tangible entity.”

Dennis slapped his forehead. “We are really dumb. Do you realize that we
do exactly the opposite? We post information about our internal performance for
everyone to see. We have charts that show efficiency, reliability, quality,
production figures and the like. We–management–don’t understand that by doing
so we deepen and validate the management/labor tribal divide. We become the
enemy against whom our employees close the tribal ranks. We are the ones who
measure, discipline and correct, and thereby become the main source of negative
self-worth. It’s no wonder we are perceived as the common enemy.”
“That’s why Lee Tanaka resigned,” Greg added. “Not only was I perceived
as the common enemy of his tribe, but I destroyed his self-worth.”
He shrugged his shoulders in resignation. “What shall we do about tribal
symbols?”
“For a start, we are going to wear what everyone else is wearing,” Dennis
said flatly. “If we expect them to wear a uniform with their name on it, we will
wear exactly the same with our names on it too.”
Greg grinned. “What, no more Gucci shoes?”
Dennis nodded. “When we spoke about the impact of different tribal dress, it
reminded me of a large food processing company I visited some time ago. They
had two versions of corporate dress. Everybody in the front office had the same
company-sponsored uniform that consisted of a really neat pair of khaki pants and
nifty golf shirt with the company logo discreetly embroidered on the pocket.
In contrast, everyone in the plant wore company-sponsored, scratchy, heavy-
duty, industrial grade white overalls frayed from a zillion washes. It had the
company logo screen-printed across the back, much like the numbers on a prison
overall. That plant had the worst management-worker relationship I had ever seen.
In hindsight it is understandable, since the tribal divide was made patently clear
through the tribal dress code.”
“I’ve had a similar experience,” Greg concurred. “I visited a large
pharmaceutical plant once, part of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in
the USA. Everyone in management wore a white lab coat, even though some were
working in non-scientific jobs like finance or sales. In contrast, the production
people wore two-piece white overalls. I encountered a very strong sense of
animosity, driven by the perception that the lab-coated managers were the ‘clever
ones’, which created a feeling of negative self-worth for the people in production.”
Dennis got up. “That clinches it,” he said. “From now on, everyone wears
the same clothes. I’ll take care of it. Now, let’s see how many tribes we can
identify.”

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 He picked up the marker and turned to the board to write. After twenty
minutes they had listed a surprising number of internal tribes. The list included:
Maintenance tribe
Quality assurance tribe
First shift production tribe
Second shift production tribe
Supervisor tribe
Management tribe
Planning tribe
Materials handling tribe
Buyer tribe
Distribution tribe
Male tribe
Female tribe
Old-timer tribe
Young hires tribe
Front office tribe
Accounting tribe
Information technology tribe
Clean room tribe
Salesmen tribe

Greg whistled through his teeth. “No wonder we spend so much time
negotiating. We have to deal with more than nineteen tribes. We definitely need a
strategy to meld them into one tribe in the same way that Butch had done.”
Dennis scratched his chin, a faraway look in his eyes.
“What’s up?”
“I recall talking to a management consultant a few years ago. He was
working on a national research project to determine how people spend their time at
work. They took thousands of random activity samples of workers in dozens of
plants. They found that only 53% of the available time was spent doing productive
work. The rest went to other activities of which 25% was spent on communication.
This makes me think that tribal behavior is the single biggest source of
productivity loss in modern business life, consuming fully a quarter of usable
time.”
Greg nodded in agreement. “It is glaringly obvious, now that the cause is
clear. The quicker we learn how to meld our tribes, the better!”

The conversation turned back to the tribal dress issue. “We have to be
careful how we introduce the new dress code otherwise we fall into the same trap
of management again ‘doing it’ to the rest of the company.”
They kicked a few ideas around, after which Dennis left the office with a
mischievous smile. By late afternoon, Greg received a parcel of neatly pressed new
work suits, each with his name embroidered on the breast pocket. Dennis did not

83
let grass grow under his feet. At the end of the workday, he tucked the parcel under
his arm and left for home.

-oOo-

Greg pulled the Lexus into the garage and whistled his way to the front
door. He felt as if they’d really achieved something that day.
Christine was busy in the kitchen. “You sound like you had a good day,” she
smiled, kissing him on the cheek. The children had him by the legs, pulling his
trousers for attention. They were talking at the same time, trying to out-shout the
other.
“Whoa, slow down,” he laughed, sweeping a child under each arm. They
squealed with delight. He swung them around and the squeals increased in volume.
He felt quite dizzy when he put them down, and collapsed on the couch. The
children promptly clambered all over him.

He wondered whether Butch was at home. He wanted to share the insights

of the day. ‘He did say I can phone him at any time,’ he reminded himself. With
that, he marched down to the library and dialed the number on the card.
“Johnson.”
“Hi Butch, Greg here. Did I interrupt anything?”
“No, but I have to leave in an hour.”
“I’ll be quick then.”
Greg recounted his insight about a common enemy, tribal symbols, and the
issue of positive and negative self-worth.
Butch listened without interruption, and was quiet for a while after Greg
finished his monologue.
“You’re doing well,” was his only remark. “Before I comment, let me ask
you a question. Why do you think tribes come into existence?”
“If I recall our previous conversation, tribes form because most
organizations exist in a fairly stable state. People gravitate to a tribal structure since
it seems to be a natural social behavior pattern.”
“True, but that still does not explain why.”
Greg’s mind was racing. “Well, perhaps tribes allow individuals to achieve
something.”
“Good. What do they achieve?”
“Er, a sense of belonging?” he ventured.
“You’re closer. Let me give you a clue. Your family is like a small tribe,
right?”
“Yes.”
“What is the most important thing that you get from your family?”
“That’s easy. Love and trust.”
“And?”
Greg thought about this for a minute.

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 “I don’t think love is an issue in my work tribes, but trust seems to be
important.”
“Bingo. A strong tribe is characterized by very strong trust relationships
between its members. When I trained paratroopers, the iron rule was to ‘never
leave your buddy behind,’ no matter how desperate the situation. It was the
strongest form of trust. Everyone knew that, no matter what happened in a bad
firefight, someone would take care of him or her.
Nobody broke the trust, and we dragged dead and wounded soldiers out
from under withering crossfire with little regard for our own safety. In civilian life,
I found that strong tribes offer that same trust to its members. It is not nearly as
strong as we had in wartime, but still it engendered a strong sense of commitment.
People experience more dependable and enduring trust and emotional refuge in a
tribal structure than in an organizational structure.
In many organizations, the trust relationship between management and
employees has been so badly ruined that tribes offer the only way that people can
protect themselves emotionally.”
Greg thought about the maintenance tribe at MicroLogic. Those guys did
everything together–fishing, barbecuing and hunting. Because they were part of the
same strong tribe they trusted one another completely.
“I can think of a few examples,” Greg volunteered.
“And?”
“And what?” Greg was at a loss
“What does it mean for your business?”
Greg thought hard. “It means that, for me to create a strong unified tribe, I
need to create a strong foundation of trust.”
“Correct. How much trust–real trust, do you experience now?”
“Not much, I guess.”
“That’s what I expected. To create trust, you need to negotiate a corporate
covenant with your staff.”
“A covenant?”
“Yes, a commitment in good faith that you will honor certain obligations to
your staff if they honor obligations to the organization. It is not some frivolous,
empty mission statement that the management tribe slapped together to impress
themselves and an uncaring outside world, but a deep human commitment to one
another. Even under heavy economic crossfire, everyone will be taken care of.
Make no mistake–it is not an easy thing to do. You will be committing yourself
and your company to a very significant obligation.”
Greg was scribbling notes on the blotter.
“I’ll work on it,” he promised.
“Now, let’s go back to what you’ve told me earlier. I am impressed that you
have thought about symbols. It is a very important aspect. However, your strategy
of dressing everyone in the same outfit needs some modification.
Symbols are required to achieve two objectives. The first is to create a very
strong sense of oneness among all the different tribes and sub-tribes. The second is

85
to simultaneously strengthen the individual’s sense of self-worth through the
symbols.
Here’s an example. Some time ago, I visited a company that was in the
schoolbook printing business. They owned a number of businesses and, to save
overhead cost, they combined a number of smaller factories into a single, huge,
amalgamated entity. One of the businesses so combined was a small, hand-stitched
bookbinding business acquired more than ten years ago.
When I toured the new facility, they pointed out the bookbinding business in
one corner of the plant. Old, gray-haired craftsmen were fashioning the most
beautiful leather covered books by hand. Even though there were no walls, in
everyone’s mind it was still a separate business, ten years after amalgamation. In
fact, the inability of management to integrate the different tribes from many
separate businesses led to the downfall of the entire amalgamated behemoth.
Where they had all been profitable, successful, stand-alone businesses before,
combining them into one mega-facility failed miserably.
All the cost accounting projections of increased efficiency and lower unit
cost never materialized. That one human desire we all seem to share–to maintain
an enduring tribal identity–generated immense infighting, causing the entire
business to collapse.”
Greg was scribbling furiously.
“Once I was sensitized to it, I came across the same phenomenon in a
number of other places. For example, back in 1971 when two large Japanese banks
merged to form Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Ltd. it took 25 years to fully complete the
integration, because of bankers embroiled in an internal struggle for control.(5) It
led me to conclude that tribes cannot be easily amalgamated, and they continue to
exist as separate entities wherever possible. For example, if you spend time in large
corporations, who have absorbed others through mergers and acquisition, you’ll
find that most people continue to refer to “their” old company, as is the case in the
merger between Hewlett Packard and Compaq.
In spite of top management’s best efforts to create an integrated company,
there is always a psychological winner and loser which in itself guarantee the
continued existence of different tribes.”
“How do I overcome that?” Greg asked.
“By creating a new super-tribe–one that is completely different from all the
existing tribes. It allows people to emotionally and mentally leave their old trusted
tribe and join the new, more successful tribe. There are no winners or losers. It
gives you the opportunity to script out the undesirable traits, and to define new
tribal behaviors commensurate with the operating requirements needed to make the
merger successful.
Many top managers, in their efforts to merge companies, make the mistake
of formulating some trite new values and goals, fully expecting everyone to gladly
embrace their pearls of wisdom, and to change their behavior accordingly. Things
like ‘customer delight’ mean nothing to someone on the factory floor that’s never
seen and probably won’t ever see a live customer. The only thing real to him or

86
her, are their tribal identities and the common management enemy.”
Greg flipped the page, continuing his notes.
“How do I create a new super-tribe?” Greg asked.
“Once you have figured out all twenty two key tribal attributes, you’ll have
the answer.”
“I only have two of them.”
“Now you have three,” came the laconic answer. “Let’s go back to your idea
of everyone wearing the same work clothes. In principle it is the right thing to do,
but you run the risk of creating a winning and losing tribe. If you wear the same
dress as employees currently use, management ‘loses’. If employees wear the same
clothes that management, they ‘lose’ with their peers, and you achieve a worse
outcome–a feeling of losing yet again to management’s manipulation.”
“What do I do?”
“Start from scratch. Define a new dress code that is different from either
party’s existing work dress. A good example is the military. Everyone wears the
same uniform, with insignia added to show differences in rank.”
Greg’s mind was leaping ahead. “Perhaps I can do the same. I can use
insignia to indicate different responsibilities.”
“Good idea, but you have to go beyond the military concept of defining the
chain of command through insignia.”
“What do you mean?”
“I created a set of symbols–insignia if you will–that indicate the
achievement of technical proficiency; capability in things that are important to the
business. Skills like fire containment, heavy vehicle driving skills, lift truck driving
skills, and dozens of others make up levels of recognition that enable people to
grow in themselves and to achieve a sense of achievement within the company
without having to resort to a tribe to achieve the same benefit. It goes right up to
PhD level and caters for different development paths and means of
acknowledgement. It generates very strong positive self-worth while Cape
Industries continually increases its capability and skills base.”
Greg was thinking hard.
“It reminds me of the time I was in the Boy Scouts,” he remarked. “I
experienced an enormous sense of achievement when I was awarded a badge for
tying knots or sleeping in the snow, for example.”
Butch chuckled dryly.
“Yet we assume that adults don’t need that sense of accomplishment. The
military proves the contrary. Few other organizational systems extract such
extraordinary achievements from ordinary people–particularly in time of crisis.”
Greg interrupted the monologue.
“To summarize then, I need to define a new set of tribal symbols by
changing the dress code and introducing a set of insignia that are linked to the
individual’s achievement of some significant functional capability.”
“That’s not all,” Butch continued. “In addition, you need a tribal standard.
Think of the American flag. Many houses have them hanging on the porch all year

87
round, celebrating people’s membership of the biggest, strongest tribe in the world.
Your company needs to create a similar symbol that helps your employees identify
with your company as a strong tribe.
The Japanese auto industry gave us two great examples. When Honda
opened their manufacturing facilities in the USA, they immediately introduced the
Honda handshake, the Honda company song, and the Honda morning exercises.
These are alien to the American culture, but went a long way to creating a very
strong tribe. Honda’s market success proves that a strong tribe is the most
important driver for financial success.
On the flip side, when Mazda set up a new assembly plant at Flat Rock,
exactly the opposite happened. Japanese engineers, in their zeal to get maximum
productivity out of the local workers, focused heavily on work methods. The
American workers felt they were being treated like automatons. The two tribes
polarized very quickly, culminating in major confrontation between Japanese
management and American workers.”(6)
“What should I do then?”
The silence was deafening.
“Sorry,” Greg mumbled, “I’ll think about it.”
“Good, and by the way, your observation about individual self-worth is one
of the five dimensions. It is important that you identify the other four before you
continue with the tribal construct. I’ll give you another clue. Do you remember the
confrontation between David and Goliath in the Old Testament?”
“Yes.”
“It will help you understand another of the tribal dimensions.”
With that, Butch rang off.
Greg took a yellow pad and wrote:

He stuck the note on the outside of this briefcase.

In bed, Greg picked up the Bible and continued reading the book of Exodus.
He had to smile at the lamentations of Moses before God about the dissatisfaction

88
of the Israelites in the desert. It sounded very much like the people of MicroLogic
to him.

89
 Chapter Eight
The receptionist greeted him to a wide-eyed stare when he walked through
the entrance doors. He was dressed in his new work suit, and he had to admit that it
felt somewhat awkward. Walking down the passage through the airlock, he passed
a number of people. Their reaction was the same–wide-eyed stares and looks of
amazement. Greg felt like he was from Disney World. He resolutely walked to his
office. The daily production meeting was scheduled for nine a.m. He worked
through his email, dealt with all the documents in his in-basket and finished with
five minutes to spare.
The full team was in attendance. When he entered the conference room, he
was greeted with the same looks of surprise at his new appearance. He sat down at
the head of the conference table and brought the meeting to order. Dennis was
sitting off to one side, also dressed in his new work suit.
“You may have noticed my new dress code,” he began. There was a chuckle
around the room. “It signifies a new era of commitment in this company. We are
here as individuals working to achieve our individual objectives through our
common efforts. I have been concerned about the differences in attitude to one
another, and particularly between the different groups within the company. There
seems to be unnecessary friction and polarization between us.
I am starting a new initiative today, which I expect everyone to follow.
Dennis will arrange for all of you to be issued with work suits like mine, with your
name on. If people on the factory floor are required to wear them, then we will all
do likewise.”
There was a long, pregnant silence.
“Surely you mean only the people out on the factory floor,” Ron Jensen, the
production planner, commented.
“No, I mean everybody–including your department,” Greg replied.
There was an uncomfortable movement of chairs. Greg looked at Al, the
maintenance manager. “Your crew comes to work in blue work suits. I’d like them
to also wear the new outfit.” Al looked surprised. “Well, my guys might not be
happy about it. They’re kinda attached to them blue outfits. Sets them apart in a
way…”
Greg nodded. “That’s exactly why I want you to change. Wearing different
clothes alienates your guys from others in the company and induces a sense of
them versus us.”
Al shrugged “We are professionally qualified…”
“Yes, I know. Some more qualified than others–which we don’t
acknowledge,” Greg interrupted. “We are all in this together.”
“I must say, that fluorescent, neon yellow outfit you’re wearing will scare
the daylights out of anyone,” Maggie commented carefully. “Not that it is in bad
taste, you know, but a little too avant garde?” She lifted her eyebrows imploringly.
Greg grinned mischievously.

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 “At last! Someone comments on the obvious,” he exclaimed. “I didn’t
expect you to agree on wearing this screaming yellow outfit I’m wearing. I
wouldn’t be seen dead in it myself!”
There was a ripple of relieved laughter.
“Well, perhaps pink with tassels…” Maggie replied. The laughter was much
more spontaneous this time.
“We picked this color to make a point. We don’t want to decide on this
without your input. We need a new dress code that’s acceptable to us all, one that
reflects the skill, capability, and positive attitude of everyone in MicroLogic. I
suggest we ask Maggie to come up with some ideas for a new corporate dress.”
Maggie curtsied to the smattering of applause and muted cheers.

“Let’s get back to the most important thing on our agenda. How are we
doing on AsiaComNet?” He looked at Ron who promptly shoved his spectacles up
his nose. He had the printout open on the page in question.
“According to last night’s buffer update report, we are scheduled for
delivery by July 28.” He looked as proud as a new father. Greg lifted his eyebrows.
“That’s a significant improvement!” he exclaimed.
Al pointed to Mike. “With the help of the production guys, we converted
three of the wash bays to use the new technology that Dennis had introduced. The
recovery rate has gone up by 25%. The new order delivery date is based on us
converting all the wash bays to work the same way. We anticipate completing the
conversion in three days.”
“Will you be able to do it in such a short period?” Greg asked dubiously.
Al shrugged his shoulders. “There’s no reason why we can’t.”
“That’s excellent news!” Greg exclaimed. He turned to Mike. “I know that
you’ve had reservations about the new technology, but your commitment to
making this work is important to our success as a tri. . . group.” he corrected
himself. Mike looked inordinately pleased, the tips of his moustache quivering
with pleasure.
“With that kind of commitment, we will beat our common enemy–the other
chipmakers,” he continued. “We’ll find more ways to eliminate the delay. The
order has to ship on July 16, and even better if it happens by July 9.”

Back in his office, Greg looked at his bright yellow work suit with
revulsion. “Thank heavens I don’t have to wear this every day,” he remarked to
himself, struggling out of the jacket.
Dennis grinned, stroking his equally offensive yellow suit. “You must admit
it was a neat way to not make the issue a ‘management prescribing to workers’
event.”
“True,” Greg smiled.
They each had a cup of coffee. Greg had phoned Sandy to share the news of
the accelerated delivery dates. He sounded patently relieved. With five weeks to go
and one week to gain, things started to look much more promising. “Keep me

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posted,” he commanded and rang off.

Dennis sat staring at the four yellow notes stuck on the whiteboard. Greg
remembered his conversation with Butch the previous night, and proceeded to
share the details with Dennis.
“Hmmm, I wonder why he insists that we first figure out the five dimensions
of tribal behavior before we continue with the attributes of a strong tribe.” Dennis
said, clasping his hands behind his head.
“Don’t know,” Greg replied, “but he knows what he is talking about.”
“We have a clue in the first dimension.” Dennis pointed to the note that
read:

“It makes intuitive sense to me that our tribal memberships give us increased
self-worth,” he continued.
“I have been thinking about that too,” Greg replied.
“No kidding?”
Dennis ducked to avoid the pad that whizzed past his head.
“Yes,” Greg continued, “I re-read the motivation theories we were taught in
graduate business school. There seems to be no more than a handful of concepts to
explain human motivation. Abram Maslow–who described human motivation as a
drive to satisfy a hierarchy of needs–defined the now-famous pyramid of needs
model. First we are motivated to satisfy the basic needs of food, shelter and
procreation, thereafter we are motivated to live in safety and security and then be
accepted by some social group. Once there, we want our esteem needs satisfied and
lastly we strive for self-actualization.(7)
Another academic by the name of Herzberg postulated that motivation can
be divided into two aspects–hygiene factors which are things that stopped us from
complaining but did not motivate us, and motivators which are those things that
made us go beyond the call of duty.
McClelland–another academic–thought people are motivated by three

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groups of needs: the need for affiliation, which sounds very much like our tribal
model, the need for achievement, which sounds very much like Butch’s set of
symbols, and the need for power–the ability to manipulate our environment. In
academic circles, these three approaches are referred to as content theories.
Other academics think motivation is more of a process and developed
different theories to support that view. Victor Vroom defined three aspects of the
process–instrumentality, expectancy and valence. Instrumentality defines the
relationship between actions and outcomes. For example ‘If I work hard, will I
earn more?’ The answer to this determines whether an individual will work harder.
Expectancy is the belief that a particular behavior will lead to a desirable outcome,
and valence describes the most preferred outcome.
He postulates that if I understand the causal link between action and reward,
and there is good chance that reward will actually materialize, and the reward is
important to me, then I will be motivated.
Equity theory holds that people continuously compare their efforts and
rewards to those of others in similar situations. If I do more for less, my motivation
will go down and vice-versa. Inequity creates tension, motivating individuals to
change in an effort to restore balance.
The last theory is called operant conditioning. It postulates that people try to
figure out the relationship between their behavior and the resultant environmental
events. Three aspects are considered together: antecedent issues–factors that drive
behavior, behavioral issues–what I will do, and consequences–the outcome of my
behavior. These are all considered simultaneously. The individual’s assessment of
the three factors will determine his motivation.”

Greg was quiet for a moment. “I’m darned if I can turn all that theory into a
practical way to create a highly motivated organization. It all seems to be so far
removed from reality.”
Dennis pointed a finger at Greg. “There is something else that stands out.
All the traditional motivation theories deal with the individual. Yet I know from
hard experience that the group the individual belongs to, has a significant influence
on how the individual behaves. Take Butch’s remark about the football spectators
again. The group determines the individual’s behavior and motivation.”
Greg sat forward. “That’s an interesting observation. Our first tribal
dimension highlights the interaction between the individual and the group.
Dennis had the light of discovery in his eyes. “Remember the old saying
‘there is safety in numbers’?”
“Yeah?”
“It defines the second dimension: individual security.”
“You’ve got something there,” Greg enthused. “In bad economic times,
union membership always increases. Individuals feel more threatened by the
chance of layoffs and look for added security in union membership. The individual
subordinates his personal desires and aspirations to that of the group. In fact, it is
borne out by a comment from James Hoffa, one-time President of the Teamsters.

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He once said: ‘We have no permanent friends, only permanent interests’. Does that
sound like tribal security or what?”
“It is also an example of a very strong tribe, with 1. 4 million members,”
Dennis commented dryly.
Greg scribbled another yellow note and stuck it on the white board. It read:

“There is another dimension,” Dennis continued the train of thought.

“When things are going well, the individual’s self-worth becomes the big
issue. People feel at liberty to abandon their work tribe and change jobs to increase
their earnings, find better positions, or simply learn something new.”
“What should we call this third dimension?”
“Well, if the first is individual security, then this must be individual value.”
Greg scribbled another note and stuck up next the first. It read:

“Sounds right. So how do we relate this to the tribe?” Greg asked.

Dennis was pensive for a while. “I have a story which may cast some light
on the subject.” Greg sat forward with interest.

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 “Some years ago, a friend of mine was invited to a business dinner with the
top management of a plant belonging to a large manufacturing corporation. It was
the very first plant the company had opened in the thirties. At the time of the
meeting it was losing money hand over fist, and head office had put it up for sale.
With no takers, the plant was under threat of closure.
Like most others of like age, the plant is located in an old, run-down, tired
industrial town where the ambitious few had long since left. Those forced to stay
behind were utterly dependent on the plant for their livelihood, and the threat of
closure put everybody under stress. To improve their individual security, workers
looked for safety in the union. The animosity between management and the union
was profound. The tribes were at war, blaming each other for the company’s
predicament–one another’s common enemy in our new terminology.”
“What’s the point?” Greg asked.
“Tribes may experience a severe threat to their continued existence, just as
individuals do.”
“So?” Greg looked puzzled.
“The same dimension that we think apply to individuals might also apply to
tribes–individual security and tribal security.”
“Interesting…” Greg commented. “If I understand this correctly,
individuals who find themselves under threat may seek refuge and safety in
their tribe. If everyone experiences the same threat, like the unionized workers in
your example, the tribe will act to secure its survival, and thereby guarantee the
survival of all its members.”
“I guess that’s right,” Dennis mused. “I read a book once on the reasons why
the great wars of the world started.(8) It seems that most wars came about because
of a distorted perception of the threat the aggressor actually posed. In hindsight, the
actual threat was much less than the perceived threat. The tribe acted to secure its
survival, and automatically unleashed the same reaction in the enemy, spiraling
into all-out war.
For example, Hitler came to power on the back of the polarization between
right- and left wing groups in a time of deep economic crisis in Germany. Even
though they were the same nation, and in the same predicament, they formed two
tribes–each bent on their own survival at the expense of the other. Hitler hated the
leftwing communists in Germany and, since the Soviet Union was the source of
communism, they became the enemy tribe he vowed to destroy. His hatred of the
Soviet Union became an obsession which led to the eventual downfall of the Third
Reich.”
Greg scribbled another note and stuck it next to the others. It read:

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 “I wonder if this is what Butch had in mind,” Greg mused.
The telephone on his desk rang, breaking their train of thought. It was Al,
the maintenance manager. “Hi Greg, just wanted to let you know that the entire
maintenance team is busy on the conversions of the wash bays. We’ll have them all
working in no time. You owe my team a barbeque.”
“That’s great news!” Greg enthused, secretly relieved that someone seems to
be taking the initiative to make changes.
He tapped the corner of the yellow pad on his desk, his eyes faraway in
thought. Dennis looked at him anxiously.
“Good news?”
Greg came out of his reverie. He recounted the conversation with Al. Dennis
looked puzzled. “That’s great news, but what made you look so lost in space?”
Greg didn’t answer, deep in thought again.
“Hello, anybody home?” Dennis flapped a hand in front of Greg’s face,
drawing no reaction. He sat back and folded his arms. “Call me when you wake
up,” he said petulantly.
Greg was quiet for two minutes, staring vacantly at the yellow squares. The
only sound was the movement of air through the ventilation ducts.
“Eureka!” he cried, jumping up from behind the desk.
Dennis flinched, surprised by the unexpected movement.
“Wassup, wassup?” he asked, taken aback.
“The last piece of the puzzle,” Greg exclaimed. He scribbled something on
another note, rushed over to the whiteboard and ceremoniously stuck it up next to
the others. It read:

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 Dennis looked at the yellow square with puzzlement.
“What did you have to drink at lunch?” he asked. “What do you mean -
strive to increase their self-worth?”
“Al’s call triggered this deduction. I expect the maintenance team to work
on converting the wash-bays as quickly as possible. They are not doing me a favor.
So why did he phone me?”
“To remain in your good books” Dennis ventured.
“No. To ensure that I appreciate the value of his maintenance tribe brings to
the organization.” Greg replied, his eyes shining.
Dennis pursed his lips and nodded with dawning insight.
“You may be right. It reminds me of election time. Since the political
party’s survival is not at stake, they spend their time convincing the voting public
that their tribe is more valuable than the opposition–promising better Social
Security and MediCare benefits, for example.”
Greg grinned in delight. “That’s a perfect example.”
He fell down in his chair, his legs stretched out in front of him. They both
stared at the neat row of yellow squares, impressed by their insight into the way
groups and individuals behave.
“It all makes sense now!” Greg jumped out of his chair again, sending it
skidding backwards. He paced up and down in front of the whiteboard.
Dennis looked at him warily–ready to get out of the way of other fast
moving objects.
“What makes sense?” he ventured carefully.
“The whole issue of motivation!” Greg exclaimed. “Deep down, our tribal
affiliation is the only true motivator. Our behavior is driven by the continuous
interplay between our tribes and us. Tribes define the social identity of individuals.
No tribal membership, then no identity and no self-image.”
He paused for a moment.
“How will you know if someone is rich and successful?” he asked.
Dennis was taken aback by the sudden change in direction. “Well, they may

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live in Santa Barbara and drive a Ferrari,” he ventured.
Greg nodded. “Why do those items tell you the person is rich and
successful?”
“Because only rich and successful people own those things.”
“Exactly! It’s the symbols of the tribe. Only the tribe can determine the
individual’s value. If I drove around in a rusty old Cutlass and lived in the
docklands, would you believe me if I told you I was a member of the tribe of rich
and successful people?”
“No.”
“The old saying of ‘keeping up with the Jones’s has much greater
significance than I realized. If the tribe does better than me, my individual value is
lowered in the eyes of the tribe and I may be ejected. To protect my individual
value and to secure my tribal membership, I may be driven to overextend myself
financially to adhere to the tribe’s standard.”
Dennis looked dubious, frowning in concentration.
“It’s a self-perpetuating cycle,” Greg continued, “Darn, Butch is clever!” he
exclaimed, punching his fist into his hand.
“The continuous interplay between individual security and value on the one
hand, and tribal security and value on the other, determines both tribal and
individual motivation. Academics consider the five dimensions as separate
phenomena, where in fact they are two sides of the same coin–the one cannot exist
without the other!”
“Butch gave me another clue. He referred to the confrontation between
David and Goliath. It did not make any sense, but now it does.”
“How is that?” Dennis frowned.
“I read through that part of the Bible last night. The Israelites and the
Philistines perceived one other as their respective common enemy. The Philistines
went to war against King Solomon’s army. The Israelites were alarmed, their tribal
security severely threatened by the fearsome power of Goliath. The Philistines
considered their tribal value pretty high, with such an awesome fighter in their
ranks.
Confident in their strength, the Philistines challenged the Israelites to send
one person out to fight Goliath. Armed with nothing but a slingshot, David took up
the challenge. He even refused the chain-mail armor King Solomon insisted he
wore.
The rest is history. One miraculous, well-placed shot between the eyes kills
Goliath. Suddenly, the Philistines’ tribal security and value decreased dramatically.
Seeing the impossible happen, the Israelites were convinced that God was indeed
on their side. Their tribal value went up, and they promptly annihilated the
Philistines in battle.”
“Neat example,” Dennis smiled, “but how do we turn al this to our
advantage?”
“We must figure out how to build a strong tribe and how to increase its
security and value,” Greg replied, “Now that we understand the five dimensions

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that explain the true drivers of human motivation, we can build our tribe just like
Butch did with Cape Industries.”

The telephone rang, breaking the reverie. It was Fiona from the accounting
department. Greg had asked her to find information on MicroLogic’s competitors.
She had collected a pile of stuff, and wanted to check with Greg whether it was
what he wanted.
“Come on down,” he replied.
Dennis went to get more coffee, and returned just as Fiona, a pert brunette in
her middle twenties with a superb figure, came down the passage. Dennis gallantly
pulled out a chair with one hand without spilling the coffee in the other. Greg gave
him a knowing look, to which Dennis grinned and winked behind Fiona’s back.
‘Darn bachelor,’ he thought to himself. Fiona plunked three thick files on
the table, and spread the contents out for Greg to see. There were financial
statements, website information, management structure and much more for each of
the major competitors–Advanced Circuits, Micro Delta, and Enerdyne. Greg leafed
through the information. “This is exactly what we need,” he congratulated her,
smiling at the look of relief on Fiona’s face.
“This information makes them real and tangible. Our people will just about
feel, taste and smell the common enemy. I want all this on a big display board in
the plant. Spare no effort. I suggest we add stock prices, press releases, newspaper
cuttings and whatever else you can find. Ask Dennis for assistance. I’m sure he
will be delighted to help you.” Dennis nodded vigorously. Greg grinned.
“Great work.”
Fiona smiled in acknowledgement, and gathered up the pile of documents.
Dennis left with her, ostensibly to check on the wash-bay installation, although he
took the long way around through the accounts department.

-oOo-

Greg owed Sandy the weekly management report, and compiling the
financial and operational summaries kept him busy for the rest of the day. By late
afternoon he turned his mind back to the question of symbols. Butch’s comments
about using symbols to recognize individual achievement dovetailed with the
concept of individual value.
He smiled in remembrance of his own immense pride in the Boy Scout
badge he had received for sleeping outside in the snow for one night. He would
never forget how badly he had slept, fighting with three other boys to secure the
inside, warm spot in his sleeping bag. The badge had made it all worthwhile
though. Within the Boy Scout tribe, his individual value was certainly at a peak.
‘I had better find a short-hand description of these dimensions,’ he thought.
Individual value was IV, individual security was IS, tribal value was TV, and tribal
security was TS, he decided. ‘At least they are not three-letter acronyms,’ he
smiled to himself.

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 ‘What should we recognize?’ he contemplated. ‘Certainly the skills to do the
required work better and more productively. But that is not all. There must be tribal
issues unrelated to work that are also important–the things that reinforce people’s
behavior within the larger tribe.’ He got up and wrote on the whiteboard:

Task proficiency
Communication skills
Professional and technical qualification
Health and fitness
Teamwork skills
Business skills
First aid and disaster control
Computer literacy

He looked at the list with interest. ‘Can I acknowledge the individual for
overall business performance?’ he pondered. ‘Probably not. There are too many
external variables outside his or her control. But I can acknowledge the team for
their ability to produce on target and within quality standards. That means I need to
add some group recognition tools as well.’ He started another column. It read:

Group output to target

Group quality to target
Support for one another within the group
Group learning
Group harmony

‘I’ll have to create specific training modules for these. I cannot acknowledge
something without some measure of achievement and training.’
He sat down in front of the computer, called up the company directory on
the corporate website and found the telephone number for the corporate
development department.
The department head was a portly ex-academic, named Russ Barton, who
had joined Intec when quality circles and green areas were all the rage. It seemed
like those were in vogue a long time ago now. Russ answered the phone like he
was the owner of a funeral parlor–always prepared for the bad news but happy to
be of service. Greg explained his need for training modules that would help create
the new individual capabilities he had identified.
There was long silence at the other end.
“Well, can you help me?” he asked into the silence.
“It is an unusual request,” Russ answered hesitantly. “None of this fits in our
corporate training guidelines which define the training we provide to all Intec
divisions. Quite frankly, we would find difficult to accommodate your request.”
Greg closed his eyes.
“What will the guidelines allow you to do?” he tried, hoping to find a way

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around.
“Well, all our courses are listed on the website.” The hesitant tone seemed to
be a natural way to communicate. Greg clicked through the web pages while the
silence lingered. He found the corporate training page and skimmed through the
course and program listings. There were lots of items on compliance and safety,
some on supervision and basic management, but nothing that covered the areas
Greg had in mind. “I see what you mean” Greg agreed, “but how do I get what I
really need?”
“Well, that would require a special course development approval which can
only be done by the corporate training evaluation committee. They meet once a
quarter, and since this quarter’s meeting happened last week, we’ll have to wait till
next quarter. Then we will have to contract the services of academics that
specialize in this area, able to develop suitable course material. That, however, can
only happen if we get the funds approved by the budget appropriation committee.
It is a sub-committee of the larger human resource development budget committee,
which is composed of the HR managers from four plants, chaired by the VP of
human resource development. They also meet once a quarter, and the next meeting
is scheduled in ten days from now, but we cannot ask for budget approval if the
course development outline has not been approved. That means we will have to
wait for the next budget appropriation meeting, which is after the next corporate
training evaluation committee meeting. It is scheduled for….” Greg heard the
rustling of pages on the other end. “Eleven weeks from today.” There was a tinge
of satisfaction in Russ’s voice.
Greg gritted his teeth, and took a deep breath. “I was planning to do all this
much quicker, in three weeks maybe,” he replied.
“Oh no. Quite impossible.” Russ sounded even graver, like a funeral director
who finds out that it is not one death but a family tragedy–all coming his way. “We
have to follow the correct procedure here,” he continued. “We cannot have every
subsidiary doing its own thing.”
“Why not?” Greg asked in astonishment.
“Well, um, it might not be what we need as a corporation.”
‘It is another tribe,’ it suddenly dawned on Greg. ‘He is following the tribal
rules!’
He decided to try another tack.
“The work done by the human resource department is really very important
to the corporation, don’t you think?”
“Oh, most definitely so. Without well-coordinated training, we would not be
able to ensure consistency and uniform high standards of education.”
‘There is the TV’, Greg thought to himself.
“I see your point. I suppose if every plant trained according to what they
thought they needed, the corporate human resources department would be
superfluous.”
“Yes, and imagine the increase in total training cost if every plant had to pay
for its own training development.”

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 ‘That’s the TS,’ Greg marveled.
“But if your training modules did not match the division’s requirements,
they would be forced to do their own training development, not so?” Greg
commented innocently.
“We strongly discourage that!” Russ responded.
“Yes, I know, but don’t you run the risk of being out of touch with the real
needs of the divisions?”
“Well, maybe. I must say, we find more and more off-schedule training
occurring.”
“I can imagine you must be under pressure to correct that,” Greg
commented.
“Darn, right!” Russ sounded mildly agitated. “Funny you should mention it.
The VP is putting the screws on us to discourage divisions to develop their own
training and to stick with the programs we at corporate have developed.”
“If they don’t, you might be out of a job shortly,” Greg observed angelically.
There was an uncomfortable silence. “Well, I trust that would not happen.” Russ
sounded even more mournful.
“It seems to me that you are in corner. Divisions all have training needs
which are outside the scope of the corporate offering. If you try to force them to
use the existing stuff, you will be very unpopular.”
‘Down goes the IS,’ Greg thought. “If I were in your position, I would
identify the leading training trends and establish where you can stay ahead of the
curve with new training options. That would make you a lot more popular with the
divisions, and will surely put you in a good light with the Vice President.”
‘Up goes the IV,’ Greg marveled.
“You really think so?” came the surprised reply, somewhat less morbid.
“Of course!” Greg enthused. “We have a really exciting training
development here. But if you are not interested, I will find someone locally to help
us out.”
Down goes the IV.
“No, no, hold on,” Russ interjected. “I have some time earmarked for
research that I might use to help you.”
“But wouldn’t that need to be approved by the training and budget
committees?” Greg asked.
“No need for that,” Russ reassured him. “Send me the subject outlines and
the training requirements, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks Russ!” Greg was genuinely grateful. He rang off and immediately
went to work writing the training requirements while the concepts were still fresh
in his mind. Two hours later, he emailed the final document to Russ.
It was dark outside when Greg left the plant. The maintenance crew’s cars
were still in the parking lot.

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 Chapter Nine
Butch answered the phone on the second ring. “Johnson,” was all he said.
“Hi Butch. Greg here. Is this an appropriate time to talk?”
“Sure, go ahead. I have an hour before I leave.”
“Where are you going?” Greg asked conversationally
Dead silence.
“Sorry,” Greg mumbled, mentally kicking himself. ‘This guy does not waste
a single minute,’ he thought. “I have discovered a whole lot of interesting things
that I want to run by you.”
“Go ahead.”
Greg explained the five dimensions they had identified, as well as the
description of IS, IV, TS and TV. He held his breath, waiting for the customary
short silence.
“I am impressed,” Butch replied. “You figured that out faster than I
anticipated. Well done.”
“Your clue about David and Goliath set me on the right track,” Greg
continued, pride in his voice. He recounted his application of IS, IV, TS and TV to
the training discussion with Russ Barton. Butch sounded keenly interested, and
asked a number of questions about the training subjects. Greg felt a sense of
growing confidence as he listened to the elegance of his explanations.
Butch was quiet for a while.
Greg could hear his own blood move as held the receiver to his ear.
“You have done remarkably well so far. However, I think you missed the
most important group capability.”
“What’s that?” Greg sounded defensive. He thought he had them all
covered.
“Let me share another event with you,” Butch continued. “A few years ago,
one of the largest steel producers in the southern hemisphere discovered that their
occupational safety record was atrocious. At least twelve people died in industrial
accidents every year and many more were seriously injured. The CEO tasked a
senior manager to fix the safety problem. With the help of the plant managers, he
ferreted out the cause for the entire organization’s safety problem. It was very
simple really–nobody took responsibility for anyone else’s safety. Everyone was
convinced that it was management’s responsibility.”
“That’s normal for most plants.”
“True, but the solution was very simple. Instead of launching a
management-driven initiative to improve safety, with slogans, posters, and all the
other useless paraphernalia, they implemented the concept of co-responsibility.”
Greg thought of all the pock-marked and peeling safety signs in MicroLogic
proclaiming ‘Safety in Number One.’ Nobody would notice if they were removed.
“Co-responsibility?” he queried.
“It is the old principle of a triangle being the strongest structure. Every

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person in the company was made co-responsible for the safety of two other
employees. In most instances it would be people in the same work-cell or
department.”
“So I am my brother’s keeper after all.” Greg recalled the Old Testament
story of Cain and Abel.
“Indeed,” Butch agreed. “The results were amazing, though. Within a year
they had close to the best safety record in the world.”
Greg whistled. “Are you saying that I should include training in co-
responsibility?”
“Yes. It also requires a process for assigning, monitoring and updating co-
responsibility. Now let’s go back to your analysis of IS, IV, TS and TV. How do
you think the issue of co-responsibility will affect these four dimensions?”
Greg thought for a few minutes, wary of incurring Butch’s silent censure.
“If I was working in such a plant, my IS will go up because I know others
are looking out for my safety. IV will go up because I would be making a
meaningful contribution to the well-being of two other people. TS will go up since
everybody is involved in the process of looking out for others. TV will increase
because there would be a collective feeling of success when the safety record is
close to the best in the world.”
“Would you prefer working in such plant?”
“Of course. I’d know that the attention given to safety and health would in
total be far more than management, or a safety committee, would be capable of
providing.”
“Understanding these simple, universal rules of human motivation, you are
in a very powerful position.”
“How is that?”
“You are able to predict exactly how someone will behave in a given
circumstance.”
“I am?”
“Yes, but you’ll have to think it through very carefully. That is your next
assignment.”
With that, Butch rang off.
Greg stared at the wall for a long time, trying to figure out what Butch
meant with his parting remark.
He scribbled a few thoughts on his notepad, but gave up and went to bed. He
continued reading the Bible late into the night, looking for more insights on tribes.

-oOo-

The next morning saw him back in the production meeting, sitting at the
head of the conference table. Al and some of the maintenance supervisors were
gathered in one corner, looking very pleased. Dennis was absent, and Greg opened
the meeting.
“Tell me what is happening with AsiaComNet,” he commanded, looking

104
around the room. Mike sat forward, his arms for once not crossed in their familiar
fashion, but placed firmly on the table. Greg looked at him in anticipation.
“The wash-bay conversions must all be re-done,” he said flatly.
“Redone?” Greg and Al spoke in unison, incredulity in both their voices.
Mike nodded. Al stepped forward. “Are you saying my guys are messing
things up?”
“I don’t know,” Mike candidly replied. “All I know is that the quality of
output has suddenly gone down. Our yields are now lower than before.”
‘Where is Dennis when I need him,’ Greg thought grimly.
“How will that affect our production?”
“At this rate we will complete about 60% of the total order by ship date,”
was the reply. Greg was thunderstruck. By the expression on the faces around the
table, it was clear that nobody was in doubt about the gravity of this new
development.
Al was furious. “Those conversions are fine. It must be your production
people that cannot use them properly.”
Mike glowered at Al’s reddening face. “My people know exactly what they
are doing!” he growled.
‘They are defending their tribes,’ Greg thought in surprise. Both tribes feel
that their TV is negatively affected, and the natural response is to attack the other
tribe.
Greg put his hand up. “Whoa, hold it,” he commanded. Turning to Mike he
asked, “Why should the wash bay conversions be re-done?”
“They are causing the output levels to go down.” Mike bristled, folding his
arms and sitting back.
‘Mike has already decided that the common enemy for his tribe is this new
technology,’ Greg thought.
Everyone in the room looked at Greg. He felt like he was between a rock
and a hard place. On the one hand he had unquestioned faith in Dennis’s technical
expertise, which made him think that Mike’s team was in some way not using the
technology correctly. On the other hand, he respected the immense knowledge
Mike had of the unique operating environment in MicroLogic. It made him think
that the wash-bay conversion may indeed be at fault. Clearly it needed further
investigation-in a hurry!
Greg paused for a minute, thinking about the behavior of Al, Mike and the
others in the room. Al’s instinctive negative reaction to Mike’s statement was
caused by the perception that the maintenance tribe was being criticized–the value
of the maintenance tribe, or TV, was negatively impacted. Since it was such a
strong, close-knit tribe, Al’s reaction was predictable. He vehemently defended the
tribe’s reputation.
Greg again marveled at Butch’s profound insight.
In contrast, Mike’s production tribe was negatively impacted by the lower
yield rates–their TV was also going down. The most natural thing to do was to look
for a common enemy, in this case the wash-bays, to rationalize why the decrease in

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TV was not of their making. It was the production tribe versus the maintenance
tribe–each trying to defend their tribal value with the other as the common enemy.
Greg smiled to himself. The room was still staring at him. He felt a bit like a
goldfish in a bowl.
“Here’s what we will do. Al is responsible for finding out what the
production guys are doing wrong, and Mike is responsible for finding out what the
maintenance guys are doing wrong. Don’t just tell me the other party is wrong - tell
me why they are wrong. I hold you co-responsible for coming up with the right
answer. Both of you will report your conclusions to this group by this afternoon.
Dennis will be here to add his professional insight.”
“I can’t be his wet-nurse!” Mike burst out, pointing to the glowering Al.
“Yes, you can,” Greg interrupted crisply, “and Al is wet-nursing you. Now
get on with it immediately. We need an answer fast!”
Greg stood up. “We’ll re-convene at four p.m.” he announced and headed
for the door. The buzz of agitated discussion followed him down the passage.

Hurried steps were trying to catch up with his long strides. “Excuse me,
Greg.” He slowed and turned. “Yes, Pablo?” he asked, stopping to allow the short,
squat section supervisor to catch up with him.
“Senor, those two will kill each other. They have been enemies for a long
time. We will see a great battle here today.”
Greg grinned. “Great! Then I will have one less person to worry about.”
Pablo looked completely taken aback.
“I’m just kidding,” he retracted hastily, “but why do they hate each other?”
he asked curiously.
“I don’t know. They are forever at each other’s throats–blaming each other
for the production problems. Everybody is worried that the plant will close down.
With you here as the new boss and the pressure to do this AsiaComNet order so
quickly, everybody thinks the company is in big trouble.” He looked mournful, his
ample jowls hanging gloomily.
‘It is the TS/IS issue again,’ Greg though in amazement.
“What are the people saying, Pablo?” he continued, trying to sound more
reassuring.
“People are saying they should look for another job before the company is
closed down.”
“Really?” Greg was taken aback. He’d never mentioned the company’s
survival being at stake, which it wasn’t. People simply inferred that their individual
security, or IS, was at stake because of the AsiaComNet order. He patted Pablo on
the shoulder. “Don’t worry, we are not about to go under.”
Pablo looked marginally relieved.
“We’ll talk about this issue at the afternoon meeting” Greg reassured him,
and continued to his office. Pablo went back to the plant, muttering under his
breath, shaking his head.

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 Greg threw his notepad down with a thump, and sat down behind his desk.
He buzzed the receptionist and asked her to send Dennis to his office as soon as he
appeared. He leaned back, steeped his fingers and mentally replayed the morning’s
events. It was uncanny. After every conversation with Butch, he gained insight into
another dimension of human behavior. He pulled the notepad closer, re-read the
notes from the previous evening, and started on Butch’s assignment. The events at
the morning meeting kept coming back to him. He was still amazed how easily he
could identify the drivers for the way Mike and Al behaved. Now that he
understood what really determined people’s behavior–the interplay between IS, IV,
TS and TV, he could look at different combinations of these factors.
“That’s it!” Greg jumped up and walked to the white board. He was running
out of place to write, but dared not wipe out anything. It was all too important.
Moving the yellow notes helped to create more space, sufficient for him to
draw a grid.

‘I can define the way people will behave by looking at the different
combinations of the individual and the tribe,’ Greg thought. ‘IS+ would be where
the individual experiences a high level of individual security, and IS- would
indicate a low level of individual security. TS+ would be where the tribe
experiences a high level of security and TS- a low level of security.’
‘What would happen if individual security is high and tribal security is
high?’ he asked himself. ‘Can I think of such an environment?’
“Are you playing crosswords now?”
Greg jumped in surprise. He had not heard anyone enter his office. Dennis
was standing behind him, smiling mischievously at the reaction he got.
Greg somewhat testily explained the quadrants.
“Can you think of an environment where IS+ and TS+ exists?” he asked,

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hoping to get Dennis back for catching him unawares.
“Of course,” he replied casually, flopping down in one of the office chairs.
“Such as?”
“The civil service. It is virtually impossible to get fired from government,
and those guys don’t lose a night’s sleep over their salaries, since the IRS does
such an admirable job of carpet-bagging the rest of us.”
Greg was impressed, but tried to hide it. “Hmm, it is a good example,” he
grudgingly acknowledged. “How do people behave in such an environment?”

Dennis scratched his chin. “People become very complacent,” he replied.

“There is little sense of urgency. They tend to be more process and procedure
driven than results driven, and there is less concern for speed or output. Rules and
regulations define their tribal behavior. However, in-fighting and back-stabbing is
the name of the game. The customer is merely a nuisance–to be tolerated at best
and actively avoided at worst.”
Greg looked at him in admiration. “That’s on the money,” he smiled,
recalling the frustrating experiences he’s had with bureaucrats in the past. He
scribbled the observations in the appropriate square.

“How would people behave under IS+ and TS- where individual security is
high, but tribal security is low?” Greg challenged Dennis.
“The recent horror of the destruction of the World Trade Center is a good
example. None of us felt that our individual security was directly under threat, but
the American tribe’s security was greatly threatened. People closed ranks and
stood as one. There was an enormous effort to fortify the security of the tribe.
Airport security was immediately stepped up. No right-minded terrorist would
attempt another bombing right after the first one, so the display of heightened
security was more for the emotional support of the American people than anything
else.
Symbols became very, very important. All of a sudden every car, house and
public building was flying the flag. Overnight, there was not one American flag to
be bought anywhere. Lots of patriotic songs were played on television. I guess with
high IS and low TS, people will spontaneously work to restore the security of the
tribe.”

Greg nodded in appreciation, filling in the blocks on the diagram.

“The tribe will also look for a scapegoat–some entity to blame for the tribe’s
misfortune. The American Government immediately set out to find and kill Osama
Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attack. Commercial shooting ranges
couldn’t keep up with the demand for targets that had Bin Laden’s face on them.
The symbolic destruction of Bin Laden occupied the news for weeks on end,” he
noted.
“Let’s consider the situation where both low IS and low TS exists.”
Dennis looked pensive for a minute. “That’s probably the worst case,” he

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continued. “People will scatter, abandoning the tribe as fast they can, looking for
other tribes they can join. A good example would be the end of Nazism. When it
was clear that the war had been lost, the Nazi commanders fled Germany and went
into hiding. The Nazi tribe was under threat from the Allied forces, and individuals
were facing prosecution for war crimes. So they hot-footed it to countries that
offered asylum with no questions asked.”
“Butch gave me another example in the same vein,” Greg continued the line
of thinking.
“Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, is another good example. Ever
since the first democratic election in the early Eighties, when Ian Smith’s white
government was forced to hand over power to a revolutionary black government
after the Lancaster House agreement—brokered by the British government—was
signed, that country’s economy collapsed. Unemployment is at 60%, and inflation
at 1600%. Inflation completely destroyed the currency, forcing the locals to switch
to using the US Dollar as the local currency. Now, more than twenty years later,
whites make up less than one percent of the total population, but still they are
blamed for the black government’s disastrous performance. Whenever elections are
held, Mugabe portrays the smattering of whites living in Zimbabwe as the common
enemy of the blacks.”

