The Right Compromise
“Half a loaf is better than no bread.”
One has to start out with what is right rather than what is acceptable (let alone who is right) precisely because one always has to compromise in the end. But if one does not know what is right to satisfy the specifications and boundary conditions, one cannot distinguish between the right compromise and the wrong compromise —and will end up by making the wrong compromise.
There are two different kinds of compromise. One kind is expressed in the old proverb, “Haifa loaf is better than no bread.” The other kind is expressed in the story of the Judgment of Solomon, which was clearly based on the realization that “half a baby is worse than no baby at all.” In the first instance, the boundary conditions are still being satisfied. The purpose of bread is to provide food, and half a loaf is still food. Haifa baby, however, does not satisfy the boundary conditions. For half a baby is not half of a living and growing child. It is a corpse in two pieces.
Building Action into the Decision
A decision is only a hope until carrying it out has become somebody’s work assignment and responsibility, with a deadline.
A decision is a commitment to action. Until the right thing happens, there has been no decision. And one thing can be taken for granted: the people who have to take the action are rarely the people who have made the decision. No decision has, in fact, been made until carrying it out has become somebody’s work assignment and responsibility—and with a deadline. Until then, it’s still only a hope.
A decision will not become effective unless needed actions have been built into it from the start. Converting a decision into action requires answering several questions:
- Who has to know of this decision?
- What action has to be taken?
- Who is to take it?
- What does the action have to be so that the people who have to do it can do it?
The action must be appropriate to the capacities of the people who have to carry it out. This is especially important if people have to change their behavior, habits, or attitudes for the decision to become effective.
Harmonize the Immediate Long-range Future
A manager must, so to speak, keep his nose to the grindstone while lifting his eyes to the hills-quite an acrobat feat.
A manager has two specific tasks. The first is creation of a true whole that is larger than the sum of its parts, a productive e more than the sum of the resources put into it. The second specific task of the manager is to harmonize in every decision and actions the requirements of the immediate and of the long-range future. A manager cannot sacrifice either without endangering the enterprise.
If a manager does not take care of the next hundred days, there will be no next hundred years. Whatever the manager does should be sound in expediency as well as in basic long-range objective and principle. And where he cannot harmonize the two time dimensions, he must at least balance hem. He must calculate the sacrifice he imposes on the long-range future of the enterprise to protect its immediate interests, or the sacrifice he makes today for he sake of tomorrow. He must limit either sacrifice as much as possible. And he must repair as soon as possible the damage it inflicts He lives and acts in two time dimensions, and is responsible for the performance of the whole enterprise and of his own component in it.
Misdirection by Specialization
“I am building a cathedral.”
An old story tells of three stonecutters who were asked what they were doing. The first replied, “I am making a living.” The second kept on hammering while he said, “I am doing the best job of stonecutting in the entire country.” The third one looked up with a visionary gleam in his eyes and said, “I am building a cathedral.” The third man is, of course, the true manager. The first man knows what he wants to get out of the work and manages to do so. He is likely to give a “fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. But he is not a manager and will never be one. It is the second man who is a problem. Workmanship is essential: in fact, an organization demoralizes if it does not demand of its members the highest workmanship they are capable of. But there is always a danger that the true workman, the true professional, will believe that he is accomplishing something when m effect he is just polishing stones or collecting footnotes. Workmanship must be encouraged in the business enterprise. But it must always be related to the needs of the whole.