Preparing
for Conversations with Charles M. Savage
"Knowledge
Turns" to Increase ROI
(Return on Intelligence)?
Dr. Charles
Savage is guest moderator for the STAR Series discussions, April
15-26, 2002. Please prepare for these conversations by reading
about Dr. Savage and his latest thoughts on "Knowledge Turns,"
a practical way to increase ROI (Return on Intelligence).
Slides
on Knowledge Turns
 Introduction
Dr. Charles M. Savage
is president and mentor of Knowledge Era Enterprises, Inc. (KEE,
Inc.), Boston and Munich and program administrator of the AOK Knowledge Recognition Program.
KEE helps companies
discover the tremendous potential of knowledge era enterprising,
and the AOK Recognition Program provides mentors to people engaged
in knowledging projects who need to build recognition for their
work and the results it produces.
Charles consults
and speaks widely in the United States, Asia and Europe. He has
pioneered an understanding to the significant of the business
transition from the Industrial to the Knowledge Era, both from
individuals and organizations. He has been a friend and colleague
to many leaders in the field, including Amidon, Edvinsson, Sveiby,
Saint-Onge and many others.
His book, Fifth Generation Management,
has been widely acclaimed and translated into Japanese and
Korean. Tom Peters named it his business book of 1991. A revised
edition, subtitled Co-Creating through Virtual Enterprising,
Dynamic Teaming and Knowledge Networking, is also available
in English, German and Portuguese.
He has developed
an Executive Discoveryshop model as a way to tap and team the
creative capabilities of professionals within and between companies.
This is particularly important as Web Services (XML, etc.) evolve,
making "plug-n-partnering"™ possible. In particular,
he focuses on helping companies make the shift from the steep
hierarchies of the Industrial Era to flatter network organizations
based on dynamic teaming and virtual enterprising in the Knowledge
Era. His clients include ABB, CIBC, Digital, Dow, Electrolux,
Hyatt, Intel, ITT, Martin Marietta and Siemens.
Prior to forming
his own company, he was responsible for Digital Equipment Corporation's
world wide Organizational Effectiveness Practice. He has worked
as a Vice President of Gray Judson, Inc., a management consulting
firm in Boston; a Principle in the D. Appleton Co., Manhattan
Beach, CA, where he pioneered the human side of Computer Integrated
Manufacturing (CIM); and as Director of the Boston Office of
the Scandinavian Institutes of Administrative Research (SIAR).
He has been active in the Computer and Automated Systems Association
of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (CASA/SME) where he
served many years on their Board of Advisors and headed its Technical
Forum.
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Knowledge Turns: A Practical
Way to Increase ROI
(Return on Intelligence)
In the last two
years the interest in Knowledge Management and the Knowledge
Economy has grown exponentially. The European Community, in its
official documents, has recently shifted from referring to the
European economy as "knowledge-based," to speaking
of the "Knowledge Economy." Clearly, "knowledge"
has reached the radar screen of many.
Suppose for a minute
that I am the CEO of a medium size manufacturing company. I sometimes
see reference in the press to this "knowledge stuff."
But can I clean my windows with it? Or so I think until one day
when my son returns from his studies. He asks me a simple question,
"Dad, you have put a lot of time, effort and money into
the company and you have good buildings and machinery. You've
also got a good workforce. How much time do they spend in meetings?"
I smile and say,
if I were to guess, they probably spend 40 per cent of their
time in meetings. My son continues, "How productive are
these meetings? Do you see people coming out of them energized
or heavy hearted?" I have to admit that I'd hardly given
this a thought, but now that he asks it, I realize that there
is an uncomfortable heaviness after many meetings. He then adds,
"How often do you ask a question for which you do not know
an answer?" I scratched my head and mumble, "That would
show I am not in the know."
My son is not letting
me off easily. "Do you think this is what other bosses also
do?" Yes, I say, I guess so. "And do the professionals
let on that they do not know something?" Of course not.