Dennis pointed to the last open block. “We have one combination left - that
of high tribal security and low individual security, or IS- and TS+ as you would
say.”
“I guess that would exist where a person is under threat from the tribe.
Gangs would be a good example. If a member of the gang is caught snitching to
the police, the gang/tribe will punish the traitor. That’s why police have to use safe
houses and witness protection programs to keep informants safe. In corporate
circumstances, I suspect the individual is forced leave to find a less threatening
environment.”
Greg stood back from the board and looked at the completed diagram:

109
 “This is awesome,” Greg enthused. “Butch was right. We can indeed
predict how people will behave.”
Dennis looked similarly impressed. “It is common sense, but what about the
value dimension - the IV and TV issue?”
Greg copied the diagram down on his notebook and erased it from the board.
He drew a new one, substituting TS with TV, and IS with IV.
“We should be able to do the same for these dimensions,” he said, giving
Dennis an encouraging look.
“Am I doing all of this?”
“No, but you are on a roll, so keep going.”
Dennis shook his head in resignation, and looked at the board.
The silence dragged on. Greg could hear the muted rumble of thunder
outside. He looked out the window. A black thundercloud obscured the mountains.
Trees were being pummeled by the wind, with leaves and twigs swirling around
the parking lot. ‘Looks a bit like the emotional state inside this company,’ he
thought.
Dennis sat forward. “Let’s begin with the most desirable state–the TV+IV+
quadrant. I am casting around of an environment where both those aspects exist,
and the best I can come up with is a winning sports team. It’s like the basketball
environment we discussed some time ago. Being part of a winning team is a very
satisfying experience. When everyone plays the best game possible, and the team
wins, there is a very strong sense of tribal value, or TV+, in your new vernacular.
There is great camaraderie amongst the team members and a strong appreciation of

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the individual for his contribution to the team. This in turn, spurs the individual on
to greater commitment and effort.”
Greg was filling in the square as Dennis spoke.
“Let’s go to the opposite state, where tribal value is low and individual value
is low, TV-IV- as you would say.”
Greg waited expectantly, the marker poised to write.
“In this situation, I expect to find a lot of finger-pointing. Small tribes form
and pit their wits against one another. The situation is not bad enough for people to
want to leave the tribe as yet, and everyone looks for ways to regain tribal value
and individual value. The organization loses focus as the smaller tribes vie to
convince the organization to follow their unique solution or model of the world.
Productivity suffers and turf wars become more noticeable, particularly if the
organization is under pressure from the external environment. I suspect it is a small
step from TV- to TS -, where the organization is under real threat of suffering
significant damage.”
Greg nodded in agreement, a rueful expression on his face. “It sounds like
MicroLogic to me,” he commented. “We have that situation right now. Lots of
smaller tribes at war, and a significant threat in the form of the AsiaComNet
order.” To illustrate the point, Greg recounted the morning’s altercation between
Al and Mike. Dennis shook his head in amazement.

“Let’s go to the upper right quadrant. That’s where tribal value is low and
individual value is high, or TV-IV+. The only reference environment that comes to
mind is again that of a sports team that won second place. Every team member
remains convinced of his own skill and prowess, even though the team value is
somewhat diminished. They feel a renewed sense of urgency to further refine their
skills and capabilities to beat the champions the next time around. Individuals work
to make the tribe more successful. Tribal symbols are revisited and individuals
draw strength and meaning from them. The tribal values are reaffirmed and shared
with one another. Strategies are better defined and the winners, now the new
common enemy, carefully studied to find their weakness.”
Dennis waited for Greg to catch up on the writing. Then he carried on.
“Let’s go to the last quadrant, the TV+IV- scenario. That’s where the tribal
value is strong but the individual value is low. I suspect the individual value will be
low in terms of the tribe’s value system, and not in his perception of himself. The
individual will feel out of synch with the tribe, and finds himself a tribal outcast.
He will try to re-integrate himself with the tribe by modifying his behavior.
However, tribes don’t have a mechanism to re-integrate the individual into the
tribe, and closes ranks against him or her. The individual feels rejected and
powerless against the unspoken but complete exclusion. He resents the tribal
exclusion and becomes a rebel without a cause, undermining the tribe by creating
new, dissident tribes. If that doesn’t work, he joins the tribe’s enemies in an effort
to restore his IV. He sells trade secrets, sensitive customer information and
anything else to harm the tribe that rejected him.”

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 Greg had stopped writing, listening with interest.
“Where do you find all this stuff?” he asked.
“Easy, I was thinking of all the spies we had uncovered here in the USA,
from the Second World War through the Cold War, right up to today. In every case
the pattern seems to be consistent.”
“Now that I think about it, I can recall a number of disgruntled employees
that I’ve had to deal with in the past. They all behaved in just this manner. It would
explain how our competitors got their hands on technology that had taken us a long
time to develop. If I had understood this dynamic better at the time, I would have
handled the situation differently.”

Greg looked at the diagram. “It seems so straightforward now.”

Dennis shook his head. “I think the definition is easy, now that we know
what we are looking for. However, it will be much more interesting to define the
management response required to deal with each one of these situations.”
Greg raised his eyebrows. “I haven’t thought about that,” he admitted. “Let
me write this down, before we carry on.” He flipped to a new page on his notepad
and copied down the diagram on the whiteboard:

Greg closed the notepad with a flourish. “I’ll make some copies of the
diagrams,” he said and disappeared down the passage.
Dennis got up and walked around the room, his hands behind his back, deep
in thought.
“You’ll do yourself damage, punishing your brain like that,” a voice said

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behind him. It was Maggie. “I’m on my way to the quality lab, but smelled smoke
coming from this office. It must be your brain frying,” she quipped, smiling
widely.
“Humph, woman!” Dennis pulled himself up straight, pushing out his chest.
“Can’t you recognize brilliance when you see it?”
Maggie looked around. “Well, there is none around here.”
“Go away. You are interrupting the genius at work here,” Dennis threatened.
Greg walked in just as Maggie disappeared down the passage. He looked at
Dennis inquisitively, who shrugged his shoulders in the universal male sign of
resigned incomprehension of female behavior. Greg put the copies on the table and
sat down. Dennis took the opposite chair.
“You made a very important comment just now. How should management
respond to the events in the respective quadrants?” Greg picked up the
conversation.
“Before we go there, let me share another anecdote with you. While you
were out, I tried to think of companies that fitted the eight quadrants. One company
in particular came to mind. It was a very successful sheet metal manufacturer.
Started by two Jewish brothers in the 1930’s, it prospered through the Second
World War by making galvanized buckets, baths and jerry cans. When I got to
know them, the company was very much TV+IV+. It made lots of money and there
was an all-round sense of achievement. Sadly, the two brothers died in quick
succession. After the estates were settled, the company found itself with a board of
directors consisting of a gaggle of aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters and other
peripheral family members who’d inherited blocks of shares. Some were
alcoholics, some were deaf and one came to every board meeting wearing a
gasmask in case war broke out while the meeting was in progress.
They could never agree on anything, and the company slowly disintegrated
under the quick succession of CEO’s the board hired and fired. Middle
management valiantly tried to keep the business running.
As things continued to deteriorate, the board started blaming the middle
managers. The company started to lay off people, and soon there was a feeling of
‘everyone for himself’.
With TS- and IS- very much in evidence, they looked after their own
interests first. Some of the managers were good acquaintances of mine, and I spent
many evenings in the bar, listening to their laments. In a period of six years the
company went from a booming business to a huddle of empty, echoing, rat-infested
factory buildings.
“And the point is…?” Greg cocked one eyebrow.
“That there may be a highly predictable death spiral, based on our model of
motivation.”
Greg’s other eyebrow went up. Dennis took the marker, cleaned a patch on
the whiteboard and drew a graph.

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 “Before the brothers died, the company had a very high level of tribal value
as well as a strong sense of individual value–at point one on the graph.
Once the new board took over, the tribal value started disintegrating. The
individual value of middle managers was still pretty strong, and they tried very
hard to restore the company to its former glory–at point two. However, when the
board started to blame them for the company’s demise, their individual value was
negatively affected–point three on the graph.
As things got progressively worse, they concentrated more and more on
themselves. Nobody thought that the company would actually collapse, but tribal
security and individual security became more important–point four. When it
became apparent that the company would indeed go under, tribal security rapidly
eroded and individuals bolstered their own security at the expense of others,
hoping to be the last to go–point five. When bankruptcy became a stark reality, it
was every man for himself–at point six.”
Dennis put the marker down, and returned to his chair. Greg stared at the
diagram, chin in hand. Thunder rumbled outside, ominously rattling the windows.
“I’ve lived through a similar experience, but the other way around.
Remember the Intec plant I was assigned to after we parted ways from our first job
together?”
“Can I ever forget?” Dennis remarked solemnly.
“It was the fab plant out in Kansas. Intec had just bought the plant out of a
Chapter 11 settlement and motivation was at level five on your graph. People were
concerned about the plant’s future, but nobody had left as yet. When Intec put its
corporate weight behind the company, tribal security quickly returned – point four.
When we brought new business into the plant from other locations, there
was a palpable increase in confidence and assurance–point three to point two.
When the plant was solidly in the black, and we started spending money on
training and upgrading equipment, the dreadful grind of a borderline existence was
gone. The level of motivation and commitment reached extraordinary levels–point
one.”

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 Greg sat back and clasped his hands behind his head, a pensive look on his
face.
“If we can determine where a company finds itself on that continuum, we
can define the actions needed to systematically move the business up the slope to
point one and beyond–to where Butch’s plant is.”
Dennis nodded in agreement. “Let’s go back to our original observation. If
we understand where an organization is in terms of our eight quadrants, and we
now roughly know the sequence in which it will move from corporate death to
extraordinary performance, we can define some of the management actions that
would bring those changes about.” Greg nodded vigorously, grabbed the marker
and enthusiastically drew up a new diagram. It read:

Outside, rain spattered across the windows and the trees bowed in the wind.
A brilliant flash of lightning momentarily blinded them, making them both flinch.
A split second later, as the thunder rumbled through the leaden sky, the lights went
out. There was an eerie silence as they waited for the standby generator to kick in.
Nothing happened.
The battery-powered emergency lights came on.
“Damnation.” Dennis was on his feet and headed towards the factory floor.
“I’ll check the generator. You find out what happened to the on-grid power.” Greg
headed to the reception area. The emergency lights provided barely enough light to
follow the walkway.
The switchboard was out of action, so he dialed the utility company’s
number on his mobile phone. It rang for eternity, with no success. He found an
alternative number on the emergency sheet, and tried again. This time someone
answered. Greg gave details of the power outage.

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 “Yes we know about that one, sir. A repair crew is on their way as we
speak,” the operator replied. “Our control room indicates that the sub-station two
blocks away from you took a direct hit from the lightning bolt.”
“When can we expect to have our power restored?” Greg asked anxiously.
“If you’ll let me have your number sir, I’ll phone you back as soon as we
have more details.” Greg gave her the information and rang off. He hurried back to
the plant. The biggest danger was contamination in the clean rooms. With the
airlocks out of action and the air curtains down, there was significant danger of
airborne dust contamination, putting the plant out of action for at least twenty-four
hours. Worse still, they would have to discard the contaminated wafers in process,
most of which were AsiaComNet components.
To Greg’s relief, everybody had left the clean rooms. Movement agitates the
air, spreading the contamination.
The rain hammered down on the roof. The noise was deafening. He hurried
through the darkened plant, anxious to join Dennis.

The emergency generator was housed in a separate building some twenty

yards from the main building. The wind slammed the exit door shut behind Greg as
he sprinted through the pelting rain. It stung his face and shoulders even though he
had one arm raised to ward off the ice-cold deluge.
He crashed through the door to the generator room. Dennis was shining a
powerful torch over Al’s shoulder, both his hands inside a closet-sized control
board, rapidly checking circuits.
“What’s up guys?” he asked, peering over Al’s other shoulder.
“The starter relays are not closing,” Al replied tersely, not looking away
from the board.
“Why is that?”
“The compressor blowout.”
“The compressor blowout?”
“Yeah. The starter relays are closed with compressed air the instant the
hold-open relays lose power from the city grid. I think the compressed air line is
still blocked with gunk from the blowout.” Al grunted as he pulled the airline from
the flange coupling.
“Stand back. If the stuff gets dislodged, it will come out the pipe like a
bullet out of a gun. It has four hundred pounds of pressure behind it.”
“Can I shut it down somewhere?” Greg asked, stepping back with alacrity.
“I’ve already done so, but there is still pressure between the valve and the
blockage,” Al cautioned.

Another maintenance technician hurried in, water streaming down his face,
lugging a roll of high-pressure tubing and a toolbox. He dumped them on the floor
and wiped the water from his eyes.
“We’ll run a temporary air-line from another external air pipe directly to this
coupling,” Al continued, not looking away from where he was working.

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 The technician disappeared outside, carrying two large wrenches from the
toolbox. Al deftly threaded the tubing through the maze of wiring, attached a
ferrule, and tightened the coupling. He stood back, partly closing the doors, and
hurried outside. They followed, Dennis lighting the way, oblivious to the torrential
rain. The technician was on his knees, straining to loosen the coupling between the
pipe and the elbow leading into the building. He shook his head like a terrier to
clear water from his face.
“If we had power, I’d cut this off in a minute,” he commented. Greg
marveled at the dedication of the maintenance personnel. ‘It is exactly as Butch
described it,’ he thought. ‘Strong TV+ drives this team.’
The coupling gave way with a screech, and the piercing whistle of escaping
air made him winch. Feverishly, the technician loosened the coupling, wrenched
the pipe from its socket, bent it away and stuck the end of the high-pressure hose
that Al had already prepared into the socket.
Within minutes he had the flange tightened down, and sprang to his feet.
“I’ll go inside. You go open the pressure valve,” Al commanded. The
technician disappeared into the rain, running back to the compressor room on the
other side of the plant. Another brilliant flash of lightning silhouetted him in the
rain. The thunderclap was deafening. ‘This is hurricane weather,’ Greg thought
grimly, getting back inside.
They stood in front of the control panel, waiting for the air pressure to rise.
It felt like eternity. They held their breath. Suddenly, the high-pressure hose came
to life, writhing like a wounded snake as the pressure increased. The relays closed
with a loud smack, the starter whined, and the huge ten-cylinder in-line diesel
engine roared to thunderous life, throwing Greg off balance with the sheer force of
air blasted through the six-foot high cooling radiator.
The amperage and voltage meters swung into the green, as Al closed the
circuits one by one. The diesel engine deepened its deafening roar as the load
increased, the plume of black exhaust smoke torn away by the wind. The perimeter
lights haloed in the rain as the plant lit up.

Al was grinning from ear to ear. Dennis was slapping him on the back, and
Greg did a high five with both of them. He felt exhilarated by the brute power of
the generator vibrating through the thick concrete foundation.
Al had the doors of the control panel open again, checking if the jury-rigged
supply line was holding. He stepped back and gave a brief nod. Greg estimated the
total down time at less than thirty minutes. He was awed by the speed with which
the maintenance team had reacted. Light spilled out the open door of the generator
room, lighting their path back to the plant.
Greg’s cell phone rang just as he stepped into the main building. It was the
utility company. They expected the interruption to last for at least two hours.
“Let’s meet in the conference room right away,” Greg commanded, waving
the production supervisors over to join him.
“Don’t start working yet. Keep everyone in the lunchroom. We’ll coordinate

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the startup right after the meeting.”

-oOo-

The key staff gathered in ten minutes. Mike was sitting in his customary
place, his arms folded. Al was still toweling himself dry.
“The utility company indicated that the power would be restored in two
hours. How long can we run on the generator?”
“As long as the fuel lasts, which is about four days, provided we only run
the essential systems,” was the laconic reply.
“Did we get any contamination in the clean rooms?” Greg looked at Mike.
“Air samples are being analyzed as we speak,” he replied, pointing to
Maggie’s empty chair.
“How long will that take?”
“About half an hour.”
“While we are waiting for the result, let’s revisit this morning’s problem.
Mike told us that wafer output is down significantly, which could jeopardize
AsiaComNet. He thinks it is due to some process deficiency from the new wash
bay process. Al was tasked to determine if it is a production issue, and Mike was
tasked to establish if it was a maintenance issue. You were to provide a mutually
agreed answer.”
He looked at them expectantly. Nobody said a word. Mike looked down at
his folded arms. Al continued toweling his hair. Greg could not see his face.
“Well?”
Al put the towel down. “I’ll start. The objective was to see if we could
determine why the output rates were down, and not to put blame on someone else
for causing the problem, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Well, I went through the clean room process as best I could in the time
available, and with the help of the supervisors we developed a simple experiment
to determine why the recovery rates were so much lower. Since some of the
production lines are still running on the old technology, we could compare the
outputs from the converted lines to those of the non-converted lines.”
“And?”
“The output rates are higher on the converted lines, as expected.”
“So?”
“Which pointed to a problem somewhere in the production process.”
“What is it then?”
“Since I was made responsible to answer from a production perspective, it
forced me to ask Mike to help me figure it out.”
“And?”
“Well, we think we know but we’re not sure yet.”
Greg cocked an eyebrow at Mike.
“We suspect it might be the raw material, and particularly in the mask

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material.” Mike looked very uncomfortable, pugnaciously pushing out his
moustache. ‘Down goes IV,’ Greg thought, secretly elated. “So neither the
production nor the maintenance function is to blame.”
Greg turned to face the whole room.
“Let me hear your comment from this outcome.”
Pablo hesitantly raised his hand. “Yes?”
“Perhaps, sẽnor, we accuse too easily.” Mike looked at him venomously.
Since Mike was Pablo’s boss, Greg appreciated the fear of IS- that preceded his
comment.
“Why?”
No answer. Dennis put up his hand. “Perhaps we protect ourselves by
blaming something else. It is always easier to find something outside our group to
blame, than within our own ranks. Consider those accused of witchcraft, which
were burnt at the stake in the middle-ages.”
A chuckle rustled around the room.
Greg picked up on the conversation. “When we stop fighting one another
and focus on the real common enemy rather than looking for a scapegoat, we will
be much more effective.”
He looked at Al and Mike. “How do you feel about this?”
“At least we know that it is not our doing,” Al acknowledged. “I thought
you’ve lost your mind when you told me to investigate Mike’s side of the house,
but looking through his eyes made me appreciate what they were dealing with and
how we can better contribute to making his life easier.”
Mike nodded his head in agreement. “When I asked myself where I would
find the maintenance causes for the problem, I really did not know where to begin.
After struggling for three hours, I had a new appreciation for Al and his guys.”
Greg listened with interest. ‘Their tribes were under threat, so they looked
for a scapegoat–some external entity that they can attribute their misfortune to. It
seems to be an instinctive reaction,’ he thought.

Greg leaned, forward. “This incident confirmed my suspicion that we harm

the performance of our company through in-fighting, mistrust and partisan
agendas.” His voice hardened. “I’m instituting a new way of life here at
MicroLogic. Everyone in the plant will be assigned to two other people for whom
they will take co-responsibility. This triangular relationship will cause us to take
better care for one another. The degree to which you have contributed to the care of
those assigned to you, will count heavily in the next performance and salary
assessment.”
The room was dead quiet, with everyone listening intently. The silence was
abruptly shattered when Maggie swept into the room, red hair flying, trailing a
fanfold computer printout. She plunked herself down next to Mike, and looked at
Greg.
“Well, what’s the result?”
“We’re OK,” she smiled. “Contamination is still within the acceptable

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range, although there has been a slight increase.”
A sigh of relief swept the room. Everyone brightened–Greg most of all. He
turned to Ron, the production scheduler. “How much production time have we
lost?”
Ron looked at his ever-present computer printout.
“Well, if I factor in the startup time to get the plant to full speed, we should
be out of action for less than six hours.”
“It’s about a full shift,” Dennis observed.
“What are waiting for?” Greg enthused. “Let’s go!”
The room emptied with a rush, animated chatter trailing down the passage.
Greg noted Mike and Al walking together, the big Southerner bending down to
hear what the squat Mike was saying.
“Where did you get the triangular co-responsibility idea?”
“From the discussion we had on the steel company and their safety
problems. In the steel company, the attitude was: ‘My co-worker’s safety is not my
problem.’ In our company, the attitude will be: ‘my co-worker’s IV and IS are very
much my problem.’ Since all our management structures are geared to business
issues, it is not hard to understand why the IS and IV issues don’t get much
attention.
Even with the best intentions, management does not have the resources to
deal with the relationship of individuals to the tribe as part of their management
task. Through this interlocking triangular co-responsibility structure, individual
care is devolved to every person.
One of the oldest and best-known management tools taught to every college
student is the Blake and Mouton managerial grid.(9) It’s been around for decades,
and postulates that managers deal with people and task requirements
simultaneously. The degree of people orientation relative to task orientation is
supposed to be significant, and those able to balance both are considered good
managers. However, the assumption that the two aspects are interwoven, has
always bugged me.
Butch’s plant proved to me that that it is not so. A strong tribe automatically
creates a strong people focus without management’s involvement–ask any good
sports team. Without a way to deal with the two aspects separately, we had to deal
with them as one. In fact, separating out the tribal dynamic and managing it in
isolation, frees up close to 50% of the most valuable asset any company has–
management’s time.
I’m changing all that. Soon, everybody will be assigned two people they are
co-responsible for. This will ensure that every person has at least two ‘go-to’
people outside the formal management structure. Every person in the triumvirate
will be responsible for the personal and social well-being of the other two. In
future, performance appraisal will also include evaluations from the other two
persons in the co-responsibility triangle, on the degree of support provided.
I’ve come a long way in understanding the tribal behavior, but before we
continue formulating management responses to the eight combinations of IS, IV,

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TS and TV, I want to check our progress with Butch.”
Dennis nodded in agreement. “Good idea. I’ll go check on the startup.” With
that he disappeared in the direction of the clean rooms.

-oOo-

It was still raining hard outside. Butch was in his office, the same abrupt
greeting.
“Hi Butch. Greg here. Do you have time for a quick conversation?”
“Sure.”
Greg explained their deductions about the interrelationship of IS, IV, TS,
and TV. He spoke about the co-responsibility issue, and the motivating power of
focusing on the common enemy.
Butch listened without interruption. “You continue to surprise me,” Butch
acknowledged.
Greg felt a rush of pride.
“You’ve gained a crucial insight in your journey of discovery-the
continuous interplay between the tribe and the individual. Great tribes create great
people, and vice versa. It is an interactive, self-reinforcing process. Very few
organizations understand that the two facets should be managed separately.
Where this not done, or done badly, people live in a pervasive state of low-
level concern for damage to their IS and IV. They stick to the safe, mundane ways
of doing things, living in mock humility, pseudo-commitment, and self-crippling
low levels of aspiration in the hope that they will survive.
Many people find the dichotomy of maintaining a secure tribal affiliation
while achieving a strong sense of individual value immensely stressful. They’re
deeply unhappy about the lack of appreciation of them as individuals, but they
don’t leave the company. They form sub-tribes instead.
A friend of mine, a Belgian count, chairman of a family-owned textile
company with plants around the world, has an interesting philosophy to negate
such behavior. Employees can study anything they wish in their spare time, at the
company’s expense. Some people wanted to do portrait painting, others wanted to
study butterflies, some wanted to do deep-sea diving or play the oboe.
The effect was astonishing. Given the opportunity to learn what they wanted
to learn, employees experienced a strong increase in IV. They deeply appreciated
receiving something personally meaningful at corporate expense. People’s
commitment and dedication to the organization increased dramatically, which in
turn strengthened a sense of strong tribal value.
Managing the tribal and individual value separately had some very
interesting spin-offs. In one instance, they encountered a big problem with high-
speed textile weaving using water droplets rather than shuttles to weave. One
person, who had studied the behavior of butterfly wings in flight, saw the similarity
between thin yarn moving at high speed and the aerodynamic behavior of butterfly
wings. Adapting the principles of sustained flight, they developed a brilliant

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solution.
The count–a highly educated and erudite man himself, maintains that people
cannot think creatively from a limited frame of reference, and stuck in a defensive
mindset. It leads to stodgy, unresponsive companies who, through their lack of
expanded, unrelated knowledge, cannot reinvent themselves. As they become less
able to deal with changes in their external environment, tribal values and behavior
becomes the defense mechanism. As the tribal influence in TS- becomes more
dominant, individuals are less likely to act to stop the death spiral, lest they be
ejected. Like lemmings, they are dragged along to corporate suicide–suffering the
very fate they desperately tried to avoid.

This self-destructive behavior affects corporate management teams in the

same way. Over time, management teams form very strong tribes that rationalize
and perpetuate their own group decisions in spite of them being wrong.
Individual managers may realize that the group’s decisions are wrong, but
will keep their opinions to themselves, lest they be excluded from the inner circle
of power. When business performance declines, the management tribe experiences
a decline in tribal value. To restore their tribal value, they attribute the poor result
to others in the organization–particularly middle management, and not to the
paucity of their own decision. When things continue to worsen, it serves as a self-
fulfilling prophecy and–in a weird way vindicates the management tribe–more
convinced that the original decision was the right one, but wrecked by their
common enemy, the incompetent middle managers.

Because people must find a way to deal with this ambiguous, dual need for
validating their individual value and securing their tribal survival, change in
organizations is not about changing the way the organization’s processes function,
but more about the way that people individually reinvent and reestablish the
balance between their individual value and their tribal membership. If they cannot
see a way to do so, they are blamed for ‘resistance to change.’
The importance of the IV and IS factors are validated in an interesting
experiment. Way back in 1934, LaPierre, a white university professor, toured the
United States with his wife and a Chinese couple.(10) During the tour, they stayed
at 66 hotels and dined at 184 restaurants. All but one of the hotels accommodated
them without question, and they were never refused service at any of the
restaurants. Afterwards, a letter was sent to the same hotels and restaurants, asking
if they would accept Chinese people as guests.
Since there was an extremely strong anti-Chinese bias in the USA at that
time, it was not surprising that ninety two percent said that they weren’t prepared
to do so. Although many theorists have tried to explain the reasons for this
dichotomy, your TV/IV perspective offers a more plausible explanation.
Imagine the hotel desk clerk receiving the distinguished white professor
traveling with Chinese companions. The desk clerk would be lowering his
individual value by accepting the professor and his wife, but not the others. Many

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would anticipate that their individual security might also be threatened by such an
act if the professor were to complain to his or her boss.
However, in response to the professor’s letter, it is easier to refuse
accommodation to the Chinese students at arm’s length, reinforcing the tribal value
by rejecting the common enemy.”
“There is another, similar example,” Greg interrupted. “In 1945, just before
Japan surrendered, a Chinese teacher traveled through Maine on vacation. He knew
there was a beautiful view from a nearby hilltop and, on his way, stopped to ask
directions.(11) The rumor spread like wildfire that a Japanese spy was taking
photographs of the area. The community’s tribal security was under threat, with the
common enemy operating on their doorstep.”
Butch chuckled in appreciation.
“It is amazing how accurately people’s behavior can be predicted when one
understands the tribal dynamic. It can be very dangerous as well, though. As part
of an experiment in the early 1970’s, a group of social scientists at Stanford
University decided to create a mock prison in the basement of the university’s
psychology building. They wanted to establish why prisons were such awful
places–whether the environment caused people to be nasty, or that people
themselves were nasty by nature.(12)
They took a section of corridor and turned it into a cellblock with three
small cells, complete with mock prison doors. They even turned a wall closet into a
solitary confinement cell. They recruited volunteers amongst the students, and
picked 21 participants who were psychologically normal and stable. The volunteers
were randomly picked to act as prisoners or guards. The guards were given
uniforms and dark glasses and told to keep order in the prison. The other half were
‘arrested’ by the Palo Alto police department, charged with a fictitious crime,
fingerprinted, and brought, blindfolded, to the prison. They were stripped and
given uniforms, complete with a number on the front and back.

The results stunned the researchers. The guards, some of which thought
themselves as pacifists, quickly turned to hard disciplinarians. The first night they
woke up the prisoners at two a.m. in the morning and forced them do arbitrary
tasks, like pushups and standing to attention. By the second day, the prisoners
revolted. They ripped the numbers off their clothes, and refused to leave their cells.
In response, the guards stripped them, sprayed them with fire extinguishers and put
their leader into solitary confinement. The guards later described their own
behavior as very abusive, yelling at the prisoners in their faces. As the experiment
progressed, the guards acted with more cruelty. They made the prisoners tell each
other they loved them, handcuffed them and marched them up and down the hall
with paper bags over their heads.
After 36 hours, one prisoner suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be
released. After six days the experiment was stopped. Prisoners were suffering
extreme emotional depression, extreme rage and anxiety. They later remarked that,

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no matter how stable they were mentally and emotionally, they were unable to
manage their behavior as prisoners. To this day, the experiment is used as an
example of how not to conduct psychological experiments.
However, I’m convinced the most important conclusion completely escaped
the researchers. The fundamental tribal behavior that I contend is hardwired in all
of us, immediately kicked in. The guards had a common enemy in the prisoners.
The only way they could relate to one another in the new tribe of prison guards was
to attack the common prisoner enemy. Conversely, the prisoners saw the guards as
the common enemy, and the only way that they could protect their IS and IV in this
abusive situation was to form a tribe. Both groups of volunteers displayed dramatic
changes in behavior that none of them would have thought possible.”
Butch was quiet. They shared a moment of reflection.
“It’s amazing how obvious tribal behavior is, once I knew what to look for.”
Greg commented. “Some time ago, I read about experiments conducted by Barry
Oshry. He contended that organizations always function in three large groups–the
tops, middles, and bottoms. He proved his point in repeated experiments by
randomly placing people in the roles of the ‘elite’ who control the system, the
middle, who have to execute the elite’s agenda, and the outsiders, who try to join
the system. Invariably, the outsiders end up the worse off, abused by both the elite
and the middle. The groups enter into what he calls the ‘dance of blind reflex’
where they predictably and consistently assign roles and attributes to the others.(13)
From our perspective, each group acted as a tribe, treating the other as a
common enemy. Each tried to dominate the other to secure control from their
perspective, resulting in the experimental system as a whole performing
considerably worse than what it is capable of doing, due to the tribal infighting.”
They shared a few seconds of companionable silence.
“Which combination of these factors–TS, IS, IV and IS as you call them–is
the most desirable?” Butch asked.
Greg was taken aback. He had not thought about that at all. Darn it.
“I suppose TV+IV+ would be the ideal state,” he replied.
“Really?”
Greg had the familiar feeling of helplessness when talking to Butch.
“Would I not I have the most motivated and secure company under those
circumstances?” he asked.
The silence was deafening.
‘Think, Greg think’ he admonished himself. He could not find another
answer.
“Help me Butch. It still seems to be the right answer.”
“I’ll tell you two stories instead. Have you heard of something called the
God particle?”
“The God particle?”
Silence.
“No.” Greg kicked himself mentally.
“For many years, scientists have been baffled by an interesting problem.

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Nobody really knows what gives mass to atoms. They postulated that there must be
an unknown, sub-atomic particle that holds atoms together. Without it, the universe
would be a chaotic mass of atoms moving around at the speed of light, and there
would be no people or planets.(14)
Even though this mystery particle has not been discovered, it already has a
name. It’s called the Higgs boson or ‘God particle’. Scientists are convinced that
the discovery of the Higgs boson will open up a whole new layer of understanding
of the universe. However, very few research organizations have the capability to
work in this highly specialized area of science, which makes it pertinent to our
discussion on TV, TS, IV, and IS.
Currently, only two organizations in the whole world possess particle
accelerators capable of replicating the conditions that will prove the existence of
the Higgs boson. The first is Fermilab, located just west of Chicago. They have a
particle accelerator that is four miles in circumference. In there, a puff of hydrogen
atoms gets a massive electrical charge from a huge battery. Linear and booster
accelerators speed the atoms along until the electrons are stripped off, leaving only
the protons. Further down the accelerator, the exposed protons smash into a target,
producing anti-protons. The protons and anti-protons continue their acceleration
further into the main injector until they zoom into the last part, known as the
Tevatron. The protons and anti-protons are now traveling at 99.999% the speed of
light. The protons and antiprotons collide, producing a spray of new particles.
The theory goes that among these particles is something called a Z-boson,
which instantly changes into the Higgs boson. The theory further goes that the
Higgs boson will exist for less than one billionth of a second before changing into
yet another, different particle. Its life is so short that scientists don’t expect to ever
detect the Higgs boson directly, but will only be able to infer its existence from the
other longer-lived particles that it changes into.
Scientists believe that every particle has a force field of some kind, and
proof of the existence of the Higgs boson will validate the existence of a Higgs
field - an invisible field that permeates the universe. This field clings like a cosmic
molasses to all particles, which creates drag and gives weight to atoms. Whoever
can prove the existence of the ‘God particle’ will answer one of the greatest
mysteries of the universe.”
“Interesting, but I don’t see the relevance,” Greg interjected.
Butch did not miss a beat.
“The only other particle accelerator in the world capable of replicating
Fermilab’s work is the CERN accelerator. It is built on a site that straddles the
border between France and Switzerland, and is funded by twenty European
countries. CERN has reported four possible occurrences of the Higgs boson, much
to Fermilab’s bitter disappointment. Taking into consideration that some 7.5 billion
particle collisions take place during this experiment, of which only one in ten
billion is expected to provide a Higgs boson, it is akin to looking for the hole in a
needle in a very big haystack.”
He paused, voices in the background. “Excuse me for a second,” Butch

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continued. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and Greg could hear a
muffled conversation. He came back on the line.
“Here is the part that relates to our discussion,” he continued. “Since both
facilities are funded with public money, nothing is done in secret. Some 400
scientists from all over Europe do research at Fermilab, and about the same number
of US scientists will help CERN build a new, bigger particle accelerator. The
United States and Europe even help fund one other’s labs. Yet, while collaborating
in the common quest to understand the universe, the labs are locked in fierce
competition to be the first to prove the existence of the ‘God particle’.
In 1983, CERN were the first to discover the subatomic force particles
known as W and Z. It was bitter disappointment to Fermilab. They fought back,
and restored their reputation in 1995 when scientists there discovered the top quark
- one of the building blocks of matter. However, the Higgs boson remains the
biggest prize of all, and the scientist who discovers the irrevocable proof of Higgs
would have conquered the Mount Everest of his profession.

The competition is so fierce between the two organizations that, when

CERN decided to shut down in order to build an even better accelerator, CERN
scientists begged authorities to keep the existing accelerator going for one more
year since victory was so tantalizingly close. In an agonizing decision, the
authorities refused. This galvanized Fermilab into frenetic action. For the next six
years, theirs will be the most powerful particle accelerator until the new CERN
machine, which will be seven times more powerful, is commissioned.
Fermilab is pulling out all the stops, and the Tevatron will be staffed around
the clock as they work on finding the first proof of Higgs in less than three years.”
Greg thought hard before responding.
“Since both companies are funded with tax money, there are no TS or IS
issues,” he mused. “However, getting to the answer first will validate the expertise
of the tribe, and increase Fermilab’s tribal value or TV enormously. The scientist
who makes the discovery will also enjoy immense individual value or IV. It proves
again how incredibly strong these motivators are, judging by the intense
competition and frenetic activity at both sites.”
“Exactly!” Butch responded. “Even though their research output has no
meaningful benefit to the average man in the street, the new CERN particle
accelerator, 17 miles in circumference, will leave Fermilab in the dust. This in
itself is prompting the US to start working towards a 100-mile circumference
accelerator, just to preserve the tribal value of the larger American tribe.”
Greg was still thinking about the implications of the story, when Butch
continued.
“Here is the other story. When John Kennedy threw down the gauntlet to put
a man on the moon, the responsibility fell on NASA to develop and complete the
project successfully. People that worked there at the time described it as the most
exhilarating time of their lives. The motivation levels were incredibly high–so
much so that people did not want to go home at night lest they miss something.

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 When Armstrong walked on the moon, the sense of achievement was
immense, and their IV and TV were at an all-time high. In the aftermath, an
interesting thing happened. NASA became completely directionless.(15)
In-fighting and turf wars were the order of the day. Sub-tribes quickly
appeared. Cutbacks were rumored to be imminent, and scientists who had worked
side by side in the past, suddenly saw one another as threats to IS. The organization
went through a deep crisis as it searched for a new way to define itself. Although
the crisis abated when the Space Shuttle program was introduced, the commitment
and motivation has not returned to the same levels of heady, crackling excitement
experienced during the moon landing days.”
“So?”
“Let’s go back to my first question. What combination of IS, IV, TS and TV
should we have?”
This time there was no doubt in Greg’s mind.
“From the individual’s perspective, it has to be IS+IV+. In such a state,
people will be less concerned about their personal issues than organizational issues,
just like your example of the Belgian count.”
“Agreed. What you are doing with the new dress code, skills recognition
system and co-responsibility structure will bring that about. A strong tribal
identity, clear co-responsibility and recognized skills and capabilities all build a
strong sense of individual security and individual value. Now, what about the tribal
dimension?”
“It has to be TV-TS+”
Butch chuckled. It was the first time Greg had heard him laugh. He felt
deeply flattered.
“If I have a state of TV+TS+, my company will find itself in the same
position as NASA after the moon landing. As soon as the tribe thinks it had
reached the top of its field of endeavor, it will turn in on itself, TV and TS will go
down, and set off the predictable negative spiral.”
“Exactly! It explains why companies held up as models of business
achievement inevitably fall from grace. When Peters and Waterman wrote In
Search of Excellence, most of the examples they quoted were companies at the
peak of TS+TV+. It is not surprising that many of them have subsequently
experienced serious difficulty, and some no longer exist.”
“If I have a TV- TS+ company,” Greg continued, “I will experience the
behavior and motivation of the scientific teams at the particle accelerators. There
has to be the one unachieved goal, the one tantalizing issue that is still missing
from complete TV+. That’s what keeps them on their toes in spite of the fact that
nobody knows if the Higgs boson actually exists.”
Butch chuckled again. “You are learning fast. Now go figure out how to
make it happen in your company. By the way, in this discussion we touched on one
of the tribal attributes that you still need to identify.”
“What is it?”
Without replying, Butch rang off.

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 “Darn,” Greg swore. He pulled his notepad closer and carefully wrote down
what he remembered of the conversation. He did not want to lose any of the
insights he had gained in the brief time. A few minutes later, the telephone rang. It
was Butch, calling back, which caught Greg completely by surprise.
“You mentioned something important in our previous conversation,” he
began. “Tell me about the sequence of events to get the generator started.”
Greg thought for a minute, trying to second-guess Butch’s train of thought,
but gave up. He recounted the events, leaving nothing out, and waited for Butch to
respond.
“Tell me how you felt about Al when you got back to the plant, in the
production meeting.”
Greg did not expect this. He thought for a minute.
“I was elated that we got the generator running. I felt respect and a strong
affinity towards the maintenance guys.”
“How did you react to Mike’s aggressive attitude towards Al?”
“I thought he was a pain in the butt. Al’s guys had done all they could to
keep the plant running, and Mike was blaming them for his production problems.”
“So you felt a strong affinity to the maintenance tribe, and reacted
negatively towards the production tribe. Why?”
Greg swallowed, a small frown creasing his forehead.
“Think about it carefully. You will find a clue to another of the tribal
attributes.”
The phone went dead. Greg scowled at the handset before putting it back in
its cradle. He went back to carefully writing down the two conversations. An hour
later he put the pen down and leaned back, hands behind his head. Butch had given
him much to think about. The lights dimmed briefly and then came on more
brightly. It signaled that the plant was back on the city’s power grid. He breathed a
sigh of relief.

He heard the tap-tap of high heels coming down the passage, and Fiona
peeked around the door. “May I come in?”
“Sure.”
‘Dennis will be miffed, not being here,’ he thought.
“Actually, I’ve come to fetch you for a guided tour,” she smiled. ‘She really
is quite pretty,’ Greg thought absently.
“Lead the way,” he gallantly commanded, and followed her down the
passage to the factory floor, grateful for the opportunity to think about something
else. They walked past the clean rooms. From what Greg could see, things seemed
to be back on track. Dennis, Al and Mike were in deep conversation. That pleased
him, but Butch’s question about his feelings in the production meeting towards
Mike and Al involuntarily came to mind.

Due to the sheer size of the plant, passageways crossed the production floor
at regular intervals. In the middle of the plant was an area nicknamed ‘The

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Crossing’ where two main aisles intersected. Three enormous notice boards were
up on the wall. Each board held information about one of their competitors -
Advanced Circuits, Micro Delta, and Enerdyne. There were graphs on earnings per
share, market capitalization, and growth profiles over the last few years. There
were color photographs of the CEOs, the board of directors, inside shots of the
plant, and pictures of the products they made. There were fact sheets on product
specifications, production capacity, staffing levels and research activities.
Greg was utterly delighted. The personality of every competitor’s business
radiated from the display.
“It’s magnificent!” he exclaimed. “It’s exactly what I wanted. How did you
get it up here?”
Fiona blushed bright scarlet with pleasure. She looked smug. “Well, while
the plant was down, nobody was out here. We sneaked the boards in while the
power was out and hung them up with the help of one of the maintenance guys.”
Greg patted her shoulder with delight. “This will make the common enemy a
lot more real for all of us. Rather than trying to compete with ourselves, and beat
people over the head with production targets, we can focus on what really matters–
our competitors. We should update the displays at least once a week. Anything that
you can get from the Internet, the online newswire services and the financial papers
should be included. That way we can keep the common enemy alive, relevant and
in our sights.” He involuntarily thought of the mildewed mission statement hanging
in the entrance hall, and wondered when someone had last looked at it. All those
earnest words and breathless phrases about customer service and lowest cost
production sounded so trite.
“Thank you Fiona. You did a great job,” he congratulated her, walking back
to his office. “It will be interesting to see how people react.”
“Judging by the amount of interest I got just from people in the accounting
office, I predict that we’ll get a very strong positive reaction.”
Greg was deep in thought. “Your department also handles the payroll, not
so?”
“Yes, we do.”
“How difficult would it be for you to include a one-page update on our
competitors every two weeks with every paycheck?”
“No problem at all,” Fiona responded. “I’ll have the first edition go out with
the next payroll.”
“Great! Let me have a look at the draft as soon as it is ready.”
“Sure.”
Fiona waved briefly as she turned away towards the staircase leading to the
accounting office on the second floor. He looked at his wristwatch. It was time to
go home. The drama of the day’s event caught up with him and suddenly he felt
bone weary. He wanted to see his family.

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 Chapter Ten
They were sitting in Greg’s office, having early morning coffee. Greg
shared his insights from the previous day’s conversation, and Dennis listened with
avid interest.
“I wonder what the two missing attributes are that Butch referred to,” he
mused, swirling the last sip of coffee around in his mug, and dipping a chocolate-
chip cookie from the open box into the cup. He crunched the soaked mess with
satisfaction.
The phone rang. It was Sandy on the line. “Give me on update on
AsiaComNet, me bonny lad.” he commanded, after a cursory greeting.
“Dennis is here with me. Let me switch to speakerphone,” Greg suggested.
“Hi Sandy,” Dennis added his greeting, licking his fingers.
“Let me get to the point right away,” Sandy continued. “There is a lot of
heat here about the AsiaComNet order. The CEO asked for a personal update this
morning, to which I briefed him on your recovery plan. He was somewhat
unimpressed, and wanted a gold-plated commitment from me that the order will
ship on time. I assured him that you were doing the best you can, and that the order
should be out the door before July 16. Nevertheless, with only five weeks to go to
delivery, he was still jittery and suggested that I call in a management consultant
he knew. Apparently, he is an old buddy of Winthrop, and in his estimation seems
to have the ability to walk on water.”
The anger in Sandy’s voice was unmistakable. “I had no choice but to agree.
I know you guys are doing your best. So, tolerate the guy when he arrives. Make
sure that whatever he relays to the boss is good news. I’ll send you more details
when I have them. In the meantime, try to speed things up, will you?”

The familiar knot in Greg’s midriff was back. He did not get to tell Sandy
that the current ship date was July 28–twelve days after his promise to Ed
Winthrop. He looked at Dennis, finding the same expression of incredulity on his
face that was on his own. “That’s the last thing we need right now,” Dennis burst
out. “Some crazy academic, that’s never been inside a manufacturing plant,
prancing around with his tie and shiny shoes, telling us how to run our
production!”
Greg had to smile at the outburst. It was clear that Dennis took this turn of
events as a personal insult. “Well, perhaps we can learn something from him,”
Greg observed. Deep inside he felt the same anger. He was supposed to be good at
turning plants around. How dare they send an outsider to ‘help’?
Greg was surprised at the intensity of their emotions. Then it dawned on
him. Their management tribe TV was negatively affected! He threw his head back
and laughed out loud.
“We really have to pull a rabbit out of a hat here,” he chortled.
Dennis still looked disgusted. “We can’t allow our efforts to be usurped by

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an outsider. You had better talk to Butch. We need more than the bits of
information he has given us to date.”
Greg nodded in agreement. Dennis stood up. “Let me check on the wash bay
installation in the clean room while you track Butch down. We really need his help
right now.” Greg picked up the phone.

The girl at Cape Industries sounded bright and cheerful. Greg recalled her
friendly professionalism with some admiration. It had made a great impression on
him. “I’m sorry,” she replied to Greg’s request to speak to Butch. “He is not
available right now. He has gone to see one of our customers. I will ask him to
return your call as soon as possible.”
He rang off, swung his chair around and shrugged his shoulders at Dennis.
“Try again,” he urged.
The same bright, cheerful voice answered.
“Hi, this is Greg again. Is there no way that I can get hold of Butch?” he
asked. “Let me find out,” she replied, unfazed by his insistence. “Hold the line
please.”
Greg nervously drew doodles on his writing pad. Dennis scowled at his
coffee mug. The receptionist came back on the line. “I’m sorry to keep you
waiting,” she continued. “I got hold of Butch on his mobile phone. He has just left
his meeting and is heading for the airport. You’re welcome to call him while he is
on the road.” She gave him the number and rang off.
Greg dialed, his hands sweaty on the receiver. Greg could hear the muted
thunder of highway traffic in the background when Butch answered.
“Hi Butch,” he began. “We need more help. We are under pressure to get
one big order out the door. If we don’t make it, we’re toast. Can you give me more
than just clues to work on, to help motivate our people?”
“Who is putting you under pressure?” Butch asked.
“Head office” Greg replied.
“Why?”
Greg was taken aback. “Well, we gave a commitment to a very significant
customer, and if we don’t deliver as promised, our reputation and future business is
at stake. Also, the CEO is really concerned about this order because it affects our
standing with Wall Street.”
Greg thought his explanation sounded pretty lame.
“What I hear you saying is that your reputation is at stake here. If this
supposedly important order goes out, then your company will be better valued by
Wall Street, your boss’s IV will increase, and your IV will increase as the hero
who made it all happen. Tell me, will your customer close down if you don’t
deliver the order?”
“Heck, no!” Greg exclaimed, “There are a number of our competitors just
waiting to supply if we mess things up.”
“So if you don’t deliver the order, your company will look like idiots to your
customer, and they will buy from someone else. Your TV will go down. The CEO

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will be the laughing stock of Wall Street, and his IV will go down.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Greg muttered hesitantly.
Greg remembered his first conversation with Butch. “Yes, you’re right.” he
said firmly.
“You’re learning,” Butch said. “You find yourself in a position where you
have to make the impossible happen with the limited resources at your disposal.
You are under pressure not to fail, because everyone in the company will end up
with egg on their face while the customer is the least affected party, not so?”
“Yes.” Greg replied resignedly.
“So, all this panic is driven by the desire to protect the tribal value, or TV –
and perhaps the IV of the CEO–irrespective of the fact that the original
commitment date may be patently wrong or irrelevant at best.”
Greg thought about that for a minute. The original date was given by head
office to the customer and never confirmed by him as being feasible.
“What can we do, though?” Greg asked.
“Do you really expect me to answer?”
“No…” Greg’s voice trailed off.
“If you put your mind to figuring out how to create the company like Cape
Industries through the twenty two tribal attributes, you may surprise even yourself.
Phone me when you have something more meaningful to talk about.”

