Rocket Man Meets The
Fading Cow

I’m standing in the office of the General Manager of an important Division of a famous Corporation. The office is the usual grey gunmetal, taupe and mahogany mix. Although the fixtures and room are standard, right now it all seems to be vibrating like a launch pad. The man in front of me is the source of the vibration. When I first met him years ago, I used to tease him about having a rocket-in-his-pocket. Now he is the rocket. Since I’ve entered his office Rocket Man and I have been standing and talking. He was brought in 3 months ago to turn a troubled division around.

GM: We have serious Time-To-Market issues here. [I move to sit down, choosing the mini conference table in the corner by the window. I’m hoping that area of the room will keep him from ricocheting to the next interruption.]

BB: Time-To-Market is always an issue. What’s different here?

GM: So for years we’re a household word----a cash cow to the Corporation. Then 2 years ago, we start getting beat bad by a newcomer with – I’m going to blaspheme now - a product that’s just as good as ours. Imagine that! Now we're in a race. If we don’t get our stuff to the shelf first we lose market share, profitability, you know; First one there gets the lion share.

BB: Your blasphemy and sarcasm are duly noted. What are you up against internally?

GM: Look, these are good people who’ve been lulled into complacency by a good product. They’re stuck doing the same old same old while I keep telling them that the Holy Brand won’t save them any more. We’ve got to do things more frequently in the market with more agility and right now we’ve got a 2 year product development cycle for god sakes! We’ve got to cut that in half or we won’t be around. [It’s clear that the vibration I was feeling before was his frustration. It’s like an engine in high idle.]

BB: OK I’m going to ask an impertinent and pointed question; What specifically do you want me to do? [Without hesitation he gets up, marches over to his desk picks up a stack of papers,…brings it back and slams it down on the table in front of me. There are dozens of pages, with lots of details, graphs, bullet points and some standard decorations in the esthetic du PowerPoint.]

GM: They call them “decks” here, like a deck of cards. I ask for a presentation and I get one of these. The whole place uses them constantly. The customers are even seeing these damn things. I tell my direct reports to pare these things down and what do they do? [He flips to an example page.] They put 4 graphs on a single page so there’re less pages. They just don’t get it! [I begin thumbing through the deck. I’ve seen decks or their equivalent, all over the world. Sometimes I think they’re called decks because there’re 52 pages with constant reshuffling. They can be called foil sets, boards – what ever. Their real name is “Death By PowerPoint.”]

BB: Let me guess at some things…[He nods his head in agreement.] you want insights and instead they report data to you – lots of it.

GM: Yep.

BB: So you tell them the information you want, and they give you just that data, nothing more, nothing less. It’s brief, with no beef. So you start asking a bunch of questions and things slow down again.

GM: Drives me up the freekin’ tree.

BB: You expect leadership and what you get is invited to an other meeting that you don’t have time for.

GM: [laughing] Have you been spying on us?

BB: Not exactly. Those decks are symptoms I’ve seen before - different companies, different mix of circumstances but unfortunately more and more common. Net-net, you want them to stop spending so much time on decks, and get out into the market where they can concentrate on execution- and you want me to bring them to enlightenment.

GM: Hallelujah my brother. Like I said, these are good people but I’m running out of time. Either the personnel will change or there will be a change in the personnel. [It seems the Rocket Man has acquired a few targets.]

BB: Ok, one last but most important question.

GM: Shoot.

BB: You are asking people to change their ways. What if I ask you to change yours? [He’s confused. Then a delighted “you nailed it” grin cracked across his face.]

GM: It always takes two to tango doesn’t it? I love the Rocket Man. He cancelled some appointments after that. Our discussion went on for 30 extra minutes. I knew after that, that training his people would be just the beginning. I’d be seeing Rocket Man again – the sooner the better.


No cows were actually faded in the making of this story.