Earlier on I wrote about 'Who is the boss?" as a reminder that "bosses" are not to be 'pushed' or 'ordered - told to do so'. Such is the obstacle in management, and especially when in adhocracy management style, for example project management when a consultant engineer needs to coordinate with a consultant architect and the contractor who is the ultimate payer, a lot of soft skill is required. In such matter, nobody can tell another professional off because nobody is really the 'boss'.
Now, in this article, I want to illustrate the higher level of this phenomenon in a more real life situation. The story will also illustrate the interaction of different perspectives of various stakeholders. This interaction involves agency cost and system or operational control. And, there is also an element of stupidity in it. Again, the scenario involves a new IT (computer) system.
The finance department got this new IT system to ascertain 'clean' database. Therefore, new customers must be registered with careful screening as the objective is to avoid duplicate accounts. Why? The simple aim is to enable efficient credit control and better control of bad paymasters. However, this process requires tedious data search and thus may delay processing of orders for first time customers.
Initial cleansing took some time but the database was finally cleaned! Two months has passed, and the system ran perfectly well. The Controller started to let her hair down and coincidently, it was good news to her 10 years marriage - she finally conceived! The moment she got the urine pregnancy stick positive, the joy was immense for her husband and herself! Of course, not to say for both their parents! After all, they have almost given up trying, and hope was so remote...
Later that month, she started to have craving for laksa, so one day she went off for a late lunch. And, for just that afternoon, she had a new customer she needed to register into the system. She did not know as she did not return to office and nobody informed her as it has become sort of mundane work. Nobody bothered. After all, what was the computer system for? It was to lift off burden!
Disasters was that this being an urgent order from a remote branch in some distance outskirts. To make thing worse, it was an absolutely rare item and nobody stock this item elsewhere.
The order was sitting idle till the next day. Again, coincidently, she was scheduled to see her regular obstetrician for a check up. So, she took leave. When she returned to the office the following day, her secretary told her that some customer had been screaming over the phone the whole yesterday!
She called back the customer and got into a heated conversation as this nagging customer screamed at her without explaining the reason. What a day! Inevitably, the angry customer was really mad because he had an urgent delivery which got screwed because of this process of accounts registration. He did not know this new requirement and he did not care! It was internal issue with the finance department, not his! He refused to admit his wrong, neither was she. It was never this way previously as he had been dealing in the area for the past twenty years! But, this new IT process required fresh registration. Without an account, his order could not be billed, and thus, the item could not be shipped!
But, to the chief Controller, her priority was to have a clean database, and nothing in life was more important that the database! Opph! Sorry, not true! The most important thing now in her life was no more the job or the IT database, clean or dirty, it was her newly conceived baby (yesterday, the obstetrician said she should not get angry). Blowing over her mind, she shouted back at the customer, forgiving was never in her dictionary! Looking back, she could never have done that before! She could never raise her voice to even an ant! It must be the hormones?!
So, who is the boss?
The Customer, the chief Controller or the IT/Computer system?
Sadly, everyone looked at his/her position as 'the boss'. Actually, human being has given that role to the Computer!
Reflection
It is selfishness that blinds management. That is the single most evil element in Agency Cost. Greed springs out from selfishness. If you are not selfish, you definitely do not mind being generous to share. If you can share with others, you shall be less greedy. Why? Because you shall allow others to have more than your portion. If you do not feel less, why should you need more? Why should you be getting more than what is required?
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