Greg put the receiver back in its cradle, turned to Dennis, and repeated
Butch’s comments. “Ouch. He is a tough bastard,” Dennis grumbled. “It seems that
I’ll have to deal with the consultant while you work on figuring out the tribal stuff
in a hurry,” Dennis concluded. “Right now, we have five weeks to get
AsiaComNet out the door. Let’s go back to Butch’s comment that there are two
tribal attributes to be gleaned from your previous conversation.”
Greg opened his notebook and reread his notes.
“He said there was a clue in the description of Fermilab and CERN’s
behavior.”
Dennis pensively scratched his beard.
“If I recall your story correctly, neither organization’s TS or TV was
threatened. But still they compete eyeball to eyeball, seeing the other as the
common enemy. That is not enough to explain their extraordinary sense of
commitment.”
Greg looked at the ceiling as if the answer was written on the tiles above his
head.
“What about the NASA story?” Dennis continued. “The main point seems to
be that they lost something important, and became rudderless after they put a man
on the moon.” He reached for the box of cookies next to his empty coffee cup and
peered inside. There were none left. Dennis shrugged his shoulders and tossed the
box towards the trashcan. With a flying tackle that would have done any
quarterback proud, Greg dived out of his chair and grabbed the box in mid-air.
“I have another full box in my office you know. You don’t have to eat the

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crumbs!” Dennis volunteered, taken aback by the dramatic interception.
Greg studied the box and then held it up for inspection. ”What is this?” he
commanded, looking at Dennis accusingly.
“An empty box,” came the sarcastic reply. Greg pulled a disdainful face.
“Where did you get it?” he continued. “That’s pretty obvious isn’t it? It says Boy
Scouts Fundraising on the outside. I bought them from some kid who came by my
house last night.”
“Therein lies the answer to our question!” Greg exclaimed.
“It does?” Dennis frowned.
“Why did you buy the cookies?”
“I was Boy Scout once, and I remember how hard it was to get rid of all
those boxes of cookies. Anyway, the money goes to a deserving cause. I think the
Boy Scouts is a great institution.”
“Say it again.”
“Say what again?”
“What you just said.”
Dennis looked irritable.
“The piece about the Boy Scouts?”
“No, the cause”
“The deserving cause?”
“Bingo!”
“Huh?”
Greg reverently put the empty box down on his desk.
“That is what Butch illustrated with his examples. A strong tribe has a just
cause, something great, a calling that is greater than its vision and mission.
Something so compelling that people sense their IV is strongly enhanced if they
ascribe to the cause.”
Dennis’s face lit up with understanding.
“It’s true. The Fermilab and CERN scientists deeply believe in the just cause
of advancing the frontiers of science. Likewise, NASA staffers deeply believed in
the just cause of putting a man on the moon. When that was done, the just cause
had been met, and the tribe was left with nothing to strive for.”
“You’re on the money!” Greg smacked his forehead in amazement. “A
successful tribe must have a strong, credible, just cause, as well as a clear common
enemy. CERN is the common enemy to Fermilab and vice-versa, but both have the
same just cause–the advancement of science. In the case of NASA, the common
enemy was in the form of the Soviet Union, and the just cause was meeting the
President’s ultimatum.” He grabbed the yellow pad and wrote down the new
insight:

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 He walked over to the whiteboard and stuck the yellow square next to the
others.
“It’s more than a mission statement or a vision statement,” Dennis observed.
“Absolutely! It is something that everyone instinctively knows is important
and worthy of pursuing. It is not the pompous platitudes and empty promises
management sucked out of their thumbs and put in a mission statement.” Dennis
nodded in agreement. “Remember the research on the causes for war I told you
about?”
“Yeah?”
“It describes a very interesting example of how powerful a just cause is.
When Stalin faced the forces of the Third Reich in the Second World War, he
perceived that the average Russian soldier would not be prepared to give his life to
defend communism, which was a political doctrine, but would gladly do so to save
Mother Russia. In his first radio broadcasts after Hitler’s invasion he appealed to
the ‘comrades, citizens, brothers and sisters, fighters of our great Army and Navy’
to repel the invaders in a great ‘patriotic war.’ Stalin had never spoken like that
before. He appealed to the national loyalties and not the communist loyalties.
The effect was incredible.
It galvanized the entire Soviet people to fight the ‘Nazi hordes’ as Stalin
described them. That speech was one of the most critical, most decisive turning
points of the war.
Here’s another example. In the Iran-Iraq war during the Eighties, the
obsession with the just cause of Islamic martyrdom helped sustain the war in spite
of horrendous casualties in Iran. Towards the end, when the Iranian army began to
run out of men, the Shi’ite clergy recruited thousands of teenagers to clear the
battlefields of mines and barbed wire by simply walking through them. They wore
red headbands reading ‘Warriors of God’ and had small metal keys on chains
around their necks, which signified that the ayatollah had given them special
permission to enter heaven if they die. In some cases, they arrived at the
battleground, proudly carrying their own coffins.”

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 Greg was deep in thought, pacing up and down the office.
“It reminds me of the success Lee Iacocca had with Chrysler in the early
Eighties. One of the key events was the decision of the UAW to support Iacocca’s
strategy to save the company. Saving Chrysler became the just cause. The UAW
Vice President in charge of relations with Chrysler described himself as ‘the most
fortunate man in all of the UAW for having the opportunity to mobilize the union
for saving Chrysler.’(16) The just cause is so powerful that warring tribes such as
the UAW and Chrysler management can actually work together.”
Dennis nodded in appreciation. “What is the just cause for MicroLogic,
then?”
“You said it has to be something that everyone instinctively knows is
credible and just.”
“Yes, that’s why pledges about quality and customer satisfaction are so trite.
Everybody knows that has to be, but is not the just cause that galvanizes people to
reach for greatness. The just cause is for something greater, and its pursuit will
automatically result in the other requirements being met. The just cause of putting
a man on the moon automatically ensured that the quality of the rockets and space
capsule was beyond compare. Every successful company, every high-achieving
group has a just cause for its existence.”
Greg rummaged around his briefcase and found a copy of Forbes magazine.
He riffled through the pages and flattened the spine at a particular article.(17) He
ran his finger down the printed text and stopped halfway down the page. “Here it
describes a company called ‘Give Something Back.’ It is an office supply company
out in Oakland. They funnel a significant percentage of their profits to charity each
year, and their customers get to designate the beneficiary. They are cleverly using
the motivating force of a just cause to grow their business. As a result, their
revenues grew by 26% in 1999, and they managed to survive the onslaught of the
superstores like Office Depot.
The article goes on to say that employees have a cult-like devotion to the
business. They spend their lunch breaks sitting on committees that oversee the
philanthropic process. One of the sales representatives is quoted as saying ‘I can
drive home and feel like I have made a difference’.” He closed the magazine with a
snap. “We don’t appreciate how important the just cause is to the motivation of the
tribe.”
“So what is our just cause?”
Greg thought for a while. “I’d guess our just cause is contributing to the
world’s ability communicate easily, effectively and reliably. Think of the mobile
phone calls made during the World Trade Center attack. What if they had failed?
That puts our work in a whole new perspective.”
Greg reached for the phone and dialed a number. Fiona answered.
“Hi Fiona, Could you come down to my office please.”
“Sure, I’m on my way.”
Greg turned to Dennis.

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 “Butch said that there were two clues to tribal attributes in our discussion.
He even phoned back to talk about it again. I think we have found the first one.
Now let’s see if we can find the second one.”
“He asked you about your feelings towards Al and Mike after the generator
starting problem,” Dennis volunteered.
“Correct. What did I experience? I was elated when the generator eventually
started.”
“Same here,” Dennis concurred. “I also experienced a sense of achievement,
even though the stupid thing should have started anyway.”
“We overcame an obstacle together. We pitted our wits and energy against a
problem and won. We achieved something we all thought was significant. I shared
a feeling of camaraderie and achievement with the maintenance guys. I was part of
the success,” Greg observed.
“Same here,” Dennis nodded.
“When Mike was grumbling about the production problems in the meeting, I
felt as if he was attacking the maintenance tribe, of which I had just become a
member. I felt a sense of antagonism because of his obtuseness, and had to stop
myself from reacting in the same way.”
Dennis looked at Greg with new respect. “That is a brutally honest
assessment.”
Just then Fiona knocked on the open door. “Come in,” Greg replied.
Dennis’s eyes lit up. “Sit down, sit down,” he beamed, enthusiastically patting the
chair next to him.
Fiona obliged, sitting pertly upright, smiling at Dennis. Greg thought he saw
traces of a blush around Dennis’s ears.
He explained the concept of the just cause, and asked Fiona to create another
signboard that described the MicroLogic just cause. They discussed the concept in
detail, formulating different versions until Greg was happy with the outcome.
Fiona left, trailing a waft of delectable perfume. Dennis’s nose twitched like
a bloodhound’s.
“Now, now. Let’s get back to our discussion about our attitude towards
Mike and Al. Why would we identify so strongly with them, when all we did was
starting the generator in the rain?”
Dennis abruptly came out from his reverie.
“I guess we became part of the tribe through the event. It was as if the
common struggle and victory made us emotionally part of the maintenance tribe.”
“Why didn’t we feel the same way before?” Greg countered, jumping up
and pacing around the room.
“It must have something to do with the event itself.”
“That’s it! By participating in a challenging event we formed a bond, a sense
of mutual pride and respect. And that made us feel like we were part of the tribe.”
“A rite of passage?” Dennis hesitantly volunteered.
“Exactly! Remember the day you graduated from college? When you
received your diploma, all the nights spent studying and the exam stress suddenly

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became worthwhile. The years of study were the rite of passage to the tribe of
university graduates. I, for one, attach a lot of value to being a member of the
university graduate tribe.”
Dennis nodded in appreciation. “It reminds me of a visit some time ago, to a
factory that made automotive seating. The Vice President of Operations was a
woman in her forties. The general manager took great pains to explain how she had
reached that position by working herself up through the ranks. It seems that she
had gone through a rite of passage that was more difficult than what male
graduates would be expected to endure.”
Greg pulled the yellow pad closer and wrote:

He stuck it up next to the others on the white board.

“What is our rite of passage at MicroLogic?” Dennis asked.
“I don’t think we have one. That, in and of itself, is a huge deficiency. The
more I think about it, the more important it seems to me. Everyone has a different
set of life experiences when they come to MicroLogic. With no rite of passage, we
expect the individual to decode our values, and then to adapt their frame of
reference to match our company tribe. We end up with many different value
systems, perspectives and attitudes.
In fact, I suspect we are prone to focus more on the negative things–the
offences, the disciplinary codes and the punishments rather than the positives, such
as participating in the generator repair. We don’t offer them the opportunity to
participate in a meaningful event, a rite of passage that would make our values
tangible, something that increases their IV while providing a strong bond with our
tribe.”
Dennis nodded his head in agreement. “Firemen and policemen are a good
example. They go through a stringent training program that serves as a rite of
passage. Both have a clear just cause–saving lives or keeping the peace. They
proudly wear the insignia of the tribe. They have common enemies–fires and

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criminals. All of that drives behavior and motivation that results in extraordinary
commitment and performance. The incredible acts of bravery during the World
Trade Center attack proved how much the tribe influence and reinforce the
behavior of individuals. Unlike wartime where there is no option of surrender,
every fireman and policeman had the option to turn back, to escape the impending
disaster. In spite of that, they keep going, driven by the motivation that comes from
a strong tribe.”

Greg looked pensive. “Butch has an extraordinary understanding of human

motivation. I’m beginning to understand why his company is so profoundly
different. We should create a meaningful rite of passage for our company. We
should think about it some more and compare notes. Right now I have to work on
implementing the co-responsibility structure.”
“I’ll be out on the floor if you need me.” With that, Dennis left the office.
It took all of four hours to formulate the co-responsibility structure. Greg
carefully defined the obligations, rights, and responsibilities that he expected every
person to uphold.
Using a copy of the payroll, he systematically drew a diagram of
interlocking names, each linked to two others. He deliberately ignored functional
hierarchies, linking names across the boundaries of the internal tribes.
He typed up the document, printed out copies and took them with him to the
afternoon’s production meeting.

-oOo-

Every seat was filled when he walked into the room. Ron was sitting in his
customary place. He had a new plastic pocket protector in his shirt pocket. Greg
could smell the new vinyl across the table. The murmur of conversation died down.
Greg welcomed everyone and immediately tuned to Ron. “Please update us on
AsiaComNet.”
Ron studied his computer printout. “We are still on track for delivery by
July 28,” he replied in his pedantic way.
Greg rubbed his eyes. “Our commitment to AsiaComNet is for delivery by
July 16,” he emphasized. “I am convinced that we have the capability to make that
date, but right now it seems like we are going to miss it by a mile.” He looked
around the room. “We need to find a way to make up the lost time, while keeping
the other delivery dates on track. Everyone seems to think that it is someone else’s
problem. In fact, it is our co-responsibility to see that we do not disappoint any of
our clients. To this end, I have created interlocking co-responsibility relationships
for all of us.”
He passed copies of the diagrams around the room.
“You’ll see that everyone in the organization is linked to two other people.
Please inform everyone in your department of these links and ask them to have at
least one conversation with their assigned counterparts to find ways that we can

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accelerate the AsiaComNet order. I expect feedback from every triangle in the next
three days.” People studied their diagrams with interest, tracing the connections
between names.
“Just to complicate matters, head office is sending down a consultant to help
us do things more efficiently. Please give him all the assistance he requires, and all
the information he needs. In short, make him feel that his input is appreciated and
valued. I expect him here tomorrow.”
Al, leaning laconically against the wall, raised his hand. “We are already
behind on our scheduled delivery date. Should we tell him about that too?”
Greg thought about it for a minute. “Right now, he is part of the head office
tribe, who sees us as their common enemy. His just cause is to get us as productive
as possible. If we withhold any information, it will reinforce our status as the
common enemy, spawning a more confrontational relationship with head office.
Give him everything he asks for. Secondly, make him part of our group as quickly
as possible, by making him feel as if he is making a significant contribution. If he
is emotionally part of our group, he will defend us against the head office tribe.”
Dennis was smiling at Greg’s use of the tribal model to describe the
relationship. The conversation turned to other problems, and the meeting ended
after thirty minutes.

Back in his office, the message light on his telephone was blinking. He
dialed the front desk. “Russ Barton from head office called. He asked that you call
him back. Can I get him on the line for you?”
“Please.”
The line came to life. Greg could hear the phone ring. Russ answered.
“Hi Russ. Greg here.”
“Ah yes, thank you for returning the call.” He still sounded mournful.
“My pleasure.”
“About those training modules you asked for.”
“Yes?”
“I have them all done. They were really interesting challenges. I must say I
enjoyed working on something new and out of the ordinary. It surely beats working
on industrial hygiene and OSHA regulations.”
Greg grinned to himself. “Russ, I am sure the results are extraordinary.”
“Well, I coerced some of my academic friends to assign some of their
students to work on this project. They got some interesting learning from this too.
They were really intrigued with the concept, and wanted to know what it was for. I
told them we were working on new motivation models. Now they are begging me
to be further involved.”
Greg could sense the satisfaction between the mournful words.
“I’ll email the course material to you right away,” Russ continued.
“I will read it with enthusiasm.”
“Indeed.” Russ sounded mildly excited.
The conversation ended on that pleasant note. Greg checked his incoming

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emails. Sure enough, the files from Russ were there. He opened them and carefully
worked through the documents, noting his questions and comments in the text. He
was really impressed with the result. The students had put significant effort into
developing the material, and Greg felt rising excitement at the impact the training
will have on creating the new tribe.
Three hours later he phoned Russ again. He was still in his office.
“Russ, it is an extraordinary piece of work.”
“You think so?”
“Without a doubt. It will create a whole new set of behaviors and standards.
People’s sense of value and their ability to function more effectively as a group
will be greatly improved. I’ll email you my notes. However, I have one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Nobody here can teach this stuff yet. Would you be prepared to help out by
presenting the first classes, so our in-house trainers can learn from the master?”
‘Up goes the IV,’ Greg thought.
“Sure, I was thinking along the same lines. I’ve set some time aside for
experimental validation of the training.”
Greg grinned to himself.
“What about next week?” Greg asked.
“It’ll work for me,” Russ replied.
“Great! I’ll ask our training coordinator to review their schedules with you.”
Greg rang off and immediately called the training coordinator. He explained
the new requirements and tasked her to coordinate with Russ.
The telephone rang again. It was Fiona. “We’re done with the just cause
posters,” she said. “I had them erected in all the places you specified.”
“Great! I’ll go have a look.”
Greg hurried through the plant towards ‘The Crossing’. As he came closer,
he noticed a knot of people standing in front of the display boards, deeply
engrossed in its contents. He quietly walked up behind them and listened.
“Darn it, we can do better than them,” someone exclaimed. “Our lines can
produce better than theirs. Look at these output numbers. We can beat that any
day.”
“Yeah, right,” another remarked cynically, “except that our efficiency
stinks. Look, even their yield rates are better than ours.”
“But ours are within the expected levels,” came the plaintive reply.
“So? You’ll just have to improve yours.” This set off a heated discussion.
Greg grinned to himself. ‘It’s working,’ he thought. One person was not
participating in the discussion. His face was so close to the paper that his nose
nearly touched the display board. He was squinting through a magnifying glass.
“What’s up?” Greg asked, peering over his shoulder.
The man jumped in surprise.
“Oh, I’m sorry Greg. I didn’t notice you.”
“I apologize for giving you a fright. What’s so interesting?”
“Look here.” The man handed Greg the magnifying glass, took a pencil

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from his pocket and carefully pointed to a small colored photograph of the inside
of their competitor’s plant. Greg squinted at the picture. It seemed like a table in a
laboratory with wafer samples neatly arranged. He could see nothing unusual.
“What am I supposed to see?” he asked.
“The way they orient the dies.” The dies formed the grid pattern on the
silicon wafer.
Greg squinted again. He could barely make out the pattern.
“I give up,” he conceded. “Tell me.”
“They are orienting their die layouts different from ours.”
“And?”
“They get more chips per wafer than we do!”
Greg looked at the picture with renewed interest. There it was.
“Could we do it too?”
“With ease!”
“I’ll get Dennis, Mike and some of the design engineers down here
immediately. Explain to them what you saw. Well done, we’ll beat those guys yet.”
The man looked both flattered and pleased.
He dialed the switchboard on his mobile phone and had Dennis and Mike
paged. It was the fastest way to get things moving. Taking up his original mission,
he looked for the board that Fiona had designed. It consisted of a collage of
pictures. The first showed a newborn baby hooked up to a life support system. The
caption read ‘Her life depends on our microprocessors.’ There was an arrow to the
chip on the printed circuit board. Another showed a fireman holding a two-way
radio, shielding his face from the heat of a burning building. The tagline read: ‘His
life depends on our microprocessors.’ The third showed an emergency medical
technician using a defibrillator. Across the bottom, a bold line read: ‘Our just cause
is to make systems WORK without fail.’
Every passerby stopped and stared at the pictures. It was a deeply
compelling sight. The visual impact was significant. He smiled and walked back to
his office. Dennis and Mike were huddled around the picture on the wall, deep in
conversation with a crowd of engineers, taking turns to squint at the picture
through the magnifying glass. Greg thought about the rite of passage. A new idea
flashed through mind. They could use the new training program as the rite of
passage, but with a twist. Instead of passive participation, everyone would be co-
responsible for his or her fellow participants’ success. That would create a
challenge. He made a mental note to brief to the trainers on this aspect.

As he walked along the passage to his office, he encountered a pile of

clothing moving his way. Actually, it was a pile of clothing with two legs sticking
out the bottom, marching down the passage. Greg stood to one side, but not fast
enough. The corner of the pile caught his elbow, and the person carrying the
clothing lost her balance. The pile overbalanced and clothes cascaded to the floor.
“Now look what you’ve done!” scolded Maggie, her arms akimbo.
“I’m sorry. Let me help you pick them up.” Greg stooped down and

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gathered the pieces. They were different designs for the new work dress.
“Give me that.” Maggie grabbed the clothing from his hands. “You’ll crease
them.”
“How many designs did you make?” Greg asked curiously, surveying the
pile of garments.
“Well, I couldn’t make up my mind, so I had thirty different designs made
up,” she replied tartly.
Greg grinned. “When will we have the fashion parade?”
“At tomorrow’s production meeting.”
“I can’t wait.”
“You will be modeling one of the outfits.”
Greg raised his hands in mock horror.
“You won’t get out of this,” Maggie wagged a finger under his nose,
Balancing the last garments on the pile, she continued her journey. Greg
shook his head in smiling admiration. Maggie’s attitude had changed dramatically.

-oOo-

He was eager to share their new insights with Butch, and phoned Cape
Industries. To his surprise, Butch immediately took the call. Greg enthusiastically
shared their deductions from Butch’s clues.
“Well, what do you think?” he asked, excited anticipation in his voice.
“You continue to surprise me,” was the brief reply. “Let me make some
comments about your deduction on rites of passage. When we trained paratroopers,
the rite of passage was extremely important to strengthen the individual’s
allegiance and motivation. We fully expected the individual to go out and get
himself killed someday. The individual’s commitment to a strong tribe was the key
ingredient for that. You cannot have soldiers more concerned about their own hide
at the moment of crisis.
To generate that kind of commitment, candidates had to complete a very,
very tough survival course. Their paratrooper’s wings signified their success. Many
could not make the grade, but those who did, had an unflinching commitment to
their fighting unit.
Therefore, to ensure a lasting impact, the rite of passage in your company
must be significant and clearly linked to the just cause. Some companies even
made employees participate in a fire walking exercise as rite of passage. However,
it did not relate to the just cause of the tribe, and left people with warm feet and
cold commitment.
The rite of passage can only be significant if it is placed in that context by
the tribe. Parachuting wings are only significant within the paratroop battalion.
Therefore, the tribe should validate the rite of passage–not some outsider.
The rite of passage should clearly delineate what went before, and what
came into being after the rite was completed. The rite of passage must add to the
individual’s stature or capability within the tribe.”

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 Butch paused. “Here’s another perspective. It contains a clue for another
attribute. Tribes derive an identity by not being part of a tribe.”
“Huh? I don’t get it.”
“Here is an example. Some sections of Indian civilization maintain a rigid
caste system–a mechanism by which society is divided into layers of aristocracy.
Those at the bottom of the social ladder are known as ‘the Untouchables’. They are
virtually abandoned by society, utterly without opportunity to better their lot,
delivered to their own fate with few job opportunities outside their caste, and little
social support.
In India, some fifty million people are part of the unspoken ‘Untouchables’.
By any standard, it is a gross violation of anything approaching human decency,
but here is the crux. Everyone else feels better because they are not part of the
Untouchables.(18) Think about that.”
Greg was writing furiously. By now he had learnt that Butch provided
information only once.
“You made an interesting reference to functional silos. Your observation
that nobody asks why they occur, is very important,” Butch continued. “I’ve seen
the same phenomenon occur with the implementation of large-scale computer
systems. With the rapid acceptance of products like SAP, companies rushed to join
the new tribe of integrated computer systems owners. They appointed their best
people to the implementation task team who–together with the system integration
consultants–created the databases, migrated data and customized the installation.
On completion an interesting thing happened. The company suddenly found
itself at the mercy of the implementation team, since they were the only ones who
knew where to find data, and how to create reports from the new system.
You’ll recognize the makings of a small tribe here. A rite of passage by
installing the system, a just cause in guarding the information lifeblood of the
organization, a common enemy in anybody that wanted to change the system they
had worked so hard to create.
Since the company is utterly dependent on these ‘datameisters’, it creates a
strong sense of IV+ for the integrators and TV+ for the information systems
department. They enjoy significant job security, which enhances their IS+. Presto,
we have a huge new functional silo. In fact, functional silos are nothing more than
strong internal tribes.
The effect is devastating. In fact, some years ago, the largest automobile
manufacturer in Australia identified the hoarding and control of information as the
single biggest constraint to growth. The company was at TS-, and individuals
controlled information to bolster their IS+, to prove that they are indispensable. It
was perfectly rational behavior, even though it had ruinous consequences for the
company.”

Greg sensed that Butch was coming to the end the conversation. “Butch, I
am getting painted into a corner here. Our key order is late, I have some dumb

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consultant coming to waste my time, and head office is breathing down my neck.
What can I do to speed up the process to create a super-tribe?”
“What do you want to do? Start yelling at people to hurry up? Threaten
them? Spook them that the company will close down if they don’t improve?”
“I suppose that would create the corporate death spiral.”
“Exactly. TS- kicks in, IS- drive people to look after themselves, and with
lots of smaller tribes fighting one another, you’re in deep trouble. You should learn
and implement the lessons much quicker.”
Greg felt castigated by Butch’s parting words. He sat back and stared at his
notes. Why did Butch tell him about the Untouchables? Why did the upper castes
in India feel better by not being part of the Untouchables? In gauging the success
of the tribe, TV+ is determined not only by its just cause, but by its performance
relative to some external standard. Without this yardstick, it was difficult to know
how well the tribe was doing.
Greg smiled to himself. ‘It would explain why benchmarking enjoyed such
popularity,’ he thought. ‘No company in its right mind would allow others to
inspect their corporate entrails and then walk off with information about their
unique capabilities. The real attraction of benchmarking was the chance to sneak a
peek of how well or badly the other tribe was doing–to determine if the other
company was part of the industry’s ‘untouchables’.
Greg found his yellow pad and wrote:

‘These measures of success have nothing to do with operational

achievement,’ he thought. ‘It has everything to do with the capability and strength
of the tribe.’
Greg pondered his deduction, wondering how he could create the external
measures of success necessary to strengthen MicroLogic’s TV+. ‘The measures
should be relevant to our environment,’ he thought.
There was a knock on his door, startling him out of his reverie. Dennis
walked in, looking very satisfied.
“What’s up?”

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 “The die orientation idea worked. We figured a way to apply the idea to our
process that would yield at least ten percent more chips per wafer than we are
getting now.”
‘That would speed up AsiaComNet,’ he thought with a rush of relief.
“How quickly can we do it?”
“In a day or two. We are already setting up some trials. Even Mike is
enthusiastic about it,” Dennis grinned. “It is real breakthrough. The news traveled
around the plant pretty fast, and there is a renewed buzz of excitement. Creating a
real and tangible common enemy and a just cause certainly stirred up a lot of
emotional responses.”
Dennis looked at Greg intently. “You look like you are not all there.” Greg
smiled, and pointed to the new yellow square on the whiteboard. Dennis walked
over and studied the statement.
“Tell me about it.”
Greg shared his last conversation with Butch.
“That makes a lot of sense, but how do we define our external measures of
success?”
“I figured it should relate to the just cause and the common enemy.”
“And?”
Greg walked to the whiteboard and wrote:

We are one of the top ten microchip manufacturers, better than Advanced
Circuits, Micro Delta, and Enerdyne.
Our company is rated as one of the best to work for.
Our company has the best safety and health rating.
Our company has the highest labor productivity in the industry.
Our company has the lowest labor turnover.

“That’s a pretty tall order.”

“But still something worthwhile to consider as success.”
“Agreed, and how do you propose we achieve that standard?”
“We’ll have to develop new measures, and rate ourselves against other
companies over time.”
“More work,” Dennis sighed.
Greg recounted the second part of his conversation, about the software
implementers.
“I don’t get it,” Dennis frowned. “I understand the issue with functional
silos, which is simply another form of tribalism. Knowing Butch, there is another,
more subtle lesson in the tale.”
They both pondered this implication. The only sound was the faint whisper
of air moving through the ducts in the ceiling.
“It reminds me of an article I read in The Wall Street Journal some time
ago,” (19) Greg mused. “Manhattan does not have a property multi-listing service
like most other large cities in the USA. A multi-listing service, or MLS, enables a

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prospective buyer to quickly check what is available in the market, with brokers
sharing information on available properties. The catch is that participants must
agree to do business with any buyer’s broker, which requires splitting
commissions.
Manhattan is different though. There the real estate industry is dominated by
two large brokerages, overshadowing a flock of smaller ones. The smaller
companies have tried to put a MLS system together, but the larger firms didn’t
want to play.
However, at the annual gala dinner for the high-end real estate brokers in
2000, the situation changed. The CEO of the one large brokerage created a huge
stir by asking his archrival, the CEO of the other large brokerage to dance with
him. She graciously accepted and, gliding around the dance floor, set tongues
wagging. Shortly afterwards the two companies agreed to participate in the MLS
program, adding their coveted inventory of properties for sale to the system.
The romance did not last long, though. After a brief show of cooperation,
the industry slipped back into its mistrustful ways, and the big brokers withdrew
their listings. The smaller groups, incensed by their unpredictability, accused them
privately of trying to set up a rival listing service.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think it contains the key to Butch’s clue.”
“Where?” Dennis sat bolt upright, leaning forward.
“The most valuable thing to a real-estate brokerage is its listings. It
determines what it can offer prospective clients. If the brokerage is big enough to
hold a significant number of listings itself, it can offer most clients something
acceptable without having to split the commission with some small brokerage
scrabbling to make a living. The listings are the source of power for a strong
brokerage tribe. Without it, they are relegated to the sewers of real estate industry.
In Butch’s tale, the software implementers control the information, the source of
power of the company. That makes them a strong tribe.”
“Are you saying that a strong tribe always has a source of power?”
“Yes, if a tribe does not truly understand and protect its source of power, it
will disappear. Take Sears Roebuck & Co. for example. In the good old days, their
biggest asset was their massive mail order business driven by the famous mail-
order catalogue. It was their source of power. Nobody else had the astonishing
reach and coverage that their mail order catalog possessed. Over time, competitors
slowly chipped away at their stronghold with competing catalogs. Sears, instead of
guarding their source of power, focused on cost-cutting activities. Eventually, their
mail order infrastructure was completely eroded. Today it survives somewhere in
the middle of the retailer ranks, chilled by the demise of Montgomery Ward, the
only other company that came close to rivaling Sears in the old days.”
This time it was Dennis who picked up the yellow pad. He scribbled a note,
tore off the top page and stuck it up next to the last one. It read:

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 Greg jumped to his feet. “You’re learning!” he exclaimed.
“Wise guy! So, tell me, what is MicroLogic’s source of power?” Dennis
countered. Greg rubbed his head, his brow wrinkled in concentration.
“What defines the essence of our existence, I wonder. Our technology is no
better than that of our competitors. We don’t have a market niche we dominate. We
don’t have patents that protect us. I’d guess our source of power is being part of a
large conglomerate, which protects individual plants from fluctuations in demand
at any given time. We have access to corporate capital resources that smaller
companies do not have. However, for us to enjoy continued support and use of
those resources, we need to produce the best quality microchips at the lowest cost,
and deliver them on time.”
“This means that we should do much, much more to improve our
productivity and cost-effectiveness.”
“Isn’t that exactly Butch’s point? Instead of fussing around with undesirable
effects like labor efficiency, our tribe should be working to secure its source of
power.”
Greg looked pensive, rubbing the top of his head.
“We are really good at shooting ourselves in the foot, you know.”
Dennis cocked an enquiring eyebrow. “How is that?”
“If we’re acting as a tribe, then head office must be behaving in exactly the
same manner. Anybody that’s worked in a corporate head office will tell you that
the operating divisions are treated as the common enemy. Head office acts as the
protector of the stockholders’ interests, and the just cause is to beat up the
operating divisions for poor performance.
The corporate finance function in particular, is frequently the worst enemy
of all. They are the most zealous of tribes, parsimoniously guarding the cash flow
with their corporate lives, defending the just cause of perfect accounting practice
against the common enemy of the grubby hordes of operating people who slug it
out in the dusty business arena every day.”
Dennis jumped up, stood to attention, and placed his right hand on his

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breast. “Such awesome truth from the mouth of babes,” he intoned.
Greg looked around for the yellow pad but thought the better of it.
“Aw, sit down,” he scolded. “The moral of the story is that we have two
sources of power in MicroLogic. The first is our ability to produce reliably and
cost-effectively. The second is our membership of the larger corporation. Right
now, we are dealing with the first. However, we are not doing at all well with the
second source of power. We should stop treating head office like another common
enemy, and rather work to make them part of our tribe. Butch told me right in the
beginning that the only way to get rid of tribal confrontation is to create a new
super-tribe that everyone can migrate to.
I think we are slowly heading that way at MicroLogic, but perhaps we
should be doing the same with the head office tribe. We need to put a strategy in
place to work at elevating the TV+ of the head office finance tribe, and to make
them part of our tribe. That will help strengthen our source of power.”
He flipped open his notepad and deciphered the scribbled notes from his last
conversation with Butch.
“We have to move faster on implementing the tribal attributes we’ve
identified. This afternoon we will deal with the corporate dress issue as well as the
tribal symbols. I’ve done a lot of work on that last night. The co-responsibility
strategy is in place, the common enemy is very real, the just cause is very clear,
and we know the tribes we must amalgamate within our organization. The ‘learn
what you like’ policy will enhance IV+, and we’ll enhance TV+ through the new
tribal behavior training with Russ Barton, which will also serve as the rite of
passage to the super-tribe.
The external measures of success should be our next focus. We should
describe those by adding information to the displays at ‘The Crossing’, next to the
just cause and the common enemy. I’ll get Fiona to work on it right away.”
“What about the source of power?”
“I’ll talk to the financial manager about that. She deals directly with the
head office finance tribe.”
Dennis frowned again, looking puzzled.
“What now?” Greg asked in despair.
“I think we missed something in Butch’s description.”
“What? Again?”
“The Untouchables.”
“How does that relate to us?”
“Which is the worst fab plant in the industry?”
“Well, if I go by the disparaging comments our customers make, it has to be
Ascotare out in Ohio.”
“Would you describe them as ‘the untouchables’ of our industry?”
“I guess so.”
“Would you like to be in their shoes?”
“Never. It will be the end of our corporate life in Intec.”
Dennis drew the yellow pad closer, wrote on it, got up and stuck it on the

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whiteboard. It read:

Now it was Greg’s turn to look puzzled.

“Whaddaya mean?”
“Strong tribes not only know the measures of success, but also how they
compare to the losers in their environment. It serves to define TV+.”
Greg sat forward with interest.
“You’re right. I can think of a great example. When General Electric made a
bid for Honeywell towards the end of 2000, Jack Welch thought the $42 billion
deal would be the crowning achievement of his career.(20) He underestimated the
powerful European Trade Commission, though. They refused to approve the deal
unless GE met certain trading conditions. GE found them totally unacceptable, and
canned the deal.
Michael Bonsignore, CEO of Honeywell, was desperate to get the deal back
on track, and offered a discount of $1.8 billion if GE accepted the commission’s
directives.
Why such urgency you may ask. Two companies - AlliedSignal and
Honeywell had merged in 1999. To clinch the merger, Honeywell’s management
promised significant earnings growth. Instead, the merged company missed its
earnings forecast in second quarter 2000 by a mile. Wall Street did not like that,
and halved the stock price from $67.00 to $36.00.
Shareholder lawsuits flooded in, claiming management had misled them.
With Honeywell in desperate trouble, the deal with GE at the end of 2000 was a
Godsend.

The true cause for the meltdown was simple: the tribal warfare between
Allied Signal and Honeywell. It was like mixing oil and water. Allied Signal was a
lean, mean, cost-cutting company driven by the just cause of short-term earnings.
Honeywell’s just cause was to stay close to the customer, and to increase sales
through heavy investment in people, technology and resources.

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 To make matters worse, the respective CEO’s had profoundly different
values. Larry Bossidy of Allied Signal was a tough, hands-on boss who focused on
costs and finances. Michael Bonsignore was warm, approachable, and focused on
sales.
When Bonsignore took the helm as CEO of the merged company, most of
the key functions remained in the hands of Allied Signal managers who found it
very difficult to relate to Bonsignore’s easygoing style, and when the earnings
shortfall hit, the tribal conflict came to a head. With TV- and possibly TS-, the
Allied Signal group accused Bonsignore of not having the guts and skill to cut
costs, while the Honeywell group accused Bossidy of saddling them with rotten
businesses.
In GE’s tribal world, Honeywell was the Untouchable tribe, desperately in
trouble. Under the guise of due diligence, GE executives picked Honeywell apart.
Stressed-out managers at Honeywell were forced to meet the huge demand for
information from GE managers while trying to keep the company afloat.
Honeywell had to give GE extraordinary access to its books and operations–
including competitive information that GE never could have accessed otherwise.
By forcing Honeywell to lay bare its corporate treasures, GE reinforced its position
as the stronger tribe.”
Dennis whistled in appreciation.
“If I can relate that to our company, we have to make the Untouchables very
real. That way we will increase TV+ immensely.”
Greg nodded vigorously. “I’ll get Fiona to add it to her research and
reporting.”
“We are making a profound, visceral change to our business,” Dennis
remarked. “It’s not the superficial, mechanistic process improvement stuff. In fact,
Six Sigma, TQM, and the like, are veiled excuses to create yet more tribes.”
“Darn right!” Greg concurred. “In fact, the Six Sigma practitioners have just
created the International Association of Six Sigma Practitioners.”
They laughed in delight.

-oOo-

The conference room was packed. Maggie had described in no uncertain

terms the part he had to play. The undercurrent of exited anticipation that had
surfaced over the past few days was much stronger now. He sat down at the head
of the table. The conversation subsided but the excitement remained like a faint
crackle of static in the air.
He looked around the room. “We have a lot to cover this afternoon,” he
began. “Firstly, update me on the AsiaComNet order please.”
Ron had the computer printout ready, his finger poised at the all-important
line. “The latest report indicates that the order will ship on July 26.”
“That’s a two-day gain. What happened?”
Dennis cleared his throat. “We managed to complete the wash-bay

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conversions, and the yield rates have increased significantly.” The sweep of his
hand included Al and Mike. “Ron updated the production standards in the planning
system, and the anticipated increase in output is factored into the latest forecast.”
“Well done. We still face a backlog of eight days with twenty seven days to
go. Have you communicated the co-responsibility structures to everyone?” The
nods were unanimous. “And did you ask them to meet and brainstorm other
improvements?” Again the nods were unanimous, but nobody elaborated.
“We’re a bit embarrassed,” Al seemed to speak on behalf of the entire
group.
“Why is that?”
“Well, we received so many ideas, it made us look kinda stupid.”
Greg laughed in delight. “The supervisor tribe suffers a significant
reduction of TV!” he chortled. His involuntary exclamation was met with puzzled
stares.
“Tell me more.”
“No fewer than one hundred and fourteen suggestions were put forward in
the last two days. Some were wacky, like burning down the AsiaComNet plant, but
some twenty-three ideas had real merit. I’ve never seen such a significant response.
The co-responsibility concept seems to have uncovered a sense of commitment that
we have not tapped before. People sense that they are better recognized as
individuals, and that their contribution is considered more relevant. Some people
even remained behind after the day shift to study the process during the night shift
for areas of improvement.”
“What are we doing to implement these ideas?”
“We’ve ranked them by ease of implementation and time required. We want
to use those that will give the biggest benefit in the shortest time. That narrowed
our pickings down to four ideas with significant benefit in less than ten days.
We’ve already assigned personnel to implement them.”
Greg couldn’t help being impressed.
“Have those benefits been factored into the new due date calculation?”
“No. Not yet. We wanted to make sure they work before doing so.”
“Great job, everyone.”
Greg returned to his notes. “I want to talk about another important issue.”
For the next twenty minutes, he outlined and explained the new group skills
training that Russ Barton had designed. He emphasized that MicroLogic was
embracing a new set of values and behaviors, and that every person in the company
had to complete the new training course successfully.
“You have to earn the right to be part of the new MicroLogic. In recognition
of your success, we will issue every successful candidate with our new corporate
outfit. Russ will be here early next week to launch the group skills training with
our in-house trainers. From what I have seen of his work, it promises to be very
demanding.”
With that, he turned to Maggie. “Maggie worked hard to design our new
corporate outfit. Let’s have a look.”

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 Maggie bustled to the front of the room. She handed everyone a form.
“You’ll find a set of evaluation criteria on there. Please rate each outfit
accordingly.” Turning to Greg, she said, “I have an outfit for you to model,” and
handed him a parcel. He good-naturedly shrugged his shoulders, and went to the
washrooms to change into his new outfit.
For the next hour, the group laughed, bickered, disagreed, admired,
compared and argued about the merits of each outfit. Greg was the last to go on,
and was greeted with whistles, cheers and catcalls. He was wearing a floral Hawaii
shirt and khaki drill trousers. In fact, it looked quite neat and cheerful.
Once done, Maggie collected the evaluation forms, and turned the meeting
over to Greg.
“The last item I want to discuss is individual development opportunities.
The success of our organization is entirely dependent on the skill and capability of
our people. Many were hired on because they possessed a particular set of skills,
but were never given the opportunity to continue learning. I’m changing all that.”
He pulled up a Powerpoint slide on the screen, looking back to check the display.
“This diagram outlines the skills that we need. Many of them are familiar to
you, such as forklift truck driving, but others are new, like proficiency in certain
software programs. I wish to see every employee successfully complete at least
two education courses per year, for which they will be recognized with a course
bar like this.” Greg pointed to the bar sewn on his sleeve.
“Pay will be adjusted for every course completed, but the intent is not to
make these courses a way to higher salaries. It is aimed at helping us all improve,
to enhance our individual value outside of the immediate work environment.
In addition, those that complete company prescribed courses for two years
will be eligible to attend one course of his or her choice. You can study anything -
from scrimshaw to portrait painting. There will be some limits to duration and cost,
but we’ll accommodate anything within reason.” There were nods of appreciation
all around, as Greg explained the finer details.
After a quick question and answer session, the meeting ended. The crackle
of excitement was even stronger. Greg stopped Maggie on the way out. “I suggest
you arrange for the entire plant to vote on the four most preferred outfits. That way
we get everyone involved in the decision. You’ll have to do it over the lunch
hour.” Maggie nodded in agreement, and hurried off, trailing an armful of shirts
and pants.

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 Chapter Eleven
Beau was waiting outside the plant when Greg arrived for work. There was
an air of righteousness about him that immediately irritated Greg. The neatly
clipped moustache and the close-cropped graying hair spoke of a past military life.
When seated at the conference table in Greg’s office, he handed Greg his
card. It read: Beauregard Montgomery III. “Call me Beau,” he insisted. “Ed
Winthrop asked me to have a look at your operation, and to provide whatever
counsel I can to help you improve performance.”
Greg, chin in hand, regarded the management consultant with detached
interest. From the corner of his eye he saw Dennis lower his head like a bulldog,
thrusting out his chin. He was ready to say something, and it was not going to be
pleasant. The relationship had gotten off to a rocky start.
“I’m sure we will derive great benefit from your experience,” Greg replied
urbanely. “Our workforce has been instructed to provide you with the every
possible assistance.” He kicked Dennis under the table, just as he opened his mouth
to speak. Dennis winched and closed his mouth.
“I would like to talk to the first-line supervisors, and tour the facility as soon
as possible.”
Greg turned to Dennis. “I’m sure Dennis will oblige by escorting you
around our plant.”
“Excellent,” Beau smiled, taking a notebook and pen from his scuffed
leather satchel before getting up from the chair. Dennis did likewise. On the way
out, with Beau in the lead, he shot the grinning Greg a murderous look over his
shoulder.

-oOo-

It was three days since the watershed production meeting where he had
announced the education options, the recognition system, and the new company
dress code. The effect had been extraordinary, surprising even him. With Butch’s
plant as an example, he knew what he was aiming to achieve. Even so, the reaction
was amazing. Voting for the new dress code got everyone involved, and Maggie
was working with their business clothing rental company to supply the new outfits.
There was a buzz of excitement.
Fiona had done a remarkable job of defining the external measures of
success, creating new data gathering capability to calculate the inter-firm
comparisons, and adding them to the two existing displays of the common enemy
and the just cause. Greg marveled at how different this approach was, compared to
the old, inward-focused, treadmill production performance measures. Whenever he
walked through the plant, people were deeply engrossed in the information on
display at the Crossroads. Via the grapevine, he heard that heated discussions had
flared in the lunchroom on the capabilities of their competitors–something that had

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never happened before.

-oOo-

The production forecast for AsiaComNet held steady. They had twenty four
days to go, but still suffered a backlog of seven days. More than half of the order
was completed and in the warehouse, but he doubted whether they would make
their full quota. The knot of tension in Greg’s stomach was back. It had not
bothered him for a while, but now it had returned with a vengeance, reminding him
of the dire consequences if they didn’t succeed.
He opened his notebook at the last page of scribbles, where he had recorded
the meeting with the financial manager. They had discussed MicroLogic’s
relationship with the corporate financial division at length. The tribe of financial
professionals at Intec was a new insight for Greg. He had not appreciated how
strong that tribe was. They even had their own corporate conference in exotic
locations where all the Intec financial officers wallowed in the joys of accelerated
depreciation and bonded around the latest fine-tuning of the generally accepted
accounting principles.
He shook his head in wonder at the tribal behavior. They had a just cause in
providing accurate financial data. They had a common enemy in the general
managers who treated the financial accounts with so little respect, a strong rite of
passage in learning the corporate accounting system, clear external measures of
success in terms of GAAP, and a source of power in their control of financial
information. They derived strong IV+ from writing CPA after their names.

The Vice President of Finance was very enthusiastic about his suggestion
that they work much closer with corporate finance. She berated him on
MicroLogic’s disregard for the finer points of accounting which, she had impressed
upon him, was severely frowned upon by the entire financial tribe. Greg promised
to treat the accounts with more respect, and to accord their efforts in the accounting
office the recognition it so justly deserved. She brightened at the idea of making
MicroLogic the model division–actively supporting corporate financial initiatives.
On the way out, he was sobered by the thought that her continued membership of
the Intec financial tribe was probably more important than that of the MicroLogic
tribe.

On the way back to his office, he decided that a cup of coffee was a good
idea, and made a detour to the refreshment station. Gingerly holding the steaming
plastic cup by the rim, he continued the journey. He met Pablo walking the other
way. Greg recalled his comments about Al and Mike, and smiled inwardly. That
relationship seemed to have changed significantly.
“Hi Pablo, how are you?” he greeted the portly Mexican.
“I am fine.”
“Do people still think that the company is in trouble?”

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 “No sẽnor. There is a lot more self-assurance now. People feel that you are
really working to make the company succeed. Everybody is impressed that you are
telling us about the other companies that want to take our business away. We don’t
have to fight internally, we must fight against them.”
Greg sipped his coffee, looking at Pedro with eyes narrowed by the steam.
“But now they are very worried who will be laid off.”
“Laid off?” Greg choked in surprise, and coughed violently. Pedro hastily
took the cup from him, politely holding it between finger and thumb until the
coughing subsided. Greg blinked the tears from his eyes and took the cup back.
Here he was, desperately trying to squeeze every bit of production out of the
plant, praying that nobody would be absent, and now people are concerned that
they may be laid off.
“Why is that?”
“There is an important efficiency expert in the plant today, the one with the
moustache.” Pedro drew two lines on his upper lip. “He is asking very disturbing
questions about individual performance and output standards.”
“Do people think that he is here to check on their work?”
“Si sẽnor. They are very afraid. They see things are getting much better
here. Now that you give them the chance to learn to work together, and to learn by
themselves, people are much more committed. You have made us help each other–
we each have two brothers or sisters that we must look after. No other factory does
that. People want to work harder, to get AsiaComNet done quickly, but now the
efficiency man is here….”
Pablo raised his hands in dumb despair.
Greg was astounded. It was a clear case of IS-, and he had not seen it
coming. Greg felt like kicking himself. Even though he had told people in the last
production meeting about Beau’s imminent arrival, he did not anticipate that it
would have a negative influence. In hindsight, it was easy to see why people felt
threatened. There was damage control to be done here, and fast!
Greg thanked Pedro, reassured him that layoffs were not imminent, and
hurried back to his office. He called Dennis on his mobile phone. He could hear
conversations in the background when he answered.
“Where are you?”
“In the clean room.”
“Please bring Beau to my office immediately.”
“What’s up?”
Greg recounted his conversation in the passage.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Dennis retorted. “This guy has some weird
views.”
“Get him here right away.”
Greg castigated himself for allowing this situation to develop. As he paced
up and down the office, his eyes fell on the row of yellow notes. He quickly took
them down and stuck them in the back of his notepad. The diagrams he hastily
erased. Dennis and Beau walked in just as he put the duster back in the tray.

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 “Thank you for joining me,” he smiled.
“We thought it’s about time for a cup of coffee,” Dennis remarked. He left
to get coffee, asking Beau’s preferences in passing.
“Now that you’ve had a chance to walk around, I am keen to hear your
views,” Greg observed, leaning back in his chair.
“I am really impressed with the dedication and enthusiasm of the staff,”
Beau commented. “It is much more noticeable than at other Intec plants.” A small
frown creased his forehead. “I wonder why, though,” he mused.
Greg leaned forward, renewed interest in his eyes. “Is it unusual?”
“Quite. There is a tangible feeling of motivation, yet you don’t seem to have
the systems in place that I would expect to find in a facility this big.”
“They are?”
“Well, the accurate recording of production output at every work center is
essential to monitor the performance of every individual. In my mind, such a
system is indispensable for managing performance effectively.”
“An interesting view, don’t you think Greg?” Dennis placed the steaming
coffee next to Beau’s elbow and sat down. “Beau was explaining to me that rigid,
closely controlled measurement of every individual’s performance is essential to
ensure that they perform at their best.”
“Hmm–interesting….” Greg had his chin in his hand. “So you are saying
that the way to motivate people is to watch them like hawks all the time.”
Beau nodded in agreement, puckering his lips to slurp the hot coffee. Dennis
looked at Greg with raised eyebrows.
“It is interesting that you should touch on this subject. Dennis and I have
been working on the exact same issue for the past few weeks. We would be
grateful to learn from your experience.”
Beau looked flattered, carefully putting the cup down.
“Yes, well, I’m sure you will agree that planning and control of work is an
important management function. It is something that should be institutionalized
and systematized as much as possible. That way you will be on top of the smallest
change in performance. You can act immediately and deal with the culprit right
away.”
“The culprit?”
“Yes, it is only by consistent monitoring and behavior modification that you
will eventually get the best performance. Management’s role is to command and
control. By making examples of unacceptable performance, others quickly learn
what is acceptable and what is not.”
“But don’t you instill fear and unnecessary tension in people that way?”
“By exercising command and control at every opportunity, nobody is in
doubt about who holds the reins.”
Greg inclined his head, a noncommittal expression on his face.
“Very interesting… You contend that workers by themselves cannot
perform to the best of their ability without close supervision?”
“Indeed, you can’t leave that to chance, can you?”

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 “How long have you been a management consultant?” Greg abruptly
changed direction.
“Just on seven years.”
“And before that?”
“I was in the military for twenty years. I retired early, as a maintenance
depot commander.” Beau slurped his coffee with satisfaction, Greg caught
Dennis’s eye over Beau’s head. He made circles with his forefinger next to his
temple in the age-old description of mental deficiency. Greg grinned. Beau put the
cup down, wiping both sides of his moustache with quick swipe of his forefinger.
“That helps me to understand your values much better,” Greg responded.
The comments about rigid control, close supervision and assumptions about
performance were all typical of the technocratic ‘command and control’ mindset–
the very thing that made Frederick Taylor’s theories both famous and dangerous.
“How did you end up in management consulting?”
“It is a very lucrative business,” Beau replied. “The ten most profitable,
unlisted companies in the USA are all professional service organizations, including
the Big Five accounting firms. That says it all, doesn’t it?”
“Indeed, and what qualifications would one need to be a management
consultant?”
“Well, there seems to be no commonly accepted framework, but a good
academic background and a solid understanding of the theory of business should
suffice.”
“Hmm, so actual experience would be less important?”
“I don’t think one would be successful right out of college.”
“Where do you know Ed Winthrop from?” Greg changed tack again.
“We’ve known each other from college days. We went to the same
university in the Midwest. I contacted him after I retired, and he kindly gave me
my first consulting engagement.”
‘The graduate old-boys tribe,’ Greg thought grimly. ‘If I let him near our
people with his outdated thinking, we will destroy every vestige of motivation.’