Then with a smile he says, "If everyone knows everything,
then why don't they listen to one another more to take advantage
of this knowledge?"
I begin to catch
onto the gist of my son's questioning. I think of our executive
leadership meetings. Typically we endure blizzard after blizzard
of PowerPoint slides, and we have gotten really skillful in deflating
the presentation with picky little comments. The frustration
level at some of our meetings could warm part of the plant, and
I allow this to happen!
"Son, are you
trying to tell me that in our meetings we do not effectively
use the knowledge in the room?" He does not say anything,
but just grins.
In this instance
I realize that, on average, 40 per cent of my payroll is in meetings
that are less productive than they might be because of the typical
power games. I am really losing not only money, but also significant
business opportunities because of this.
"Dad, if you
are honest with yourself and objectively judged the quality of
interaction in these meetings, it might reach a two or three
on a ten point scale. Is that good use of the talents, experience,
learnings, feelings and visions of your people?"
Then he says something
that hurts me to the core, because it is so true: "If your
colleagues, your managers and your professionals do not really
listen to one another, does your customer feel listened to?"
"Thanks, son,
there is something special in what you've just done. You did
not come home as a know-it-all, but instead asked a few powerful
questions. They got your message across better than the best
of PowerPoint presentations."
Over the next two
months I do a lot of deep thinking and reflecting. My staff notices
a difference. Our meeting suddenly goes in unexpected directions,
because people begin to explore things they are not absolutely
certain about. New horizons open up for us.
Suddenly, I realize
that the business' new challenge is to increase the return on
intelligence. ROI has just taken on a new meaning. We are ill
equipped for this challenge, and the tools and measurements are
still missing. This is potentially a very large field, so we
will concentrate on just one aspect. Now I was facing a whole
new question: "How is it possible to dramatically increase
an organization's ability to generate and weave together profit
making 'ideas?'"
I have always thought,
perhaps because my thinking has been shaped on the anvil of the
Industrial Era that our challenge is to turn raw materials into
finished products.
My colleagues and
I have long concerned ourselves with the measurement of "inventory
turns" to indicate the speed of this process. Of course,
it is different in different industries. With bulk commodity
products, inventory might turn 100 or 1000 times, while an aircraft
manufacturer may turn inventory 2 to 10 times because of the
long productions cycles. Each industry has had its norms of what
constitutes goodness in inventory turns.
The figure is computed
by yearly dividing the average inventory at the end of the year
by the costs of the raw materials.
Now, thanks to the
questions from my son, the so-called knowledge economy has taken
on a whole new luster. Our challenge is to turn our raw ideas
into finished products and services. The speed and effectiveness
of this process is, to a great extent, instructive of the economic
success of the organization. Intuitively we have known that our
skill in combining the ideas of our engineers with those of our
marketers is critical for the business. Perhaps we should measure
our "Knowledge Turns?"
But -- and this
is a big but -- how do we identify and put a value on the raw
ideas (our intelligence -- ideas, thoughts insights, learnings,
experiences, feelings, aspirations, intuitions, visions, etc.)?
What is the relationship between these ideas and our economic
results? Do we divide the average yearly payroll by net profits?
Obviously, it is not an easy number to derive.
Certainly, most
companies track sales per employee. This can be a useful number
if companies want to compare themselves with other companies
in their industry. But this number does not really change the
dynamics of transforming raw ideas into end products and services.
I am beginning to
see a parallelism here. Inventory Turns deal with physical products.
Knowledge Turns deals with people, their ideas and the ways they
interact. Would it not be valuable if we could develop a measure
that helped people reflect upon and increase their own abilities
to increase their Knowledge Turns?
Sometimes when I
stop and really ask myself what is going on, I realize we take
big people and put them in little boxes, held apart by steel
girders. We then give them a half-written script and expect them
to play a role. The minute they start to be themselves, we stuff
their script in the face and demand they get on with their role.
