“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” I received my first meaningful management lesson from what would seem to be an unlikely source.  I was in my first year as a first line manager at Control Data working with a good sized crew of techs implementing our Wall St. real time transaction systems.  My secretary was on vacation and I brought in a “temp” to cover for two weeks.   She was a well spoken, reserved young woman (actually 10-15 years older than I was) who was extremely effective, learning our processes on the first pass.  We worked well together.  On her last day, she presented me with a wooden desk name sign as a gift.  Engraved on the front facing a visitor was my name.  On the backside, facing me was another engraving that read, “The Art of Diplomacy is letting someone else have your way.”

My very first reaction was more than a bit negative but after a few moments, I realized that what she was telling me was important, both professionally and personally.  I had that sign on my desk for many years and still have it around here somewhere today.

Normally I would have jumped on someone for a not so subtle “shot” like that but when I reflected on it, I understood.  At this point in my life I was a self-important hotshot on a fast track.  The youngest manager in the company running the most critical new market penetration effort that we had going.  She and I  had spoken quite a bit and I had learned something about her background.   She was well educated,  holding a Doctorate in Romance Languages and was working at the UN as a French / English translator in the booth as well as on the floor during meetings and receptions and had a great opportunity to observe the good, bad and great diplomats at work.   In my own twisted mind, I took her gift as a compliment.   I was being told that I had something worthwhile but if I fixed my ego problem, who knows what might happen.   I never really “fixed my ego” but I did take the lesson to heart and it paid off well for me.

“The Art of Diplomacy is letting someone else have your way.”

Power The kind that turns on the lights and keeps you fed.

A man can produce two hundred fifty watts from his muscles for a reasonable length of time. When he has no more power, he is a savage.  Life Expectancy at Birth About 20

When he gains a kilowatt of energy from the muscles of a horse, he is a barbarian, but the new power cannot be directed wholly as he wills. When he can apply it to a plow he has a high barbarian culture, and when he adds still more he begins to be civilized.   Life Expectancy at Birth About 25

Steam-power put as much as four kilowatts to work for every human being in the first industrialized countries.  Life Expectancy at Birth About 30

In the Mid Twentieth Century there was about 60 kilowatts available per person in the industrialized countries.  Life Expectancy at Birth About 45

Nowadays, of course, a modern culture assumes 190 to 350 KW per person.  The US is right in the middle of that.  Life Expectancy at Birth About 80

These are just some back of the envelope calculations and do not take into account the power consumed elsewhere and used to create commodities and products imported into your life.

This is an interesting correlation.   More importantly than just from a historical point of view, the same relationships hold true today as you look at the same data for industrialized nations and less developed.  Life expectancy and power available are closely related.  But it takes an order of magnitude change in power to be reflected in LE.

The relationship here and similar relationships with GDP and family income present a problem for the Green Power movement.  The next power jump will will be to about 1 Megawatt per person.  That is only four times the amount currently used,  the same  change from the 1955 level to now, not a huge jump.  Where will it come from and how do we get there in the next 50 years?  What about those other nations that need to move two orders of magnitude just to reach USA 1960 levels.

There is a really great book by David MacKay FRS, professor of Physics at Cambridge University that begins to open the dialog around a cogent approach to sustainable energy.  Just to get you thinking, if the US were to cut back its current power consumption and life style from 250 KW to the level in the UK lifestyle and consumption of 125 KW, we could replace ALL hydrocarbon fuels by building 525 new 1 Giga Watt Nuclear power plants.  Let us be clear about this. The silly little bits that the “greenies” shout about won’t do it, Cap and Trade will bankrupt industrialized nations and hoping for a new energy source to show up tomorrow is a fantasy.  We and the rest of the world need to get serious about implementing all of the sources, nuclear, solar, wind, tide, wave and and most importantly of all, research into new sources.

You may read MacKay’s book on line or download a pdf of it, at his website “David MacKay Sustainable Energy without the hot air” .  I strongly recommend it.

The following chart is a piece from a Finance and Economics blog that I find interesting.  PLEASE do not go there unless you have very strong masochistic tendencies.  While there is a wealth of very timely information at the site, most of it is pretty ugly right now. “Calculatedriskblog.com”

What I find interesting about the chart below is not the duration of the recessions but the very consistent rate at which the job losses return to the base line.  9.78 months on average and a standard deviation of 2.76 months.  It is only a small sample but it certainly suggests that once the turn is reached a return to normal is 95% likely to take less than 15 months.

For small businesses it would seem wise to be seriously thinking about how you will ramp up to participate in the recovery as early as possible.  Plan for it to happen and plan to bring on the right staff because mistakes will be very costly in the early stages.  In some respects it will be like starting your business all over again so treat it the same way.   Above all, I urge you to take all of the appropriate steps including the use of assessment tools to make each hire count.   See my other posts regarding the “Art of the Hire”

Curves for the last 10 recessions

Years back, I picked up the name/tag “Managing by Wandering Around” from Tom Peters and realized that is pretty much how I conducted my typical day.   His commentary did raise my awareness and subsequently, I did try to make sure that I spent time with and wherever my folks were working.  To perfectly honest though I generally did this around 2-3:00 in the afternoon.  That just happens to be my low period of the day when desk work was impossible and I needed to get pumped up.  A cup of java just would not cut it; I was already drinking about three quarts a day back then.

My staff quickly understood that I wasn’t looking over anyone’s shoulder.  I was there to do a managers number one job:  find out what is getting in their way to performing at their best and fixing it.  The payback was immense.

During the Hudson Valley Business Edge conference at the Holiday Inn in Fishkill, NY my job as consultant to the principles and as a generally interested party, was Chief Kibitzer and problem solver.  While wandering around over the course of the day I had the pleasure of watching a real practitioner of the art of MBWA, the Catering Manager.  For a smallish event, it was complex from the house point of view.  A ballroom with multiple setups and reconfigures including meals and keynotes, four breakout rooms to be serviced, coordination with the A/V staff and videographers and stills photographer.  It all had to be setup at 7:30 am and was in use until we all retired to the bar for hors d’oeuvre at 5:30 pm.  Rich was everywhere, all day.

I took a minute of his time around 4:00 to compliment him and remarked about how he used that old technique so well.  His response was classic.  “If you want them to follow you, you need to be there.  He then held up his hand, which had a power cord in it saying, “You also need to make their job easy for them.”    Another classic example; rather then send one of the young people to play gopher, he did it himself so they could do what they needed to do.  With that, I realized this is what I had observed all day.

What’s the take away from all of this?  Just a reminder that MBWA still works, you can’t lead from the rear and leaders are more effective than mangers.