Beau slurped his coffee again, his moustache puckered into a swallows tail.
“Would you be helping us implement your recommendations to improve our
performance?” Greg continued.
“Oh no,” Beau shook his head. “I’ll write up a report on my findings and
recommendations, which I’m sure you will be able to implement on your own.”
Greg looked at Dennis, who had an agonized expression on his face. The
mobile phone in Beau’s pocket sounded off. He retrieved it and looked down at
the text message displayed.
“Can I use the phone?” Beau asked, “I have to make a rather urgent call.”
“Why certainly. There is one in the next door office.”
Beau got up, leaving the empty cup sitting in a ring of liquid.
“What do we do with him?” Dennis whispered urgently, leaning over the
table. “I don’t know,” Greg retorted, his voice low. “We can’t let him recommend

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his management ideas to Ed.”
“I know,” Dennis sounded even more agitated. “Bringing old-style
command and control management in here will be suicide.”
“What do we do?”
“Let’s use our knowledge of IS, IV, TS and TV on him. He must go tell Ed
what we think he should hear, not what Beau thinks is right.”
“OK, now what?”
“What would increase his IV?”
“He is perceived as a competent management consultant by Ed.”
“What determines his IS?”
“His professional reputation. If he screws up with Intec, he will have a devil
of a time finding consulting engagements anywhere else.”
“OK, let’s go with what we have.”
“How?”
‘Beats me.”
“Let’s try another way. Which tribal affiliations are important?”
“His defense tribe and his college tribe.”
“OK, let’s focus on those.”
“So…what do we do?”
“Let’s define the TV+ we must create for him to be our lapdog with Ed
Winthrop. If we acknowledge his professional capability, even though we think it
stinks, he will experience an increase in IV+. If we offer him a new alternative that
will, heaven forbid, make him a better consultant, his IV+ will increase even more.
However, if we point out to him that his recommendations may have a significant
downside risk, his IV- will decrease again. We must use the possibility of gaining
something significant from us as the lever.”
Gum soles squeaked outside on the passage floor, and Beau entered. He
plunked himself down, deftly slipping a full cup of coffee into the empty one.
“Don’t you think the command and control mode of management has been
replaced by something more effective since Taylor’s days?” Greg continued the
conversation.
“It’s all namby-pamby stuff,” Beau retorted flatly, pursing his lips to cool
the coffee. “Nothing like strict discipline to keep everyone’s noses to the
grindstone and keep the goods flowing.”
“Surely, someone with your experience and insight must have found a more
effective way?”
“Nope.”
Greg looked helplessly at Dennis, who leaned forward. “I’m sure I can
supply all the information you may require to complete your investigation. Before
we continue, though, would you mind elaborating on your earlier comment about
the dedication and enthusiasm of our people?”
“It is really quite unusual,” Beau grudgingly acknowledged. “Any idea
why?”
‘Gotcha!’ Greg thought gleefully, struggling to keep a straight face. The

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tension went out of Dennis’s shoulders. “Well,” he responded airily, “we’re
working with another advisor, who has a significantly different view on
motivation. We have been implementing some of his recommendations with great
success.”
“What did you do?” The desire to know was naked in Beau’s eyes. He had
sensed that the atmosphere was profoundly different at MicroLogic.
“We are bound to secrecy until the implementation is completed,” Dennis
solemnly replied. “It’s part of a research project that could be ruined if we leaked
the information.”
“Can’t you give me some pointers?”
Dennis resolutely shook his head. “Our lips are sealed.”
Beau looked crestfallen and frustrated.
“However, we greatly respect your professional input. Incorporating your
ideas may significantly enhance our results.” Beau brightened, sitting up and
straightening his tie.
“Let us collect the information you need, and complete our plant tour. Then
I can answer any questions you may still have,” Dennis proposed.

By late afternoon of the second day, Beau had completed his investigation.
They respectfully listened to his assessment, even though they did not agree with
his starting assumptions. Greg got the feeling that Beau did not have a lot of faith
in his own recommendations, and he asked some searching questions about the
new information boards out on the plant floor. Before he left, Beau again
commented on the positive attitude that permeated the plant.
He promised to send them a copy of his report. Greg breathed a sigh of
relief, praying that the information that reached head office would not be too
damaging.

-oOo-

Butch listened to Greg with his customary silence. He was in his study at
home, his feet on the polished mahogany desk in the downstairs library.
“…and then he left, feeling very proud that we had seen the brilliance of his
recommendations.” Greg finished recounting his experience with Beau. He
expected the measured silence that followed, and sat back.
“Why did you find this Beau character so offensive?”
“That’s easy. He’s as much a management consultant as my grandmother is
one.”
“By whose standard?”
Greg was at a loss to answer. Butch had done it again!
“According to ours, I guess.”
“Whose?”
“Dennis and mine.”
“What are the rules by which you judge?”

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 Greg was starting to dread the incisive questions.
“Well, he did not sound like a management consultant. He spouted forth
management theories that are older than Noah. Implementing his view of the world
would wreck everything we’ve achieved to date.”
“No doubt, but that’s not the point. Give me the rules that you consider to be
important. How did he violate them?”
“Well, people can’t just call themselves management consultants without
having been around the block a few times, worked with successful organizations,
really know how good businesses function and all that, you know.”
“Hmm, so you don’t consider him a credible member of his tribe.”
It was Greg’s turn to be silent. This was a new perspective he had not
thought of.
“No, I guess not.”
“His quaint ideas and outdated advice by itself is not what caused your
discomfort. It is the huge difference between your preconceived expectations of a
member of that tribe and his performance.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“Think carefully about your experience with Beau. It illustrates another
tribal attribute. Here’s another interesting event that may help illustrate the point.
When Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler as part of CEO Juergen Schrempp’s
dream to make that company a global leader, it was hailed as a merger of equals by
the Daimer-Benz top management.(21) They waxed lyrical about the all the things
that would normally impress the stock market analysts - enhanced synergies,
economies of scale, integrated capabilities–in short, all the things that nobody
really understands or believes. No sooner had the merger been completed than
Chrysler ran into severe financial problems, posting its first operating loss in nine
years. How do you think Daimler-Benz responded?”
“I’d guess they would fire the CEO.”
“Exactly!” Butch chuckled.
“It went further than that, though. The very first thing Schrempp did was to
replace the Chrysler group boss with none other than his own, most trusted German
lieutenant.
Daimler-Benz had bought into Chrysler on the strength of the business
success under guidance of its American leadership, but when the ship started
sinking, the German group CEO summarily replaced the American CEO with a
German CEO. You can imagine the impact on the company. American workers
were deeply concerned that it was the tip of the iceberg. They felt bigger things
were to follow that could jeopardize their security. Does that sound familiar?”
“It sounds like major IS- and TV- to me.”
“Correct. The really interesting part is the tribal dynamics at play here.
Rather than finding a better American CEO, who would have ensured a stronger,
more committed American tribe, the Daimler-Benz group CEO put his faith in his
own German lieutenant, a member of the German tribe. What do you expect the
outcome to be?”

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 “I predict that the old intertribal conflict between workers and
management will get dramatically worse. Instead of just having American
management against American workers, it will now be American workers against
German management, and American middle management against German top
management. Many American workers still have parents who fought in the Second
World War, which makes it even more interesting–the source of a common enemy.
If I factor in the diametrically opposite Germanic tribal values of strong discipline
and obedience against the American tribal trait of individuality and self-
determination, sparks are bound to fly.”
Butch chuckled again.
“Your understanding of the impact of tribes on the success of companies is
developing nicely. Phone me back when you’ve figured out this tribal attribute.”

With that, he put the phone down. The receiver uttered a plaintive ding
when Greg threw it back in its cradle. He put his face in his hands. After a few
minutes he pulled his notepad from his briefcase and carefully summarized the
conversation. While writing, he turned the facts over in his mind.
“Why did I think Beau was not a business consultant?’ he asked himself. He
got up and paced up and down the library. ‘I would have reacted differently if he
came with advice we could use, rather than a string of recommendations,’ he
thought.
His eye fell on a pile of bills Christine had placed on the corner of the study
desk. The uppermost bill was from their family doctor. Greg smiled when he
thought of him. He was a squat ex-wrestler with a shock of red hair. He had
brought all their children into the world, had nursed them through the childhood
diseases and in the process became a firm family friend. ‘I trust him with my life,’
he thought.
He stopped dead in his tracks, whipped around and grabbed the bill from the
pile. ‘That’s the answer! I have enormous respect for the professional capability of
our family doctor, but none for Beau, the wonder consultant. Why do I feel
different about them?’
Greg frowned as he resumed his pacing. He pondered the question.
‘I trust our family physician because his qualifications are beyond reproach.
Because he is a registered physician, I do not question his capability. He is an
acceptable member of the tribe of physicians. Beau however, has no qualification
that inspires the same level of confidence in me.’
Greg punched his fist in his hand, discovery lighting up his face. ‘That’s
what Butch meant with his question. I can’t just call myself a doctor and start
practicing medicine. I must achieve some standard, some level of proficiency or
ability that justifies my membership of the tribe.’
Greg found the yellow pad on the desk and wrote:

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 He stuck the note to the outside of his briefcase, and left the study deep in
thought. Christine and the children have gone to bed, and the house was deathly
quiet. He made himself a cup of coffee, and sat at the breakfast table, dipping
chocolate chip cookies in the steaming mug, thinking about the implications of his
insight. That’s why it made sense for the CEO of Daimler-Benz to send his
German lieutenant to take over the management of Chrysler. He was a member of
the top management tribe with proven qualifications of membership–successfully
running the commercial vehicle division of Daimler-Benz as well as being
German.
Walking up the stairs, Greg thought of John Walker, the American caught
fighting with the Taliban against the US military in Afghanistan. Nobody knew
what to do with him. Weeks after his capture, the American government was no
closer to an answer. The hot potato got passed all the way up the chain to the
President’s desk. However, seen in the tribal context, the conflict was clear.
As a member of the American tribe, he was entitled to the rights and
privileges under American law. As a member of the Taliban tribe, he embodied the
common enemy of the American tribe– to be exterminated without another
thought.
The two opposing tribal memberships forced his captors to decide which
tribal membership is more significant, thereby determining his fate.

-oOo-

The next morning saw Greg back in the conference room with a small group
of people. Russ Barton had flown in the previous night. The three people he’d
selected as trainers were also in attendance. Greg did not want to lose any
production time, but also wanted to get the training done as quickly as possible. In
the end they hammered out a training plan that reached every employee in a period
of fifteen days. Russ was even more excited about the new initiative than before,
managing a modest smile.

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 “There is one more aspect we need to discuss,” Greg added. “As part of our
training, we must very clearly establish the qualifications for membership to the
MicroLogic tribe.”
“Qualifications for membership?” Russ queried, looking nonplussed.
Greg explained the concept and Russ’s face lit up with understanding. He
jumped up and walked over to the whiteboard. “Let’s list the things we should
include,” he began. For the next twenty minutes they kicked ideas around, and
ended up with three qualifications that seemed more important than others. They
were:

Technical competence
Corporate competence
Commitment to the company

Technical competence was simply the ability to do their jobs effectively, and
was well covered by the traditional technical training that most people underwent.
The second item drew a lot of discussion, and eventually they agreed that the
training that Russ had developed would in and of itself become the qualification
for membership, because it set out to strengthen the aspects rarely addressed in
corporate competence–group output, group quality, group support for one another,
group learning, and group conflict management–the attributes of effective
corporate citizens.
It was new, not at odds with other expectations and established a different
perception of what is important in the company–the ability of the business to
function effectively as a social and organizational entity. Those were exactly what
Greg wanted to reinforce.
“Let me track Maggie down,” Greg interrupted. He buzzed her in the quality
lab, and she immediately responded.
“Have you decided on our new corporate dress?”
“We’re done,” was the brisk reply. “Everyone in the plant voted for their
choice. I’ve never seen so much argument about such a simple subject, but
eventually we got agreement on one outfit.”
“Great. Please join us in the conference room with the result.”
“Sure, I’ll be right up. I’ll bring the winning outfit along.”
‘IV+ is defined by what people wear,’ Greg reminded himself.

Maggie arrived a few minutes later. She did not carry the winning design
with her. Instead, she wore it herself - a light green cotton shirt and dark green
trousers with the MicroLogic logo embroidered on the collar. It was a far cry from
the industrial strength, scratchy white outfits. It looked fresh and professional.
“The fabric is acid-resistant, high wearing, and has a number of features
such as pen holders, ID tag holders and notebook pouches. We can also add an
outer sleeve with insignia that is easily transferable from one shirt to another,”
Maggie commented while pirouetting the new design.

163
 “Excellent!” Greg enthused. “When will we have them available?”
“Our supplier promised to have the first batch ready in a week’s time.”
“I want you to synchronize the training program with the supply of the
corporate dress. As soon as Russ finishes a training course, the graduates will be
issued with their new outfits. You’ll have to coordinate very closely with Russ on
this.” Maggie nodded enthusiastically. It was clear that she enjoyed this new
activity.
He left Russ and the MicroLogic trainers to finalize the training schedules,
Maggie for the supply of the new corporate dress.

164
 Chapter Twelve
The MicroLogic sign was gone. The pole was still there, forlorn and shabby,
power cables hanging out the top. Greg frowned as he turned off the engine,
grabbed his bag and strode into the reception area. “What happened to the sign?”
“The maintenance guys took it down last night,” the receptionist replied,
looking apprehensive.
“Why? It was working fine.”
“I’ll get Al on the line. You can ask him.” She punched in the number and
pointed to the telephone at the end of the counter.
“What happened to our sign?” Greg asked when Al picked up.
“It wasn’t looking too good, corroded and all. Our competitors’ people
occasionally drive by here. It won’t do to have a crummy looking sign, so we
decided to fix it up. The next time any of them drive past here, they’ll know this is
the best fab plant in the world. We’ll be resealing the parking lot this morning,
except that your car is in the way.”
Greg grinned from ear to ear, thinking of the impact the clean appearance of
Butch’s plant had made on him. It stood out jewel-bright from the drab, weather-
beaten buildings scattered around it.
“Great idea. What about the building itself?”
“Since we have to paint the compressor room now that the damage has been
repaired, we thought the plant can do with a coat of paint as well. We’ll be doing
the front façade next week, and the rest before the Christmas shutdown.”
“Great stuff. Keep it up.” He put the phone down and, turning around,
noticed that the reception area also looked different. The mildewed mission
statement had disappeared as had the terrified employee of the month in the plastic
frame. There were new pictures and fresh flowers on the reception table. Today’s
Wall Street Journal was there as well. Greg looked at the receptionist inquiringly,
arching one eyebrow.
“We can’t have our vendor’s sales representatives come in here with the
place looking like a pigsty,” she said defensively. “They go to our competitor’s
plants as well, you know. We don’t want them to get a better reception there.”
Greg chuckled to himself, walking through the air locks. It was happening
exactly the way Butch predicted it would. The tribe was rapidly becoming
conscious of its image and tribal identity, and began to act accordingly.

-oOo-

He watched the incoming email messages appear on the screen, scanning

the message headers, looking for the high priority items. The second to last
message jumped out at him. The email was from Sandy. He gulped, put the coffee
cup down, and clicked on the message. It read:

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 AsiaComNet order in serious danger.
Call me immediately.

Greg had not spoken to Sandy for a few days. He dialed Sandy’s number
from memory. He dove right in when answered.
“Hi Sandy, I just got your email. What’s up?”
Sandy’s Scottish accent was always reassuring, even though the words were
chopped with stress.
“Me bonny lad–the AsiaComNet order is still causing a grand auld tap
dance. Ed has been talking to the Wall Street analysts again. The technology sector
is taking a nosedive and the market wants reassurance that we are holding up.
They’re anxious, mebbe the future prospects for business are not guid. He assured
them that we were at the start of a magic new era in Intec’s globalization. Then he
phoned me, a tad upset. The latest information your production staff had posted on
the intranet indicates that you will miss the order due date by eight days.”
‘The ever dutiful Ron Jensen,’ Greg thought resignedly.
“Ed went ballistic,” Sandy continued. “He wanted an urgent update, and
suggested we immediately move the remaining AsiaComNet order to another
plant. He ran aboot, accusing me of poor judgment, placing the company’s future
in jeopardy, and being out of touch with events at plant level, amongst other
heinous crimes. I kind of took umbrage to that, and pushed back.”
Greg grinned. He had been at the receiving end when Sandy ‘pushed back’.
It must have been a spectacular encounter.
“I told Ed that you were on top of your game–that the figures were outdated,
that he should stop running aboot, and desist from making unfounded accusations.
However, me bonny butt is on the line again, and I need to know that my faith in
you is not in vain.”
‘You want to know whether I am going to drop you in the doo-doo,’ Greg
thought grimly.
“Sandy, we are going flat out to make the deadline as originally set. Right
now, my people are doing everything possible to ensure that we speed up even
more. I am praying that we don’t get another event like the compressor blowout,
which will most certainly wreck us. We’ve introduced a number of changes to
increase output levels very quickly, and I expect more to follow.”
Sandy sighed. “We have very little time. In the light of my rather critical
comments to Ed, I’ll be rotten sporran if you mess this up.”
Greg paused for a second. ‘He experienced a decline in IV with Ed yelling
at him. Now there is a decline in IS. Time to change his tribal affiliation,’ he
thought.
“Sandy, you’ve seen how quickly we recovered from the compressor
disaster, and you’ve seen the decrease in the difference between the anticipated
order delivery date and the promised delivery date. If I look at the remaining order
quantity and the remaining time, we will be closing the gap in a matter of days, and
I fully expect to meet the deadline. That’s why I have not burdened you with

166
unnecessary information. Imagine how Ed will feel if we complete the order ahead
of his expectation.”
“Now that will rub his noose in it!” Sandy brightened.
‘Up goes your IV,’ Greg smiled to himself.
“Exactly, and when other plants cannot match our performance, our
achievement will be even more significant, validating your good judgment.”
Greg paused for a moment, amazed at his own daring. His individual
security was now on the line with such brazen statements. Sandy did not respond,
even though Greg expected to be slapped down.
‘Remember, he’s part of the management tribe in head office,’ it flashed
through his mind. He continued.
“Your reputation has not been built on empty promises. What better
situation to demonstrate your critical role in the success of the top management
team than this?” Greg pointed out.
Up go the IV and TV.
“If we don’t make it, though, your head and mine will surely roll,” Greg
added.
Down go the IS.
“Darn right they will.” Sandy sounded even more strained.
“Then the market analysts will downgrade our stock and the market
capitalization of Intec may go down by…say a billion dollars. AsiaComNet may
take their business somewhere else, and the company’s long-term survival may be
at stake.” Greg airily added.
That caused a stunned silence. Only a faint, high-pitched electronic tone
was audible on the line. The stress was even more pronounced in Sandy’s voice,
burring the accent even more.
“That toasty thought had crossed me mind, laddie, but now that you
describe it so starkly, I get a wee shiver down me spine.” Sandy replied.
“The point is, there is nothing you or I can do right now. If we start yelling
and running around in circles, we will panic our people, greatly increasing the
chance of failure,” Greg emphasized.
Down go the TS.
“So what do we do?”
“We keep the faith. The key to our success is in the hands of our people.
Right now, my people are highly motivated and committed in spite of the
extraordinary demands we’re placing on them. They will make it happen for us.”
“It’s funny that you should mention it. I saw the report from Ed’s tame
consultant after his visit to your plant. In addition to his recommendations about
measurement and control, he had a lot to say about the motivation and commitment
he encountered. It made a huge impression on him. He asked about the other
consultants working with us. By the way, whom did we hire? You know the policy
on hiring consultants–not without corporate approval.”
“Nobody, in fact. Dennis and I have been trying some experiments on our
own that seem to work quite well.”

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 There was a long, agonizing silence.
Sandy’s voice was soft, menacing. “Do you expect me to gamble my entire
professional career, billions of dollars in market value, and the future of the entire
company on some ham-handed, spoon-bending experiments you and Dennis are
fiddling with?”
Greg burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. It sounded so bizarre.
“The results speak for themselves. We are under enormous pressure, yet my
people are highly motivated. There is a buzz of excitement in the air here. The
wary, dour suspicion I found when I walked in here is all but gone. The gap
between the order due date and our promised ship date is rapidly closing. Now
what is it you wanted me to change?”
“Nothing, I suppose…” Sandy admitted.
“Thank you.”
“You have spunk, me lad. I will go along with you, but I need more
information to show Ed that we are in control.”
“I have a production meeting in an hour. I will give you an update right after
we finish.”
“I’ll be waiting…” The tone was ominous. He put the phone down.
Greg exhaled slowly, rested his head on his crossed arms on the desk. The
die was cast. He has gambled his entire career on his belief in what Butch was
teaching him. To date, the results have been awesome, but still there were 13 tribal
behavior issues he had yet to discover. Butch’s stinging rebuke that he was not
implementing his insights fast enough still rang in his ears.

He sat up, took a deep breath and reached for the phone again. He got the
same bright, sparkling welcome at Cape Industries. That cheered him up
somewhat. Butch was out on the plant floor and would phone back as soon as
possible.
Greg called Dennis, got hold of him in the maintenance division, and made
sure that the production meeting was still on track. The phone rang after a few
minutes. It was Butch.
“What’s up?”
“I think I have figured out the tribal trait you hinted at last night.”
Greg explained his deduction and was rewarded with a dry chuckle.
“However, I have bigger problem right now.” Greg briefly related the
conversation with Sandy. “You berated me for not implementing my insights fast
enough, which I agree with, but now I really need some quick help to make it
happen. I can’t risk getting it wrong.”
“What can go wrong?”
Greg gritted his teeth.
“We may not meet the AsiaComNet delivery date.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
Greg had to think. The pressure from head office threw him off balance.
“We may have a breakdown, a strike, even an earthquake.”

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 “And you can prevent all of those–all by yourself?”
“No, I guess not.”
“You said a very important thing to your boss–to keep the faith. In fact,
every business is always entirely in the hands of its employees. As much as you
disagreed with the consultant’s preference for command and control management,
most managers think it is the only way they can exert some vestige of control.
Without understanding what truly motivates people–a strong tribe that
offers them security and value, they fall back on the management tribe’s power to
get things done, only to reap more distrust, more back-stabbing and less
commitment. If you change to that mode now, you will destroy the progress you’ve
made to date. Instead, you should focus on the way tribes interact, both within and
between tribes, which manifest in communication and behavior.
Communication has always been viewed as a rather mechanistic process
consisting of a sender, a message, a medium, and a receiver. However, people
rarely consider the context of the communication, which largely determines
subsequent behavior.
Remember, at the root of all our actions is only one driver–survival. And
survival comes only through control–control of one’s environment, control over
resources, or control over the fate of others. Just about everything we do is driven
by those two things: survival and control. It is important to re-emphasize that tribes
only exist to achieve for the individual what he or she cannot achieve on their own.
The tribe’s survival and control enables the individual to improve his own survival
and control. In communication, this survival-control aspect colors the relationship
between the receiver and sender, and predicates how they will interpret and act on
the content of the communication.”
“What about individual value?” Greg interjected.
“Only when survival is assured does individual value become important.
Just to prove the point, a recent survey of American workers found that 77% of
respondents defined success as finding a company they can work at for a long time.
(22) It is another way of saying they want a tribe that they can belong to for a long
time. Think about this for a minute. When you meet up with a stranger, what is the
very first thing you want to determine?”
“Whether I like them or not.”
“Exactly. We want to determine whether that person is an enemy or an ally.
If you perceive the other as an enemy, potential IS- or IV- for you, communication
is filtered with suspicion and wariness. If the sender comes across as an ally, with
potential IS+ or IV+ for you, the communication is received with interest, empathy
and openness. If you add the context of tribes it becomes even more interesting.
The eight communication contexts are tribe to tribe…”
“Wait, wait,” Greg interrupted. “Let me walk over to the whiteboard. I want
to write this stuff down. Give me a second.”
Greg moved the telephone onto the conference table and switched to
speakerphone.

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 “Please carry on. This is fascinating stuff.”
“The tribal communication contexts are tribe-to-tribe, tribe-to-individual,
individual-to-tribe, and individual-to-individual. If we add ally or enemy to this
mix, we have eight possible combinations–a matrix of enemy, ally, tribe and
individual. Bear in mind that we communicate as much by our actions as by our
words–particularly as a tribe.”
Greg was scribbling furiously, hurriedly making space by wiping the board
clean with his sleeve. Butch continued.

“One: Enemy tribe-to-tribe. An enemy tribe has the potential to destroy

your tribe, causing TS-, or TV-. Tribes attack one another by bringing better
products to the market. There is a neat example. A while ago, Procter & Gamble,
the giant consumer products company admitted to rifling through the trash of its
tribal enemy, Unilever, in downtown Chicago. Intelligence operatives searched the
contents of its dumpsters to gather information about its hair-care business. It is a
classic enemy tribe-to-tribe action.(23)

Two: Ally tribe-to-tribe. A friendly tribe has the potential to strengthen your
tribe, making it more secure–increasing TS+, and making it more valuable through
TV+. The same P&G incident illustrates this. When it became public knowledge
that P&G was spying on Unilever, top management put an end to it, informed
Unilever of the incident and handed back a pile of documents. That’s not the way
an enemy would behave, you’ll agree.
The top management tribe of P&G would very much like to stay friends
with the top management tribe of Unilever–all members of the universal fraternal
top management tribe. Some dumpster intelligence is worth a lot less than that.
Friendly tribe-to-tribe communication tends to recognize one another’s just cause,
offer to share resources as the British did after the World Trade Center disaster to
help America fight terrorism, and to act in one another’s interest, as countries do
through NATO.

Three: Enemy tribe-to-individual. In this case, an individual has the means

to cause TS- or TV-for the tribe. This is dealt with through expulsion, restriction of
rights, cancelled membership, and revocation of licenses. Confrontational
communication is couched in the third person, lots thou and therefore statements
with references to policies and guidelines–the tribal rules of behavior. Censure or
expulsion is brought about through some ritual process such as a disciplinary
hearing. The Spanish Inquisition is a gruesome but wonderfully apt example of
this.

Four: Ally tribe-to-individual. Through his efforts, the tribe will be more
secure, enjoying TS+, or prosper with TV+. The individual is promoted, given
more power, admitted to the inner circle of the tribe, privy to tribal secrets, even

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given a seat on the board.

Five: Enemy individual-to-tribe. The individual is at war with the tribe. He

may sabotage the company, leak sensitive information, and start sub-tribes of his
own to bolster his power. He causes confusion, dissent and poisons the corporate
environment. Sometimes they acquire some degree of notoriety as a result of their
conflict with the tribe. Edward Snowden and his crusade against the NSA comes to
mind here.

Six: Ally individual-to-tribe. The individual actively supports the just cause,
joins in the fray against the common enemy, volunteers his time and resources, and
cheerfully works overtime if the tribe makes him feel good. The hundreds of
Pakistani civilians who joined the Taliban in Afghanistan is a good example.

Seven: Enemy individual-to-individual. It simply is a case of one person not

liking another. In their vendetta they frequently appropriate the resources of the
tribe to support their aims. Resources are diverted away from the tribal good to
support the interpersonal warfare. This occurs with singular regularity between
project leaders for example, where everyone tries to hoard as much of the corporate
resources to work on their pet project.

Eight: Ally individual to individual, or simply good friends and soul-mates.”

Butch paused, which gave Greg time to catch up on his notes.

“Because everyone in the organization is hard-wired to survive by
controlling their environment, every piece of information is filtered to determine
which of the eight modes the communication or behavior represents. There is
always the decoding of both the overt content, which is rational and logical, and
the covert content, which is intuitive and visceral. The covert content determines
how people are motivated to respond. You’ll find that people spend far more time
interpreting the parallel tribal communication than the content of the
communication itself.”
Greg chuckled. “I can relate to that. When I ask my kids nicely to do
something, they ignore me. When I yell at them, they scurry to comply. Same
message, but the context has changed from ally individual-to-individual to enemy
individual-to-individual, with me being the bigger individual.”
Butch continued without pausing. “To significantly enhance motivation and
commitment to the company, you must ensure that the four enemy-related
communication contexts are used to help define and describe the common enemy,
and that the four ally contexts are used to reinforce the just cause. You’ll be
amazed to what extent managers underestimate the impact of their communications
on partisan tribal behavior in their companies. When people talk in terms of ‘our
company’ or ‘our group’ they are in the tribe-to-tribe or tribe-to-individual mode.
The recipients immediately decode the message in the tribal context, and their

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response will be in the same tribal context. No wonder managers are frequently
surprised and puzzled by the seemingly illogical response they encounter to
perfectly rational communication. The next time you board an aircraft; listen to the
crew to passenger tribe-to-tribe communication. Nobody talks like that in normal
circumstances.”

“Are you saying that, if I ensure that communication is intuitively ally-

oriented, then I can increase motivation and commitment?”
“Indeed. That’s why a memo that starts off with ‘From the desk of the CEO’
is immediately seen as individual-to-tribe communication. By the way, the same
principle applies to advertising, which explains why half of all advertising
expenditure is wasted. Motorola once aired a series of television advertisements
that showed a rescue worker abandoning an injured snow-skier to join a bevy of
girls in a hot spa after they phoned him on his mobile phone.
It may have raised an anti-establishment chuckle from teenagers, but
infuriated some parents who had dedicated a lifetime to teaching their children the
values of good citizenship and the honor of duty to others. Some parents perceived
it as enemy tribe-to-tribe communication–honest, upright families against amoral,
calculating big business. Many companies would find their marketing much more
successful if they better understood the tribal communication contexts.”
“How do I know what is ally or enemy communication?”
“Anything that strengthens IS and IV, or supports the just cause, or attacks
the common enemy is seen as positive and collaborative. In addition, anything that
enhances the individual or tribe’s sense of control over their environment does the
same. Anything that does the opposite–weakens IS and IV, TS and TV, demeans
the just cause, eulogizes the common enemy, or cause people to feel less in control
of their environment is enemy communication.
Think carefully about this principle. Successful companies communicate
well in both modes simultaneously. Call me when you need more.”
“Wait Butch! I still…” The phone went dead.
Greg reached for the yellow pad, jotted down one sentence and put it up
next to the tribal communication diagram on the white board. It read:

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 He retrieved the other yellow notes from the back of his notebook and re-
assembled them on the whiteboard. Greg looked at his watch. The production
meeting had already started. He grabbed his notebook and computer printouts and
headed for the conference room, taking the steps two at a time.
Dennis was chairing the meeting. Greg sneaked in quietly, but every eye in
the room followed his journey. He stood against the back wall, next to Al who had
his arms folded in his familiar laconic way.
Ron Jenkins was reviewing the production status. “We are scheduled to
complete the AsiaComNet order by July 26, which still leaves us eight days short
of the deadline. With nineteen days to go, we don’t have much room left for
improvement.”
Dennis was studying the computer printout, drawing neon yellow lines
through the AsiaComNet order.
“It looks like the production rates are holding steady. We will complete
approximately 85% of the order by the due date.”
He sat back, folded his arms and glared around the room. “That’s not
acceptable. Any suggestions?”
The room was silent, everyone studiously looking down at the table or
staring into space.
‘This is negative tribe to individual communication,’ Greg thought.
“I want to make a point here.” Greg raised his hand. “Eight weeks ago, I
would not have thought the 85% achievement to be possible. After the compressor
disaster, I was working on perhaps getting 40-50% of the order completed.
However, things have improved enormously and I still believe we can make the
deadline. This is still one of the best fab plants in the world.’
Up go the TV.
“But we have a reputation to protect with head office. You all know the
consequences if we don’t deliver as promised.”
Down go the TS.
He turned to Al. “We came up with a bunch of ideas to increase output.
What happened to them?”

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 Al pushed away from the wall. “We’ve already implemented two of the
suggestions–one to speed up the drying cycle and another to decrease the handling
time. Between the two, I reckon we will be able to increase the output rates by at
least 12%. Add to that the die orientation, which is being done as we speak, we
will add another 8% increase in output.”
“That’s amazing,” Greg replied. “If I do my calculations right, we would be
close to completing 90% of the order. All we need now is a way to get to the last
10%.”
Greg looked around the room.
“You are doing an incredible job. If we keep this up, we will be the best
plant in Intec. If we can get that last 10%, we will be the best in the industry.”
There were appreciative nods all around the table. Greg turned to Al again.
“What about the other two improvement ideas that were put forward. Can we use
them?”
Al nodded. “The most promising idea deals with a change in the metal
deposition cycle. It does pose some risk though. We’ll have to shut the lines down
for at least three days to make the changes.”
“That’s a huge gamble!” Dennis interjected. “Under the current scenario,
we’ll get to 90% order completion. If we shut the lines down, we lose three days,
or 13% of our remaining capacity. If the changes don’t work we will lose another
two to three days to convert the lines back again. We will most certainly not make
the complete order, ending up with only 75% done and all of us looking for new
jobs.”
Greg nodded in agreement. “What’s the probability that this change could
fail?”
Al shrugged his shoulders. “About one in three, I’d guess.”
“What can we do to make it less risky?”
“Spend more time preparing, doing some experiments. But that again
lessens the time we have available to get more production out before the due date.
The later we start on the change, the less time we have to produce at a higher rate.
If we do all the experiments, and then make the conversion, we will be out of time
before we start production again.”
“And if you made the conversion now?”
“If it works, we’ll have sufficient time and capacity to get the order done.”
Greg inhaled deeply and looked around the room. “Are there any
alternatives that we may have overlooked?”
The room was silent. No response was forthcoming. You could hear a pin
drop.
“Anybody?”
No response. The knot was back in the pit of his stomach. His heart raced
from the adrenaline rush. Butch’s description of the need for a rite of passage
flitted through his mind.
“I want Dennis and Al to carefully document the ramifications of the
change. I will meet with them at lunchtime in my office to assess their findings. If

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the risk looks acceptable, we’ll go ahead with the changes as soon as possible.”
The tension in the room was palpable. Drawn faces, every eye riveted on
him. “We will tackle this together. We’ll prove to head office that we can do it.
Anybody here that is not willing to throw his weight behind this, please raise your
hand.”
Tension turned to apprehension. People leaned forward, glancing around to
see who would back out. Nobody did.
Greg smiled in appreciation. He challenged their IV and they responded
exactly as he’d anticipated.
“I expected no less from this team. It will be the most perilous thing we have
ever attempted, and will ask the best from everyone here to make it succeed.”
Up go the IV. There were sober nods all around.
“After my meeting with Al and Dennis, I will immediately let you know
whether we are going ahead with this strategy.”
Greg turned to Dennis. “Any other items on the agenda?”
Dennis inclined his head to Russ, who had joined the meeting.
Greg had forgotten about him.
“Allow me to introduce one of the most important people in Intec,” he
began. After explaining Russ’s role in Intec, he turned to the matter at hand.
“Russ has done extraordinary work to develop new education material for
us. In addition, he has taken it upon himself to lead the implementation initiative.
Since he is the best in Intec, we are very excited about the benefit he will bring to
our plant.”
Russ was positively glowing.
“Let me outline the course content and objectives. As you all know, we’ve
put a lot of emphasis on co-responsibility and our ability to function effectively as
an integrated group. To this end, Russ has developed education to help all of us
function better as a strong tribe, er.. group.”
Dennis had to smile at the slip of the tongue. Greg explained the education
strategy, the new corporate apparel, and the use of insignia to acknowledge the
mastering of new skills.
“When can we start doing the education courses?” was the first question
when Dennis put the issue to the meeting.
“Right away. Russ has been working with our internal training people to set
up a schedule.” A murmur of interest washed around the room.
Russ opened a Powerpoint on the overhead projector and proceeded to
explain the education program. Greg noticed that the doleful manner had all but
vanished. Even Russ was energized by the challenge of creating a new socio-
organizational framework. The meeting ended and the excited chatter down the
passage made Greg smile.

-oOo-

Chinese food take-out boxes littered the table in Greg’s office. The

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argument on the perils of shutting the production lines down went from one side to
the other. Al was very concerned about the stability of the equipment at startup.
Dennis thought it was less important than the quality of the first products off the
lines, since that would determine whether production continued or not. Greg just
silently prayed while listening to the heated discussion.
He had not shared Sandy’s earlier conversation with them, not wanting to
influence the decision in any way. If Dennis and Al did not give their commitment
voluntarily, they would not be motivated to take up the challenge.
Both men were close to being the very best in the industry and if they could
figure a way to do what seemed impossible, the chances were pretty good that it
would work.

After four hours of intense discussion and technical argument, only one
issue remained–whether the physical vapor deposition system could be re-
configured. This process knocks metal atoms off a pure metal ingot, so they will
deposit as an extremely thin metal film on the wafer. The pure metal ingots had a
weird name: sputtering targets. Significant work was needed to strip down and
reconfigure the equipment to speed up the physical vapor deposition rate.
Al and Dennis were trying very hard to come up with a way to complete this
part of the process quickly and reliably. The whiteboard was covered in diagrams
and sketches.

Early evening approached, with no solution in sight yet. Dennis threw the
marker down in frustration. It bounced once on the tabletop and skidded of the
edge. Al was rubbing his eyes, red from strain. Dennis paced the room like a caged
tiger, his chin thrust out aggressively. “Darn it. There must be a way to do this!” he
exclaimed. Al just held his head in his hands. The knot was back in Greg’s midriff,
his breathing shallow. Sandy was waiting for his call, and he had no answer to
give.
Suddenly, Dennis stopped in mid-stride. “We may not have the answer, but I
think I know who does…” Greg and Al both sat up and looked at him expectantly.
Dennis resumed his pacing.
“C’mon tell us!” Greg urged. Dennis looked at his watch. ‘It is six p.m. here
in San Francisco, which makes it eight a.m. in Japan.”
“Japan?” they chorused.
“I worked with an engineer once at Aizu University in Fukushima. He was
the most knowledgeable man on sputtering targets that I have ever met. If there is a
way to get around this problem, he would know.”
“Can we get hold of him?”
“Let me get my business card holder,” Dennis said over his shoulder, on his
way out. “I’ll get some more coffee,” Greg volunteered. Al nodded in thankful
agreement.
Dennis was smoothing down a dog-eared business card when Greg returned
from the vending machine. “His name is Iwao Kisoyaki, Professor of Atomic

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Physics.”
“What are you waiting for?” Greg asked.
“Just trying to figure out how insulted he will be if I phone him at home this
time of the day.” was the sarcastic reply.
“Insulted or not, we need the answer fast. We can apologize profusely at a
later stage. Now get him.” Dennis looked surprised at the imperative tone, but
nevertheless reached over, picked up the receiver and dialed the number.
“Good morning, Iwao-san,” Dennis began.
After the exchange of courtesies and profuse apologies, they spent the next
hour recounting their problem. The Japanese professor asked endless questions and
Dennis frequently had to pass the receiver to Al to help explain how their
equipment functioned.
Dennis thanked the professor and put the phone down.
“So, does he have an answer?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Well, not yet.” He will phone back in an hour’s time. He wanted to talk to
someone else first.”
Greg was nervously chewing a hangnail.
“Well, I hope he hurries up.” Time seemed to pass agonizingly slowly. Al
went back to the maintenance department, taking his notes with him. Greg was to
call him immediately when the professor phoned back.
An hour passed. It was the longest hour in Greg’s life.
The phone rang. Dennis had it to his ear before the second ring. He listened,
then recited a set of numbers, and put the phone down.
“What’s up?”
“He will fax us a document. When we have it, we must phone him back.”
Greg jumped up and strode down the corridor to the reception area. The fax
machine started humming as he walked through the air locks. The printed
document slowly appeared. There were three pages, beautifully written and
carefully diagrammed in elegant spidery script.
He snatched them from the machine and jogged back to his office. Al was
there already. He handed the papers to Dennis, who spread them out on the table. It
was past six p.m. and the sun was casting long shadows across the parking lot.
Dennis and Al were deeply engrossed in the document. Greg got up and
walked around the desk. Movement seemed to relieve the anxiety in his midriff.
After half an hour, Dennis picked up the phone and dialed the number in Japan.
‘It must be close to midday there,’ he thought.
The professor answered. Dennis switched to speakerphone for Al’s benefit,
and for the next hour they listened carefully as Professor Kisoyaki talked them
through the contents of the document. From their comments, Greg could sense the
respect his guys had for the deep knowledge of the man. When he rang off, Al and
Dennis jumped up in excited delight and gave a high-five.
“By George, he’s got it,” Dennis paraphrased the famous statement from My

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Fair Lady.
“It’s incredible!” Al enthused. “Not only has he developed a way to do the
changeover we couldn’t solve, but he has given us a way to speed up the process
even more.”
“He did caution us that there were some unproven aspects that could pose a
risk,” Dennis dampened the enthusiasm.
“How much risk?”
“About 10%”
“Is it too much for us?”
Al looked at Dennis, who returned the gaze.
The silence dragged on.
“No,” they said in unison.
“So, can we do the changeover?”
“Yes,” again in unison.
Greg let out whoop of delight, and banged the tabletop with his fist.
“Let’s go!”
“Whoa, hold on. Hot so fast.” Dennis countered.
“What now?”
“Professor Kisoyaki offered to send some more data, which will help
explain some of the details. It will be here tomorrow morning.”
“That’s fine. Let me ask you both one more time. Are you ready to take on
this challenge?”
“As long as you are prepared to take the fall,” Al replied laconically.
“No problem!”
“Then we’ll do it.”
“Let’s go then.”
They were like three schoolboys about to challenge the class bully–
apprehensive but with resolve, hoping the others don’t smell their fear.
“I’ll arrange the resources we need.” Al continued. “This will take careful
strategizing to make sure it goes off without a hitch.”
Greg nodded approvingly. “You and Dennis can work out the details. We’ll
meet back here first thing in the morning.”
They left for home just as the second shift took their lunch break.
In the car, he phoned Sandy’s office. Because of the time difference, he did
not expect anyone to answer his call. He was ready to leave a voicemail message
when, to his surprise, Sandy answered the phone. “It must be after nine p.m. in
Chicago,’ he thought.
“Hi Sandy. I’m making good on my commitment to phone you today. It
took longer than I thought to get an answer, but it looks 90% certain that we will
make the AsiaComNet order on time, and maybe a little ahead of time.”
“Are you sure?”
“As best possible. The final outcome is still dependent on how well our
people support us.”
“True.”

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 “By the way, if you hear about downtime at the plant, don’t be concerned.
We’ll be shutting down for a day or so to do some upgrading work.” Greg tried to
sound nonchalant about it, but he could hear the strain in his own voice. He did not
want to share the details of the planned upgrade, lest corporate canned the idea.
“Shut down?”
“Yes, just some minor changes we want to make–nothing too complicated.”
A cold shiver whispered down his spine at the magnitude of the understatement.
“Has Dennis had a look at it?”
“Yes, he is fully behind the idea.”
“OK, as long as we get the order completed. I’ll be out of town for the rest
of the week. Update me on the status by Monday.” Sandy rang off.
‘That gives me exactly three days plus the weekend.’ Greg quickly
calculated.
The knot was back in his stomach. He breathed deeply, trying to relieve the
tension. There was no turning back now.

-oOo-

He slept badly, checking the bedside clock through the early hours of the
morning. He was up by five a.m., showered, and back in the plant by six a.m. He
put his briefcase down in his office and wandered out on the factory floor.
The third shift had just finished work, and the parking lot was jammed with
two-way traffic. Stragglers were still walking along the passages to the clocking
station at the change rooms. The third shift had a number of grizzled old-timers
who had the unenviable task of supervising the toughest shift of the day. Greg saw
a group of them standing at the display boards for just cause, common enemy and
external measures of success. They were engaged in a heated argument, and Greg
walked over to hear what was being discussed. They saw him coming and stopped
the conversation.
“It sounds to me that you are having a fine argument,” he smiled.
Dick Eames was a reed-thin, wiry man who looked more like a moonshine-
brewing hillbilly than one of the best operators they had.
“We’re jest arguin’ about these guys here,” Dick responded, pointing a
calloused finger at the photograph of the Enerdyne plant.
“Willy here’s cousin twice removed is married to the brother of the local
gas station owner whose son is the second shift foreman at that there plant.”
“And?”
“And Willy says they say that the AsiaComNet order is gonna go to them
when we can’t deliver.”
“So?”
“Well, he said this at the barbeque they all attended for the gas station
owner’s mother’s birthday, where Willy wus too.”
“Uh-huh?”
“So Willie atold him that he wus our sworn enemy an then punched him

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between the eyes just to make the point, bearin’ in mind that Willie here had
enthusiastically partaken in the free beer.”
“Whoops.”
“He kinda wind-milled backwards from the blow, and landed with his butt
on the barbeque. Ruined a lot of good steaks in the process. Everybody was sorta
miffed at him, but Willie says the sworn enemy had been properly subdued.”
Dick gave a satisfied smirk. Willie and others in the group nodded their
vigorous agreement.
“Why has Willie got a black eye then?” Greg asked, looking with
admiration at the shiner.
“Well, the gas station owner’s mother, who grew up in the South, got out of
her rocking chair and punched Willie in the eye. Gennilmin that he is, he desisted
from respondin’ appropriately. She crowed with delight, saying that it was the best
birthday she’s had in sixty years–reminded her of fightin’ with her brothers when
she wus young. She wanted to punch some more people, but the guests decided
they all suddenly had something really urgent to do, and disappeared. So Willie
here had all the beer and food to hisself, shootin’ the breeze with grandma.”
Willie grinned broadly, nodding vigorously. “Never had so much fun in a
long time, boss. This common enemy idea is wunnerful.”
Greg struggled to keep a straight face. The last thing he imagined was a
fistfight emanating from his efforts to motivate the company. At least Willie
proved that it worked–somehow.
“What do the rest of you guys think?”
“We’re gonna beat them Greg,” they chorused.
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Why?”
“We’re the best plant around,” Willy volunteered. “Since you took over, it
has become much more fun to work here. You’re a great boss. We’ll show those
guys who’s the best!” Willie contemptuously poked at the displays of the
competitor’s plants.
“We’re gonna beat these guys at their own game.”
Greg was really interested in this response. “Does everybody feel like this,
do you think?”
“Oh, yeah,” they chorused. By now, the group has swelled to some twenty
people, with the first shift people joining in the discussion.
“Why is that?”
“We’re all in this together!” someone from the back volunteered. Greg was
struck by the change in attitude from when he first walked in the plant.
“I agree. I think this is the most capable plant in the country.” Nods and
knowing smiles appeared all around.
Greg left them, deep in thought. He had been in many plants where the
relationship between management and staff was a running battle. It was different
now, more like Butch’s plant. His deep, common sense approach to motivation was
a sobering insight.

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 He walked back to his office, immensely cheered by the conversation. Al
was waiting for him. He unrolled a large drawing on the conference table, and
beckoned Greg to come over.
“I’ve been up all night working on the information Professor Kisoyaki gave
us. If I understand him correctly, we will be able to complete the changes in three
days. Look, all we have to do is…”
“Whoa, hold it. Let’s get Dennis in here before you carry on.”
The coffee was ready and steaming when Dennis joined them, carrying a
rolled-up drawing under his arm. He also looked somewhat drawn.
“I’ve been up all night, working on the information Professor Kisoyaki
gave…, what’s so funny?” Dennis asked crossly, when Greg and Al burst out
laughing.
“It seems that none of us slept last night. This mission seems to affect us all,
including Sandy.” Greg recounted his conversation for the first time.
“So Sandy thinks this is a minor patch to the equipment, while in reality we
may lose the entire ball game,” Dennis remarked glumly.
Greg shrugged resignedly.
“So be it. This is going to take all our effort, and I don’t want paranoid top
managers getting in our way. Let’s get going.”
They leaned forward, concentrating on Al’s drawing.

-oOo-

By the end of the day, the battle plan was drawn. Dozens of items like
mobile cranes, cleaning equipment to decontaminate the area, and components to
replace the existing technology were needed. Their deadline was five days away.
“We have two days to get everything together. If we can manage that, we
have Friday, Saturday and Sunday to do the conversion before Sandy will be in our
face on Monday morning.”
Greg looked at Al and Dennis. “Let’s go!”

For the next two days they worked like demons, coordinating their activities
by mobile phone. They begged, cajoled, threatened, pleaded, jollied, connived and
coerced suppliers, equipment makers and contractors.
Late Wednesday night they met in Al’s office in the maintenance section.
They had been surprisingly successful, and Greg was encouraged. They did not
sleep much, the enormity of the challenge driving them.
The next morning they were back at it, and by lunchtime they met again.
‘Our FedEx bill will be enormous,’ Greg thought ruefully, looking at the list
of stuff that was on overnight delivery, ‘and we won’t be able to send any of it
back if this fails.’
He took a deep breath. “Will we make it?” he asked, looking at Al and
Dennis. They were both visibly exhausted, but nodded in unison, no doubt on their
faces.

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 “The only parts that are still on the critical list are the new sputtering targets.
The vendor will re-cast to our new requirement overnight, but they were not sure if
they could find adequate quantities of base metal.”
“That’s kinda important.”
“Yeah, it is the most important component in the entire changeover,” Al
pointed out dryly.
“When will we have confirmation from them?”
“By tomorrow morning.”
“I suggest we get everything ready beforehand. If we get confirmation on
the new sputtering targets, we can implement right away. We should have a
production meeting late this afternoon. I want to make sure everyone knows what
we’re doing and what is expected of them.”
Dennis nodded, scribbling on the side of his drawing. They left, Al back on
his mobile phone, talking to a vendor.
Greg was early for the meeting, scheduled between the first and second shift
changeover. The room filled quickly, expectancy heavy in the air. Greg assumed
that the grapevine would have communicated some of the coming events around
the plant. Maggie was still wearing the new corporate outfit. She looked fresh and
professional.
When everyone was there, Greg spelled out the action plan, building on the
conclusions of the last meeting. The room was dead quiet as he dispassionately
described the strategy, the consequences and the potential for failure.
“I went through agony, deciding whether to go ahead, but I realized that our
people would hate to lose to Enerdyne or any of our other competitors for that
matter. This is still one of the best plants in the country. It would be irresponsible
of me to ignore your capability and commitment to our just cause.”
Nods of agreement went around the table. Ally tribe to individual
communication.
“However, being one of our group, I am asking you to help the rest of us do
the impossible–to change the technology, ramp up production, and still meet, or
even beat, the deadline on the AsiaComNet order.” Ally individual-to-individual
communication.
Mike had his arms folded, blowing silently through his moustache, looking
belligerent and defensive at the same time. Maggie was inspecting her orange nails.
Greg looked around the room.
“At the last meeting I asked if any of you were not prepared to throw his or
her weight behind this venture. I’m asking the question again.”
He looked around the room. No hands were raised, their IV at stake here.
“Good. We will implement the changes as fast as possible, which means we
must do our best to support the maintenance teams. They will be working through
the night. Those not required to help will participate in training. Russ has
scheduled classes over all three shifts for the next three days.”
On cue, Russ handed out copies of the training schedule and explained the
class times, venues, and delegates. Greg picked up the thread again.

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 “The remainder of the equipment will arrive tomorrow. The maintenance
crew will be going over the blueprints to make sure they understand exactly what
they have to do. We are scheduled to start tearing down the equipment at five a.m.
on Friday morning, coinciding with the shift changeover. Al will now direct us on
our individual responsibilities.”
For the next hour they answered questions, discussed alternatives, and
calmed fears. Greg felt like he was standing on a bungee-jumping platform,
knowing he had to jump, wondering if the rope will hold.