If people are busy playing roles, how can they really listen
in an open-minded manner?
If we could devise
a measurement approach that takes people beyond their boxes and
roles, then we might begin to increase more self-reflection.
The strange thing is, and I know this from my own career, that
there is safety in the box and the role. Even though the quarters
are a bit cramped and the role a cliché, it is home. It
is risky to venture into uncharted territory.
It is very unlikely
we can expect to find an objective set of numbers that will help
us with this. In this case, I'd have to admit that subjective
numbers are move valuable, because they indicate how people are
feeling within themselves about the overall process of creating
and combining ideas. Once compiled, these numbers can evoke useful
self-reflection about the processes of working with ideas. And
when discussed with one's colleagues on our top management team
or through out the organization, then the derived numbers can
challenge people to think of ways to increase their abilities
to weave ideas together. Why don't we do this already? Where
is the blockage?
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A Mental
Blockage?
I remember hearing
some management guru talking about "mental models."
The stuff did not make sense at the time, but I am beginning
to suspect there is something very practical and down to earth
about the pictures we carry around in our heads about how reality
is supposed to operate.
This guru said mental
models can be useful in showing basic relationships between key
elements in an organization. The irony is that they are often
so much a part of the woodwork of our thinking that we do not
even notice them. Outdated mental models can act like blinders,
preventing us from seeing the obvious. Now I am beginning to
wonder if we are operating with a set of old and dusty mental
models?
We have grown up
with the Industrial Era's mental models. As we've been focused
in the Industrial Era on the transformation of physical raw materials
into physical products (and supporting services), we have had
to deal with scarcity. Perhaps we have created a mental
model based on the notions of scarcity. Come to think of it,
our accounting systems, our organizational models and our marketing
efforts have all been influenced by this mental mindset.
For example, the
hierarchy and chain of command in our organizations creates a
sense of scarcity at each rung of the ladder. Either you or I
will get our bosses position when he moves up, but not both of
us. If I know this, then am I not going to be looking for ways
to get an advantage over you? It is likely that the quality of
our conversations will be influenced by our competitive mindsets.
It is not surprising that knowledge sharing and idea weaving
are less than optimal in most organizations, and our ROI (return
on intelligence) suffers accordingly.
Now it is becoming
clearer as to why my son was asking the question he was. I am
proud of him, as he really gave me a semester's course simply
by asking a few well-chosen questions. Maybe he is beginning
to mentally prepare himself to take my position when I choose
to retire. And he probably does not want to fall into the same
traps as I have fallen into. Now I can begin to let go the grief
he caused me as he was a teenager.
It is so much easier
to see things now. For example, we know how we keep track of
one another's mistakes. We also know how our bosses often ask
one person about the other's performance. Under these conditions,
what happens? We do not share our ideas or knowledge openly.
We do not seek out one another's strengths, because that might
be detrimental for our own career if our boss were to come to
appreciate the strengths of our colleague more than our own.
In short, there is usually more distrust than trust. And we know
one another's weaknesses more than their strengths. Simply put,
our organizations live with "structured distrust."
I never put it that way before, but this reality shakes me.
It is amazing how
things are becoming so much clearer. Look at the typical dynamics
of a simple hierarchical relationship. Which are the strong relationships?
Probably A: B and A: C. What are the weak relationships: B: C.
Does B know C's strengths? Probably not. Does C know B's weakness?
Most likely! Does A encourage B to discover and build upon C's
unique capabilities? Too seldom! Given this model, and as we
all know, it is much too common, what would the knowledge turns
be, high or low? It is clear that even if we did not measure
them, we know from experience that the level of creativity between
A, B and C is not high.
Simply put, we have
a problem here, a very serious problem. We are dealing with people
and relationships from the perspective of the "economy of
scarcity."
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From "Scarcity"
to "Scarcity and Abundance"
I now see how the
Industrial Era's culture hinders the dynamic weaving of ideas
among and between people at all levels. Why?
