A Dialogue

Jane: Hi, Sam. How's everything?

Sam: Great to see you, Jane.

Jane: I hear you got a new job with Babson Machines.

Sam: Yeah, it's true. I was really lucky. I started about six months ago; they haven't fired me yet. How's the factory?

Jane: Ah, about the same as always.

Sam: You mean shirts are still coming out without collars or buttons?

Jane: Sometimes it's just the collar and buttons without the shirt. The plant isn't famous for its efficiency, you know.

Sam: Well, I heard there are some changes at the factory. Something about music and a coffee break in the afternoons.

Jane: Music? Oh yeah. Yeah, I guess there is. A lot of good it does, though. The machines make so much noise we can't hear it anyway. And the coffee break! They give us only five minutes. If we run at top speed we can just make it to the coffee machine and back to our worktable

Sam: I can't believe this. I understood that Mr. Hobbs was all ready to make a lot of big changes down there at the factory.

Jane: Well, a couple of things have changed. We used to have dull gray walls to look at between operations. A couple of weeks ago, some painter came in and painted a huge picture of a perfect shirt ... with all its buttons, sleeves, and the collar. I guess management wanted to remind us of what we are supposed to be producing there. But can you imagine? A shirt! We see enough shirts all day. We don't need to look up from our work and find one painted on the walls.

Sam: You mean that big shirt doesn't make all of you want to produce more?

Jane: A lot of pictures might make us want to produce more, but a huge painted shirt? No way! Oh yes, one other change. Remember Big Jim in our math class? He used to work on buttons and he held up half the assembly line. Well, they promoted him from buttons to sleeves, with a raise in pay. Now he sits at the beginning of the line and holds up everybody. There's progress for you.

Sam: Ah, yes, progress: one step forward and two steps backwards!

Epilogue

So, I learned that my consultation at the shirt factory had not improved production.

Well, frankly, I'm not surprised. You see, while working at the Babson Machine Company as an industrial adviser, I took a night class in management engineering at Northwestern University. My company paid the bill. I like that.

Now I have quite a different idea of what it means to be a "consultant". I used to think that the consultant goes into the factory, studies the problems, suggests cures for the problems, and then encourages the management to follow these suggestions.

I now believe that consultation doesn't work successfully that way. In my management engineering course I learned that first I have to listen. In the shirt factory I should have listened to the management, the two owners. But then, together, we should have listened to the workers themselves. What did they think the problems were? What were their suggestions for solutions?

I tried to force my suggestions on the owners. The suggestions for Improvement weren't theirs or the workers. If workers and management are seriously involved in the problem solving, change is not only possible, but inevitable.

At any rate, although the experience was painful in many ways, it provided a good lesson for me.

I'm thinking of sending the check for $100 back to Mr. Hobbs. As for the shirts, four of the five in the box didn't fit anyway, and the fifth one didn't have a right sleeve.

(623 words)