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 Chapter Thirteen
The delivery procession started early the next morning. At one stage there
were eleven trucks queuing up to deliver parts and supplies. By Friday morning
everything was set to go. The plant ground to a halt at the end of the third shift.
Greg was up in the control room, watching over the shift engineer’s shoulder as he
systematically shut down and locked out every section. The computer displays
went from green to red as each piece of equipment went idle.
Compressed air, vacuum, high-pressure steam, inert gas, air filtration and
electrical power all had to be disabled before the maintenance crews could go in.
On the video displays, he could see the big yellow materials-handling robots go
into shut-down mode, folding up and tucking in their delicate mechanical arms like
birds with their heads under their wings. Within half an hour the first power tools
whined into action, spinning bolts out of the heavy steel covers on the vacuum
deposition chamber.
No word yet from the metal target vendor. The tension made Greg short of
breath. He wandered out to the parking lot, breathing deeply in the crisp morning
air, reflecting on the events of the past few days. Even if the upgrade was
completed without a hitch, they had eleven days left to complete the order,
catching up on five days of backlog in the process. If everything worked out as
planned, they would make good on some of the other backlog orders as well. If not,
there would be hell to pay.
He was sure he could find another job if this blew up, but many others
would be hard put to find other employment. In a way, he was gambling with
everyone’s future. Bungee jumping seemed much more attractive.
Greg thought it best to stay out of the maintenance crew’s way, and he
wandered over to the training center, quietly slipping into the back of the
auditorium. Russ was clearly in his element. They had scripted a play to illustrate
the behaviors that were unacceptable, and had the class analyze what it
demonstrated in terms of group behavior. The discussion was noisy and
enthusiastic. It was clearly an issue of great interest.
He left the training center, taking a shortcut through the warehouse. High-
level storage racks towered above him, with automated equipment quietly moving
containers from bay to bay. Rows of boxes, already labeled with the AsiaComNet’s
delivery address, were stacked all the way to the darkened roof.
‘If they were to cancel this order, we will have a liquidation sale unmatched
in this industry’s history,’ he grimaced. Shuddering at the thought, he hurried
through the airlocks into the plant, looking for Al.

-oOo-

Components were strewn all around the deposition chamber. Cables, wiring
harnesses and pipes were hanging out of junction boxes, or simply sticking up in

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the air, the umbilical cut. Equipment jammed the walkways. Aluminum scaffolds
towered over the work area, and people crouched around the base of the
equipment. Greg could see a pair of feet sticking out from below the base of the
deposition chamber.
His blood froze. ‘Lord, don’t let anyone get hurt,’ he prayed, hurrying over.
“I’ve found the MVK 14 lead,” he heard the feet say. Relief drained the
tension from his shoulders. They were working under the chamber. “Well, there
should be another set of MKZ connectors going from the AR24 grid to the
transponders,” replied the person studying a blueprint taped to the side of the
structure. “Can you see them?”
The inspection light moved under the equipment, changing the long
shadows on the walls. Another crewmember grabbed the side of the structure,
rolled on his back and slid in under the belly of the chamber, pulling an air hose
and impact wrench along.
“Yup, I’ve got them.”
“Loosen them,” the plan-reader continued. The impact wrench whined. “We
can then move the entire logic controller out the way, and you can get to the
RX344T connection. Be careful of the bi-directional ArG lines.”
Greg had no idea what they were talking about. He shook his head, turned
away, and continued on his way to his office.
Al came walking towards him, a big grin on his face, holding both thumbs
up in the air. No mean feat, considering that he was squashing his mobile phone to
his ear with his shoulder. He stuck the phone in his pocket, still grinning.
“We’ve got the sputtering targets we need,” he shouted. “They’ll be here by
tomorrow morning. They chartered a plane just for this delivery.” The metal targets
were the last wild card. A weight lifted of Greg’s shoulders, and he jubilantly
slapped Al on the back.
“Now I can relax.”
Greg continued to his office.
Dennis was coordinating the arrival of parts freighted in overnight, and had
his hands full to check the incoming pieces against the orders. He was more
concerned with something not being there than being saddled with too much. Greg
called him on his mobile phone to share the good news.
Coffee in hand, he sat down behind his desk. He leaned back and looked at
the gap-tooth row of yellow notes on the whiteboard. He thought of the interaction
he had just witnessed at the PDC chamber. ‘PDC chamber’ he thought to himself.
‘I’m getting as bad as the rest of them, using three-letter acronyms for everything.’
Then he started laughing, tears running down his face, a tinge of hysteria from the
stress.
“What’s up? You’ve been sniffing glue again?” Dennis walked in, looking
nonplussed.
Greg wiped tears from his eyes. “No I’ve been trading my PCN’s for a new
set of FDA’s. They really beat the OIN’s by a mile.”
Dennis frowned. “If I had not known you better, I’d say you’ve lost your

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marbles. What the heck are you talking about?”
“You don’t know?” Greg leaned forward, wiping tears from his eyes. “Are
you at a disadvantage, not knowing what I mean with all the acronyms?”
“Most definitely. It is bad manners to speak in foreign tongues in the
presence of your friends,” Dennis admonished, upon which Greg dissolved in
another fit of laughter, slapping the table in mirth.
“Oh, so your VSF’s are now suffering from BMS,” he chortled.
“What are you talking about?” Dennis looked more upset, and suddenly
worried. “What did you drink this morning? Any medicines that may affect you?”
“No, no.” Greg tried to keep a straight face. “I wish you could see your
expression,” and promptly burst out laughing again.
“Stop it!” Dennis commanded. “You’re having a nervous breakdown.”
Greg managed to control his mirth, his eyes still merry with delight.
“Here goes then. PCN’s are preconceived notions. FDA’s are fundamentally
different assumptions. OIN’s are originally incorrect notions. VSF is for very
sensitive feelings, and BMS stands for badly mauled sensitivities.”
Dennis looked completely taken aback. “You’re a basket case!”
“I’ve discovered another tribal attribute.”
“What? Now?”
“Yes, I walked past the maintenance crew, and they were talking in a
language of acronyms that I didn’t understand. It’s just dawned on me that a strong
tribe has its own language. Just like tribes deep in the Amazon jungle develop their
own language without help from the civilized world, so do the tribes inside our
company. It is a way to reinforce their identity and membership. Those that don’t
understand the acronyms are not part of the tribe.”
Dennis dropped his papers on the conference table and sat down, intrigued
by the idea.
Greg picked up the yellow pad and wrote down his observation. He stuck it
next to the others on the whiteboard. It read:

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 “Wait, I’ve just thought of something,” Dennis exclaimed and rushed out of
the office. It was Greg’s turn to look puzzled. He came back a minute later,
carrying a copy of an in-flight magazine.
“There’s an article in here that I wanted to keep, but something else caught
my eye.” He flipped through the magazine, going forward and backward a couple
of times before he found the right place.
“There.” He smoothed the magazine flat on the table, and turned it around to
face Greg, who sat forward and peered at the page. It was an advertisement for a
set of self-teaching audiotapes. It read:

Learn to speak like a Harvard graduate

Greg burst out laughing again. “That’s exactly it! I’ve long suspected that
the Ivy League universities are tribes unto themselves. They allow only a few to
join at enormous cost, and their alumni form very strong tribes. They recognize the
academic untouchables by their vocabulary–or lack thereof.”
Greg tapped the advertisement. “It is a great example of how important the
tribal vocabulary is. Three-letter acronyms have always irritated me, but now I
understand why they proliferate. It is a way to define tribal membership. I fact,
rather than discourage their use, we should leverage it to define and reinforce the
identity of the larger MicroLogic tribe.”
Dennis was deep in thought again. “Remember I told you about a
pharmaceutical company where everyone wore white lab-coats?”
“Yep.”
“Well, three-letter acronyms were so insidious that the company had to
publish a dictionary to help people figure out what the acronyms meant.”
“You’re kidding me!” Greg was astounded.
“I kid you not. They ended up with a forty-page book on three-letter
acronyms.”
Greg roared with laughter. “A modern-day Rosetta stone, no less,” he
chuckled. “It means that we should do the same here. If we publish such a
document, it would help define the tribe.”
“It reminds me of the legal profession too. Very few ordinary people can
make head or tail of laws and regulations the way they are written. The tribal
language is too difficult. There is even a documented case where Wall Street
analysts quietly sneaked an expert in telecommunications into their offices to teach
them the language used in the telecommunications industry.(24) They had no idea
what the industry buffs were talking about in their own jargon.”
Greg looked up Fiona’s phone number and called her. He asked her to
research the acronyms used in the company. Dennis left to check new shipments.

-oOo-

By late afternoon, the production team assembled in the upstairs conference

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room. It had the feel of a war-room now. Greg fired questions like a drill sergeant.
There was a strong military operation-like feel, and no words were minced. The
deposition chamber was nearly open. The night shift would do the last of the
disassembly work and the huge steel cover, built to withstand immense pressure
pushing to implode the vacuum inside, would be lifted just after midnight. They
were in great shape to continue through the next day. He closed the meeting and
everyone went back to work.
‘Right now, this multi-million dollar facility is worth more as scrap metal,’
Greg thought grimly. A ghostly shudder whispered down his spine.

Walking down the factory aisle, Greg passed some people dressed in the
new corporate outfits. They looked trim and professional, and Greg could sense
their pride. He locked his office and walked out to his car.
Going out the front door, he looked down, sidestepping something on the
ground that looked like a piece of fresh gum. He failed to see a large, plump
woman carrying bags of hot dog rolls from a delivery van in the parking lot. They
collided head-on. Her breath rushed out in a whoosh as she toppled over
backwards, and sat down with a thump, scattering bags of rolls.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” Greg put down his briefcase and helped the woman to
her feet. He did not recognize her. He hastily gathered up the bags of rolls. Some
were so flat they would fit under his office door. He wistfully turned them over.
‘Wrong place at the wrong time,’ he thought, looking at the woman’s broad
stern.
She dusted herself off, and piled the bags back in her arms.
“No, harm done, sweetie,” she boomed. “Help me get the last of the bags up
here.” Greg hastily scooped up the remaining bags and piled them atop the others.
“Where are you heading?” he asked, thinking that he might help her carry
the bags.
“Over there.” She moved her head sideways. Greg looked in the same
direction and was astonished to see a large semi-trailer parked in the lot. He could
hear a generator running and light was flooding across the parking bays from the
open hatches in the side of the trailer.
“What is it?” he asked curiously.
“It’s a soup kitchen,” she replied.
“A soup kitchen?”
“Yup.”
“What for?”
He got a puzzled look in return. “For the maintenance crews, of course!”
“Whose idea is that?”
“Well, us wimmen got together and decided to do somethin’ to help the men
working through the night. We know how important this changeover is to
MicroLogic, so we thought we would help by feeding them hot soup and beverages
through the night.” The enormous bosom swelled defensively, tilting the stack of
rolls precariously over backwards as if to say ‘So there!’

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 Greg was speechless.
“Where did the trailer come from?”
“We borrowed it from the sports club.”
Greg shook his head in amazement, bid her farewell and headed for home.
The maintenance crew’s commitment seemed to have inspired their families as
well.
After dinner, he played with the children, went to bed early and slept a deep,
dreamless sleep for the first time in weeks.

On Saturday morning the parking lot was empty, with just the maintenance
crew’s vehicles still there. The soup kitchen was open, and Greg walked over.
“Hi there! Want some coffee?” the middle-aged brunette behind the counter
held out a steaming styrene cup.
“Thank you ma’am.” Greg added sugar and cream.
“They’re sure working mighty hard in there,” she commented.
“Have you been here all night?”
“Yep, we’ve sent the kids over to their grandparents for the night.”
“Thank you very much for volunteering. I’m sure the maintenance guys
really appreciate your efforts. ”
“It’s a pleasure. At least, I can keep an eye on my husband, knowing where
he is nights’n all.”
Greg grinned to himself, walking to his office. He was still amazed at the
spontaneity of their contribution to the effort.

The plant was eerily quiet. Nobody was working the weekend. Russ had
some classes going over in the training center. His footsteps echoed off the distant
walls as he walked through the cavernous building. Anxious to see how they were
progressing on the deposition chamber, he hurried his pace. The echoes followed.
The cover was off, neatly stored on stainless steel stands. Some people were
inspecting the inside for damage, while others were still working under the base,
unscrewing yet more pieces.
“Hi guys, how are we doing?” he greeted. Nobody bothered to respond. One
of the maintenance people climbed out from under the structure, acknowledged the
greeting, and brought Greg up to date on the night’s developments. They were still
on track. Al had gone home, having worked through the night.
Greg felt helpless. Here they were in the middle of the riskiest thing he had
ever done, and there was nothing for him to do. He wandered back to the parking
lot, got in his car and went home.

Late that afternoon, he returned. Some lackluster shopping with Christine

failed to dampen the itch to get back. His mind remained pre-occupied with events
at the plant. Christine let him go, frustrated with his absent-minded, monosyllable
answers to her efforts at conversation.
Al was back, having slept most of the day. “What’s the status?” Greg asked.

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 “We’re doing well so far. We are close to removing the old metal targets.
We should have the new ones in place by midnight. We’ll do all the pre-testing
during the early hours of the morning. If all goes well, we’ll start closing up by
early Sunday morning.”
‘”What can I do to help?”
“Stay as far away from us as possible,” came the direct, laconic answer.
Greg grinned in appreciation of the honesty.
“When will we start testing?”
“I expect to start by early tomorrow evening.”
Greg had no choice but to leave. He wandered back to his office, feeling
lost.
“I haven’t spoken to Butch for a while,” he suddenly remembered. Hurrying
back, he unlocked his office and called his home number.
“Johnson.” Classical music sounded in the background–Lizt’s Hungarian
Rhapsody.
“Hi Butch, It’s Greg. Am I interrupting something?”
“No, not at all. I am busy cleaning my hunting rifles.”
“Oh?”
“I am going big-game hunting in Africa in two weeks.” Greg thought of the
magnificent lion’s head trophy in Butch’s office.
“I have some ideas I want to run by you.”
“Go ahead. I am putting you on speakerphone so I can continue working
while you talk.”
A click and Butch sounded hollow as he said: “Please go ahead.”
“Firstly, I started paying attention to the way we communicate. Boy–was I
surprised how obvious the tribal communication is once you look for it. I changed
my style and the benefit was immediately noticeable.”
The swish of a cleaning rod against steel was the only answer.
“I discovered something else. Tribes develop their own language. It helps
define their identity.”
The swishing stopped. “Very good.” Butch sounded faintly surprised. “And
how are you going to use this knowledge?”
“I am drawing up a dictionary of MicroLogic-speak.”
Butch chuckled dryly. “Don’t be surprised if you find more than one
language. There will be at least an accounting version, a sales version and a
production version.”
“I came across the maintenance version yesterday.”
“How will you use this insight to increase motivation?’
“Well, if I know the language, I can use it in a way that will acknowledge
the identity of the tribe.”
“And thereby compound your problem.”
“Huh?”
“At this point, you are beginning to understand what motivates behavior.
You’ve experienced the impact just a small change made to the way people

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behaved. By acknowledging the different tribal dialects, you reinforce the
division–something you are trying to eliminate.”
“I see your point.” Greg felt like a schoolboy. Damn his eyes. “Are you
saying that I should create a new language?”
“Certainly. The language of the new super-ordinate tribe you want to
establish. One of the things the British Empire did well was to educate people in
the Colonies. In India it worked so well that to this day, the ability to speak upper
class English is a sign of breeding and good education.”
“The language became the symbol of the super-ordinate tribe.”
“Exactly.”
Greg was silent. He heard the metallic snick of a well-oiled rifle bolt
closing.
“I’ll have to create a new, common tribal language.”
“Yes. It is easier than you think–particularly if the new tribe is a desirable
one.”
Greg nodded to himself, scribbling notes on his desk calendar.
“Something else happened here that I find fascinating.” He recounted the
details of the changeover, how everyone pitched in to help, how even the wives
spontaneously organized the all-night soup kitchen.
Silence followed, interrupted again by the metallic rattle of a cleaning rod
sliding down a gun barrel.
Greg waited patiently.
“Hmm, interesting,” was the brief reply. “When the changeover is
completed on Monday morning, I want you to carefully observe how people
behave. Phone me on Monday night. Now let’s go back to the soup-kitchen
incident.”
“What about it?”
“Why did they do it?”
“They felt it necessary to contribute.”
“Why?”
Greg was silent. Damn his eyes again!
“Because, in their own way, they are part of our company.”
“Indeed. If their husbands don’t earn, their children go hungry. A very
compelling reason to make sure the company stays healthy.”
“I’ve never thought of that.”
“Why did they concentrate on food, rather clothing or music?”
“Music?”
“Or something similar.”
“That’s easy. The men get hungry you know.” Greg couldn’t resist the tinge
of sarcasm.
“Agreed, but still not the real reason. Let me tell you an interesting story.
In the early 1990’s, at the height of the South African civil war between the
white government and the black resistance movement, skirmishes between the
military and the freedom fighters were daily events. The military were amazed at

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the utter fearlessness of the black freedom fighters. There were instances where
they would walk into withering gunfire without stopping. In spite of their comrades
being shot all around them, they still continued.
Eventually, the military found out that witchdoctors were preparing a muti,
or magic brew. The fighters would smear it on the bodies, reassured by the
witchdoctor that it would render the bearer impervious to bullets. Those that died
had simply failed to apply the muti on correctly.”
“That’s absurd! The only thing that works is a Kevlar-reinforced bullet-
proof vest.”
“Agreed, but that is not the point. The witchdoctor told them it would work,
and that was sufficient.”
“Amazing.”
“The same thing happened in India in the mid 1800’s. In skirmished with
the British military, rebels were convinced that bullets would not hurt them.”
“Go think about that, as well as the soup-kitchen incident. There are twelve
tribal attributes you still need to identify, and you’ve yet to discover the most
important one of all.”
Butch rang off.
Greg finished scribbling his notes, sat back and reflected on the
conversation. What was the commonality between the soup kitchen in the parking
lot and the African witchdoctor that sent people to their death with wrong advice?
Greg was truly at a loss. The only thing he could think of was that both were doing
something for their respective groups. One provided food and the other provided
suicidal magic. In both cases their support was accepted. One group got fatter, and
the other got killed.
Greg paced the room.
“They both played acceptable tribal roles!” he exclaimed out loud.
‘That’s it! There are certain roles that must be fulfilled within a tribe for it to
function effectively.’ he though.
Greg clasped his hands behind his back, head down, deep in thought.
‘The way that organizational roles are currently defined bears no
relationship to the socio-organizational needs of people. People are forced to find
ways to satisfy their social needs in spite of the functional structure management
tries to maintain, which frequently puts the two in conflict with one another.’
Greg punched his fist in his hand.
‘The mismatch between the traditional functional structures and the tribal
role requirements are glaringly obvious. Butch had configured his organization in a
way that satisfied both the functional requirements and the socio-organizational
requirements,’ he observed.
Greg picked up the yellow pad, wrote down his latest observation, walked
over to the whiteboard, and stuck the yellow square next to the others. It read:

192
 Greg stared at it for a long time, trying to make sense of this new insight.
‘In an effort to deal with the tribal dynamic, companies are prone to play
musical chairs with the corporate hierarchy, creating impressive-sounding jobs and
phony titles,’ he thought.
He continued pacing, his head bowed.
‘How did the primitive tribes function?’ he mused. ‘The most fundamental
task was searching for food. The second was looking after the family, the third was
planting and harvesting…’ He grabbed a whiteboard marker, cleaned part of the
board, and drew two columns. He had to smile at some of the comparisons.

“With such a clear similarity, it is no wonder corporate in-fighting is the

number one pastime in most companies. The same tribal roles are replicated many

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times over!” he said out loud, surprising himself.
‘There are dozens of tribes, each one with the same role requirements. Take
for example the friction between production and sales. Sales are the hunters who
close the deals, while manufacturing represent the farmers who produce the crop
on our equipment–two roles in the same tribe. When they act as two separate tribes
though, the roles get duplicated. The Vice President of Operations may act as
hunter for the production tribe, pitted in battle against the Vice President of Sales
as hunter of the sales tribe.’
‘What do I want my company super-tribe to do?’ he asked himself. ‘Produce
as much as possible using the least resources is the simple answer,’ he concluded.
‘I should structure the business accordingly. One facet must ensure the rapid flow
of products and resources–the hunters and farmers and another facet must provide
the infrastructure–the caregivers and herders.’
Suddenly, a snippet of conversation in Butch’s office sprang to mind. “…to
check with Yuri, the Chief Flow Officer,” the words echoed.
Greg went back to the whiteboard, erased the table and drew a different
one.

The structure seemed much more logical from a larger tribal perspective.
The Chief Flow Officer would be responsible for maximizing the flow of raw

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materials, work-in-progress, finished goods and cash through the system. The
Chief Resource Officer would be responsible for providing the infrastructure and
materials to make the flow possible.
‘This way, the corporate balance of power is held at the top of the
organization and not in small fiefdoms or tribes, otherwise known as functional
silos. It would be much simpler to manage the performance of the organization.
The Chief Flow Officer is held accountable for the rate of flow of cash and goods,
while the Chief Resource Officer is held accountable for the availability of
resources.’ Greg mused.
He looked at his watch in surprise. He had been so engrossed in this new
train of thought that an hour had slipped by without him noticing. His first impulse
was to rush down to the plant, but Al’s request that he should rather stay away,
stopped him. He went home instead.

-oOo-

Sunday morning saw him in church with the family. He fidgeted restlessly,
his mind preoccupied with the events at the plant. A thousand things that might go
wrong before tomorrow crowded his thoughts, and he dreaded the idea that
Murphy’s Law might rear its ugly head.
The sermon droned on.
The pastor was in his element, enthusiastically berating the sinners,
lambasting the glum-looking congregation with the wages of sin. “…will be cast in
the lake of fire!” he thundered, leaning over the pulpit, wagging a fat finger at the
apprehensive congregation.
‘This is another tribe!’
The unexpected thought made Greg sit up straight. All the attributes were
there. They have a common enemy in sin and Satan; they have tribal symbols in
pulpits, churches and the cross. It offered a super-ordinate tribal membership to
everyone, irrespective of social standing. It has a just cause in living a pure life and
enjoying eternal repose in heaven. It has rites of passage in baptism, confirmation,
and burial. It has external measures of success in good works. It has a source of
power in God. It knows the untouchables–the non-believers.
Membership criteria were well known: faith in God and not upsetting the
church elders. Tribal communication happened through sermons, prayer and the
church bulletin. Tribal language was contained in scripture. Tribal roles were
codified in pastors, elders, missionaries and evangelists. Tribal dress was
everyone’s Sunday best. Membership was acknowledged by calling each other
brother and sister.
‘Butch is right. Tribal behavior is everywhere!’ he smiled, looking at the
faces around him. ‘People also derive value from their church tribal membership,’
Greg thought. ‘I suppose it provides IS+ and IV+ for most of us.’
The new insight pushed the plant to the back of his mind. ‘I wonder what
else I can learn from this tribe that might apply to my plant.’

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 Throughout the rest of the sermon, he carefully studied the environment,
activity and interaction between people, making mental notes of each new insight.
The family drove home in silence.

-oOo-

After lunch and a restless afternoon nap, Greg hurried back to the plant. The
tension of not knowing how work was progressing was unbearable.
The mobile canteen was in full swing, flooding warm light and delicious
aromas over the near-empty parking lot. Cars were clustered around the canteen.
Greg hurried through the plant, anxious to get to the worksite. The
floodlights cast angular shadows of the scaffolding and rigging against the roof. Al
was standing with his back to him, holding one side of a blueprint, deep in
conversation with two people. “Oh, hi Greg,” he said, spotting movement out of
the corner of his eye. Al looked drawn and tired, blue circles under his eyes.
“How are we doing?”
“Right now, we are replacing the vacuum dome. Thereafter we’ll complete
the system hookups which should allow us to start testing just after midnight.”
“Great! What can I do to help?”
“Nothing right now, but hang around. We may need your help later.”
Greg stood back, appreciating the immense amount of work that had been
done in such a short time.
“Can’t stay away, can you?”
Greg swung around, recognizing Dennis’s voice. “Neither can you, it
seems!” he retorted. Dennis grinned, shrugging his shoulders. “I love a challenge
like this. So shoot me for not being able to keep my nose out of it.”
Greg chuckled in appreciation.
“Will we be up and running by first shift tomorrow?”
“The way things are going now, we should make it.”
They stood in companionable silence for a while, watching the maintenance
crew at work. “Let’s go have a cup of coffee.” Greg suggested, nodding his head in
the direction of the parking lot.
“Good idea!” They headed for the trailer, going around the back of the plant.
The same woman who had flattened the bread rolls at their first meeting was
behind the counter. She cheerfully greeted Greg, her large bosom resting on hefty
forearms on the counter, a toothpick in the corner of her mouth.
“How are they doing in there?” she asked, pointing the toothpick in the
direction of the plant.
“On schedule it seems. All due to the great support you are providing.”
“Aw, go on,” she laughed, turning pink with pride at the acknowledgement,
IV+ increasing. “What’ll you have?”
They ordered coffee, and got it strong and black.
“Let’s go to my office for a minute,” Greg suggested to Dennis.
Sitting at the conference table, Dennis looked with interest at the diagrams

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on the whiteboard. “You’ve been thinking!” he quipped.
Greg nodded, recounting the last conversation with Butch, his newfound
insight into the fundamental tribal roles and how they differ from traditional
functional structures. Dennis listened with keen interest, amusement crinkling the
corners of his eyes.
“What’s so funny?” Greg asked.
“I am thinking of some companies I’ve been in. In many cases, people were
titled as either a vice president or a manager of some sort, even though nobody
reported to him or her. I could never understand why, but now it makes sense. It is
a way to increase IV+ for the incumbent without upsetting the functioning of the
organization. It’s really confusing, talking to the vice-president of something, only
to find out that he has no executive authority.”
Greg nodded in appreciation.
“That’s why I want to restructure this organization according to the flow and
resource model.”
Dennis arched his eyebrows. “You’re kidding!”
“No. Not at all.” Greg cleared the board and drew a new organizational
chart, neatly slotting each of the existing functions under the Chief Flow Officer
and the Chief Resource Officer.
Dennis whistled in admiration. “That makes much more sense. Even the
mid-management roles can be better defined, like manager-capital resources,
manager-material resources, and manager-people resources. On the other side
would be manager-material flow, manager-cash flow, manager-finished goods
flow, and manager-order flow.”
Greg nodded. “We’ll have to experiment a bit, but I think we would get a
much more effective alignment between the natural tribal requirements and the
functional organizational requirements this way.”

For the next two hours, they argued back and forth, slowly crystallizing the
new structure. They linked names to the new posts and found some gaps where
existing skills did not fit the requirements.
“We’ll have to go find these people,” Dennis said with finality. Greg nodded
in agreement. He looked at his watch. “Let’s go see how the reassembly is going.”
They discussed the new organizational structure all the way to the worksite.

Even though it was past ten p.m., the work was moving along briskly. Al
was peering over the shoulder of the programmer resetting the logic controllers. A
laptop computer–balanced on his knees–was hooked up to a jumble of thin,
brightly colored wires hanging out of a control panel. His fingers flew over the
keyboard. Others were disassembling the scaffolding and clearing away the heavier
pieces of equipment.
The last connections were in place at twenty minutes after midnight. Al led
the physical inspection process, checking on every nut, bolt and fitting with great
care. Left to its own devices, the laws of Nature would exploit their smallest

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mechanical oversight. By one a.m. Al gave the thumbs-up.

-oOo-

Greg and Dennis hurried to the control room to oversee the startup process.
The third-shift engineer was languishing in the control chair, his feet stretched out
under the counter, reading a lurid paperback novel. He sat up when Greg and
Dennis entered, dog-earing the page before closing the book.
“Seems like we are ready to start testing,” Dennis said, standing behind the
chair. The engineer picked up a handheld radio transmitter and called Al. They
spoke for a few minutes, and the engineer started pushing buttons on the control
panel while studying the computer displays. Dennis followed every action with
keen interest, his eyes glued to the computer screens.
The equipment layout was diagrammed across six computer screens with
every pipe, circuit, switch and valve shown. As each section came on stream, the
display went from red to green. Other screens showed power levels, gas pressure,
air pressure, air filtration, gas flow rates, liquid flow rates and dozens of other data
items.
Dennis and the engineer carefully followed the changing display. Al was
down on the floor, watching the equipment for signs of disaster while the lead
operator relayed every action to the control room. The startup process was
agonizingly slow, with every step carefully checked before the next switch was
thrown.
Some of the substances they used, like hydrofluoric acid, were extremely
hazardous–capable of eating through skin and bone in seconds–dissolving flesh as
it went. Greg shuddered, thinking of the gruesome accidents he had seen on the
safety training videos. That made the slow, careful startup so much more critical.
By two a.m. all of the supporting systems had been activated. The physical
deposition process itself was the last stage to go. The process had been primed with
wafers, ready to start. Greg looked at the automated handling equipment on the
video display. Airtight containers, roughly the size of two shoeboxes, carried the
silicon wafers.
‘If we mess this up…’ the thought intruded on Greg’s concentration. He
shook his head, clearing his mind to focus on the video screen. The robot arms
came to life, opening the container, grasping the paper-thin wafers and placing
them into holders with incredible precision. All this happened in the isolated clean
air section feeding into the deposition chamber.
Suddenly, a section of the display flashed bright orange, pulsing on and off.
The engineer uttered an oath and rapidly typed a command on the keyboard. The
display did not change–it still flashed orange. He punched more buttons. The robot
stopped in mid-air. He grabbed the radio transmitter.
“Al, we have condition orange at the in-feed to the chamber. I’ve isolated
the robot. I’ll run some diagnostics. Please stand by.”
He threw down the transmitter and rapidly typed new instructions. Dennis

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leaned forward, his mouth drawn tight, eyes narrowed, watching the computer
screen.
Condition orange indicated an operational fault, not physically dangerous
yet, which would show red, but still a real problem.
Greg looked at his watch. It was 3:30 a.m. Less than three hours remained
before the first shift came on. He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly very dry.
The knot in his stomach was back.
“Al, we have to do a physical inspection and repair. The linear transfer
activators are not responding. Data here indicates the second-stage sensors are out
of action.”
“I’ll get in there right away.” The metallic distortion over the radio did not
mask the stress in his voice. The operator switched video cameras, and they could
see Al and two of his crew hurrying down the catwalk. Greg took a deep breath,
holding it a moment, and slowly exhaling through his teeth. This was his nightmare
come true.
“Any idea how long it will take?” His voice remained studiously casual.
Dennis looked around grimly. “No idea. Not until Al gets to see the
problem.” They stood in silence, only the hum of computer cooling fans audible.
It felt like eternity before Al’s voice crackled over the transmitter.
“We found it.”
“What’s up?”
“The logic controller is not responding. We’ll have to disassemble the
board, and fit a new one.”
“How long?”
“About an hour.”
“An hour?!”
“Yup. We have to disassemble some of the structure again to reach the
control box.”
Greg paced up and down the room, the knot in his midriff more pronounced.
A number of other, yet untested steps still had to be performed after the logic
controller had been repaired. There was not much room for further error. Time
crawled by with agonizing slowness. Greg had to fight the urge to scurry down and
see what Al was doing. The engineer was absently chewing his nails, watching the
foreshortened Al on the video monitor.
Dennis left to go to the bathroom.

“OK, let’s try again,” Al’s voice crackled over the transmitter. On the video
screen, Greg could see them packing away tools and screwing down the inspection
covers. Less than two hours remained.
The engineer sat forward. “We are resuming test procedure at inbound
transfer activation phase.” They stared at the robot, its bright yellow arm
motionlessly suspended in mid-air. Slowly, smoothly, it resumed its movement.
The camera panned down. They stared at the transfer carriage, willing it to move.
It did.

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 The computer display showed green.
“Attaboy, Al!” Greg cheered.
“All systems functioning,” the engineer reported, holding the transmitter in
one hand while typing with the other.
“Great,” came Al’s laconic response.
‘He’s been on his feet for forty eight hours,’ Greg calculated, admiring Al’s
outward calm.
“Proceeding with next section startup,” the engineer continued, deftly
throwing switches. The computer displays flashed green at every step.
The entire system was active.
No warnings.
Greg breathed out slowly.
“Running stable at standard output levels,” the engineer reported. “Now let’s
see what happens if we ratchet this puppy up to the new, higher velocity.”
Slowly, notch-by-notch, he increased the transfer speed. Everything held.
No alarms to break their winning streak. Greg stretched his shoulders, working the
tension out of his shoulder muscles.
“Looking good,” the engineer reported to Al over the radio transmitter.
A telephone to the right of the operator rang shrilly. Everyone jumped at the
sudden intrusion.
“Yes?”
‘He’s not a man of many words. Al must have appointed him,’ Greg
thought.
The engineer swung round, receiver to his ear, and frantically hit some red
buttons. The robot froze in mid-air again. Greg felt the blood drain from his face.
“What now?”
The operator irritably waved for silence, listening intently. He put the
receiver down, and rubbed his eyes. “We are not getting the deposition rates we
need at the higher speeds. Quality Assurance is checking every wafer coming out
of the deposition chamber. At the original velocity, we are doing fine. At the
higher velocity, the metal deposition is irregular.” Greg looked at Dennis. He
looked gray around the jowls.
Accelerated metal deposition was at the core of their strategy, and it wasn’t
working. Dennis grabbed the transmitter, keyed the mike. When Al responded,
Dennis recounted the facts. “I’ll meet you on the floor,” he ended.
Greg and Dennis took the steel steps three at a time, sliding down the worn
mirror-bright stair rails. Al was leaning against the vacuum chamber looking drawn
and haggard, the cheekbones white. Ninety minutes remaining.
“What’s happening?” Al asked.
“Dunno.” Dennis’s words were abrupt. People, who had come in early for
the first shift, strolled by.
“Only one person can help us now.” Dennis punched keys on his cell phone.
He held it to his ear, pacing up and down the walkway.
“Good evening Professor Kisoyaki. I apologize for interrupting your dinner,

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but we need your help rather urgently.”
Dennis explained the problem, then listened. He gestured for a piece of
paper and a pen. Greg fished a receipt out of his shirt pocket, flattened it and gave
it to Dennis with his pen.
He scribbled furiously. Al was standing next to him, reading his writing.
“Yes, that makes sense Professor. Would you mind staying on the line while
we check this? Thank you.” Dennis turned to Al and explained the diagram.
“The potential difference is unstable. He suggests we check the voltage
supply at the transformers. We need an oscilloscope fast.” Dennis jogged to the
enclosure that housed the step-up transformer. Al called for an oscilloscope from
maintenance. Dennis continued talking to the professor.
Ten minutes later, the equipment was being hooked up.
Less than an hour left.
The amber sine curve sprang to life as soon as the last connection had been
made.
Dennis squatted down, relaying the observation over the phone.
“Yes, yes, I understand,” he responded, tracing the curve with his finger.
“Open the box,” he pointed to Al.
Al locked out the power and unscrewed the cover panels. Dennis peered into
the enclosure. “Yes, I can see it,” he continued his conversation. “There is an
adjustment, yes.” Dennis listened intently, blocking his other ear.
“Right, please hold on.” He gave the phone to Greg, hooked up the
oscilloscope in a different location.
With a screwdriver, he gingerly adjusted the settings on the frequency
changer and gestured to Al to restore power. The amber curve changed. He relayed
the new data. Again and again, he adjusted the settings, carefully watching the
amber curve change.
Greg looked at his watch. Forty five minutes remaining.
Dennis stood back, grinning, giving a thumbs-up. He thanked the professor
for his help, again apologized profusely for interrupting his evening, and snapped
the cell phone shut. Al and his crew hastily put the cover panels back. Greg and
Dennis raced to the control room. They were breathing hard, hearts hammering
from bounding up the stairs, taking up position behind the engineer.
The transmitter crackled. “Ready when you are.” Al’s voice sounded tinny
and strained. The engineer called Quality Assurance. Greg heard Maggie answer.
“We’re ramping up again. Are you ready?”
“Always sweetie, always,” came the tart reply.
Greg grinned to himself, watching the robot swing into action again. The
power indicators shot past the previous limits, heading for the new levels.
Twenty five minutes remaining.
All systems flashed green.
Looking at the phone, willing it not to ring.
Quality assurance tests took at least fifteen minutes, waiting for the electron-
microscope photographs. Ten minutes to go.

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 On the surveillance monitor, Greg could see the first shift staff moving to
their workstations, a knot of people talking animatedly at the common enemy and
just cause displays boards.
The phone rang. All eyes riveted on the engineer, who had his back to Greg
and Dennis.
Time stood still as he listened.
He raised a clenched fist in the age-old, visceral sign of victory.
The weight rolled off Greg’s shoulders. Dennis whooped and gave a high-
five, grinning from ear to ear. The system was running steady at the higher output
levels. The robot continued to move through its loading cycle with flawless
precision.
Greg scanned the displays again. No problem anywhere.
Faintly, through the insulated walls, he heard the siren for the start of the
first shift.

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 Chapter Fourteen
The euphoria of success was intoxicating. The entire maintenance crew had
gathered in the lunchroom. Many of them had not slept for the last two days, but
that did not keep them from celebrating. They had taken a huge gamble, and
succeeded brilliantly. Excited laughter and backslapping filled the room. Even Al
was grinning from ear to ear. Greg stood on a table and quieted the crowd. The
noise slowly subsided.
“I salute you all for an extraordinary achievement,” he began.
Up goes the IV+.
“With the increased capacity, the AsiaComNet order is secure and, with that,
our reputation as the best plant in the company.”
Up goes the TV+.
A rousing cheer silenced him. He raised his hand, and continued. “In
addition to your overtime bonus, we are adding two days to everyone’s leave.” A
roar of appreciation silenced him again.
“And finally, we are footing the bill for every one of you to take your family
to dinner.” The noise and whistling was deafening.
More TV+.
“Al will assign a skeleton crew for the next two days while you catch up on
your sleep. Normal work schedules will resume on Thursday.” He jumped down
from the table amid more cheering and clapping.
The room emptied out, tired but elated.

Greg walked out to the parking lot. The soup kitchen was shuttered, cables
disconnected and hooked up to a truck. Greg hurried over. The big woman was
loading boxes on the back of the truck. “Excuse me. Before you go I would like to
thank you for the incredible support you and your team had given us.”
She smiled widely in appreciation. “No problem, dearie.”
“Could you let me have the names of everyone that had helped? I would like
to personally thank them.”
“Certainly. Right now, we’ve got to get the trailer out of here, but I’ll see to
it that you get their names.”
“Thank you. One last favor, if you would.” Greg took a digital camera out of
his pocket. “Would you pose in front of the trailer please?”
“Oh my!” Sucking in her tummy and pushing out her ample bosom, she
posed with a wide smile.
Greg took four pictures, thanked her profusely and watched her and the
trailer leave.

-oOo-

Back in his office, armed with a steaming cup of coffee, the fatigue

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suddenly caught up with him. His eyes were gritty and his concentration dulled.
Even so, he had to know how they were doing. Reaching over, he pressed the lab
extension on the phone. Maggie answered.
“Hi Maggie. Were you up all night as well?”
“Darn right I was. Couldn’t leave something this important to chance.”
“How are we doing?”
“Very well. Quality parameters are well within range, and the plant is slowly
picking up speed. I guess by Wednesday we will be comfortable with the new
output rates.”
“Great! Thank you for your commitment, Maggie.” Up goes IV+.
“Yeah, well, you were here too. That means a lot to us folks.”
Greg grinned and rang off. His spirits were still high, adrenaline still burning
off. He called Dennis.
“I’ll stay on till the second shift starts. You go home and catch some sleep.”
“Great idea. See you at two.” Dennis replied, sounding relieved. Greg
looked at the organization chart on the white board. ‘Butch asked me to call him
when we were done,’ he remembered. The familiar bright voice answered at Cape
Industries. Butch was in, and picked up the phone.
“Hi Butch. We did it. The plant is running at higher output rates and our
AsiaComNet problem seems to be under control.”
“Congratulations. I figured you were taking a pretty big risk there.”
“True.” Greg moved uncomfortably in his chair. “But it paid off.”
“Well done. Now tell me how people behaved.”
“The entire team worked through the night. Nobody goofed off. They were
like children when the plant came on stream–euphoric, excited, and flushed with
victory.”
“Good. That is exactly what I anticipated.”
Greg was taken aback, his mind racing.
“Why is this so important?”
“It seems unimportant now, but very much so in the future.”
“Huh?”
“Let me ask you a question. In ancient times, before writing was invented,
how did people keep record of history?”
He thought for a minute.
“By word of mouth I suppose.”
“Correct. Definitive events in the tribe’s past were handed down from
generation to generation in the form of folk tales. Stories of heroism and tribulation
alike remained alive in this way. In fact, many illiterate tribes in South America
and Africa still do so today. And through such verbal record keeping, the identity
of the tribe is crystallized and reinforced, proving to young and old that the tribe
has a rich and meaningful past and worthwhile defending.
Here is a modern-day example of the same phenomenon. Nightime Pediatric
Clinics Inc. specializes in after-hours medical care for children. The company grew
very quickly. However, the CEO was concerned that the rapid growth would cause

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them to lose touch with the values that made them so successful. She intuitively
realized that a corporate mission statement couldn’t serve that purpose. Instead, she
asked employees to recount their experiences in the company. Rather than talking
about the business issues, they recounted the deeply human things people did. One
story, in particular, touched her deeply.
One night, a child arrived at a clinic, complaining of irritation in one ear.
The doctor on duty peered into the tiny aural canal and, to his surprise, found a live
ant. The normal procedure would be to simply flush the offending object out, but
that would have destroyed the ant in the process. Instead, he lured the tiny insect
from the child’s ear with a bit of cake frosting and–once out–carefully transported
and released the ant outside in the grass.
The story perfectly illustrated Nightime’s just cause of caring for small
living things. The company published such value-driven stories in a book that now
serves as a training manual for employees, illustrating the corporate values and
traditions through living examples.(25)

Nations, which are simply large tribes, do the same thing. They even declare
holidays to commemorate significant events in the history of the tribe. Think of
Bastille Day in France, Independence Day in the USA and Battle of the Boyne Day
in Ireland. The latter marks one of the great confrontations between the Catholic
and Protestant religious tribes, and demonstrates how tribal membership drives
individual behavior.(26) To this day, the endemic civil unrest in Ireland has its roots
in an event which took place nearly 400 years ago.”
“So?”
“If people are still prepared to die for something that happened so long ago,
it must be a powerful motivator that satisfies a deep human need.”
“That makes sense.”
“Good. Now you go figure out the tribal attribute that drives this behavior.”
With that, Butch rang off.
Greg sat back, frowning, the events of the last few days running through his
mind. The maintenance crews had worked incredibly hard, getting the plant to run
at the higher production rates. His line of reasoning ended there.
Thoroughly at a loss, Greg opened the Internet browser and searched for
references to the Battle of Boyne. Skimming through the web pages he found a
succinct account of the battle.(36)

It started with claims to the English throne by both James II and William III.
James was a Catholic and William was a Protestant. The southern Irish, largely
Catholic, supported James, while the northern Irish, mostly Protestant, supported
William. On July 1st, 1690, William, who was personally leading his army,
managed to trick James in sending his army after a decoy move by General
Schomberg. The main body of William’s soldiers then attacked James’s army.
In a matter of hours it was clear that the Williamites would win, and James

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beat a ragged, hasty retreated to Dublin. That left the throne of England– and with
it the control of Ireland–in William’s hands.
The repercussions from this victory were felt across Europe and still lives on
in Ireland to this day. Every year, on July 12, thousands of ‘Orangemen’–so called
because they commemorate William of Orange–march in celebration of the victory
at the Battle of Boyne.
‘And every year the Catholics object,’ Greg thought grimly, turning his
attention back to Butch’s parting comment.
‘Historic events define the identity and value of the tribe, and strong tribes
go to great pains to record and honor such events. Living out the tribal values
embodied in such historic events reinforces IV+ and TV+. Tribes do not honor and
celebrate failure,’ he thought.
Greg jumped to his feet, pacing up and down.
‘Significant events serve to crystallize and strengthen the identity and value
of the tribe, and I must do the same here at MicroLogic. That’s what Butch was
alluding to.’ He found the battered yellow pad, wrote down his new insight and
stuck it up on the whiteboard. The line of yellow squares was getting longer. It
read:

“I’ll call them war-stories,’ Greg decided. ‘The plant upgrade we’ve done
over the past few days is a great example of such a corporate war story. Something
I can use to record, celebrate and honor the success of MicroLogic. In doing so, I’ll
reinforce the important values which in turn create and sustain strong TV+.’
Greg smiled in recollection. ‘The compressor blowout, the standby
generator startup and now the deposition chamber upgrade are all significant
events. We should commemorate the successes they represent, irrespective of their
business significance.’
He picked up the phone and called Mike Holden.
“Mike speaking.” The gruff, belligerent voice barked at him.
“Mike, can you meet me in five minutes?”
“Sure.”

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 Greg fetched another cup of coffee, poured one for Mike, and walked back
to his office deep in thought. Mike came down the passage as he turned the corner
to his office. They sat down, and Greg pushed the coffee across the table.
“Thank you for meeting at such short notice.”
Mike nodded in acknowledgement.
“How are we doing with the new production rates?”
Mike’s barrel chest swelled visibly.
“We’re doing really well. I have never seen the plant run at these output
rates before. Our quality is consistent and people are really enthusiastic. It’s
amazing.” Greg smiled inwardly, enjoying the look of pride on Mike’s face.
“I agree. We seem to be doing things right.” Greg observed drily.
“Bet your boots, we are.”
Turning to the business at hand, Greg changed the subject. “Mike, you have
been with Intec the longest of all of us.” Mike nodded, arms crossed in his
customary posture, moustache thrust out. “I bet you have dozens of stories you can
tell of memorable experiences in Intec’s history.” Mike nodded in agreement. “I’ve
been in most of our plants, seen managers come and go, seen us build the best
plants in the world.” he replied.
“What about people?”
Mike smiled, his eyes lighting up. “Boy, have we had some characters
working for us! I recall one salesman, Alfred his name was, who had an affair with
the national sales manager of our biggest competitor. Active market research is
what he called it.”
“Well, that’s interesting, but not quite what I had in mind,” Greg interrupted
hastily. “Our company has achieved dozens of incredible successes, which we
largely ignore because we simply consider them part of our daily quest for success.
It is something we should rather celebrate.”
Mike looked at him, curiosity in his eyes.
“I want you to write down the significant achievements in Intec’s history.
The great and small things that reflect our strengths and values–events that helped
make us what we are today. When done, you and I will present a storytelling
session to our staff every quarter.”
Mike sat forward, his interest piqued.
“That’s a great idea! This company is so impersonal, so focused on the
bottom line that it ignores the people that make it all happen. It will be an honor to
help preserve our history.”

For the next hour, they discussed the content, structure, moral values and
ethics Greg wanted the stories to reflect. Mike left with a new light of excitement
in his eyes. Seconds later he returned, sticking his head around the doorjamb.
“Something just came to mind. When new hires join us, they go through an
orientation session. The orientation session deals exclusively with business issues
and not with us as a company. We leave it up to the individual to infer the
company’s values and measures of acceptable behavior. Their only frame of

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reference is guidance from others within the company. The scary thing is that we
don’t care how they interpret that information.”
Greg nodded in agreement, pleased with the insight. “Exactly. By formally
defining and structuring the war stories, we’ll ensure that people have a consistent
understanding of our values.”
Mike disappeared down the corridor, deep in thought.

The lack of sleep finally caught up with Greg. He has been on his feet for
thirty-one hours. Only twenty minutes to go before two o’clock and nearly time to
go sleep, sleep, sleep. Still, there was something urgent to do before he could relax.
He called Ron Jensen, the production planner, in his office.
“Do you have the latest production forecasts ready for tomorrow’s
production meeting?” Greg asked. “I’m anxious to see the status of AsiaComNet
first thing in the morning.”
He listened to the reply.
“Great. Yes, base your calculations on the higher production rates.”
After locking his office and, on the way out, he asked the receptionist to find
out what gifts of thanks are appropriate to give to a Japanese academic.
Dennis’ car entered the parking lot as he left for home and bed.

-oOo-

“Daddy, are you still alive?” A small finger poked him in the side.
“Huh?” Greg opened one eye. The sun was up. He looked at the bedside
clock. Seven a.m. He had been asleep for thirteen hours. Turning over, he swept
his son off his feet and onto the bed.
“Yes Superman. I’m still very much alive.” The boy screeched with laughter
as Greg tickled him. The noise brought his wife and daughter rushing in.
“At last. Good morning!” Christine exclaimed, placing a steaming cup of
coffee on the bedside table. “We thought you were never going to wake up.”
“Yes,” his daughter nodded sagely. “I was going to put an ice cube down
your neck.”
Greg, laughing in delight, swept the girl onto the bed too and tickled both at
the same time. Christine put her hands over her ears to shut out the noise.
Greg swung his feet off the bed, feeling refreshed and excited. The
production meeting was scheduled for nine a.m. He hugged his wife and headed
for the shower. The kids went to help Mom make him breakfast. The hot water
tingled on his skin, and Greg whistled as he scrubbed himself down. He was
feeling great, the euphoria of success buoying him up.

-oOo-

The receptionist looked surprised, then smiled at his cheerful whistling as he

walked through the door. He gave a conspiratorial wink. She giggled, shaking her

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head. At ten minutes to nine Greg strode into the conference room. Most of the
seats were filled. Dennis sat on his right, looking refreshed. Al was absent.
‘Probably still sleeping,’ Greg thought.
“Let’s get down to business,” he called the meeting to order. The hubbub
subsided. “Let’s start with the most important item–the status of the AsiaComNet
order.”
He turned to Ron who was riffling through the computer printout. He
flipped it open, the customary yellow highlighter lines through some items.
He pushed his glasses up his nose, his expression–like that of a father
holding his first born child–filled with pride, amazement, disbelief and
apprehension. He looked at the printout, tapping the paper with an old-fashioned
fountain pen.
The silence was deafening, every breath held.
“Well….” Ron sounded hesitant.
“Well, what?” Mike burst out.
“Well, our last scheduling run indicated that we’d complete the
AsiaComNet order by...”
He bent down, peering at the printout over the top of his spectacles.
Greg resisted the urge to lean over and shake him till his teeth rattled.
“By July ...er…July 15,” he finished hesitantly.

The room was in uproar. Ron looked up, blinking in surprise at the reaction,
pushing up his glasses. Everyone was out of their chairs, giving high-fives all
around. Dennis hugged a laughing Maggie, and Mike vigorously shook hands with
Pablo, who crossed himself repeatedly. Greg gave a huge sigh of relief, his
shoulders sagging. Sixteen days to go with one day to spare. He grinned like a
Cheshire cat.
“Er, that’s not all.” Ron continued hesitantly, clearing his throat. No
reaction. He said it again, louder this time, before Greg heard him. Greg called the
meeting to order.
“What’s up?”
“Well, the increased throughput rates also affected some of the other
problematic orders.”
“How?”
“Orders that were delayed when this problem started, are now also
scheduled for completion before their original order due date.”
Greg’s grin got wider. “Extraordinary. Have you shared the good news with
Jim Jones?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Please do. He has done an incredible job to help smooth our customer’s
ruffled feathers.”
Looking around the room, Greg continued.
“We have achieved an extraordinary feat. I thank every one of you for your
selfless contribution. We have sixteen days to go and one day of buffer to spare.

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Let’s not mess it up.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. The mood was dramatically different from
the first time Greg had encountered them so many months ago.

For the remainder of the week, the plant ran like clockwork. Greg and
Dennis visited the warehouse twice a day, checking on the rapidly growing rows of
neatly stacked boxes, ready for shipment to AsiaComNet. Friday’s production
meeting was more like a kindergarten party than a management meeting. Eleven
days to go.

-oOo-

Late on Friday afternoon, returning from the warehouse, and taking a

shortcut through the plant, Greg heard raised voices. A vehement argument,
venomous and emotional, broke the customary quiet. He hurried through the plant.
The noise came from the final inspection area, where the completed microchips
were subjected to load and continuity tests before final release.
Two men were standing face to face, trembling in anger, ready to do battle.
“Back off!” Greg commanded. Both looked at him in surprise.
“What’s going on here?”
“He’s calling me names!”
“You started it, calling me a dumb Yankee.”
“So, you called me a spit-swallowin’, rat-eating, walleyed buffoon.”
The other cocked a fist, ready to swing a punch.
Greg jumped in to prevent things getting out of hand. Both were breathing
heavily, white with anger. “You are suspended from duty until tomorrow. Who is
your supervisor?”
They looked at him with anger, but the fists were down. “Drew Saginaw,”
one muttered.
“Wait here, while I call him.” Greg walked two paces away, flipped open his
mobile phone, dialed the switchboard and had the supervisor paged. Within
seconds, he came hurrying through the door.
“Drew, these two gentlemen are suspended from duty till tomorrow. Their
behavior is not acceptable. Please investigate the cause of this incident, and then
see to it that they leave separately. Meet me in my office when you’re done.”
“Yes sir.” The supervisor herded the still-murderous looking pair out of the
room with Greg following close behind. Ten minutes later, the supervisor was in
Greg’s office, nervously fiddling with his clipboard.
“Tell me what happened.”
“Well sir, those two have been bad news for a while now. They don’t get on
well. Seems like, some time ago, the one had spoiled the others’ chance for
promotion with a bad review. Those two have been at odds ever since.
Now, with the increased production rates, quality control is under pressure
to keep up with the higher volumes. Some bad units slipped through the one

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person’s inspection procedure. The other person caught them in time and, seeing an
opportunity to poke a stick in the hornet’s nest, accused the other of incompetence.
Their simmering animosity exploded into the acrimony you’d witnessed.”
“Can’t we separate them: put them in different work areas?”
“They’re both extremely good at their task, sir. I would hate to lose either
one of them–particularly now.”
Greg nodded in agreement. AsiaComNet came first.
“Can’t we discipline them?”
“Not really, sir. It’s not an offence we can hold a hearing for.”
Greg nodded again. “Well, you’ll have to manage them with care then.” The
supervisor left, agreeing to keep Greg posted.
Dennis came in just as the supervisor left. “What’s up?” jerking a thumb
over his shoulder. Greg recounted the events. Halfway through, he abruptly
paused, a frown creasing his forehead.
“Indigestion playing up again?” Dennis quipped.
“No, I’ve just thought of another tribal attribute.”
Dennis’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline.
Greg took the yellow pad, wrote down his new insight, walked over to the
white-board and stuck it up next to the others. It read:

Dennis looked at the statement with puzzlement. “We’ve got the company
disciplinary code. If that fails, there is always the federal justice system for more
heinous crimes.”
“Yes. I know, but this incident proves to me that there are aspects of our
social interaction that are not well handled by the existing internal and external
disciplinary mechanisms. We have no clear-cut way to deal with the mundane
differences that inevitably arise from so many people working together under one
roof. We expect supervisors to maintain harmonious relationships but we don’t
provide a process that deals with the gray area between incidents they can
comfortably handle and a full-blown disciplinary hearing. We simply expect them

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to have the wisdom of Solomon. We expect them to be part of the team they lead,
but also to act as management’s corporate representative. If they come to us too
many times for help because of this dilemma, we suspect they are incompetent.
They are caught between a rock and a hard place.”
Dennis chuckled. “It sounds like Federal and State government. I’ve always
had the uncomfortable feeling that, somewhere, somehow, unbeknown to me, I am
in violation of some law. Congress and the State legislatures pass hundreds of new
laws every year that most people never get to hear of, or even know where to find.”
Greg chuckled in agreement. “Perhaps I should check our thinking with
Butch. Let’s see if he is available.”
After being connected to his extension, Butch answered the phone.
“Hello Butch. This is Greg speaking.”
“Yes?”
“I have my colleague here with me. Dennis is just as intrigued by the tribal
stuff as I am. Allow me to switch to speakerphone.”
“Sure.”
“You’ve certainly changed our thinking on how to motivate a company.”
Dennis began.
“I trust you find it useful.” Butch replied.
“Indeed, the change in attitude has been extraordinary.”
“I believe so, judging by Greg’s enthusiasm.”
Greg chipped in. “We think we’ve found another tribal attribute.”
He read the statement out loud. Silence followed. Dennis looked at Greg in
alarm. He put a finger to his lips.
“You are correct. Justice is a very important issue. How would you describe
the tribal mechanism to exact justice?”
Greg was at a loss–again!
“Er, well, I suppose we need some behavioral guidelines that everyone
would know and understand.”
“Should it mirror the traditional system of laws, courts, and lawyers?”
“Um, well, yes. That’s what we know, I suppose.”
Silence.
“Er, not?”
“What should a justice mechanism in your environment achieve since you
are not dealing with murder, treason, assault and the like?”
“It should help make our environment a better place, and help motivate
people. We don’t want to incarcerate or hang anyone.”
“Interesting comment–the last one. What does hanging and incarceration
achieve?”
Greg was silent for a minute. Dennis leaned forward, listening with interest.
“It punishes the perpetrator.” Dennis volunteered.
“True. And how does the victim feel?”
Dennis was thinking, a frown creasing his forehead. “Probably a hollow
victory–if he or she is still alive. If not, hanging the criminal does not bring the

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victim back to life.”
Butch chuckled dryly.
“In my travels in Africa, I was struck by the efficiency of the justice system
used by the indigenous tribes. They have no courts, lawyers and the like, yet their
tribal societies function extremely well. There are two interesting differences
between them and us.
Firstly, our justice system tends to be retributive. Larger society punishes
the criminal outside his social setting through the system of courts, laws and jury
verdict. There is little regard for the victim who only serves as a source of
information and testimony about the crime. Victims are left to deal with the
damage and trauma of the crime on their own, or resort to a civil trial.
In contrast, tribal justice systems are restorative. Because people live in such
close proximity and utterly interdependent for survival, good and harmonious
relationships are very important. The tribe must immediately deal with the crime,
repair the victim’s physical and emotional damage and restore the social harmony.
Secondly, in our society, the legal process is divorced from everyday life.
Few of us ever see the outcome of the justice process. We rarely go to court and sit
through the judicial process. Since it is so much part of the fabric of daily life in
the tribal environment, everybody participates in–and learns from–the justice
mechanism.
The tribal chief and the elders are judge, jury, executioner and restorer.
Everyone sees the verdict, the punishment and the restoration. Everyone
understands what is right, wrong and why.
By now you would agree that–since there is no democracy in business–
companies function more like tribes that civil society. Therefore, a similar tribal
justice mechanism is essential.”
Greg was writing furiously on his notepad.
“In Cape Industries, our corporate justice system is structured and
administered on the principle of counsel and restoration. Over time, I’ve realized
that having such a structure negates the need for it. Simply knowing that there is
recourse to counsel and restorative justice eliminated 90% of relationship
problems. It also negates the fundamental futility of law.
To people who are civilized and socially responsible, laws are irrelevant.
They simply don’t do the things the law tries to prevent. For those who commit
criminal acts, the law is impotent because it did not deter them from doing what’s
wrong. A restorative justice system–even if you don’t use it–is very reassuring and
helps employees to understand how behaviors and actions are regulated.”
Greg stared into space. Dennis was also deep in thought.
“How does such a system work?”
“Here are some pointers.” Greg turned the page on his notepad.
“Firstly, don’t describe it as company policy. Company policy smacks of
management control which is perceived as yet another management/worker tribal
confrontation. Ours is structured as the rules of social conduct– applicable as much
to management as others.

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 Secondly, the rules of restorative justice are derived from inputs defined by
the people themselves. Most people are honest, hard-working individuals. They
know what is right and wrong. Defining the tribal justice system according to their
rules gives it credibility and trustworthiness.
Thirdly, the judge and elders are selected every year from the entire
workforce. Only the CEO has overriding power of appeal.
Fourthly, structure the rules of restorative justice to correct what is wronged
and to maintain harmony between people–not to punish. Traditional justice
system’s focus on punishment fosters enemy tribe to individual behavior.
Lastly, judicial decisions are widely communicated, thereby ensuring that
everyone understands acceptable corporate behavior, norms and values.”
Greg scribbled telegram-style notes.
“It is in line with the increasing burden companies have to shoulder to deal
effectively with socio-organizational issues,” Butch continued.
“Here is an example. Allied Holdings, a billion-dollar transportation
company, realized that, since people spend two-thirds of their waking hours at
work, they bring their social and personal issues to work with them. To prevent
personal problems from decimating motivation, management did something
interesting about it.
They put pastors on their payroll.
All in all, there are 85 chaplains on call for its 8,000 employees. Their task
is to help people work through significant personal issues before they affect their
work.(27) The restorative justice system is the other side of the same coin.
Chaplains serve individual needs, tribal justice serves social needs.”
Dennis stared at the telephone as if Butch could be seen through the plastic
cover.
“Any guidelines on how to structure such a system?” he asked.
Silence.
‘Whoops, wrong question,’ Greg thought, hastily leaning forward.
“We’ll work on it, Butch.”
“Good. There is one potential danger that you should know of.”
“Yes?”
“I’ll illustrate it with an example. In the five years before the first
democratic election in South Africa in 1994, the civil tension was at breaking
point. The military wing of the predominantly black party, the African National
Congress or ANC, was locked in a bitter struggle with the South African army and
police. At the same time, Inkatha - the political party of the Zulu tribe, was in
bloody conflict with the African National Congress. Running battles were
commonplace in the streets of the townships around the major cities. In the heat of
confrontation, which the police and army could hardly contain, kangaroo courts
suddenly appeared. Young political activists, caught up in the frenzy of revolution,
would accuse people of supporting the opposition party, or of being police
informers on the flimsiest of pretexts. Innocent people were dragged in front of
kangaroo courts presided over by eighteen-year old vigilante fighters, and

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summarily convicted.
The most brutal and horrifying punishment–surpassing the utmost limits of
barbarism–was meted out to the pleading victim. Their arms were bound with
barbed wire, an automobile tire filled with gasoline placed around the victim’s
torso, and set alight. Jeering crowds would follow the screaming, staggering,
burning victim until he died hours later, his upper body roasted alive with burning
rubber. Police videos recorded cases where crowds even gang-raped the charred
corpse.”
Greg felt the bile rise in his mouth. Dennis was white around the mouth. The
matter-of-fact tone made the mental picture even more horrifying.
“The lesson is this. The kangaroo courts were created simply to legalize the
destruction of the common enemy–the incredibly powerful motivator of group
behavior. Take care that the restorative justice mechanism is not corrupted to serve
the ends of tribes within your company. It happens very easily.”
Greg swallowed hard, his mouth metallic acid.
“Good point. We’ll keep that in mind.”
“Let me to share another event with you. At the Detroit motor show in 2000,
Toyota had a red racing car on display under blazing lights. As usual, Toyota’s
name was emblazoned on the side of the vehicle. Surrounding the vehicle were
billboards listing the championships the car’s team had won.(28)
However, when Hiroyuki Yoshino, the CEO of Honda walked by the
display, he could not believe his eyes. He had seen the car before. It was the very
same car that had won those victories with Honda engines and Honda engineers.
Just prior to the show, the race-team owner had switched to Toyota as the
team’s engine supplier, but the fact that Honda had powered the car to victory in
the preceding years was not mentioned anywhere on Toyota’s display. Hiroyuki
Yoshino went ballistic.”
“Wow. I’d also hit the roof if I was him.” Greg laughed.
“Understandably so. It is a perfect example of another tribal attribute. Still
not the most important attribute, mind you. That one you still have to find.”
The call ended in the customary abrupt manner.
Dennis sat back, a frown on his face. “Does he do this all the time?” he
asked.
“He does not waste time or effort,” Greg grinned.
“So what’s the point of the race car story?”
“Wait. Not so fast. Let’s deal with the justice mechanism first. Let’s think
about how we should create our own restorative justice system.”
“OK,” Dennis grumbled, clearly more intrigued by the race car story.
For the remainder of the day they worked on defining a system for
MicroLogic. Reading through the corporate policy manual, Greg was surprised and
embarrassed at how little it offered to promote social harmony. Most of it was
retributive and one-sided–and all from management’s side.
“We have to rewrite all of this,” he observed, slamming the manual shut in
disgust.

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 “Agreed. It was written as if people are unable to structure their own lives.
We should follow Butch’s suggestion, and ask our people to help define the values
and accepted norms of behavior that should form the basis of our justice system.
That will help us review our corporate policies to align them with the desired
behavior.”
“Good idea.”
Dennis yawned and stretched his arms above his head. “Time to go home,”
he sighed. “I’m going out tonight. I deserve a break.”
“Dating again?” Greg teased. “The same date?”
Dennis looked uncomfortable.
“None of your business,” he grumbled.

-oOo-

Wednesday morning was bright and sunny. The MicroLogic sign was back
on its post–neat, shiny and proud. The corroded aluminum was gone and the pole
had been repainted. Greg pulled up next the road, got out and admired the display.
The pride in workmanship it radiated was unmistakable.
‘Why do companies have workplaces that people are ashamed of?’ he
mused.
‘To maintain the ‘untouchable’ status of workers relative to corporate
management,’ it crossed his mind. He drove through the gate, parked, and walked
through the reception area. Fresh flowers, crisp and fragrant, and magazines, new
and glossy, added to the sense of pride. Greg smiled to himself.
The nine a.m. production meeting started on time. The sense of excitement
was still there. The chatter was lighthearted and bantering.
By now, everyone was dressed in new corporate attire. It looked a lot better
than the threadbare blue overalls that graced the meetings when he first arrived. He
banged an ashtray on the table to call the meeting to order. Judging by the scarred
and blotched surface, it had borne the abuse of many ashtrays, food, ink and a
myriad of other mysterious substances.
“We’ll have to change this too,” Greg made a mental note.
“Where is Jensen?” Al asked, pointing to the empty chair.
Greg looked around. “Anybody know?”
He got no response. Greg reached down the table, pulled the telephone
closer, and dialed Ron’s office. No answer.
“Well, let’s proceed.” Greg leaned forward. “How are we doing on
AsiaComNet?” He pointed to Mike.
“The production rates are holding steady. I’m sorry to say, but we are
having a dreadfully boring time. No crises to report.” Greg chuckled, pointing to
Maggie. “How is quality holding up?”
She jerked a thumb at Mike. “We can’t catch him doing anything wrong. I
have no reason to pick a fight with him any longer.”
Greg looked at Al.

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 “Nothing to report, boss. The deposition chamber upgrade is holding up
well. I had a call from the corporate controller’s office in Chicago though, asking
about the huge express freight bill they’d received. I told them it was for
AsiaComNet. ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘it must be OK then.’ It seems like AsiaComNet is
the magic password.”
Laugher filled the room just as Ron Jensen came hurrying in.
“Welcome,” Greg quipped.
Breathlessly, Ron plunked the thick computer printout down on the table
and took his customary seat.
“There was something very unusual in the numbers, so I ran them again
before reporting to the meeting,” Ron replied.
Greg felt an icy whisper of panic down his spine.
“And…?” One could hear a pin drop.
“Er, the latest forecast indicates that….”
Ron started paging through the printout, going back and forth, pushing his
glasses up with one hand while paging with the other.
“Indicates what?” Greg had difficulty keeping his voice level and calm.
“Indicates that…” Still Ron paged.
“WHAT?”
“Ah, here it is,” relief in his voice, oblivious of the agonized stares,
pedantically underscoring the line item with the customary yellow highlighter. He
replaced the cap and slipped the marker back in the pocket protector.
“….indicates that we have six days to go to the deadline for AsiaComNet.”
“So?”
“It means that we will complete AsiaComNet by Saturday morning–three
and a half days ahead of schedule.”
Ron looked apologetically around the room. The incredulous silence
dragged on and on. Ron pushed his glasses up, tilting his head backwards to see
through the lenses.
“Hot darn dog!” Dennis banged both fists on the table, so hard the ashtray
skittered away. Bedlam erupted. Laughter, excitement, euphoria. People on their
feet, shaking hands.
Greg was speechless. They were going to make it–handsomely so–despite
the odds.
He rested his head on the cold tabletop and said a quick, fervent prayer of
thanks.
“Order, order!” he called in vain. The excitement was unquenchable.
“Order!” he yelled. This time he got through. The noise subsided.
“We are not out of the woods yet. Let’s not lose it in the next three days.”
Greg looked at Maggie. “When the last truck leaves the yard with the last container
of AsiaComNet on Saturday afternoon, we will throw a party to end all parties. I
want you to arrange the biggest barbeque this company had ever seen.”
Maggie sat forward, her eyes shining. Dennis smiled in appreciation.
“Are families are invited as well?”

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 “Indeed.” He looked around the room. “Let’s roll. Meeting adjourned.”
People flooded out of the room, the sense of achievement contagious. Greg stopped
Ron Jensen on the way out. “Ron, don’t update the computer system yet. Leave our
last shipping date as is.”
Ron nodded, looking perplexed.

-oOo-

Later that afternoon Dennis was in the warehouse, checking on the neat
rows of sealed boxes. Millions of dollars’ worth of inventory was innocently sitting
on the shelves. The first shipping containers were scheduled to arrive early the next
morning. If everything went according to plan, the last boxes would arrive in the
warehouse at the same time as the last shipping container late on Saturday
morning.
Greg came striding in, on his way back from the last training session that
Russ Barton had presented. Teaching people how to act more effectively as a group
had been a huge success. Interaction between employees, supervisors and support
staff was much more effective. Meetings were shorter, and the sense of common
purpose was much stronger. Greg could not help but think that the additional two
days gain on the delivery date was largely due to that.
“Now can we talk about the race car story Butch had told us?” Dennis
commanded. Greg grinned. It was clear that Dennis had been worrying the issue
like a fox terrier.
“Sure.”
“I can’t see why the CEO of Honda got mad. It was the car that won the
race, not the engine. I think spectators really care about the team and the car, and
not so much about the engine.”
“That may be so. However, the CEO of Honda was incensed by Toyota’s
omission about their engines powering all the previous victories. Automotive
companies pour immense amounts of money into international motor sport. They
claim that it is a proving ground for new technology, but I wonder if it is true. Few
of us have use for engines that need to be torn down and rebuilt after six hours of
work, or that can run at 18,000 revolutions per minute, or carbon-fiber bodies with
no doors. Something else must drive automotive companies to lavish so much
money on racing teams.”
Dennis walked up and down the aisle, his hands clasped behind his back,
deep in thought.
“Success on the racetrack somehow reflects the capability of the automotive
company. Honda saw Toyota’s omission of their contribution to the race team’s
victory as a massive insult. It cut to the very heart of Honda’s pride.
Building engines that perform consistently and flawlessly under brutal race
conditions is no mean feat and those engines embodied Honda’s remarkable
engineering capability. The company prides itself on that, and it has helped Honda
gain market share.”

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 Greg walked alongside, hands also clasped behind his back.
“I think you’re on to something. I guess the engines embodied Honda’s
values of excellence in engineering, superb reliability, endurance and power. What
really incensed Honda’s CEO was Toyota’s trashing of the company’s symbolic
values.”
Dennis stopped, stared into space for a minute, and turned to Greg.
“You’re right on the money. The engines were the icons of Honda Motor
Company–a symbol of the company’s most important values. For the Honda tribe’s
common enemy to trash their icons was the biggest insult imaginable. It is the stuff
vendettas are made of.”
Greg chuckled. “I would not be surprised if that symbolic event galvanizes
Honda into dazzling performance to wreak retribution on their common enemy.”
Dennis nodded absently, obviously thinking of something else. “I think
we’ve discovered the tribal attribute Butch was alluding to. It is the presence of an
icon. Strong tribes each have a clearly defined icon that embodies the core values
of the tribe.”
Greg punched him on the shoulder. “Bingo! Those values must be the TV+
issues–the attributes or behaviors that generate a high degree of tribal value for
everyone. When the Honda-powered race car won, I’m sure everybody at Honda
felt great. It proved that they were great engineers capable of producing reliable,
enduring, powerful products validating their values.”
There was a well-worn blackboard tacked to the outside the warehouse
supervisor’s office. Greg took a piece of chalk from the wooden box nailed to the
siding. He smiled at the low-tech tool. No matter how sophisticated and integrated
their data processing became, somewhere, someone still kept surreptitious record
with things more human, mundane and comfortable like chalk and board. Squatting
on his haunches, he wrote on the concrete floor.
Standing back, he dusted his hand on his pants leg, leaving white streaks.
Ruefully he tried to rub them off, only making the damage worse. He shrugged,
putting the chalk back in the box. Dennis looked down at the statement. “Yep, that
makes sense.”

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 The warehouse manager, talking to one of the dispatch supervisors, had
been watching them from afar. He wandered over, curiosity about the pavement art
getting the better of him. He looked at the statement on the ground. Greg was
amused at the nonplussed expression under the studious interest.
“What’s this about?”
Greg briefly explained the concept. The warehouse manager’s face lit up
with understanding. “My brother works at a large electronics plant. They make
night-vision goggles used by the military and emergency services. It’s a really nifty
gadget. He was explaining to me that the heart of the technology lies in a thin glass
disk, about the size of a quarter, which has millions of holes through it. The holes
are so small that light waves cannot pass through. Only the light photons
themselves can get through the holes. By collecting and amplifying their energy, it
is possible to create night vision. The technology is quite awesome.”
He pointed at the chalk diagram.
“Here’s the interesting piece. They take the rejected disks and encase them
in clear plastic. These are turned into key rings and given to visitors and clients as
promotional gifts. Seems to me the optical disk is a good example of an icon. It
symbolizes their most treasured values of extraordinary technology, incredibly
precise engineering, and turning it all into something very, very useful.”
Greg nodded appreciatively. ‘That’s perfect! It is exactly the example I was
looking for.” Dennis nodded in agreement. The warehouse manager looked
inordinately flattered. “I have one of those key rings at home,” he volunteered. “I’ll
bring it along tomorrow.”
“That’ll be great.”

They continued their walk through the warehouse. It was heartening to see
that most of the storage bays were full. Dennis was deep in thought.
“Come on, share those pearls of wisdom,” Greg urged.
“I’m thinking of the attack on the World Trade Center. From the tribal

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perspective, the targets they selected are very significant. The World Trade Center
epitomized the success and might of the American economy. The Pentagon does
the same for American military superiority, and their third target, which could have
been either the White House or Capitol Hill, the success of democracy. It was a
symbolic stab at destroying the most important icons of the American tribe. By
doing so, they perversely acknowledged the very things they represent–because
they are the icons.
The reaction was extraordinary. Only during world wars have the American
people been galvanized with such speed and alacrity. American flags appeared on
every porch in every city and town. Even though the total loss of life was relatively
small, the reaction was disproportionate. It validates the importance of tribal icons
in shaping the identity and self-worth of tribes.”
Greg nodded in agreement. “I agree. On a lighter note, I’m reminded of the
mascots every sports team seems to have. It is the same dynamic: an object that is
revered because it embodies the team’s values.”
They walked on in silence.
“There is another wonderful example in the Old Testament,” Greg
continued. “When Moses led the Israelites through the desert, they felt lost and
vulnerable. While Moses was away, up on Mount Sinai to receive the Ten
Commandments, they collected all the tribe’s gold jewelry and built an icon in the
form of a golden calf. After the priests declared it a holy object, they promptly
started venerating the silly thing. When Moses came down from the mount and
saw this, he flew into a rage, broke the stone tablets and punished the tribe. It
seems that the need for an icon has its roots way back in time.”

In companionable silence they walked through the airlock between the

warehouse and the plant. An automated materials handling vehicle whispered past,
carrying a tray of boxes to their computer-designated storage bay high up in the
racks.
“Our deduction about the power of the tribal icon now begs another
question. What is MicroLogic’s icon?”
Dennis shook his head. “Not so fast. We can only define and create an icon
if we understand, define and agree on the values it is supposed to represent.”
“True.” Greg looked chastised. “Perhaps we should spend some time
defining our fundamental values. I’ll volunteer the first one. Our company prides
itself on delivering utterly reliable products, and our icon should reflect that. We
show our just cause to support life-critical medical devices and suchlike, which
demands unquestionable reliability.”
“Accepted. I’ll state another one. Our products embody the latest
technology. One of the greatest marketing successes of all time was the ‘Intel
Inside’ promotion. The ubiquitous circle on the outside of every computer,
proclaiming that Intel processors powered the product, dramatically enhanced
Intel’s brand awareness. Most consumers wouldn’t know the difference between an
Intel microchip, an AMD microchip or a hotwired cockroach inside their

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computers. By externalizing Intel’s presence on every computer case, the
company created a level of awareness approaching icon status. It created an
overwhelming perception that any computer without ‘Intel inside’ is not the real
thing. Apple has done the same with smartphones.”
“OK. That makes sense. Here is my next card. Our product represents
profound technical knowledge. Knowledge is the key ingredient for our success.
Our icon should celebrate that profound knowledge. In some ways it edifies the
great attribute of humanity–its intellect.”
“Agreed!” Dennis sounded more enthusiastic.
“But knowledge by itself is sterile. It is our ability to turn that knowledge
into a workable product that delivers the ultimate value. So our icon should also
celebrate our technical expertise. We are really good at doing just that, judging by
the upgrade of the physical deposition chamber.”
“Accepted. My last thought would be our commitment. The strong sense of
co-responsibility we managed to create between people is a very effective way to
increase commitment in a strong, positive sense. Commitment must be another
important value.”
They continued walking, deep in thought. “I can’t think of anything more to
add that is not trivial, pompous or condescending.” Dennis commented.
“Likewise. The rest will just be lofty management speak,” Greg concurred.
Dennis held his hands up in mock defense. Greg had to smile.
“Like Honda’s engines, our icon must symbolize the values of reliability,
quality, knowledge, expertise and commitment. It has to be a single, easily
recognizable object.”
“It is common sense,” Dennis replied. “I suggest it should be a stylized
version of our microprocessor. It embodies all the requirements we identified. I can
see how people can gain a sense of increased TV+ from an icon. I remember the
pride I felt in our football team’s mascot at college.”

-oOo-

Back in his office, Greg called Maggie. Ten minutes later she bustled in, still
looking trim in the new corporate clothing.
“Please sit down,” Greg gestured to the conference table. “Thank you for
your hard work in getting our new company dress organized. It’s been a great
success.”
Maggie gave a satisfied smile. “Yes, it has really changed a lot of attitudes.
Many said that they felt much more part of the company.”
Greg nodded in appreciation. “That’s what I hoped to achieve. I have a
similar requirement for which I need your help.”
Maggie sat forward with interest. ‘I hope it is as much fun as the last
assignment.”
“Maybe.” Greg explained his idea of creating an icon in the form of a
microprocessor, recounting the values it had to represent.

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 “Hmmm.” She was thinking hard. “That makes sense. I’ll work on it.”
Maggie left, deep in thought.

-oOo-

The roar of the big Cummins diesel engine subsided to a muted rumble. Air
brakes hissed. Brakes squealed. The driver jumped down from the cab of the semi-
trailer rig, saluted Greg with two fingers raised to the visor of his baseball cap.
“Howdy. It seems like I am the last one to arrive.” He waved at the other
trucks neatly parked in line, his vehicle furthest from to the loading dock.

It was Friday morning, sea breeze in the air, and the process of loading and
shipping AsiaComNet was about to start. Production had held up through the night
and very little remained that could derail their work to get the whole order shipped
by Saturday morning.
“Seems like it. Briefing is over there.”
Greg pointed to the distribution manager talking to a group of drivers,
clipboard in hand.
Within minutes they dispersed and the first trucks were deftly backed up
against the air locks that sealed the loading operation from the outside world.
Greg’s heart skipped a beat, excitement rising. It was actually happening.
Inside the warehouse, the boxes were carefully extracted from their storage
bays and stacked inside the trailers. The trailers were all equipped with air
suspension to eliminate vibration and shock. Greg stood watching for a few
minutes and–satisfied that all was under control–walked back to his office. He took
the scenic route, walking around the outside of the plant. The fresh air was
invigorating. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs to capacity, tasting sweet
victory on AsiaComNet. He had bunch of stuff to do, neglected over the last three
weeks.
Head office was calling for its regular diet of reports, forecasts, comments,
assessments, numbers, forms, and agendas. Greg shrugged resignedly, wondering
how much of the data served only to support tribal warfare at head office. Settling
down with a fresh cup of coffee, he emptied the in-basket on his desk.

By late afternoon, the front desk buzzed him in spite of his request that all
calls be held.
“What is it Angie?”
“I have a gentleman on the line who insists on talking to you. He says it is
very important.”
“OK, put him on.”
Greg recognized the voice instantly. It was Andrew. With all the pressure,
he had not spoken to his best friend since their visit to Butch’s plant. It seemed like
an eternity had passed.
“Yo, Greg. Are you still in the country?” Andrew quipped.

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 “Hey buddy! We’ve been up to our eyeballs in alligators, getting the
AsiaComNet order done.”
“I thought as much. Butch says that you keep on bugging him which means
that you’ve really taken his advice to heart.”
“He has changed my management style completely and opened a whole new
world of understanding on how companies really function.”
“That’s high praise indeed, but it fits. How is AsiaComNet doing?”
Greg shared his roller-coaster experience in a matter-of-fact tone. Andrew
whistled in appreciation. “It sounds like an awesome turnaround.”
“Indeed. And all due to Butch’s help. I owe you one for introducing me to
him.”
“Well, lifetime membership to my golf club will be an acceptable token of
your appreciation.”
Greg chuckled.
“Butch seemed to like what you are doing,” Andrew continued. “I was out
there yesterday, and he seemed pleased with your enthusiasm. He made one
significant comment, which is why I am phoning you. He said you are still missing
the most important attribute in managing organizations effectively.”
“I know. He mentioned it to me too, and it is very, very frustrating. I’m
frying my brain trying to figure it out. As soon as the last truck leaves, I will call
and thank him for his help. Perhaps he will relent by lifting the veil on his mystery
attribute.”
“Don’t count on it,” Andrew chuckled. “You know Butch. He is a hard
taskmaster. You don’t have much time to come up with the answer. Butch told me
he is leaving on his annual hunting trip to Africa shortly.”
After exchanging pleasantries about their families and arranging a tentative
golf date, they rang off. Greg’s eye caught the ever-lengthening row of yellow
notes on the whiteboard. A number of things were in process. Fiona, Mike, Russ,
Maggie, Dennis, Al and he were all working on some aspect of the tribal process.
Completing the last of the head office documentation, he turned his mind to
collecting information on accepted behavior patterns for the justice system. He
drafted an information request on the subject, mailed it to all the department heads,
and shut the computer down.

-oOo-

It was a glorious evening outside. The setting sun flung streaks of brilliant
yellow, orange and pink color through the clouds, drawing a breathtaking contrast
to the cobalt blue sky. Greg looked up for a few moments, arrested by the majesty
of the spectacle. Walking to his car, he noticed the food trailer was back in the
parking lot, sitting low on its suspension. This time there were colored lights
around the top. Men were straining to stabilize the structure of a huge marquee
tent buffeted by the fresh on-shore breeze. Others were unloading tables and chairs.
Huge barbeque pits were standing off to one side, dwarfed by a pile of firewood.

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 Greg had forgotten about his request to Maggie to arrange a celebration for
the next day. It looked like she had taken to the task with a vengeance. He grinned
to himself, feeling on top of the world.
He had to wait for one of the outbound AsiaComNet containers to clear the
security procedure at the exit. With a thunderous plume of black diesel smoke, the
truck swung out on the roadway, clearing the curb by inches, and disappearing in
the dusk, the container with its precious cargo on its way out to sea. Greg wished it
a safe journey, turning the other way towards home.

-oOo-

The weather was still the same on Saturday morning. Greg was up early,
humming to himself. After a hasty breakfast, he hurried back to the plant, eager to
see the last of the AsiaComNet order out the gate. The plant was buzzing like a
hornet’s nest. The sense of urgency was contagious. Dennis had beaten him to the
plant. He was out on the loading dock, one foot on the steel beam behind the open
container doors, arms crossed over his knee, supervising the loading procedure.
“How are we doing?”
“We should have the last container out by midday.”
Greg breathed a genuine, deep-felt sigh of relief. He punched Dennis on the
bicep. “Well done. Your reputation as the greatest production guru in all of Intec
remains intact.” Dennis snorted in disgust, but was visibly flattered. ‘Up goes the
IV+,’ Greg smiled.
By late morning the last products were completed, waiting for final quality
approval and documentation before loading. Greg had ordered the plant shut down
for the remainder of the weekend. Al wanted to check some of the modifications
they had made, and it provided an opportunity for all the shifts to participate in the
celebration. This was going to be a memorable occasion, the first great war-story
of his new tribe. The lot was empty except for the tent and smoking barbeque pits,
the horizon shimmering in the heat.
Greg turned back and caught his breath. The last container was still at the
loading dock. A huge hand painted banner was tied to the side which proclaimed:

It was resounding proof of the dramatic change in attitude that Butch’s

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approach had brought about. He shook his head in amazement and admiration.
Twenty minutes later the container was closed and sealed. Everyone had
filtered out of the plant and hundreds of people were milling around, chattering
excitedly.
The dispatch manager jumped up on the running board, and handed the
driver a clipboard which he signed with a flourish. He jumped down and waved the
truck to depart. The driver–swept up in the excitement of the moment–gave three
earsplitting blasts of the horn as he slowly pulled away. Like small boats making
way for an ocean liner, the crowd parted. Majestically the truck inched through the
crowd to cheers, whistles and waves. Streamers appeared from nowhere. By the
time it reached the gate, the truck looked like a wedding procession. Out on the
road, streamers in the wind, the driver kept on tooting the horn. People were
standing on dumpsters, cheering it on. The sound faded in the distance.
Greg found it difficult to swallow. They had done it–actually done it.

-oOo-

The jubilant feel of victory was in the air.

“Gather round everyone.” The loud, unexpected sound echoed around the
building. It was Dennis’s voice coming over a public address system. Greg had not
seen him slip away. It took a minute to locate him, standing in the dark of the tent.
People drifted closer.
“Greg, come over here,” the buildings echoed again. Everyone turned
around, looking at him. He felt like a moth, pinned to paper. Jumping down the
loading dock, he strode over to the tent.
Dennis was grinning wickedly, obviously enjoying his discomfort.
He continued on the air. “When Greg asked me some months ago to come
help out here, I had grave doubts about our chances of ever succeeding with
AsiaComNet. In fact, after the first few days, I wanted out–seeing only disaster on
the horizon. But Greg inspired me, as he did all of us, that we had a real purpose, a
just cause, to prove against all odds that we can triumph as a group. And we did
it!”
There was a roar of appreciation and agreement.
“I, for one, want to pay tribute to Greg. I would not want to leave
MicroLogic for all the money in the world. It’s too much fun!”
Another roar of approval followed, with thunderous applause and
enthusiastic cheers.
Greg was surprised at the depth of the crowd’s emotion.
Dennis stood aside. Picking up the microphone, Greg was momentarily at a
loss for words.
“When I walked into this plant on the first day, it felt like I had walked into
a brick wall. Although people were courteous and obliging, the undercurrent of
hidden agendas, wariness, in-fighting and distrust left me dumbfounded.”
He collected his thoughts.

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 The wind gently strummed the tent-ropes.
“I felt utterly at a loss. However, with some help, we systematically worked
to change the way we function as a large group of people. Slowly but surely, things
changed. We built a new way of behaving as a group. We thought about our just
cause. We looked for our common enemies, and we changed the way we recognize
and pay tribute to people.”
Greg looked out over the sea of smiling faces, all dressed in the new,
competent-looking corporate outfits. Some of the shoulder badges were to be seen.
“I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I was scared: scared that we would
not get AsiaComNet done, scared that I would not be able to turn the company
around. But we did it. Together we tackled the constraints that held us back. Rather
than quibbling about who to blame, we came together as a mutually supportive
whole, and bloody-well WON!”
The cheers were even louder.
“This occasion marks a new standard of performance. I had a look at past
performance figures, and never in its history had MicroLogic achieved the output
of the last few weeks. I salute you for that. We will look back at this day with pride
and marvel at what we’ve achieved. There were no exhortations from management
for employees to improve because we took co-responsibility for our common
success. We are working on many more aspects to enhance your individual value
and to remove stressful threats to your individual security. Judging by
AsiaComNet, we have immense potential yet to be explored.”
The applause was deafening.
“Please enjoy yourself tonight. You’ve earned it. We’ll continue on Monday
with the good work.”
More applause followed. This time it carried on for a long time. From the
corner of his eye, Greg noticed Maggie giving Dennis a rather long hug.

The following morning, cleaning crews found two people sleeping in a

dumpster and one in the open trunk of his car–legs hanging out–still balancing a
beer bottle on his chest. Nobody came forward to claim the trousers fluttering from
the tent pole poking through the canvas dome.

-oOo-

The shipping containers would be on the ocean for at least four weeks. Greg
fervently hoped that no latent quality problems would surface in China. He
shuddered, hastily put the thought out of his mind, and turned his attention to the
new week. He idly watched the incoming emails blip up on the computer screen.
They seemed to get more by the day. Most were eliminated in large blocks, only
the important were scanned. Sandy’s message was fifty-third on the list. Date-
stamped Sunday night, it simply read:

Be in my office in Chicago on Tuesday morning 8 a.m.

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 No excuses.

Greg felt a twinge of guilt. He had neglected Sandy in the past few days. He
called the front desk to arrange a flight and hotel, leaving early evening. Christine
sounded disappointed that he would not be home.
Looking at the row of yellow squares on the whiteboard, he reviewed the list
of things they were busy implementing. There were still seven tribal attributes he
had not identified. The conversation with Andrew popped into his mind. He called
Cape Industries. Butch was in his office.
“Hello Greg,” The voice was clipped, deep and calm.
“Hi Butch. Am I interrupting anything?”
“No. Go ahead.”
“Firstly, I’m delighted to report that the change in attitude here has been
extraordinary, to say the least. We shipped the entire AsiaComNet order over the
weekend, significantly ahead of time.”
“Congratulations. Andrew told me that you have really taken my advice to
heart. I am not surprised at the outcome. Understanding and managing the way
groups of people behave is the most misunderstood and underrated management
function.”
“I agree. Thank you again for your help.”
“You helped yourself. There are a number of attributes that you still haven’t
identified, including the most important one.”
“I know. It is very frustrating. I planned to spend more time working on it
this week, but I’ve been summoned to head office in Chicago. This is when I wish
I was in your shoes, being your own boss.”
“There is an old Jewish saying: ‘Be careful what you wish for, you may get
it.’ In fact, it is a good pointer to another tribal attribute.”
Greg yanked open his desk drawer, hauled out a writing pad, grabbed a pen
from the coffee mug full of pens, pencils and markers, ready to jot down what
Butch was going to share. As always, he was only going to hear this once.
“One of the most unusual companies in the USA is Longaberger. It is
unusual in the sense that it has built a billion dollar business out of the most
mundane of products. It makes and sells hand-made baskets in all shapes, sizes and
forms.(29) It has a very interesting history, given its phenomenal growth. It started
in 1973 when Dave Longaberger decided to revive the generations-old family
tradition of producing baskets. Test marketing a small quantity of products his
father had made, he was surprised at the immediate market acceptance. They made
more, experimented with different ways to market and distribute the product and
eventually found that selling baskets through home shows was a very effective
marketing channel. After his death, control of the company passed to his daughters.
Currently, some 7,000 craftsmen make baskets, and 70,000 sales associates–
mostly housewives–sell them at home shows. You will recognize many of the
tribal attributes in the company’s success. For example, Dave Longaberger
believed that one should face adversity and grow stronger through it–the concept of

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common enemy. New associates are given a sales kit that contains easels and
pictures of Dave and his daughter. These are displayed at local libraries and places
where homemakers frequent. Interested parties are invited to attend a presentation
where the story of Longaberger’s history, success, and its strong people- and
family-oriented culture are recounted–the attributes of just cause and war stories in
a positive way.
Since homemakers share the company’s core values of caring family
orientation, Longaberger offers a tribal affiliation that very strongly supports the
individual’s IV+. People flocked to join.
When the company decided to publish a book on its history, their publisher
researched the immense, sprawling network of sales associates. He was amazed at
the strength and consistency of the Longaberger values. The company offered the
most important, under-appreciated and frequently lonely group of individuals, the
nation’s homemakers, a strong tribal identity.
Every year, the company hosts a lavish convention where the star sales
performers are eulogized and fêted–the measures of success of the tribe.
Thousands of homemakers go every year to enjoy the validation of
belonging to a strong, successful tribe. Stories from the huge convention are
distributed to all the associates, thereby doing the same for those that could not
attend in person.”
“Er, it sounds like the barbeque we had on Saturday for our people and their
families. The impact on people’s attitude has been extraordinary.” Greg
interrupted.
“It was the right thing to do. It reinforced TV+ as well as IV+. However, the
really interesting part about Longaberger concerns their office building. One day,
Dave Longaberger decided that he wanted to build a new corporate office. He
chose a very interesting design. Guess what it looks like.”
“Well, knowing what most successful companies do, I suspect it would be a
tall, angular, mirror-sheathed corporate palace.”
“Wrong, the ten story building looks like a giant basket complete with
handles and weave pattern, sitting out in the Ohio countryside. It looks like some
giant had left his beautiful woven basket in the rolling green meadows. It is an
extraordinary sight.”
Greg sensed Butch was going to ring off. “Wait Butch, one last question...”
Too late. The call ended.
Greg shrugged resignedly, sat back and re-read his scribbled notes. He got
up and paced the office, deep in thought.
‘Why was the building so important? Of course! It served to turn the
mundane basket into the corporate icon! It is the heart of the company’s success.’
he thought. Greg punched a fist into his hand, then stopped and frowned. He
already knew about the need for a tribal icon, so Butch’s story must have a much
deeper significance. Greg shook his head and returned to his administrative work.
By mid-afternoon, he closed his bulging briefcase with a snap and left for the
airport.

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 -oOo-

It was dark when the plane circled to land at O’Hare Field. The plane
banked in its holding pattern. The view of Chicago’s streetlights, in perfect
squares, stretching from horizon to horizon into the night, took his breath away. It
reminded him of a NASA satellite image he had once seen of the earth at night.
Chicago radiated the most light of all.
A cab took him downtown. After booking into his hotel, he took a leisurely
walk on North Michigan Avenue, enjoying the balmy weather before going to bed.

Sandy was in a meeting with Ed Winthrop, the receptionist said. No, she did
not know when they would finish. Yes, he was welcome to use the conference
table in Sandy’s office while he waited.
The view was still spectacular with Lake Michigan an azure blue under a
brilliant sky. He sat down at the conference table, opened his briefcase and started
working on the budget information for next year. He assumed that was the topic of
discussion. He had stacks of supporting documentation neatly clipped together. It
was quite pleasant, sitting in the spacious office with one entire wall facing out to
the lake.
He heard voices down the passage. Sandy’s he could recognize, but the
other was unfamiliar.
“Perhaps we should ask the laddie first, before we make such a drastic
decision,” he heard Sandy say.
“We have no other way,” came the terse reply.
The two men entered the office. Greg immediately recognized the other. It
was Ed Winthrop, Intec’s CEO. He had never met him in person but recognized
him from the carefully groomed, fake-smile photograph in the annual report.
Ed put out his hand. “Ah, Greg, glad you could come at such short notice.”
With that, they all sat down. Sandy looked drawn and upset. Ed looked murderous.
Greg sensed enormous tension, immediately wary.
Ed continued. “Sandy and I are reviewing the AsiaComNet order situation.
We don’t know what to do about it. You know how important it is to us.”
Greg smiled involuntary, but sensed it was the wrong thing to do. Both men
frowned.
“It is very significant issue, you know,” Ed frowned.
“Yes, I agree.” Greg decided to remain non-committal until he understood
where this was going.
“I thought we needed to get first-hand information from you before we take
a decision.” Sandy interjected. “The CEO of AsiaComNet phoned over the
weekend. We weren’t here. Ed has not returned the call yet. He held off until you
got here.”
Greg was nonplussed.
“Well, what must I tell you?’

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 “What is the current status on AsiaComNet?” Ed asked testily.
Greg was taken aback.
“It’s gone,” he blurted.
“Gone?!” Ed and Sandy chorused as one.
“Gone where? Did you lose it?” Ed continued, clearly shaken, leaning
forward.
“No.”
Things did not fit together here at all. Greg sensed that something was badly
wrong.
Sandy jumped up, walked over to his desk, scooped up a computer printout
and sat down. Flipping through the pages, he stopped at the yellow highlighted
line.
“According to this, we are not going to complete AsiaComNet by the
promised due date by a long shot. The Chinese CEO must be spitting mad.”
The world froze. Greg felt the blood drain from his face. Alarm bells
ringing, his parting conversation with Ron Jensen exploded in his mind. ‘Ron,
don’t update the computer system yet. Leave our last shipping date as is.’
Ron, dutiful as ever, had done just that–nothing. In the mad rush at the end
of last week, it had slipped Greg’s mind completely. The two men across the table
still thought that the order was way, way behind schedule!
Greg was speechless. That explained the animosity. Ed must have looked at
the figures and vented his spleen on Sandy.
He took a deep breath. The silence was deafening.
“Er, no. We’ve not quite lost the order.”
“Pray, then, where is it?” Ed’s voice was assassin-soft as he continued:
“We’ve put together an emergency disaster recovery plan last night to remove the
remainder of the order from your control, put other plants on emergency overtime
to make up the backlog–at enormous expense I’ll have you know–to salvage our
reputation. I hope we can still pacify the Chinese.”
‘This is about TV-,’ it popped into Greg’s mind.
Greg battled to keep a straight face.
“I don’t think that would be necessary, sir,” he ventured.
“Not necessary!” The arteries on Ed’s forehead bulged. “Do you have any
idea how important this order is to our future?”
“Yes, sir,” Greg replied, his mind racing.
Sandy was frowning now. He sensed that Greg was unperturbed by Ed’s
outburst.
“I have to apologize...”
“Damn well you have to. If it wasn’t for Sandy insisting that we talk to you
first, I would have relieved you of your post immediately.”
Greg’s eyebrows shot up.
“No, I’m not apologizing for the AsiaComNet order...”
“What!” Ed, nearing apoplexy, was utterly speechless.
“I must apologize for a misunderstanding back at the plant. You see...”

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 “A misunderstanding! A bloody disaster this is!” Ed banged his flat hand on
the computer printout.
“Exactly,” Greg replied.
Ed’s mouth fell open. He turned to Sandy.
“Help me here. According to this, we are in deep trouble, and this man
seems totally unfazed.”
Sandy sensed that Greg, and therefore himself, was somehow on firmer
ground than he thought. The light of battle sparkled in the blue Scottish eyes.
“Ed, shut up. Let the bonnie lad continue.” Sandy said, the pleasant lilting
brogue softening the insubordination.
Ed went beet-red, speechless, waving at Greg to continue.
“On my instruction, our production planner neglected to update the current
production status for our plant. I forgot to reverse that instruction. Therefore, the
figures you have are somewhat out of date. I apologize for the oversight.”
“You mean it’s worse than this?” Ed whispered–icy, menacing–eyes like
flint.
“Er, no. Actually, it is somewhat better.”
“How much better?”
You could hear a pin drop. Greg cleared his throat.
“Actually, the entire order had sailed on the NedLloyd container ship
‘Eastern Star,’ outbound from the port of San Francisco to the port of Shanghai
three days ago.”
The incredulous silence dragged on forever.
Sandy threw his head back and roared with laughter. Ed looked pole- axed.
His jaw dropped again, shoulders sagging.
“Oh, this is priceless!’ Sandy chortled, tears streaming down his face. “You
are roonnin’ aroond in a panic as if Armageddon is on our very doorstep, cursing
my incompetent plant managers, cobbling together disaster recovery plans while
the stuff is floating aroond the Pacific Ocean.”
He dissolved in another fit of laughter.
“Oh, oh me blessed aunt...” He couldn’t get a word out, wiping tears from
his eyes, dissolving in uproarious laughter again.
Ed rapidly recovered his posture, looking miffed and relieved at the same
time. “Er, well, that puts an entirely different perspective on things,” he
admonished, sounding pompous.
Greg battled to keep a straight face, gleefully savoring the precious moment.
The victory was very, very sweet.
“Oh, come on Ed.” Sandy scoffed. “He dragged yer butt out of the fire. I am
sure there is much more we don’t know. Right now, you owe him and me an abject
apology for doubting our ability to meet our commitment.”
Sandy was rubbing Ed’s nose in it, enjoying every second.
Ed looked patently relieved. “The whole order?” he asked, not yet prepared
to believe his ears.
“The entire order. Freight documents went by overnight courier to

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AsiaComNet on Saturday afternoon.”
“That’s why the CEO phoned. To thank us, you twit,” Sandy guffawed with
laughter.
Ed’s face lit up. Greg watched with fascination as the political gears meshed
with lightning speed in Ed’s mind. They beat their promise to Wall Street, satisfied
their flagship new customer’s requirements which meant long-term contracts in the
near future. In all, they’d made good on their promises. The stock price would soar.

-oOo-

Through the rear window of the cab, Greg watched the Intec building
disappear in the distance. It towered above the others, resplendent in its blue glass
shell. He was booked to fly out at 6 p.m.
The remainder of day had been a blur of activity. After Ed had departed,
mumbling about real-time data requirements, Sandy got Dennis on the
speakerphone, wanting a blow-by-blow account of their extraordinary
achievement. Neither of them mentioned the work they had done to build the
MicroLogic tribe. Some things were best left unsaid.
On his way out, Ed called him to his office. The panoramic view was even
more spectacular. He could see all the way to the other side of Lake Michigan,
faint on the horizon.
Ed thanked him and congratulated him on their success. Greg left, feeling
that Ed indeed meant what he’d said.
Seeing the building disappear in the distance reminded him of his last
conversation with Butch. What was it about the Longaberger building that related
to tribes, he wondered. He turned away, idly looking at the throng of pedestrians
flowing across the intersection ahead. Chicago’s city center was an amazing place.
It is easy to understand why it was world famous for its architecture. Someone
once told him that more than half of the Fortune 500 companies had their corporate
offices in and around Chicago. So what was it that Butch wanted him to learn?
The Rastafarian cab driver deftly cut in front of a city bus, earning a metallic
blare of ire.
Then it dawned on him.
Every successful tribe had a sanctuary–a place they could call home.
Someplace that housed the tribe’s valuables. ‘It is like a queen bee’ he thought.
‘She is protected in the deepest part of the nest. Without her, the swarm is
directionless. Without its walled city, the fortified epicenter, a tribe has no safe
haven for what it considers valuable.’
For small family tribes, it is the warm, comfortable, parental home where
childhood memories are treasured. For the army it is the Pentagon, for the British it
is the Tower of London, for Catholics it is the Vatican, for Muslims it is Mecca, for
baseball it is the Hall of Fame. Dozens of examples came to mind. Jerusalem is
probably the best example of all. No other city has been ravaged and rebuilt so
many times throughout the centuries. Always rebuilt, always revered as the Jewish

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walled city.
Greg dug through his pockets and found the ticket stub from the morning’s
flight. On the back he scribbled:

Greg looked at the note. Intec was a big company. It had a big corporate
office to house the most important people–top management. People at plant level
found it reassuring that big brother was there to look after them.
Greg grinned to himself. He wished they could have seen big brother’s face
today.

-oOo-

The flight had left on time. Greg paged through the airline magazine. He had
read it from cover to cover on the flight to Chicago but one article in particular
caught his attention again. It described one of the latest items on exhibit at the
Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
It was a simple square craftsman’s toolbox made at the end of the previous
century by a master carpenter and stonemason named H.O.Studley.
What made the simple box so unusual was that every tool had a perfect
place. Dozens of hand planes, chisels, hammers, scribes and other tools were
lovingly nested in perfectly crafted receptacles. In some places, the tools fitted
perfectly one within the other. The display of committed craftsmanship was
awesome in its perfection. The toolbox radiated the love and respect the master had
for his well-worn tools. They enabled him to earn a living, and he paid tribute to
them through the intricate and painstaking work that went into making a toolbox of
such extraordinary precision.(30) He stared at the photograph for a long time. Greg
took the magazine with him when he deplaned.
He crawled into bed at 2a.m. Christine mumbled in her sleep and turned
over, her hand warm on his chest.

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 Chapter Fifteen
The latest yellow square, transferred from the ticket stub, was pasted up next
to its predecessors. Greg had just finished regaling Dennis with the dramatic
meeting in Chicago, and his insight about a walled city that strong tribes possess.
“Where would our walled city be?” Dennis asked, pondering the new
addition.
“I can describe some of the unwanted ones we have, that we should work
towards removing. The maintenance group has its enclosed workshop, physically
separated from the rest of the plant. They tend to gather there, reinforcing the ‘us
versus them’ tribal mentality. The accounting office exudes the same image. I
always feel slightly uncomfortable in there, like I am entering some fortress of
moral rectitude.”
Dennis roared with laughter. “I can relate to that. In the early days of
mainframe computers, computer rooms required special air conditioning,
suspended floors, and restricted access. It was the walled city of the Information
Technology tribe. It provided such a strong identity, that they behaved as a race
apart.”
Greg smiled in agreement, continuing his train of thought.
“Looking at it from the other side, to break down a tribe, one must destroy
the physical or psychological walled city. Take Jerusalem as an example.
Throughout the Old Testament there are descriptions of wars against that city and
how it was razed to the ground, only to be rebuilt and restored as the walled city of
the Jewish tribe or the Arab tribe, depending on one’s affiliation.
In the same vein–in the book of Revelation–the apostle Paul describes the
rebuilding of the city of Babylon as a sign of the latter days before the return of
Jesus Christ. Saddam Hussein tried to do exactly that. He poured immense amounts
of money and manpower into rebuilding the city of Babylon. He considered
himself a direct descendant of King Nebuchadnezzar, and rebuilding the city was
his attempt to bring the Assyrian tribe back to life. I think it is significant that he
started by re-creating the walled city.”
“That still leaves our question unanswered. Where should our walled city
be?” Dennis mused.
“Here’s another thought. Have you ever gone to a public park? It is usually
covered in signs saying ‘Keep off the grass.’ I never see signs that say ‘Welcome,’
or ‘Don’t fret, we’ll fix it.’ Although the users of parks pay for them through taxes,
the park wardens venerate them as their walled cities, violated by the messy,
grubby, disrespectful, noisy families desperately looking for a place to spend the
day outside of their cramped apartments.”
“So?”
“It seems to me that the walled city may become the reason for the creation
of another tribe, like the park wardens. We should ensure that our walled city does
not create another tribe, like the air-conditioned computer rooms did for the

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Information Technology staff of old. The Tower of London has such a tribe known
as the Beefeaters which have the specific duty of guarding the Tower and its
contents.”
“Agreed.”
“A walled city makes a huge psychological contribution to enhancing TV+
and IV+. We have this monstrous headquarter building in Chicago which I suggest
we promote as our walled city. We should arrange for people to visit there to
experience first-hand the awesome sight it represents. In a way it is also a symbol
of the Intec tribe’s success.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Dennis concurred. “At least we will get some
mileage out of the immoral head office charges we have to pay every month.”
Greg chuckled in agreement.
“Perhaps we can increase TV+ in the plant by simply highlighting the
existence of the corporate headquarters in its role as our psychological walled city,
without actually going there.”
“Good idea. Fiona should add it to the existing display of just cause and
common enemy.”
Greg leaned over and dialed her extension number.
Fifteen minutes later she left with a sheaf of notes on the Chicago building.
Dennis looked at her disappearing figure with forlorn admiration. Suddenly, he
frowned again.
“What now?” Greg asked in alarm.
“The walled city….”
“What about it?”
“The examples you used had one common denominator.”
“What?”
“They housed the treasures of the tribe. The Vatican owns extraordinary
valuable artwork and manuscripts. The Tower of London houses some of the most
valuable jewelry on earth. Jerusalem houses the Church of the Nativity as well as
the mosque of Al Asqa.”
Greg leaned forward, chin in hand. “You’re right. The walled city has no
value unless it houses the tribe’s most treasured artifacts. This may be a person or
some physical objects of great value.”
He signaled Dennis to pass the yellow pad lying on the conference table. He
straightened it out, and wrote:

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 “Hmm,” Dennis responded. “Your statement implies that the tribe
understands what embodies their value.”
“Agreed,” Greg enthused. “If there are no valuables, the tribe has nothing to
defend, and therefore no common enemy. I suspect every tribe possesses
something it values like freedom of expression in America, embodied in the
Declaration of Independence and housed under glass in the walled city of
Washington D.C.”
Dennis nodded in appreciation. “By creating objects of value, the tribal
identity is reinforced. For example, most cities have art museums that house the
treasures of the city tribe. Bigger cities spend huge amounts on purchasing rare and
valuable works of art, thereby increasing the sense of tribal value for its residents.
For centuries, the Roman Catholic Church was the keeper of the earliest Bible
texts. These were painstakingly copied by hand and only the literate few could read
them. It was the keeper of both the manuscripts and the ability to read and write.”
“What are our objects of value?” Greg asked.
“That’s easy.” Dennis replied. “It’s the company’s shares and our patents.
When our share price goes up, everybody feels a sense of TV+. We are succeeding
according to that external measure of success. When it goes down, we all
experience TV-. Like the Bible manuscripts of old, Intec’s share register is kept at
the share registrar’s office. It should be kept at Intec’s head office and used as a
symbol of the tribe’s value.”
“Yeah, that sounds right. Our technological prowess is another source of
value, embodied in our patents. When we produce great technological advances,
everyone basks in the glory, and experiences lots more TV+. All our patent
documents are also housed at headquarters and, like the share register, should be
held up as the tribe’s valuables. To leverage the concept of tribal value, we should
think of arranging tours to headquarters for our staff where those items should be
on display.”
“Indeed. Even photographs of those items might be sufficient to strengthen
TV+ here at plant level.”
“Great idea. More stuff for our display boards,” Greg sighed, rapidly typing

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up an internal email to Fiona, not wanting to interrupt her work again.

Three days later, the new display was up in the foyer and out on the plant
floor. It drew a lot of attention. Greg was amazed at the number of people that have
never seen the Intec building, even on a photograph.

During this time, Mike completed writing down the war stories, and together
they presented the first session to a group of new employees. He had assembled an
impressive collection of funny, sad and scary events. Like the wide-eyed audience,
Greg was charmed and amused by Mike’s rendition of the trials and tribulations
they had gone through. ‘Human tales of failure and success are so much more
tangible and believable than aseptic mission statements,’ he thought to himself.
At the end of Mike’s presentation, Greg revisited and emphasized the values
of co-responsibility, perseverance, innovation, commitment, humor and
coordination that the war stories embodied.
“I feel like I am working for a real company with real people,” a young
engineer remarked on their way out.

-oOo-

Three weeks had gone by since the last AsiaComNet container had been
hoisted aboard ship. The plant was truly on a roll. Orders that were delayed now
flowed through production. Jim Jones, the sales manager, was utterly delighted.
He’d fought a valiant battle to keep other customers out of their hair while
AsiaComNet occupied their time. Now he trumpeted their newfound ability to
produce more effectively to all and sundry, promising astounding results to their
still-wary customers.

-oOo-

The following Sunday saw Greg back in church. The morning sun threw
down carpets of dappled color through the stained glass windows. The pastor’s
voice droned on and the air conditioning hummed monotonously.
His eyes drooped, his head nodded, and he drifted off into pleasant oblivion.
Instantly he jerked upright, exhaling with a whoosh from the painful jab in his ribs
from his wife.
“Sit up, look intelligent. I know that’s difficult for you to do,” she whispered
crossly out of the corner of her mouth. Greg blinked, shook his head vigorously
and looked around guiltily. Both children giggled gleefully at his discomfort. He
scowled at them in return.
Squaring his shoulders, he made a renewed effort to listen. His thoughts
went back to the observation that had crossed his mind some weeks ago in the
same place.
The congregation behaved very much like a tribe.

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 ‘What more can I learn here?’ he asked himself.
“Brothers and sisters,” the pastor intoned, “let us then consider…”
Greg shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Some of the people around him
would definitely not be his choice of brother or sister by a long chalk.
‘Why this mode of address then?’ he thought idly to himself. ‘It puts all of
us on an even footing. To some extent it removes the tribal issues of class and race
from the congregation. People seem to be quite happy with that.’
Greg sat forward with renewed interest, a vague insight flitting around the
edge of his thoughts. Christine smiled, happy with his renewed attention to the
sermon.
‘What is it?’ he thought, willing his mind to clarify the fleeting thought.
‘People call each other brother and sister because they are equal under God
through Jesus Christ. By using the same mode of address, it makes me a member
of the tribe too.’
Excitedly Greg started digging through his pockets, looking for a pen and
paper. Christine frowned.
“Give me a pen,” he whispered. She dug one out of her bag and handed it
over with fresh disapproval. Greg didn’t notice.
He found a business card in his wallet and cupping it in his hand, wrote on
the back:

A number of examples immediately came to mind. Americans called

themselves citizens under the President. In the middle ages, Christian crusaders
slaughtered heathens in the name of God. Osama Bin Laden and his radical
followers slaughtered infidels in the name of God. Nazi camp commanders
conducted the holocaust under the figurehead of Hitler. People shaved their heads
and wore orange kaftans for Buddha and the Dalai Lama.
‘Under some commonly revered figurehead–good or bad–people find it
easier to relate to one another. It provides an immediate common bond that relieves
them of the need to present some other tribal identity or having to make an

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impression to maintain their IV+.’ he thought. ‘On the downside, it also allows
people to avoid moral responsibility by rationalizing atrocious behavior approved
by the figurehead.’
Greg pocketed the business card and leaned back, his mind occupied with
this new discovery. ‘Can I find an example in the business world?’ he wondered.
Bill Gates would be a good fit. Most people at Microsoft considered him
superhuman anyway. Jack Welch, retired CEO of GE, had been revered in the
same manner.
‘How can I use this attribute to my benefit at MicroLogic?’ he mused.
‘Perhaps I should think about the way that figureheads influence their adherents.
They are frequently associated with a revered document like the Bible, the
Constitution, the Koran, the Torah, Mein Kampf, the Chinese communist Red Book
or the Mormon Bible, all of which contain guidelines for the tribe’s conduct. The
association with a figurehead gives them greater influence than the average
corporate policy manual,’ he realized. ‘People construct their tribal norms and
values from these writings, which eventually form the framework for their
individual value system.’
Greg retrieved the dog-eared business card and added these new insights.
Christine frowned again. Greg stuffed the card back in his pocket, leaned back and
concentrated on the sermon. “…now let us close in prayer,” the pastor intoned.
Christine gave him a murderous look.
She refused to talk to him all the way home.

-oOo-

The new yellow note was stuck on the wall next to the whiteboard,
necessitated by the fact that the board was completely covered in notes from
Butch’s conversations. Greg had shared his new insight with Dennis.
“We’ll have to call you the most honorable dalai swami poobah and
commission a fiberglass statue of you, sitting on all-fours, in the foyer,” Dennis
suggested solemnly. He ducked as the yellow pad whizzed past his head.
“OK, standing up then,” he conceded. This time he had to duck a handful of
flying pencils.
“I surrender, O revered one!” he pleaded, crouching under the conference
table.
“Oh, shut up,” Greg replied testily. “You are not much help.”
Dennis scrambled out and sat down in his chair. “You may have something
there,” he admitted. “After our discussion on common enemies, some new thoughts
occurred to me. I jotted them down, not quite knowing what to make of them. I’ll
go get them.”
“Bring us more coffee,” Greg called after him.
“Most certainly, oh Great Punjabi,” echoed from the corridor.

-oOo-

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 Dennis put down the sheet of paper before unhooking the coffee mugs from
his finger. He turned the sheet around, pushing it under Greg’s nose. It was a list of
words:

“Can you see what’s common to the list?” Dennis asked.

“They all refer to people.”
“Exactly. I wondered why we would call the same thing by so many
different names.”
“It is a way to define members of a tribe.”
“It could be. Take hospitals for example. By referring to people as patients,
it immediately strips them of their humanity and therefore emotionally separated
from the hospital staff tribe. The Immigration and Naturalization Service of the US
government is another example. It describes foreigners in the USA as ‘aliens’. It
conjures up images of hordes of invaders from outer space that should be repelled
at all cost. By simply categorizing ordinary people as aliens, it defines both their
just cause–keeping non-Americans out, and the common enemy–anybody from

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outside who wants to enter the USA.”
Greg chuckled. “So your observation can work both ways. Tribes use
collective nouns to describe their members, but could also be used to describe their
common enemy. By distinguishing members from non-members the tribe is better
defined,” he concluded.
Dennis nodded in agreement. “Here is another example,” he added.
“Some members of the Islamic faith refer to non-believers as infidels–a
derogatory description of the common enemy that provided the just cause for the
attack on September 11, 2001–reinforced by the promise from the figurehead of a
glorious afterlife for those who die for the cause.
Tribal names have a profound impact on people’s motivation and behavior.
If I mentioned the Hell’s Angels, for example, most people would instantly
associate a dress code, behavior, and value system with that tribe without ever
having been associated with them.”
“We should investigate both these aspects in our company,” Greg resolved.
“..to determine whether we use collective nouns in a derogatory manner to describe
outsiders who interact with us. If so, does it result in our employees–no, people–to
treat them as the common enemy? Secondly, do we use collective nouns to
describe our own people in a way that strengthens their commitment and pride to
be associated with us? Take the word ‘associate’ for example, commonly used to
refer to employees. To me it describes an arm’s length, transient relationship of no
significant importance to the company which reinforces IV-.”
Dennis looked at Greg with newfound respect.
“That is a very clever observation. Not only do we have to check on the
terms we use in our company, but also formulate better terms to strengthen IV+
and TV+.”
“Indeed,” Greg concurred. “Let’s go back to the attribute of a figurehead. In
the corporate environment, the CEO of a company is expected to fulfill that role.
People pay inordinate attention to what he or she says, and carefully dissects each
statement for deeper meaning and context. These interpretations become the
guidelines by which people regulate their interaction with one another.
Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, is a good
example. Some researchers even talk about ‘The Greenspan Effect.’(31) Whenever
Dr. Greenspan opened his mouth, the stock market reacted. Every word he uttered
was analyzed for subtle meanings and hidden nuances that could signal the
figurehead’s thinking.”
‘That’s a precarious place to be,” Dennis countered. “The figurehead
embodies everything the tribe holds dear. If the figurehead turns out to have feet of
clay, the retribution is immense. Every member of the tribe experiences IV- and
TV- when the figurehead messes up. The impeachment of Richard Nixon is a great
example, as is Bill Clinton’s extra-marital adventures.”
“Perhaps–like the walled city concept–we can create some advantage for
ourselves from the figurehead attribute.”
“How is that?”

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 “We don’t really need one.”
“Oh, come on. You’re not serious, are you?” Dennis asked, taken aback.
“Take the Judeo-Christian faith as an example. Nobody has actually seen
God. Moses, Gideon, Elijah and Jacob are the only people on record to very nearly
see God other than in the form of Jesus Christ. Moses nearly got fried in the
process.”
“The point being..?”
“People still use God’s commandments and the Bible or Torah, or Koran to
structure their lives and their relationships without ever having seen God. We can
create a similar effect here.”
“You want to write a new Intec Bible? We just finished rewriting the
corporate policy manual!” Dennis frowned.
Greg laughed. “No, not at all. We may be able to create an imaginary
figurehead, though.”
Dennis’ eyes lit up. “Very clever! If such a person is of significant stature,
we can attribute guidelines and principles to him or her, which would generate a
similar phenomenon of self-regulating inter-personal behavior.”
Greg nodded enthusiastically. “My first thought would be to cast Ed
Winthrop in that role, but he is too much of a self-serving political fox.”
“Then Sandy must be the obvious choice. He is a man of deep integrity,
really cares about the business, and has an open, honest way about him,” Dennis
continued the train of thought. “People on the shop floor really respect him.”
“Great, let’s do that. I will use the introduction of the new restorative justice
system as the first action to turn our Scottish bard into an object of veneration.”
Dennis nodded in amused agreement.

-oOo-

The conference room was filled to capacity. Although the elation from the
completion of the AsiaComNet order had subsided, the sense of commitment had
not. Greg looked around the room with a sense of deep satisfaction. He called the
meeting to order and got down to business. Production rates were holding steady at
the new levels. None of the order due dates seemed to be at risk.
They moved apace through the agenda items where after Greg turned his
attention to the new justice mechanism. “I want to tell you a true story,” he began.
“It was recounted to me many years ago by a man I deeply respect. He was a
professor at Nihon University in Tokyo, one of most respected institutes of higher
learning in Japan. One day, in downtown Tokyo, a policeman saw what he thought
was a street crime. He gave chase and–in the heat of pursuit–drew his firearm, fired
a shot and hit the fleeing suspect in the leg. Luckily, it was only a light flesh
wound. The criminal was duly apprehended and brought before the court.
Without much ado, he was found guilty and sentenced for his crime. Then
the court did something unusual. It considered the policeman’s part of the crime.
‘His part of the crime?’ you may ask.

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 There is a very interesting principle in Japanese law. It does not subscribe to
the concept of one guilty and one innocent party, or innocent until proven guilty as
in most Western law, or guilty until proven innocent as in French law. Rather, they
follow the principle that both parties are innocent and guilty. Both are considered
co-responsible for an event that disturbs the social harmony, and it is the court’s
function to determine the balance of guilt. After much deliberation the court found
the policeman guilty of not being fit enough to catch the criminal on foot, hence
forced to fire a shot in public which endangered the lives of others. The court
sentenced him to a fine equal to the cost of the bullet he had fired.”
Everyone chuckled, their interest stirred.
“We want to introduce the same principle into our organization. To promote
better social interaction between all of us–employees, managers, departments,
shifts–we thought it good that we reconstruct the way we administer our working
relationships. To this end, Dennis and I have incorporated your recommendations
into a new model of organizational justice.”
He had everyone’s attention. “The co-responsibility we’ve assigned to every
person has brought about a significant change in attitude. Just yesterday I heard of
one of our people whose child was seriously ill. Instead of just commiserating, the
two people co-responsible for her well-being went to the department supervisor
and asked for help. Our corporate emergency assistance program helped meet her
immediate financial need. They did not leave the matter at that, though. They
arranged for home assistance and volunteered to work stand-in double shifts for her
to be at the hospital without losing income.”
Greg looked around the room.
“That’s the attitude that makes me proud to be here. However, I witnessed
another incident where animosity between two people got out of hand. That
incident highlighted a deficiency in our group justice structure.”
Greg switched his laptop display to the screen on the wall. Someone turned
down the lights. “This is how we thought we should structure our social
interaction.”
With that, he worked through the model, fielding questions as they came up.
When the lights came on again after an hour, it made them all blink.
“It is your responsibility to communicate the new system to everyone.
We’ve prepared a teaching document for you to use.” He pointed to the pile of
bound books on the table. “You will notice that the entire set of new initiatives–
the co-responsibility structure, the new group interaction training and the
restorative justice system are all interlinked. We anticipate that it will provide a
much more structured and secure environment, contributing to enhanced job
security and a stronger sense of individual value.”
He looked around the room. A hand went up in the back. He nodded for the
person to continue.
“We supervisors frequently find ourselves in difficult situations, trying to be
human while keeping the company’s objectives in mind at the same time. Within
this structure, I feel we are much better equipped to deal with those thorny issues.”

244
 Heads nodded in agreement.
“That’s it for today. Let’s go make this the best place to work.”
The room emptied out quickly.

Back in his office, Greg clasped his hands behind his head. Dennis also
leaned back. “The concepts resonated pretty strongly,” Dennis commented.
“There is still a lot more to come,” Greg grinned.
He gathered up his notes, and turned off the lights as they left.

-oOo-

There was a new display board in the reception area. The entire surface was
covered with dozens of photographs from the AsiaComNet barbeque. Smiling
faces radiated from the pictures. Greg studied the display with interest and turned
to the receptionist. “Please make sure that everyone gets a copy of their photograph
together with a note from me thanking them for their contribution to our success.”
She jotted down his instruction. ‘That will help build IV+ and TV+,’ Greg thought,
heading back to his office.
The row of yellow notes extended well along the wall by now. Greg counted
the number of attributes they had identified to date. There were eighteen squares.
‘Butch said there were twenty-two tribal attributes. We still need four more and in
amongst them is the most important one I have yet to discover,’ Greg thought in
frustration. ‘At this rate, it will take at least a year before I get to the bottom of
this.’
He opened his briefcase and removed the half-written monthly report started
the previous night. His eye fell on the airline magazine he kept from the flight back
from that remarkable meeting in Chicago. The memory of the look on Ed
Winthrop’s face still made him smile. He frowned at the magazine, unable to recall
why he impulsively decided to keep it. He riffled through the pages. There it was–
the toolbox made by H.O.Studley. Greg was again struck by the extraordinary
craftsmanship. Studley, a piano maker by trade, inlaid the edges of the toolbox
with ivory, ebony and mother-of-pearl. Small, perfectly fitted drawers housed
miniature wrenches and saws. He studied the picture with admiration.
A thought crossed his mind, something related to the toolbox. He had read
that the Japanese government, concerned about the decline in the number of master
craftsman in industry, had launched an awards program to honor their skill and
competence. One of the recipients was a machinist, deep in his sixties, who could
detect variations in machined part tolerances down to mere thousands of an inch by
simple touch. Through the awards, the Government hoped to create renewed
interest, and therewith enrolment, in technical careers amongst young people.
‘Why is this important?’ Greg asked himself, smoothing the magazine
down. ‘Because skills are crucial to the survival of the tribe, that’s why. Whether it
is computer programming, piano building, lathe work, or cuisine for that matter,
skills can only produce results with the appropriate tools. A concert pianist without

245
a piano is incapable of producing piano music.’
Greg paced up and down the office, lost in thought.
“Most companies treat skills as a commodity–something they can add or
remove through hiring and firing. However, skills are important drivers of IV+,
which we largely ignore. There are thousands of craft and professional
associations–from dental technicians to portrait painters to tattooists, which prove
that skills provide yet another reason to form a tribe. Even company directors have
their own association, and ex-cabinet ministers and secretaries of state have their
own global old-boys club.’ He chuckled at the irony of that.
‘If we ignore the motivating force of skills and tools, we abandon another
powerful way to strengthen our tribe. If we disparage or simply ignore the IV+ that
people’s skills provide, they leave for ‘better opportunities’–not always for better
monetary reward but rather to be recognized for their skill. Companies that pay
tribute to people’s skills and tools invariably attract the best talent.’
Rummaging around his desk drawer, he found a pair of scissors with which
he cut the photograph of the Studley toolbox from the magazine. With a thick
black pen, he wrote across the top of the page:

He taped the picture up next to the row of yellow squares.

“How do I use this attribute to my advantage here in MicroLogic?’ he
wondered, looking at the picture on the wall with folded arms. ‘Our equipment is
very expensive and operates to extraordinary tight tolerances. Still, we treat them
as depreciating assets. If I could instill a strong sense of pride and appreciation for
what they embody, people would use them with greater care. That should
significantly impact our quality, lower our maintenance expenses, and extend the
life of our equipment while increasing motivation to boot.’
He sat down, drew his note pad closer and jotted down his latest insights.
‘We shouldn’t do performance appraisal just of individuals, but also for groups.
We should regularly evaluate how groups contribute to the care of skills, tools and
implements. This could range from keeping the office clean, to resetting the copier
after use, to caring for our multi-million dollar machines. TV+ and IV+ will surely
increase if everyone felt that we valued and respected their skills as individuals and
teams.’ Greg put the pen down and sat back, the light of discovery in his eyes.
“I’ve got to run this by Butch. I haven’t spoken to him in quite a while.” He
punched the autodial button for Cape Industries on his telephone.
The bright cheery greeting hadn’t changed. “I’m sorry Greg. Butch is out.
I’m sure you can reach him on his mobile phone.”

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 He punched the second autodial button.
“Johnson.” Metallic machine noise filled the background.
“Hi Butch. Greg here.”
“I wondered where you’d disappeared to.”
Greg chuckled, thinking of the roller-coaster events of the last few days.
“Am I interrupting you?” he asked.
“No, I’m visiting the gunsmith. He is calibrating my hunting rifles for my
upcoming hunting trip.”
Greg was quiet for a few seconds.
“Is he a good gunsmith?”
“The best in town.”
“And your hunting rifles?”
There was a pause before Butch carefully replied.
“The best money can buy.”
“Fit for a master, no doubt.”
Butch chuckled. “You’ve latched onto the tribal importance of tools and
implements, haven’t you?”
Greg felt a rush of pride. “Indeed.”
“Good for you. What are you going to do with the discovery?”
Greg described his idea of performance evaluation for groups as well as
individuals.
“Good!” Butch commented. “However, you’ll have to specify the
performance criteria carefully and clearly. Do you remember the signification
event you observed in my plant?”
“Yes.”
“The work group immediately recognized and celebrated the new skill,
thereby reinforcing the value of both the individual and the group. At Cape
Industries, recognition does not wait for the annual performance review to trundle
around.”
“Good point.” Greg scribbled the idea on his notepad, and continued:
“Butch, I’m getting impatient. The impact of your approach to motivation has been
extraordinary. The same buzz of excitement that left such an impression on me at
Cape Industries is becoming more noticeable here. You said there were twenty-two
tribal attributes. To date, I have discovered nineteen, and implemented most of
them. Won’t you relieve my agony, and share the last three attributes with me,
please?”
The clink and rattle of metal on metal and the whine of machinery
punctuated the silence.
“I’ll be away for quite a while.” Butch responded. “I’ll give you two more.
Listen carefully.”
Greg flipped to a new page on the notepad.
“Do you remember Kim Philby?”(32) Butch asked.
“Er, No.”
“Philby was the privileged son of a British diplomat who became the most

247
famous spy of the twentieth century. Together with Guy Burgess, Donald McLean
and Anthony Blunt, he spied for the Soviet Union. In the 1940’s he began working
for British Intelligence, already a double agent. Burgess and McLean, both in the
service of the British Government, also worked as double agents in America,
tasked to follow the atomic bomb’s development. Philby was appointed as British
Intelligence liaison to the CIA and FBI, which gave him access to top-secret
information about most US intelligence operations.
Shortly after arriving in Washington, Philby learned about a code-breaking
operation called ‘Verona’ that had identified a spy within the British embassy in
Washington. He realized that McLean’s cover was blown and urged them to defect
after informing the KGB of their imminent unmasking. They skipped the country
in May 1951, literally hours ahead of their pursuers.
Philby remained behind and immediately tried to deflect attention from
himself by telling the SIS that the two defectors had alluded to a mole that had
been working for the Soviets since the 1930’s. He assumed that they would deduce
that McLean had been the mole. However, both the British and US Intelligence
communities became suspicious and put Philby under surveillance.
Here is the important part. In spite of overwhelming evidence against him,
he was not arrested for espionage for another ten years. Why? Both the British
Foreign Office and the British parliament simply refused to believe the facts,
unable to stomach the extreme embarrassment this revelation would cause both the
United States and British Governments. Finally, in 1962, Philby was confronted
with a mass of evidence–more than sufficient to convict him of espionage. He was
offered immunity if he divulged what he knew of the Soviet spy networks. Three
days later, he escaped to Russia aboard a ship arranged by the KGB. On his death
in 1988, he was buried with the honor normally accorded a KGB general.”
Butch covered the mouthpiece and spoke to the gunsmith. Greg waited
patiently. A few minutes later, he resumed the conversation.
“Two other Soviet spies–Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were not so lucky.(33)
On March 6, 1951, two months before the defection of Burgess and McLean, they
were put on trial for Soviet espionage, together with one Martin Sobell. They were
found guilty and sentenced to death, and Sobell got thirty years in prison. They
were executed on June 19, 1953 after the US Supreme Court denied a stay of
execution.’
Greg scribbled down the last of the information.
“Here is the second piece of the jigsaw,” Butch continued.
Greg quickly flipped the page, pen poised.
“Some 108 years ago, one of the strongest brands in the USA was created.
That’s the year Milton Hershey started Hershey Foods, the best-known
confectionery company in the world outside of Nestlé in Switzerland. Over the
years, Milton Hershey developed the town of Hershey, Philadelphia, as a model
community around the plant. The company built schools, a zoo, public gardens, a
golf course and an amusement park. Hershey the company was Hershey the town.
Hershey Foods offered stability and security to everyone–strong IS+ in your

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terms. Even the top executives were systematically groomed and promoted from
long-serving employees. They lived close to one another in Hershey’s well-
manicured suburbs and even vacationed together. The relationship between
management and the union remained untrammeled for some 22 years. In Hershey
Foods you will recognize a very strong, very successful tribe.
However, in March 2001, traumatic changes rocked the centuries-old firm.
For the first time in company history, Rick Lenny, a veteran from Nabisco, was
appointed as Hershey’s CEO. He immediately set about cutting cost and improving
efficiency. In short order, hundreds of jobs disappeared, several core businesses
were abandoned, plants closed, and a horde of new managers brought in to ‘shake
things up.’ New-fangled Wall Street-like buzzwords became the new tribal
language.
The company went into shock. Workers suddenly experienced significant
TS- and IS-, thinking that the company was going to hell in a hand basket. The
tribal reaction was utterly predictable. Overnight, Lenny became the common
enemy, reinforced by the fact that he surrounded himself with personal
bodyguards.
The union called a strike, ostensibly about wages and such, but the real issue
was the war between the new management tribe and old employee tribe. Where the
company had fostered a sense of mutual care before, Lenny’s actions seemed to do
the opposite.
As the common enemy and target of their wrath, Lenny’s face appeared on
picket signs, and picketers heckled shareholders who attended the shareholder’s
meeting hosted at the Hershey Theater. When Lenny was asked how much he was
being paid, he could not answer for the jeering and shouting.
Although Lenny reassured the thoroughly-shaken shareholders that
employees are ‘supporting the changes necessary to take Hershey to new levels of
performance’, the company experienced extreme stress.”(34)
Greg finished his notes.
“And?” he enquired.
“Go figure,” Butch replied and rang off.
Greg threw the pen down in frustration. It bounced off the desk, spun
through the air, hit the doorjamb and skidded down the passage.
He lowered his head, closing his eyes.
“Excuse me.”
It was Dennis’s voice. He gingerly held the pen between thumb and
forefinger. “Perhaps we need a dartboard in here, yes?” he asked diplomatically,
solemnly inspecting the broken nib. Greg chuckled in resigned appreciation.
“Sit down, listen to this,” he commanded.
He pointed to the picture of the toolbox, and explained the insight about
tools and implements. “There is more. Butch told me the following….”
With that, he recounted the last conversation with Butch.
“I’ll be darned if I know what it means,” he finished, frustration edging his
voice.

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 “We have to figure it out,” Dennis replied. “Let’s begin with the spy story.
Philby, McLean, Burgess, the Rosenbergs and Martin Scobell all spied for the
Soviet Union. However, their treatment by the USA and the Soviets was
profoundly different. The Soviet Union richly rewarded Philby, Burgess and
McLean’s loyalty. Philby and his friends lived in comfort in Russia, and he was
even given a hero’s burial in 1988. In contrast, the Rosenbergs were branded as
traitors, and ejected from the American tribe in the most dramatic way possible by
executing them.”
Greg raised his eyebrows. “That’s pretty observant! Why did they not
execute Kim Philby, though?”
“He was a British subject,” Dennis replied pointedly. “It would not be the
done thing, even though Britain had legislated the death penalty for treason. In
addition, Philby was a member of the Cambridge graduate tribe, a senior member
of the British Foreign Office tribe, as well as a member of the Special Intelligence
Service tribe. There would be a lot of TV- for everyone if Philby were to be
exposed. Being disloyal to the Crown was too ghastly to contemplate.”
“That’s it!” Greg jumped up.
“Huh?”
“Loyalty. That’s the tribal attribute Butch wanted us to discover. He
scribbled on the now familiar yellow pad, tore off the top sheet, and stuck it up on
the wall. It read:

Dennis sat forward. “That’s it. Spying was considered the epitome of
disloyalty to the tribe, and the Americans tolerated it much less than the British
did. In contrast, the very same spying activities were the epitome of loyalty to the
Soviets. That’s why the KGB went to extraordinary lengths to extract Philby,
McLean and Burgess to safety. The very same act, considered loyal by the one
tribe, is seen as heinously disloyal by the other.”
“How do we leverage loyalty here at MicroLogic?”
“We have to define what we consider to be disloyal behavior. All we have

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defined are punishable activities–events that will get a person disciplined or
dismissed. But loyalty is much more subtle, encompassing things like the
confidentiality of corporate information, trade secrets, business strategy, and
ethical financial dealings.”
Greg nodded in agreement. “Loyalty is also an IV+ activity. Knowing that
your co-workers are loyal to the company reinforces the perception of corporate
integrity. Do you want to know how much loyalty and integrity is worth?”
“Can you put a value to it?”
“In one instance I can. In January 2001, Enron was worth $83.00 per share.
By mid-2002, it was worth 25 cents per share. When it became apparent that
management had been disloyal to shareholders by cooking the books, 99.7% of the
company’s value evaporated. That’s what loyalty and integrity is worth– just about
everything.”
Greg sighed. “That’s scary. We should define what constitutes loyalty and
integrity for MicroLogic, and incorporate it into our new education program. More
work for us.”
Dennis shrugged. “Without a clear definition, we leave it up to the
individual to determine what loyalty and integrity means. Who knows what that
may turn out to be? Another Kim Philby maybe…”
“What about Hershey?” Greg abruptly changed the subject. “What did
Butch have in mind?”
“There must be more than just the predictable tribal behavior to the story,”
Dennis concurred. “Hershey employees suddenly found themselves under threat.
Their stable world was turned upside down. New executives were making
unpredictable decisions, the power structure and chain of command suddenly
behaved differently, and was totally at odds with known traditional behavior.”
“True.” Greg, chin in hand, had a faraway look in his eyes. He got up,
found a small area to clean on the whiteboard and drew a diagram:

“I’d guess Hershey employees find themselves between a rock and a hard
place, experiencing immense tribal stress. The rock is the conflict between

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authority and responsibility. For example, they were expected to shoulder more
responsibility for personal health costs, but have no authority over how those
decisions are made. The hard place is the conflict between tribal roles and values.
Hershey’s age-old corporate values of paternalistic care and common good are
utterly at odds with the new values of impersonal, expendable resources. TS- and
IS- dramatically escalated. Many took refuge in the union tribe, and an immense
amount of energy got channeled into restoring the old, familiar tribal equilibrium.
I suspect the organization will show some short-term gains in stock value,
but thereafter may follow International Harvester into oblivion as the tribe fights to
re-establish traditional values, reinstate known roles, bring back previous authority
structures and restore the familiar allocation of responsibility. I suspect that trust in
management will never be re-established.
Rather than creating a new super-tribe on a very strong existing foundation,
the company splintered into many internal tribes, bent on slugging it out with one
another.”
“Pass me the note pad,” Dennis gestured impatiently. The pad skittered
across the conference table. Dennis held it down, wrote down his thoughts, and
stuck the square up on the wall. It read:

Greg studied the yellow square with interest. “That sounds right to me. I’ve
noticed that once people establish good working models of responsibility,
authority, roles, values and a chain of command, there is a significant increase in
productivity. Over time, people get to know what to expect from one another,
discount their weaknesses, build on their strengths and know how their group will
behave under given circumstances. The tribe functions extremely effectively, with
unambiguous roles, authority that matches responsibility, and a clear chain
of command. With that comes a strong sense of TV+ that stems from the
satisfaction of efficient interaction–much like a Superbowl winning team.”
Dennis nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve been part of such a tribe. It is a great
experience. If I continue along your train of thought, I suspect that resistance to
change is due to people’s abhorrence of yet another agonizingly slow

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reconstruction of roles, values, responsibilities, authority, and command structure.
In fact, management’s propensity to tinker with organizational structures becomes
a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once reconfigured, they expect immediate performance
improvement, but with energy internally focused to re-establish efficient working
relationships, performance may in fact go down, triggering yet another round of
corporate reshuffling and hiring and firing.”
Greg pursed his lips. “We should be far more circumspect in designing our
organization structure to match functional and tribal requirements. Thereafter we
should desist from tinkering with it.”
“If we combine our knowledge of tribal behavior with the functional
requirements of the business, the resulting organizational structure should be
efficient and durable,” Dennis continued the line of thought.
“Nothing remains unaffected when one views the business through the lens
of tribal behavior.” Greg said, awe in his voice.
“I’ll call Russ Barton. We must include loyalty in our education program.
Dennis, can I ask you to define the roles, authority, power structure and chain of
command in the tribal context?”
“Sure. The plant is running like a Swiss watch right now. It’ll be an
interesting exercise.”

-oOo-

The early evening outside temperature was noticeably lower. ‘Fall has
arrived early this year,’ Greg observed, closing the garage door as he walked into
the kitchen. Dinner was in the microwave oven. Christine and the children had
gone to visit friends. He listened to the headline news on CNN while eating.
The Palestinians and the Israeli tribes were still at war. The Al-Qaeda and
the USA tribes were still at war. The Republican and Democrat tribes were still in
disagreement. The IRA and the British tribes were still at war. North and South
Korean tribes were still at loggerheads. Chechen rebel and the Russian tribes were
still at war. Cuba and the USA tribes were still at loggerheads. Hutu and Tutsi
tribes were still bent on destroying one another in Rwanda. Tamils were still
opposing the Indonesian government tribe.

“Tribal behavior is the biggest, most fundamental cause of misery in the

world,” Greg thought to himself in despair, clicking the off-button on the TV
remote. He put the plate in the dishwasher, made coffee, and walked down to the
library.
‘I should check our deductions with Butch, before we go ahead and change
the training,’ he reminded himself.

-oOo-

The telephone rang for a long time. Greg wondered if he was home.

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 “Johnson”
“Hi Butch, Greg here.”
“Twice in one day?” He sounded amused.
“We figured out the tribal attributes you alluded to. I want to run our
conclusions by you.” Without hesitating, Greg recounted their deductions.
“Perfect,” Butch commented. “You have done well. You now know the keys
to creating truly successful businesses–ones that reinforces itself through self-
sustaining motivation. There are a handful of minor attributes you will still
discover over time, but the most significant ones you now know. However, the
most important one–the key attribute that drives all the others–you still haven’t
identified. I’m in the midst of packing the last of my equipment before leaving for
Africa, so you’ll have to excuse me.”
With that, he rang off.

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 Chapter Sixteen
“I can’t bear the suspense of not knowing the last tribal attribute. I must
convince Butch to share it with me, even if I have to go to Africa to get it,” Greg
said to himself. He closed his eyes, cradled his head in his hands, thinking hard.
A few minutes later he reached for the phone and redialed Butch’s home
number.
“Johnson.”
“Butch, it’s me again.”
“Uh-huh. What now?”
“I can’t wait with this. I must know that last, most important tribal attribute
that still eludes me. The curiosity is killing me. So, I offer my services as
manservant, bearer and general factotum on your trip to Africa. In exchange I ask
for a merciful release from the frustration of not knowing what the last remaining
mystery tribal attribute is.”
There was a long silence. Greg stopped breathing.
“Hmmm. I did not plan on taking anyone along. In fact, I never do.”
“Please. I’ll kiss a hyena or wrestle a crocodile for the privilege.”
The silence was even more profound, and longer.
“Have you ever had to live on dried tree worms and infested water?’
“No.”
“And you still want to go?”
“More so.”
“Have you ever hunted?”
“Once, as a kid, I shot a squirrel with a BB gun. It ran away.”
Butch snorted in involuntary deprecation.
“I’ll phone you back,” Butch responded, and put the phone down.
Without hesitating, Greg keyed another outside line and dialed Sandy’s
home number. “Sandy, I need a big favor from you,” he barged in before Sandy
could recite his customary greeting. “I need to take ten days leave immediately.”
“Family problems, laddie?” Sandy sounded concerned.
“No, I need to go somewhere.”
“Are you taking the family along?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
A pregnant silence followed.
“Aw, come on! I am not going to shack up with some twenty-year old
bimbo,” Greg said in disgust. “There is a very important aspect of our business that
I am researching. An opportunity has presented itself to find some crucial
information, and I need time off to go find it.”
“Have you taken up archeology?” Sandy quipped.
“No, but it’s kind of the same thing.”

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 Sandy chuckled. “You really want do this, it seems.”
“You bet!”
“Well, in the light of your extraordinary achievement with AsiaComNet,
you are the new top gun in Intec. You deserve some reward for that. How much
time do you need?”
“No more than ten days, I guess.”
“Who will manage MicroLogic in your absence?”
“Dennis is here. He’ll run the ship.”
“Good. You have permission to take ten days paid study leave. We will also
pay for your travel and accommodation.”
“Thanks Sandy, and thank you for not asking questions.”
“I hope it is worth our while,” Sandy replied.
“So do I,” Greg said fervently. “So do I.”

-oOo-

Butch phoned back by mid-morning the next day. Greg was downtown with
Christine, buying new furniture for the children’s bedrooms. He wondered why
men got dragged into such decisions. They were walking along the bright,
sunshine-drenched sidewalk when the phone buzzed in his pocket. Greg ducked
into a doorway, away from the traffic noise. Christine looked resigned, folded her
arms and studied the nearest window display.
“I am prepared to take you along…”
“YES!” Greg could not stop himself, punching his clenched fist through the
air.
Christine looked at him in surprise.
“Sorry,” he mumbled into the stony silence on the phone.
“I am prepared to take you along on the following conditions,” Butch
continued. “I take no responsibility for you or whatever may happen to you on the
trip. If, for any reason, I decide to terminate your participation, you leave
immediately with no argument. You are entirely responsible for providing your
own finances, equipment, transportation, health support and whatever else you may
need to stay alive. You will obey and execute every instruction I give you without
question. You only speak when spoken to. I will provide you with information
about the last tribal attribute you want when I decide to do so. You will not ask
questions about the subject. Do you still want to go?”
“Absolutely,”
“You don’t have much time to prepare. I’m leaving in three days. Here are
the flight details…”
Greg patted his pockets for a pen and paper. Not finding any, he frantically
gestured to Christine to hand over her thin leather-covered notebook. He
wedged the phone with his shoulder, propped the notebook against the rough
brickwork and hurriedly wrote the details with the impossibly thin gold pencil.
By the time Butch had finished, Greg had covered six pages with notes on

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things to take, flight numbers, departure times and visa requirements.
“See you on the flight,” Butch concluded. “If you are not on board, I’ll
assume you’ve decided not to go through with this.”
“I’ll be there,” Greg assured him.
“We’ll see.”
With that, the conversation ended. Greg stuffed the phone into his pocket,
tore the notes from the pad and handed back the notebook with a kiss of thanks.
He had not discussed the trip with his wife, waiting for Butch’s decision.
Now he had to think of a way to broach the subject.
“You sounded pretty excited there,” Christine commented, curiosity getting
the better of her.
“It’s the answer to a business question I’ve been waiting for,” Greg replied
airily, hoping she would leave it at that. She looked at him with a knowing,
quizzical, raised eyebrow.
They found the furniture Christine wanted and bought two full bedroom
suites, much to the delight of the store manager. He paid more than he thought was
reasonable without arguing, which got him another raised eyebrow.
On the way back to the car, Greg said: “Why don’t we have lunch
somewhere?”
“Aren’t you in hurry to get back to the plant?”
“No. Not really. We rarely get the chance to do this.”
They found a small Italian bistro, smelling of warm dough and fresh garlic.
Bright umbrellas on the sidewalk beat back the summer sun, creating pools of
shade in a hot, muggy street. It was cool and dark inside, and they slipped into a
booth next to a street-facing open window, framed by a thatch of red geraniums in
a window box.
After the waiter had left with their order, Greg wondered how he was going
to broach the subject with his wife. They made small talk for a while. Christine
watched him with amusement.
“Come on, spill the beans,” she commanded.
“Huh?”
“I’ve been married to you long enough to know when something’s up.”
Greg smiled in wry acknowledgement of her perspicacity.
“I have to go on a business trip in three days from today.”
“Chicago again?”
“No, er, Africa,” he said lamely.
“Africa!?”
“Yes, with Butch.”
Throughout the MicroLogic saga, Greg had shared the problems, drama, and
insights with his wife. She appreciated his burning desire to replicate Butch’s
achievement.
In a rush of excitement, he recounted the details of Butch’s trip and his
agreement to take Greg along. He fished the crumpled notes out of his pocket and
skipped through the details. Christine listened in silence, watching the excitement

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light up his face.
“…and I’ll be back in ten days,” he fizzled to a halt.
Amusement crinkled the corners of her eyes. She reached out and covered
both his hands with hers.
“My instinctive reaction was one of concern and irritation. ‘How can you
buzz off and leave us alone?’ I thought. However, I know how important this is to
you, so go with a clear conscience. Spring break starts next week anyway, so we’ll
go visit grandpa and grandma while you are out playing the great white hunter.”
Greg had forgotten about spring break. He squeezed her hands in grateful
thanks.
“You have to promise me something in return, though.”
“Anything!” Greg responded enthusiastically.
“A trip to the Bahamas,” she smiled angelically, “Before the end of
summer.”
Greg laughed in appreciation. She had him in a corner and she knew it.
“Agreed,” he conceded.
Their food arrived. For the next hour they worked through the items on
Butch’s list, figuring out how to get it all done in three days. Greg immediately
phoned the travel agent, urging her to attend to the visa applications right away.

-oOo-

It was after three in the afternoon when he got back to the plant. He paged
Dennis to his office.
“Africa!?”
He frowned as Greg ran through the details again. At the end of Greg’s
monologue, he was sold on the idea. “Go get ‘em!” he said enthusiastically, “The
quicker, the better. I can handle the plant.”
“Thanks buddy!” Greg said with fervent appreciation.
The rest of the afternoon was a blur of frantic activity. Responsibility for
visas, immunizations, clothing, passport clearance, malaria medication, traveler’s
checks and dozens of other things were hurriedly assigned.
The receptionist was arguing with an embassy official over passport details
when Greg left for home.
Early evening saw him in the men’s clothing section of the local outfitter
and gun shop. Butch had emailed him a list of requirements and the shop assistant
scurried to collect everything he needed. Tough khaki pants, leather boots with
thick soles, a warm sleeping bag and mosquito net, hunting knife, thick hiking
socks and a myriad other small items.
‘I have to carry all this stuff myself,’ it suddenly dawned on him. He
unceremoniously dumped half the stuff in an empty trolley, keeping only what he
really needed and added the lightest backpack he could find to that.

The children giggled with delight as they helped pull the price tags off the

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items. Greg had to repack the backpack three times before everything fitted in.
The next day was another frantic rush from embassy to bank to medical
center where he got two painful injections. Visas would be ready by late afternoon.
Throughout the frantic activity, Christine displayed a veneer of cheerfulness, but
Greg sensed her deep anxiety.
“Don’t worry darling, I’ll be all right. Butch has done this many times
before.” The tight, strained lines around her mouth did not go away, though.
Dinner at home was a quiet event. The children, oblivious of the drama
around them, chattered excitedly about the visit to grandpa and grandma. To Greg
it felt a bit like the last supper.

-oOo-

The Boeing 747 bounced in the low cloud as it left Da Vinci airport in Milan
on the second leg of the journey. The connecting flight from San Francisco had
been uneventful. At the ticket counter in San Francisco, Greg had checked if Butch
was on board. He had breathed a sigh of relief when it was confirmed. As soon as
he had stowed his flight bag, he made his way to the first class section.
He had not seen Butch since their meeting in Milwaukee, and wondered if
he would recognize him. He was needlessly concerned. He immediately recognized
the big, hard, taciturn man.
Butch looked up as Greg reached his seat.
“Ah. So you’d decided to come after all. Good.”
“Wild horses would not keep me away,” Greg joked.
“I’ll meet you at the arrival gate in Lilongwe.” Butch replied, “We are
boarding a small charter plane there.”
“Which gate?”
Butch’s eyes crinkled with amusement.
“There is only one arrival gate.”
“Where is Lilong-whatsit’s name?”
“You’ll find out.”
Greg shrugged in good-natured resignation and returned to his seat.
Later, as the plane headed due south out over the Mediterranean and on into
the night, he looked at the world map in the back of the airline magazine. The city
with the lilting name was not shown. He was surprised to see how few cities in
Africa the international carriers served. The travel agent had told him that very few
flights landed at their destination–mostly half-cargo/half-passenger configurations
on their way to Johannesburg.
Africa was still the Dark Continent.

He slept fitfully and awoke before the cabin lights came on. Opening the
window blind, he caught the first sight of Africa from a cloudless sky. The sun
wasn’t over the horizon yet, and the early dawn was a beautiful rosy hue. The
pristine bushveld stretched from horizon to horizon. Greg gazed at it in awe, struck

259
by the stark contrast to Chicago’s urban sprawl that also stretched from horizon to
horizon. After breakfast, the plane started its gradual descent. As it circled over the
dusty airport, Greg could see the ramshackle, haphazard and miserable shantytown
that surrounds every big city in Africa. No skyscrapers here.
When the doors opened, Greg joined the rush to get his bag from the
overhead compartment, glad to stretch his legs. The first surprise was the absence
of a jetway. Stepping down the portable stairway and boarding a transit bus was a
long-forgotten experience.
He was shoved against the side of the crammed and peeling bus as the driver
swung the steering wheel and roared towards the airport terminal. No luxuries here.
Greg was amazed to see virtually no industrial development around the airfield.
Where the runway ended, the bushveld began, stretching all the way to the horizon
in the already shimmering heat.
People clattered along the worn vinyl-covered floor to customs, sweating in
line while flyspecked ceiling fans sluggishly pushed the warm, stale air around.
The customs officer gave no more than a cursory glance at his visa and photo
before handing him the stamped and scrawled passport.
Butch met up with him at the baggage area. No carousel here. Bags were
simply packed in ragged rows on the edge of the concrete loading dock. Thereafter
it was everyone for him- or herself before the bag-snatchers got there.

Butch retrieved his bag, a small valise. Greg groaned when he swung the big
backpack over his shoulder. Together they walked through the arrivals hall, cleared
customs with the same disinterested lethargy, and met up with a smiling black man
holding aloft a board with Butch’s name scrawled on it.
“Welcome back, Mr. Johnson.”
“Thank you Sibongwe. How is your family?”
“Ah, they are all well, thank you bwana. Your plane is ready.”
“Thank you.” They followed their guide outside.

The heat and noise hit Greg like a brick wall. Throngs of men, women and
children mobbed him, hawking goods, pushing their wares in his face, chattering in
unintelligible excitement. Their guide yelled at them, waving his arms. They made
their way to the curbside, and Greg thankfully slammed the sliding door of the
ageing minivan against a barrage of fruit and carved trinkets in jostling children’s
hands.
They drove around the airport perimeter and–going through a padlocked
gate in the security fence–stopped in front of one of two hangars, singular in their
loneliness. The Beechcraft King-Air 200 shone in the sun. The aircraft was loaded
with bags, boxes, drums and lots of other bits and pieces.
“Everything here, Sibongwe?” Butch asked.
“Yes bwana, exactly as before. The last parcels arrived on last week’s
flight.”
“Good. Let’s get going. Give your bag to Sibongwe. He will put it in the

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hold,” he told Greg. Only then did Greg realize that Butch was piloting the plane
himself. It never occurred to him that it might be so. Now there was truly no
turning back.
Butch did a thorough inspection of the plane, and motioned Greg into the
copilot’s seat. He strapped himself in as Butch went through the pre-flight check.
Sibongwe scrambled into the jump seat, fumbling for the seat belt, clearly used to
this.
Butch motioned Greg to put the headset over his ears. It was a new
sensation. “Put on your sunglasses,” Butch commanded over the intercom. Butch
did the same while he continued to talk to the tower in the courteous language so
unique to air traffic control. Butch put the pre-flight checklist on his knee and
pushed the starter on the port engine. The chrome propeller blurred in a disc in the
sun, caught in a puff of blue smoke, and settled down to a steady drone. The
starboard engine did the same. Butch tested the rudder and ailerons, gave
Sibongwe the thumbs up, waved at the hangar guard, opened the throttles and
taxied out towards the runway.
Their inbound Boeing 747 was the only other aircraft save for an old
Russian Antonov transporter, without engines, rotting in the grass. The Boeing
looked like a beached whale next to the small airport building.
Butch swung the nose-wheel and stood on the brakes, waiting for clearance
from the tower. Seconds later they roared down the runway, tail yawing in the
crosswind. Gravity pushed Greg down in his seat as the plane fought for height off
the tarmac. Sibongwe was grinning from ear to ear, his teeth stark white against his
blue-black skin, clearly enjoying the experience. The aircraft banked and Greg
stared at the African landscape with its awesome expanse of space.

Butch continued talking to the control tower. Greg scanned the crowded
array of instruments, and found the compass. They were heading southwest.
The plane droned on, silence in the headphones, broken only by the soft
crackle of conversation between the Boeing pilot and the tower. The twin-engine
aircraft flew much lower than its big cousins and Greg was fascinated to see great
herds of wild animals on the move. Cape buffaloes, antelope, and elephants
leisurely pulling down tree branches, passed beneath them.
Four hours later, Butch throttled the engines and the aircraft gently
descended into a huge gorge, several miles across. “That’s the Zambezi valley
down below.” Butch’s voice was clear and unexpected in the headphones. “The
Zambezi River flows from the interior highlands to the Mozambique Channel.”
The aircraft continued its descent. A grass landing strip appeared in the thick
canopy of thorn trees. Butch skimmed the treetops, flew along the length of the
field, pulling up at the end of runway, circling back, leaving a cloud of dust.
“Problem?” Greg asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but failing.
“Checking for animals on the runway, bwana,” Sibongwe volunteered. “It is
not good to hit da elephant wif da plane.”
Greg nodded in fervent agreement. A warthog family ran for cover as the

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plane, wheels now extended, floated down. The plane bumped and shuddered on
the rough grass. Butch reversed thrust and they came to halt three-quarter way
down the runway. A cloud of red dust engulfed them before shearing away in the
wind.
Butch turned the plane around and taxied to a square of hard packed earth.
He shut down the engines and opened his door. The silence was more deafening
than the crowds at the airport. Greg could hear the blood flow in his ears. They sat
in silence as Butch went through the post-flight check, the engines ticking as they
cooled.
“Let’s go,” he said, loosening his safety belt, jumping down, and walking
away from the plane. Sibongwe opened the cargo door while Butch stretched his
legs. Suddenly, three teenage children appeared out of the bush, and Greg noticed
two small thatched huts nestled some distance from the runway. Chattering
excitedly, the children picked up bags and boxes and disappeared back the way
they came.
Butch motioned him over, pointing at the boxes. Greg hurried over, picked
up two, and followed the children. This was going to be a working holiday. He had
to smile at the irony.

The camp consisted of two sleeping huts in the middle of a swept area of
bare earth, shaded by an enormous flat-topped thorn tree. A fire pit was off to one
side, screened from the wind by a reed wall. Greg put the boxes down in front of a
huge, matronly black woman who was ordering the children around. He hurried
back to the plane, passing Sibongwe going the other way with three gun cases over
his shoulders, the same wide smile still on his face.
Within an hour, everything had been taken care of. Butch was talking to the
motherly matriarch in her language, pointing to Greg. She nodded.
“Andile will show you where to sleep. You can put your belongings there.”
Greg followed her to the nearest hut. It was dark and cool inside, smelling of old
smoke and African dust. No furniture, just a sleeping mat.
Greg rolled out his sleeping bag. The red and purple synthetic fabric–so
sporty in San Francisco–now in screaming out of place contrast to the hard brown
earth.
He joined Butch at the fire-pit and gratefully sat down in one of the folding
chairs. He looked around. “Nice clean area here, nice and tidy,” he commented.
“Yep, it gives you a chance to see the lions before they get to you.” Butch
replied matter-of-factly. Greg swallowed hard, sitting bolt upright in his chair,
looking at the perimeter with very keen interest indeed. Butch smiled briefly.
“Here are the rules of the camp,” he continued.

For the next hour he spoke about the rules of life in the middle of absolutely
nowhere. “Remember,” Butch ended, “the only way to communicate with the
outside world is through the radio on the plane. Other than that, it will take one of
the children three days to walk to the closest point of civilization. So don’t do

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anything foolish.” Greg nodded vigorously in feverish agreement.
By midday, the rigor of travel suddenly caught up with him, and following
Butch’s lead, he took a nap over the midday hours.
By four p.m. in the afternoon, Greg ventured back to the airstrip. The
aircraft was covered in a light net and securely battened down. A small herd of
impala, the quintessential sub-Saharan Africa antelope, looked at him with interest
as they walked across the runway.
The air started cooling by late afternoon when Greg returned to camp. Butch
was sitting on his haunches, deep in conversation with a new arrival, a tough,
sinewy, gray-haired African man–also on his haunches. They were drawing
diagrams in the swept sand. Greg looked over Butch’s shoulder but could not make
head or tail from it. Suddenly, all the things he learned about tribes came rushing
back. He felt helplessly out of place and alone, his IV low, his IS under threat, no
TS+ and no TV+. Butch was clearly in his element, comfortable in this world that
was so alien to him. ‘What did you expect?’ he thought to himself. ‘.. a hotel with
TV and air conditioning?’ He smiled to himself, missing Butch’s calculating look.
He wandered over to the fire-pit where a whole tree, some fifteen feet long,
had been dragged over the shallow black hole. The middle of the tree was over the
kindling stacked in the pit. Butch ended the discussion, got up, dusted his hands
and courteously greeted the African, who disappeared into the gathering dusk.
Butch sat down in the chair next to Greg. “At last. Now we can relax and
talk. We have all our logistics in place.” Greg leaned back, drawing the crisp, clean
air deep into his lungs.
“What was the conversation about?” Greg asked.
“Umfoza is the best tracker this side of the equator,” Butch responded. “He
was sharing his latest knowledge on herd movements and large animal sightings
that others have reported. It seems that we may be lucky this year. Rainfall has
been low further inland and the animals have moved closer to the big river. We
won’t have so far to walk.”
“Walk?”
“Yes, tomorrow at four a.m. we will begin our first scouting sortie. You will
come along as the second gun-bearer.” Greg felt trepidation and excitement at the
same time.
Butch continued to talk about the African wildlife. His love for the immense
unspoiled wilderness lit up his eyes. Greg listened in awe.
The kindling was set alight and by late evening the tree was burning well.
“Why burn a tree?” Greg asked.
“It burns through the night, keeping lions and hyenas at bay. It will continue
to burn through most of the next ten days for cooking and hot water.”
Greg moved uncomfortably, looking sideways out into the darkness. He
caught sight of two narrow yellow eyes, low on the ground, which promptly
disappeared. He shivered involuntarily. Butch smiled quietly.
“What are you hunting?” Greg continued, trying to sound nonchalant, the
hair in his neck rising.

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 “I am looking for two trophy antelope this year. A two and a half turn kudu
and a big eland.”
“Oh.”
“Tomorrow we will shoot for the pot first, though.”
The large matron was bustling around the fire, stirring delicious-smelling
food in black iron pots balanced on small piles of coals raked from the fire.
Greg was ravenously hungry. The meal was well worth waiting for. He did
not ask what it was, just ate in silence. An hour later they turned in for the night.
Greg was surprised to see Sibongwe roll a sleeping mat open next to the
fire-pit, a much-worn double barreled shotgun by his side. Greg fell asleep
immediately, the sleeping bag pulled over his head. “The African night gets bitterly
cold,” Butch had warned him.

-oOo-

Something was pulling him from the hut by his foot. Greg yanked his leg
back, fought the sleeping bag, scrabbling for his hunting knife, his heart
hammering in his throat. Sibonge’s wide smile was a relief to see.
“Time to wake up, bwana. Coffee is ready.” Greg was sure he had slept for
only a few minutes, but the luminescent dial in the darkness said seven hours.
He rolled out of the sleeping bag, surprised by the painful stiffness in
unfamiliar places. As instructed, he carefully shook out his boots, dislodging
scorpions and spiders that may have taken up residence during the night, before
lacing them up. Butch was talking quietly to Umfoza, the tracker, now dressed in
what looked like WWII issue khaki shorts, shirt and boots. Two large-caliber rifles
gleamed in the firelight, now stirred back to life. The larger, a .460 Weatherby
Magnum was capable of taking down an elephant at medium range, and lion at
long range. The smaller, a .375 Holland & Holland, was good for large antelope.
Both rifles were hand built by Steyr, the centuries-old Austrian gun maker, topped
with precision-optical Zeiss telescopes.
The Kenyan coffee was strong and aromatic, kicking his body into gear.
Greg recalled all the rules of the hunt that Butch had taught him the previous
day. He stuffed two granola bars in his shirt pocket, a canister of water on his belt.
“Let’s move,” Butch said quietly. Sibongwe slung a rifle over his shoulder,
motioning Greg to carry the other. “Don’t bang the rifle against anything,” Bruce
had admonished him the night before. “The telescopes have been laser sighted.” He
gingerly picked up the rifle, the weight unfamiliar, and slung it over his shoulder.
The bolt handle promptly hit him in the kidney. He swore under his breath at the
pain. They left camp in single file.
There was barely enough light to discern the trail in the gray darkness, but
the tracker strode ahead with confidence. Two hours later Greg was sweating
profusely. The African sun was shining in all its glory, and the rifle now weighed
three times as much. The leather sling chafed Greg’s shoulder, but he dared not
complain.

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 Suddenly the tracker put up his hand. As instructed, Greg froze and slowly
sank to his knees, keeping the rifle from banging against the ground. Without
looking back, Butch held out his hand. Sibongwe carefully removed the rifle he
was carrying, and handed it to him. The tracker signaled and Butch followed
carefully, soundlessly. Greg breathed shallowly and stayed motionless as
instructed. Time dragged on. Greg’s one leg ached and he slowly eased his
position.
The single rifle shot, unexpected and thunderous in the horizon-wide
silence, caught Greg by surprise. He jumped up. Sibongwe raced ahead and Greg
hurried to catch up. Butch was standing on the edge of a clearing, some seventy
yards away. He handed the rifle to Sibongwe who expertly chambered a new
round, the spent case twirling in the sun.
Greg panted to a halt. “Did you get him?”
“Heart shot,” Butch replied over his shoulder.
Some fifty yards away, in a dry sand gully, a young wildebeest lay on its
side in a spreading pool of blood. Greg felt queasy and uncomfortable. He had
never been this close to killing another creature. The Africans promptly slit the
animal’s throat, foraged around for a stout branch and, with its legs tied together,
shouldered the carcass before heading back to camp. Greg now had to carry both
rifles.
The shot had alerted those at camp, and wide-eyed children came to meet
the returning hunting party. The carcass disappeared into the bush, eager hands
helping to carry the fresh meat. It had been an arduous trek back to camp, and Greg
was utterly relieved to carefully slot the rifles back in their custom-built titanium
cases.
Butch poured a cup of coffee from the blackened kettle merrily bubbling in
the still-burning coals. He walked over to his chair, now standing in the shade of
the thorn tree, away from the scorching sun, and sat down.
“We’ll have fresh meat for most of the week,” Butch commented.
Greg nodded, not knowing how to respond. He felt surprisingly tired, his
shoulders chafed from the gun slings. He dragged his chair deeper into the shade
and sat down, drinking deeply from the tepid water bottle.
Butch leaned forward and looked down on the ground in front of him.
“See these holes,” he pointed. Greg leaned forward with interest. The swept
sand was pockmarked with dozens of perfectly conical holes, half an inch in
diameter.
“The kids must have been playing here with a sharp stick,” Greg
volunteered. The silence told him that, once again, he was wrong. Butch plucked a
thin twig from the tree and carefully lowered it into a hole.
“Look closely,” he commanded. Greg squatted on his haunches.
Butch gently moved the stick and lightly touched the side of the hole. Tiny
grains of sand slid down to the bottom. To Greg’s surprise, violent activity erupted
at the base of the cone. There was a small insect hidden under the loose sand.
Butch sat back and threw the twig into the fire-pit.

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 “These little insects are known as ant lions. They create a trap by digging
this perfectly conical hole with their hind legs.”
Butch leaned down and scooped the sand together with the insect, hole and
all, into his palm. He spread the sand with his fingers. Greg could see the tiny
creature, no more than a quarter of an inch long, scrabbling for cover. He threw the
sand down and dusted his hands.
“The hole, which he digs by kicking out the sand with his back legs, is
thousands of times larger than the ant lion. When done, he hides just under the
surface at the bottom of the hole. The sides are angled in such a way that any insect
that inadvertently steps over the edge gets carried down to the bottom in a tiny
avalanche of shifting sand. The ant lion senses the movement, and grabs its prey
when it hits the bottom of the hole.”
Greg was fascinated, looking at the hundreds of tiny cones in the sand with
new respect.
“What you think of the ant lion’s survival strategy?”
The question caught Greg off guard.
“Er, well, there is significant effort involved in digging the hole but when it
is done, there is little else to do but to wait. Rather than running around looking for
food, it leverages its environment to get food to it. Secondly, it remains out of
harm’s way. By being half an inch underground puts it out of the way of large
hooves, which might crush those walking on the surface. By hiding under the sand
it is out of the hot sun, conserves its energy, ready for the kill. It gets advance
information through the vibration of the shifting sand, and therefore has time to
act. It is a perfect strategy.”
Butch smiled at his reaction. “A very efficient system indeed, and one from
which I have learned a lot in managing organizations.”
Greg frowned at this new perspective.
“What would be the ant lion’s biggest threat, do you think?”
Greg was quiet for a while, his forehead creased. Then he burst into
delighted laughter. “The other ant lions, of course. If I were an ant lion sitting at
the bottom of my hole, the number of insects I will catch depends on the number of
other ant lions that have made holes around me. I can’t see that, sitting at the
bottom of my hole. I might think life is good, while hundreds of others are digging
holes around me.”
Butch smiled briefly. “Indeed. Even if he digs the largest and most perfect
hole, he will die if he is in the middle of the colony. Here we have hundreds of
creatures, all with the same objective and methodology, following exactly the same
strategy to insure their individual security or IS, and most of them dying because of
that. They cannot see the larger pattern of holes, and therefore cannot determine
whether they are at the food-rich perimeter of the colony, or at the starving center.
If they wait too long, they don’t have sufficient strength left to move closer to the
edge and dig another, more productive, hole. On the other hand, digging too many
holes consumes a lot of precious energy, leaving the insect unable to overcome its
prey. Being perfectly efficient in their individual effort does not ensure long-term

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survival.”
Greg’s eyes lit up in understanding. “It’s exactly the same in the business
world. Companies focus on all the internal efficiency issues, striving to be the
lowest cost producers, only to perish when the world outside their sight changes.”
Butch smiled again, briefly. “One of the large automotive companies in the
USA recently decided to close one of its plants. Perversely, it was the plant that
had won all the corporate prizes for the best implementation of Six Sigma and
Lean Manufacturing–strategies aimed at maximizing internal efficiency.”
Greg chuckled at the comparison. “The plant with the most efficient internal
systems got axed–just like the ant lions.”
“How would you change the ant lion’s strategy to help them survive?”
Greg looked at the expanse of holes with renewed interest.
“Well, I would gather and disseminate information on who is digging where
and ensure that nobody is on the inside. A circle of holes may be more efficient
than a random distribution. Then I would monitor the movement of insects and
figure out where to dig–right in their path!”
Greg was silent for a while. The shrilling sound of cicadas broke the
somnolent midday heat. Patches of perspiration were visible on both their shirts,
and down their backs.
“That would require everyone to agree to the strategy. I’d guess that, sooner
than later, the biggest ant-lion will decide that he can do better by himself and
move to an area he thinks is more productive, leaving a gap in the circle.”
Silence again.
“And shortly afterwards, the other ant lions will sense a threat to IS+, also
think they can improve their chances in a better spot, and go find their choice
location. We’re back to square one.”
Butch was smiling now. “We have a name for such behavior. We call it
entrepreneurship.” Greg nodded in appreciation of the veracity of the statement.
Butch rose from his chair. “Think carefully about the ant lion’s world. I’m
going to have my midday nap. I suggest you do the same. We’ll be going out late
this afternoon again.”
Five minutes later they were both asleep. The bushveld was quiet and
oppressively hot under the merciless sun.

Late afternoon saw them out in the bush again. Greg’s shoulders were
stinging from the chafe marks left from the morning’s hunt. The renewed pressure
from the rifle over his shoulder made it worse.
The Africans had incredible stamina. They moved with unrelenting speed.
Even though he exercised three times a week, the rough terrain and thorny,
crowded vegetation took its toll. Greg had never been so bone-tired in his life.
They found a number of antelope, but none matched Butch’s requirements.
Early evening saw them back in camp, and Greg returned the rifle to its
case, wiping down all finger marks. It was an extraordinary piece of workmanship.
The barrel was spiral forged and blued to a mirror finish. The diamond checkering

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and inlays were perfect.
“It says a lot about the craftsman, doesn’t it?” Greg had not heard Butch
approach. “Would you like to fire it?”
Greg thought for minute. “Sure.”
Butch stuffed a handful of cartridges in the pocket of his shorts, called
Sibongwe who was over at the fire-pit, and walked down to a dry gully behind the
camp. Sibongwe brought some empty tin cans and, jogging along the riverbed,
placed a can every twenty yards. The last can was hard to see in the approaching
dusk. Butch instructed him on how to load the firearm. Greg felt all thumbs as he
slid the bolt back, chambered a round and carefully closed the bolt.
“Shoot the nearest can.”
Greg put the rifle to his shoulder and lowered his head onto the stock,
peering through the riflescope. The can appeared much larger.
The rifle was shaking.
Greg concentrated on keeping the crosshairs on the can and pulled the
trigger. The thunderous report deafened him. The blast of high-pressure gas blew
dust in his face. The recoil kicked him hard and painfully in the shoulder and the
edge of the riflescope punched a painful circle into his eyebrow. He stepped back,
trying to regain his balance. Greg lowered the rifle, his ears singing.
The can was still there.
“Good.” Butch commented. “Now you know what you are dealing with. Let
me explain what you should be doing.”
For the next twenty minutes, Butch walked him through the process of using
the sling to support the rifle, how to steady the crosshairs with his breathing
pattern, how to squeeze the two-stage hair trigger using his whole hand and how to
absorb the recoil with his body.
The second shot took the sand out under the can, kicking it high in the air.
The third shot ripped it apart.
Greg, now with earplugs in his ears, felt an elated sense of achievement.
“Good shot, bwana!” Sibongwe exclaimed, pulling his fingers out of his ears.
“Now for the next can,” Butch continued. Greg destroyed it on the second
shot. The other cans were virtually invisible in the dark.
“More tomorrow,” Butch said. As they walked back camp, Greg
surreptitiously rubbed his sore shoulder in the gathering dusk.

After dinner, sitting close to the fire, Greg was awed by the immense
expanse of stars he could see in the cloudless night.
“There is no pollution out here.” Butch commented, amused by Greg’s
open-mouthed wonder as the column of sparks from the cooking fire drew his eye
up to the awesome twinkling canopy.
“Let’s go back to our discussion about the ant lions. You pointed out that, no
matter how well you may plan, someone is bound to go off looking for a better
place and thereby sinking the entire strategy.”
Greg sat forward. “Yes, I’ve been thinking how to overcome that. Only if

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the individuals are convinced that they will gain by staying in the circle, will it
work. Then I realized that I was back with IS+ and TS+. Strong positive IS+ and
TS+ will cause them to stay–nothing else.”
“And how is strong TS+ and IS+ established?”
“Exactly the way you’d taught me.”
“It did not happen by itself, though.”
“True.”
Greg was quiet for a minute and stared into the flames, contemplating the
statement. The tree, burnt through in the middle, collapsed in a spiraling shower of
sparks.
“ I… I suppose my desire to succeed made me push the issue.”
Butch also stared in into the fire.
“So what is the most important ingredient of your success with
MicroLogic?”
“Me, I suppose….” Greg was deep in thought. “I never realized that. I just
wanted to do what you had done, knowing that nothing else was more critical.”
“What did you stand to gain?”
“I’d prove that I could run the best plant in Intec.”
“By whose standard?”
“By corporate evaluation I suppose.”
“And then?”
“I would feel a strong sense of IV+,” Greg finished lamely. “We’re back to
the same thing, just from a different angle.”
“But with a very important shift in focus.”
“What?”
“You are leading the new MicroLogic tribe.”
“Is that the most important tribal attribute I missed?”
“Yes. You were so deeply enmeshed in what you were doing that you could
not see it from the inside looking out.” Greg was quiet for a long, long time,
contemplating this surprising insight. Butch yawned, stretched and stood up.
“We’ll be out again by four in the morning. See that you’re there.” He left.
Greg leaned over and, in the flickering firelight, drew a diagram in the sand.
It read:

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 Greg got up, looked down at the diagram, swept it away with his boot and
walked over to his sleeping hut, still deep in thought. Snug in his sleeping bag, he
was asleep in minutes, bone tired from the day’s activities.

Sibongwe touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Wake up, bwana,” he

whispered. “Move softly. The animals are close.” Greg was instantly awake,
feeling refreshed. He slid out of the sleeping bag, shook out his boots, put them on,
and quietly joined the whispering group around the low fire. The rifles were out on
the table. A young boy was talking excitedly to Umfoza, the tracker. Butch listened
intently.
“They’ve spotted a big kudu bull close by. Sounds like the trophy I am
looking for.”
“Why do we go so early?” Greg whispered.
“The animals are still cold and stiff from the night. They are slower to react,
and we can get closer when the light is still low. There is also no wind to carry our
smell and sound,” Sibongwe replied. Greg nodded. They moved very slowly,
careful not to make a noise.
Butch and the tracker went down on their haunches every so often,
surveying the bush. Even the cicadas were quiet. The faintest trace of light filtered
through the trees, just enough for them to discern the shadowy shapes of the trees.
Suddenly, the bushes crackled some thirty yards to their left. Greg glimpsed the
gracious jump as the big animal broke cover and bounded headlong away from
them. They could hear the bushes break for a long time. Butch sank back on his
haunches, and whistled through his teeth.
“That’s a magnificent specimen, better than I expected,” he whispered. “I
doubt we will get to see him soon. Let’s see if we can pick up the spoor.” They
moved over to the place where it had broken cover, and soon found signs of freshly
broken twigs.
The tracker crouched, examining the tracks in the sand. “Eeee. It is big,” he
exclaimed in admiration. They moved off in single file, following the tracks in the
soft earth. They walked for hours. The animal did not stop, staying ahead and out
of sight. They had no choice but to follow. Eventually Butch called a halt. “It is
time to go back. We’ll pick up the trail tomorrow.” He marked the coordinates of

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their location on a small hand-held GPS receiver, and started the journey back to
camp. “So, any new ideas from last night’s discussion?” he asked, falling in step
by Greg’s side.
“It’s been haunting me all day,” Greg admitted. “I was thinking of all the top
managers at Enron getting huge payouts before the company collapsed, while
employees were prevented from divesting their pension portfolio of Enron stock.
That is a scary example of the management tribe first and foremost looking after
itself in a TS- environment. It must have been a battleground of little tribes
working at cross-purposes.”
Butch chuckled. “I suspect you’re right. I have a friend who, for some
twenty odd years, was in charge of the leadership program of one the military arms
of service. After he’d retired, I ran into him at an international conference. He
made a very interesting statement. He said ‘In twenty years of running the
program, we did not produce a single leader of note.’ That prompted me to think
about leadership in the tribal context rather than in the commonly accepted
academic context. With your experience in MicroLogic, how would you describe
leadership from the tribal perspective?”
Well aware of the perils of pat answers to Butch’s questions, Greg carefully
thought through the answer. They walked in silence, ducking to avoid the thorny
branches of the ubiquitous African doornboom.
“The most significant insight has been that a true leader is instinctively
trusted by everyone. I think people sense very quickly whether their leader is
genuinely committed to them and the tribe. If there were a lack of commitment,
they would search for, find and follow the unofficial leader that really cares. Their
intuitive evaluation of the leader’s motives determines who they will follow–not
his Harvard MBA or other suchlike qualification.”
Butch nodded. “I’ve followed your progress with interest. Your commitment
was clear which is why you could generate such tremendous motivation. You were
not using your position as a stepping-stone: manipulating people for your own IV+.
Also, you did not create a management tribe around you, with all the
accompanying conflict it generates.”
Greg nodded. “I just wanted to quickly succeed.”
“Indeed, but your value system made the difference. For many centuries,
information was the key to leadership. The early papacy, the early universities, and
centuries of nobility relied on privileged information to secure their hold on the
serfdom.
That is no longer the case. Factory workers now have access to real-time
streaming stock exchange data. Forty years ago, that used to be the high privilege
of select people. The Internet has put huge volumes of information at the fingertips
of everyone. Leaders can no longer secure their position by controlling
information, although some still try, like the Chinese government’s efforts to
control access to the Internet. In this environment, being a great boss and leader
depends entirely on the individual’s value system and commitment.”

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 Greg nodded in agreement. “That is why the CEO musical chairs game,
played by so many corporations, works against creating a highly motivated
cohesive tribe. I read some research once that dealt with the hiring and firing of
CEO’s.(35) The research found no correlation between change in corporate
profitability and change in executive pay. In fact, the relationship seemed to be
inverted. While profitability drifted down, executive pay and bonuses shot up.
In addition, more than 40% of newly appointed top managers came from
outside the industry. In most cases, the board’s reasoning went like this: Our
existing CEO botched it up. Our salvation now lies in the hands of supremely
capable executives from the outside. To persuade them to join us, these
extraordinary corporate ‘messiahs’ must be paid an extraordinary amount of
money. In return for such extraordinary remuneration, people expect the ‘messiahs’
to act with care and integrity, and to help build IV+ and TV+.(16)
However, the first thing many ‘messiahs’ do is to bring in their own trusted
lieutenants from previous companies. That immediately creates two management
tribes–the old guard who knows the business well, and the new guard with little
knowledge, but strong backing of their leader. Not knowing the business, the new
guard turns to financial numbers as their guiding light, manipulating the cost
figures in their quest for short-term gains.
Many companies sell off their most precious business divisions, destroying
both trust and profitability in one go. When those who appointed the ‘messiah’
finds out that the wonder-boy CEO acted first and foremost in his or her own best
interest, the wall of distrust gets much higher, and tribal behavior becomes the only
way to survive. Decisions are no longer based on business issues, but on internal
tribal warfare, putting the company even more at risk.”

Butch listened with amusement to Greg’s description. “In essence then,

integrity and commitment remains the only measures of a great leader,” he
summarized. “A great leader knows with passionate and urgent conviction where
the company should be going, which in turn generates immense loyalty and
enthusiasm. Take Soichiro Honda for example. When he succeeded in developing
the first working prototype motorcycle with his then 20 workers decades ago, he
called for a celebration, quaffing some homemade saké to celebrate the event.
Surveying their creation, one worker said: ‘This is like a dream.’ Honda jumped up
and said: ‘That’s it! Dream!’ That passionate and heartfelt commitment was the
catalyst for the success of Honda Motor Company, and endures to this day.
Some forty years later, Peters and Waterman tell of a Honda worker who, on
his way home each evening, would straighten the windshield wiper blades on all
the Honda cars he passed, parked along the road–simply because he could not bear
to ignore a flaw on a Honda.(15)
They walked in silence, carefully avoiding the sharp, barbed thorn tree
branches in their way.
“Do you recall our discussion on enemy to ally, tribe to individual

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communication?” Butch asked. Greg nodded in response.
“If I said ‘Twenty percent of our staff will be laid off,’ how would you
react?”
“If I were an employee in your company, I would interpret it as enemy tribe
to individual communication. My IS would be under threat, and I would be deeply
concerned whether I was to be part of the twenty percent or not.”
“Very good. As you know, any interaction–verbal or physical–is decoded
primarily in terms of IS, IV, TS and TV before the factual content is considered.
The crucial difference between managers and leaders lies in their ability to
simultaneously communicate along both dimensions. Great bosses address IS, IV,
TS and TV in parallel with factual content. The grand master at this was Winston
Churchill.
On June 4, 1940, just after the ignominious retreat at Dunkirk, he made one
of the most important and stirring speeches of his career. Many still consider it the
turning point of British morale, which ultimately led to victory. He said: ‘We shall
go on to the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans.
We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall
defend our Island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches. We
shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.
We shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender’.”(37)
These were very strong TS+ to TV+ statements which generated strong IS+
and IV+ for the scared civilians. Every great leader in history communicated this
way, and still does. In stark contrast, not a single MBA student is taught how to
communicate in this manner.”
Greg frowned. “I’ve never realized that. The ability to simultaneously
communicate along both dimensions is a key attribute of a strong tribal leader.”
They walked on in silence, Greg deep in thought.

-oOo-

Suddenly, there was a slight rustle in the bush ahead. Butch locked an iron
grip around Greg’s arm and pushed him down, holding his finger in front of his
mouth in the universal sign of silence. For a full five minutes he did not move.
Greg gingerly eased into a more comfortable position, his heart still hammering.
Slowly, inch-by-inch, Butch eased forward, gesturing for Greg to follow. Greg’s
hand holding the rifle was sweating profusely. He squatted on his haunches next to
Butch, who put his head next to Greg’s ear.
“There is a young trophy kudu bull forty yards ahead, fifteen degrees to the
north east. We are downwind, and he hasn’t heard or smelled us yet.” Greg studied
the foliage but couldn’t spot the animal through the tangle of branches.
“Look through the riflescope,” Butch whispered. Carefully, Greg lifted the
rifle and squinted through the eyepiece. The bush sprang into clear view. He
traversed the rifle, still not seeing anything. Then a small movement caught his
eye. It was the corner of a dun-colored ear. Instantly he discerned the rest of the

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animal. It was feeding off the lower branches of a green tree; head turned away,
body sideways towards them. He felt Butch’s breath against his ear.
“Shoot it!” he commanded in an imperative whisper.
Greg nearly dropped the rifle. It shook in his hands.
“I can’t.” he whispered back, not daring to move.
“Now! Aim two inches behind the front legs, one third up from the belly
line.” Butch’s tone brooked no argument. “Do what I say. It’s the rule!”
Greg’s heart was hammering, his mind paralyzed in agonizing conflict.
‘You can’t kill an innocent animal in cold blood,’ his mind screamed. Sweat
poured down his face. He blinked it away.
“Now!” Breath rasped in his ear.
“No!” his mind screamed.
“Now!”
He lined up the crosshairs where Butch had told him, the rifle still
trembling. He pushed down the safety catch. It made a small click. The kudu froze,
whipped around and looked directly at Greg, the large liquid eyes boring into his
through the telescope.
“Now!”
“No!”
“You promised!”
He squeezed the trigger.
The thunderous shot deafened Greg. The mule-kick recoil shoved him back
on his haunches and the gas blast blew sand in his face. Dazed, he shook his head,
clearing his vision, his ears ringing.
The kudu was gone. Relief. Then he heard the clatter of horns in the
branches–the unforgettable sound of a dying antelope collapsing into the
underbrush.
Butch sprinted forward, ducking through the trees. Greg slung the rifle
without reloading and followed, still shaking his head violently.
The animal was lying on its side, the light of life slowly fading from the
large liquid eyes, blood rapidly spreading in the dry sand. It gurgled raggedly one
last, convulsive time. Its tongue was hanging in the sand with ants already crawling
into its mouth.
Greg looked on aghast. Horrified, ashamed, repulsed, sad, triumphant,
exhilarated and proud–all at the same time. He trembled from head to foot.
“Great shooting,” Butch commented, looking at the bullet hole. “A perfect
heart shot.” He took a hunting knife from his belt and calmly slit the animal’s
throat to drain the blood from the carcass.
Greg, feeling faint, sat down and dropped his head between his knees. He
breathed deeply to regain his composure, not daring to look at the animal he had
just killed in cold blood.
“Good shot, bwana!” Sibongwe said behind him. Feet rushed past. After a
while, Greg stood up slowly, using the rifle as a crutch. They were lashing the
animal to a pole as they had done the last time, chattering excitedly, admiring the

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trophy-sized horns.
Butch looked at him emotionlessly. “Let’s get back to camp.” He turned and
walked away, the slight limp now more noticeable. Greg swallowed the dry bile in
his throat, staring at the blackening, ant-infested trail of blood from the severed
carotid arteries, his emotions in turmoil.
He hurried after the procession.

An hour later Greg staggered into camp, still off balance from the deep
emotional conflict he had had to face. Butch had not spoken a word to him all the
way back to camp. Greg was grateful for that. The immense and immediate
struggle between the primeval desire to hunt and kill, and his civilized values of
preservation of life and nature had shaken him to the core. He gulped down a mug
of scalding coffee before heading for the shower–a rudimentary device consisting
of a plastic bucket with tiny holes in the bottom hoisted in a tree, and a thin plastic
screen for posterity. The cold water lasted for less than three minutes. He used four
precious buckets before he was done scrubbing the stress and dirt off him.

By sunset he had regained his composure. The big fire roared into the night
sky. The children were pointing at him, chattering, smiling in admiration.
“You’d better clean the rifle.” Butch commented. Greg pulled the folding
table closer and carefully disassembled the rifle on a clean cloth under Butch’s
guidance. Half an hour later it was back in its case, gleaming with fresh oil, away
from the dew of the African night.
They sat in companionable silence. Butch lit a thin black cheroot and
smoked it with obvious pleasure.
“That was good shooting. For a minute there I thought you were not going
to hold up your end of the bargain.”
“That was the last straw,” Greg admitted. “When you said: ‘You promised,’
it was my IV against the animal’s life.”
Butch nodded. “Individual survival and value is indeed the most base and
powerful driver of human behavior. However, there are more important reasons
why you had to kill the animal. The first and most mundane was to replenish our
meat supply. The second was to force you to do something utterly against your
fundamental values.”
Greg looked at him in surprise. Butch’s understanding of him was
disconcerting.
“Why is that?”
“To make a tribal leader out of you.”
“What? How is that possible?”
“We agreed that people intuitively follow strong, capable leaders–not
wimpy, vacillating ones. To be a strong and capable leader, you must be very
confident in yourself. You can only be truly confident in yourself if the limit of
what you are willing and capable of doing is much higher than the situation you
face. Not imaginary capability, but proven, demonstrable capability. Today you

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have set new, wider limits to your own capability to deal with the world.”
He puffed on the black cheroot.
“The greatest leadership deficiency in most managers is that they do not
know and understand their own psychological limits. The leader’s psychological
limit becomes the psychological limit of the entire organization. For example,
Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister at the start of the Second World
War, went to see Hitler to try and defuse the looming confrontation. He came back
on September 30, 1938, with a pathetic promise of ‘peace for our time’.
Compared to Chamberlain’s psychological limit, Hitler’s was way off the
scale. I’m not condoning Hitler, simply pointing out the difference in
psychological limit of one compared to the other.
When an organization operates at the psychological limits of its leaders, it
cannot grow. Therefore, every leader should continuously work to push his or her
psychological limits lest it becomes the constraint of the entire organization. Rest
assured that it does not come with a Harvard MBA.”
Butch flicked the cheroot stub into the fire, and called Sibongwe. He
appeared out of the dark with a bottle of scotch whiskey and solemnly poured each
a straight, full glass.
“Cheers.” Butch raised the amber liquid in salute. “There are other issues
about leadership in the tribal context, which are very important.”
Greg wished for his writing pad.

“Point one: You must be sure which tribe you are leading. Lyndon Johnson
faced that choice in 1964. He dreaded sending young Americans into the Vietnam
war–fearing that Vietnam would turn into a political and military quagmire. Yet, he
believed that he had a larger duty as the leader of the Free World to oppose
communism in Southeast Asia. The arguments amongst his advisors for and
against the USA’s involvement raged back and forth. In the end, Johnson’s own
perception of which tribe he was leading was the single, pivotal fact that
determined the fate of thousands of young people.
He decided to act as the leader of the Free World.
In retrospect, it was a miserable choice. Since he was not elected to head
that tribe, but simply assuming that he was entitled to that role, the rest of the free
world calmly stood by while America suffered in agony.
Had Johnson seen himself rightfully as the leader of the American tribe, for
which he had the tribal support, he would most likely have decided against
America’s involvement in Vietnam.

Point two: Know your values and principles. When Rudi Giuliani was asked
to summarize the key leadership aspects that guided him through the crisis of the
attack on the World Trade Center, he put values at the top of the list. As the tribal
leader, you should have no doubt about the principles upon which you base your
decisions. Giuliani loves to recount his experiences when he worked with Ronald
Reagan. Although he frequently disagreed with Reagan’s decisions, there was

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never doubt about the principles underpinning his decisions. Giuliani could fairly
accurately predict how Reagan would decide because his values and principles
never changed. Likewise, tribes carefully analyze their leader’s principles and
values to understand how he or she will decide and lead.

Point three: Building a super-tribe requires a fine balancing act to integrate

all the warring tribes into a cohesive, directed entity. The greatest example of that
must be the cold war where two tribes–the Soviet Union and the USA–were
capable of instantly annihilating one another. In 1981, the nuclear arms reduction
treaty was stalled on what was known as the ‘zero option.’ At that time, Leonid
Brezhnev had arrayed 3,000 new nuclear missiles against targets in Europe, his
common enemy. The Pentagon countered by deploying their own ‘Euromissiles.’

To defuse the situation, Reagan wanted an all or nothing package–zero

American missiles in Europe for zero Soviet SS-20’s. The Russians angrily
denounced the demand, and the relationship between the superpowers steadily
worsened. In 1983, the USA began to deploy missiles in Europe and the
relationship hit an all-time low. In 1985 the situation changed. Mikhail Gorbachev
began to assert himself. He worked at reducing the nuclear arsenal, eventually
proposing a total nuclear disarmament. Suddenly, the vociferous Soviet
xenophobia and resistance melted, and in 1987, the first real disarmament accord
was signed. Throughout this time, Gorbachev had to deal with the internal tribes
within the Politburo with extraordinary finesse, working towards his objective
without getting himself thrown out of power.

Point four: Place the system second to people. Great bosses work to build
interfaces between tribes, aligning the system to people until the melding of tribes
seems to be the most natural thing. Managers, on the other hand, rely on
unemotional data, systems and hierarchy to reach their objectives. They place
people second, causing enormous social stress.

Point five: Resist external pressure. Companies with long lives tend to resist
Wall Street pressure to boost short-term accounted earnings. They resist
centralizing corporate power and consistently score top marks in customer and
employee loyalty–a tribal focus rather than a system focus.

Point six: Don’t let the leader become the figurehead. Charles Wang,
founder of Computer Associates, has an extraordinary strong personality. That
company’s management came under fire recently, with external critics charging
that the board of directors is too close to management. Even though more
independent directors have been appointed, Wang’s presence and standing as the
figurehead dominates the situation. ‘Nobody wants to knock Charles out of the
box, as he is the founder,’ one person remarked.(38)

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 Point seven: Lead through events and focus on action. IS, IV, TS and TV
change through experiential events, not through intellectual discussion. Celebrate
events, not strategies.

Point eight: Don’t confuse the business objectives with tribal objectives.
Business objectives can and do change overnight. Tribal objectives always remain
the same. IS+, IV+, TS+ and TV+, in your vernacular.

Point nine: Business school qualifications don’t equate to leadership. A

great boss gets dedication, respect, commitment and results. A great manager gets
a gold watch.

Point ten: Believe in yourself. If you don’t, nobody will. For that you have
to continuously challenge your own psychological limits. If the tribe senses that
you are wavering, that you are at your internal psychological limit, you will
quickly be challenged and ejected.”

Butch stared into the fire, and took another sip of whiskey. “Now that I’ve
pushed you through your biggest psychological limit–that of coldly destroying
something you respect and consider precious, you will be a much stronger leader in
the business world. Ask any Israeli or South African who has lived through years
of guerilla warfare. Most other things pale in comparison.”
Greg looked at the roughly stitched scar tissue on Butch’s arm. Butch smiled
thinly. “Most of the young soldiers in the photograph in my office came home in
body bags strapped to the tailgate of a blood-stained and bullet-riddled Lockheed
Hercules C-130 military transport plane.”
Both men stared into the dancing flames, each far away in his thoughts.
Butch lifted the whiskey glass in salute. “Your education is complete. When I met
you many months ago, I did not think you would last the distance. I underestimated
you, and I salute you for staying the course.”
Greg could not recall a moment in his life when he had felt more proud.

-oOo-

The African camp staff had all lined up next to the runway. They covered
their faces against the sandblast from the prop wash as the KingAir bounced and
roared down the grass runway. Butch pulled the aircraft up into the icy daybreak
air, then circled low over the trees and dipped the wings in farewell to the smiling,
enthusiastic waves from the ground. Greg settled back, sunglasses on his nose, the
headset over his ears.
The last few days had passed in a blur. Butch and Umfoza had found the big
kudu bull on the penultimate day, deep in a ravine. It took all day to extricate and
transport the animal to the camp. The trophy had been slaughtered and cleaned,

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now securely packed in the hold, ready for the taxidermist. Greg had never felt so
alive, lean, and fit in his life. The African sun had burnt him as brown as a berry.
He would never be the same.
After they’d left, Andile, the big, matronly camp mother, swept the hard-
packed dirt around the fire pit with a long grass brush. Without a thought, she
obliterated the square drawn in the sand where Greg’s chair had been. It read:

-oOo-

Their departure from Lilongwe airport was uneventful, and the connecting
flight out of Milan touched down in San Francisco at ten a.m. in the morning.
When Greg had phoned Christine from the first working, grubby, graffiti-covered
payphone at Lilongwe airport, she had wept with relief.
As he walked out of immigration control, the children scurried through the
crowds and grabbed him around the legs. Christine was pleasantly surprised at his
new appearance. She looked at his lean, tanned body with renewed physical
interest. The children were barely asleep that night, when it turned into a very
memorable, intimate, homecoming event.

-oOo-

Greg whistled a cheerful tune as he headed for MicroLogic. Turning in the

gate, the new neon sign immediately caught his attention. It was remodeled as a
huge, beautifully stylized gold and black microchip. The tribal icon had arrived.
“Good morning!” he cried, bounding up the steps. The receptionist’s jaw
dropped as he strode by. On his desk was a sleek new pen and pencil set, styled
after the new microchip icon. The new notepad and yellow pad both bore the new
MicroLogic icon.
Minutes later, Dennis rushed in and unceremoniously gave Greg a huge bear
hug. “Welcome back! Wow, you look great!” Just then Maggie walked by,
stopped, turned around and came back to stare at him.
“If you weren’t married, I’d be after you like a shot,” she said, eyeing his

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tanned, lean body.
“Go away, woman!” Dennis growled. She giggled down the corridor.
For the next hour they shared experiences, insights and events, and the line
of yellow squares on the wall grew longer.
Suddenly, Dennis sat bolt upright and slapped himself on the forehead.
“Darn, I forgot! Sandy insisted you call him immediately you walked in the
door.”
Greg walked over to his desk, punched the Chicago number, got hold of
Sandy, and was on a plane to Chicago within an hour.

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 Chapter Seventeen
Greg sat in the same chair in the reception area he had occupied on that
fateful day when Sandy had first summoned him to Chicago. It was still
uncomfortable. Much had changed since then. His attitude and self-confidence
could not be more different.
“You look great!” Sandy exclaimed, shaking his hand.
“I feel like a million dollars.” Greg replied, as they sat down in his office.
Sandy opened the folder next him and Greg felt a shiver of deja-vu.
“MicroLogic has not stopped its meteoric performance,” he began. “I don’t
suppose you have followed the latest Wall Street trends, me lad?”
“No, I have not had the opportunity,” Greg confessed.
Sandy chuckled. “In short, our share price outstripped the entire tech sector,
AsiaComNet had entered into a long-term, multi-tiered supplier agreement with us,
and Ed Winthrop is out of his office.”
“Where has he gone?”
The blue eyes twinkled mischievously.
“He has been appointed chairman of the board of Intec.”
“Wow. Who will move into his job?”
There was an uncomfortable silence, before it dawned on Greg.
“You?”
“Um, yes laddie,” Sandy replied modestly, “Which is why I called you here.
For some unknown reason, people at MicroLogic suddenly treated me with
deference and awe. Then the other plants suddenly started doing the same. Don’t
know why.”
Sandy frowned in puzzlement. Greg battled to keep a straight face.
“Congratulations!” Greg was genuinely pleased for Sandy.
“Yes, well, that brings me to the real reason why I wanted you here–to
welcome you your new office.” Suddenly, Lake Michigan looked a lot bluer
through the great wall of glass.

-oOo-

The telephone in his new office chimed softly. ‘It sounds so much more
refined that the factory phones at MicroLogic.’ Greg thought.
“It is a call from AsiaComNet in China, Greg.”
“I’ll take it.”
The small knot of tension did not reappear.
The line was surprisingly clear. It was the CEO himself.
“I am calling to thank you most graciously for the most excellent service
from your company,” the caller began courteously. “You are no longer at the plant,
I hear, but I wished to call and thank you in person. The product is perfect, and the
pictures are beautiful.”

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 “Pictures? What pictures?”
There was a nonplussed silence.
“Oh, you don’t know. I apologize most profusely. You see, every box of
microchips contained a signed group photograph from your staff, wishing us good
luck.”
Greg burst out laughing. He could not help it.

-oOo-

Two months later, Greg chaired a meeting attended by all the plant
managers–including Dennis as the new general manager of MicroLogic. He had
decided to settle in San Francisco after announcing his engagement to Maggie.

Greg had completed the quarterly manufacturing review, and was having
coffee outside the auditorium when one of the younger general managers
approached him.
“May I have a word with you?”
“Sure.”
“Your stellar achievement at MicroLogic with AsiaComNet is incredible.
Please tell me how you did it. Show me how to get the same result at my plant.”
Greg looked at the eager young face for a long time.
Time stood still. He drew a deep breath.
The picture of the burnt-out battle tank in Butch’s office flashed before his
mind’s eye.
“No.” he replied. “No, I won’t…”

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 Epilogue

The world is an unfathomable place.

When I set out to write this book, I thought it would offer a relaxing
diversion to those who–like me–sometimes wonder why organizations behave the
way they do. I wanted to share my penny’s worth of experience gleaned from
working with hundreds of companies in all corners of the globe, with people like
you.
The response was (to me at least) astounding. It seemed that the problem of
motivating organizations is much more frustrating and troublesome to those at the
helm of corporate America than I realized. The book struck a very deep and
sensitive chord.
CEO’s of very successful companies had some extraordinary things to say
about the book, like:
“Ray’s brilliance lies not only in his deep understanding of human behavior
but also his ability to communicate his ideas in ways that can be commonly
internalized and put into action by people dedicated to improving their
organizations.”
Or this:
“Ray offers a perspective on how to coach, guide and lead an organization
that is sorely needed in the light of recent antics of corporate America. His values-
based approach to business is not only refreshing but fundamental to allowing
capitalism to succeed in our world.”
I trust you have also found it to be an absorbing paradigm, worthy of further
exploration. To this end, I have turned the balance of my knowledge and
experience into a leadership education program aimed at making you better than
Greg at creating winning organizations.
I invite you to join us at one of my programs where you will discover more
about your personal leadership capabilities than you ever thought possible. You
will find more information at www.greatbossdeadboss.com.
Since its original publication, the book had been translated into numerous
languages and published in many corners of the world. Many readers have
requested a summary of the tribal dimensions and attributes. If you complete the
request for information on the “training’ webpage, we’ll be delighted to send you
your personal copy.
May God bless you in your quest to make your company a more exciting
and human place for people to live their lives.

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July 2, 2001.

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21. Scott Miller, German to head Chrysler in wake of loss. The Wall Street
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Índice
Copyright © 2003 by Raimond E. Immelman 3
Acknowledgement 4
Chapter One 5
Chapter Two 11
Chapter Three 19
Chapter Four 31
Chapter Five 43
Chapter Six 57
Chapter Seven“Tribes?!!!!” 73
Chapter Eight 90
Chapter Nine 103
Chapter Ten 130
Chapter Eleven 153
Chapter Twelve 165
Chapter Thirteen 184
Chapter Fourteen 203
Chapter Fifteen 235
Chapter Sixteen 255
Chapter Seventeen 281
Epilogue 283
References 284

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