The industrial world
works with things, and things are relatively scarce. We have,
without realizing it, taken this mode of thinking into our ways
of organizing work, tasks and responsibilities. It fits nicely
with the hierarchical notions of Figure 1.
When we realize,
however, that "ideas" are or can be abundant, then
we open up another horizon of possibilities. Our challenge is
to increase the quality of interaction and dialogue among and
between A, B and C. Once we understand the richness and abundance
of "knowledge," and the "knowledging" processes,
like co-creativity, then a new spiritedness arrives.
In short, we now
need a mental model that combines both the notions of Scarcity
AND Abundance. Things may be scarce, but ideas are plentiful.
We need leaders
who know how to build trust and openness between colleagues and
subordinates. We need professionals who can actively seek out
and discover the capabilities of one another. We need a major
overhaul of our payment and incentive systems so that active
people are rewarded for investing the time to get to know one
another's capabilities and actually building upon these skills
and resources in concrete projects.
If we look at this
same model from the perspective of the "economy of scarcity
AND abundance," how might it look?
I suddenly realize
that we can leave the form the same if we can successfully change
the spirit of the relationships. In Figure 1 people tend to devalue
one another, by just looking for weaknesses. This is not
surprising, because the spirit of the Industrial Era has been
to find out what is not working (i.e. the problems) and
fix them. "Problem solving" has been at the core of
the Industrial world.
In Figure 2, if
the people actively value one another and seek out one
another's unique talents and build upon them, then a totally
different dynamic transpires. This is not a task alone for B
and C, but it engages all three, A, B and C. A's position is
not just a position of "power over," but instead it
is one to "create with." B and C need to seek out A's
talents as vigorously as they do those of one another. And A's
real success come as he or she engenders a creative community
among all involved. The task is not just to be nice to one another,
but instead to be hard minded and demanding of one another, that
each is building upon one another's best. Only then will the
real talents come out. Under these conditions, what would we
expect the level of knowledge turns to be, lower or higher?
It is clear to me
now that the tragedy of the Industrial Era is that although it
focused on designing and implementing excellence in physically
processes, it did relatively little in regard to human process.
Yes, I know that every annual report says, "People are the
most important asset of the company." I have included this
phrase in many of my speeches as well. Yet, we know the reality.
Over the years I
have seen various approaches come and go. We have tried "work
simplification," "group dynamics," "transactional
analysis " "T-Groups," "Business Process
Reengineering," "Organizational Development,"
"Change Management" as ways to address the structural
problems in the Industrial Eraall without real success. Why?
Because none of these efforts has really made the shift from
the Industrial Era's culture of distrust and devaluing
to a culture of trust and co-creativity. Without this
shift, we can never hope to significantly increase knowledge
turns and our ROI. How can we readjust our mental model? Did
my son really get me thinking in this direction?
Some times I can
remember the strangest things. In economic history class we touched
on how Charles Babbage pointed out in 1832 that in the factories
people should be paid for what they do, NOT what they know. People
have sold their time in order to be paid for a specific task.
This is why there was an unwritten banner over the factory gates,
saying: "Leave your thoughts, feelings, experience and knowledge
at home, and just be ready to do what you are told!"
Now in 2002, I realize
we have a new banner over our offices: "Bring your thoughts,
feelings, experience and knowledge to the office, and be ready
to weave these resources with those of your colleagues."
As our banners have
changed, the whole fabric of our organizations are gradually
changing, and changing profoundly. Yes, we can still have hierarchies
as I have indicated, but we have just changed the rules for advancement.
We will still have tough-minded leaders, but this tough-mindedness
will be based on real people skills, including empathy, listening
abilities, a sense of honesty and fairness, authenticity and
integrity. These are values that were not abundant in the Industrial
Era, yet they are absolutely essential in the Knowledge Era.
If there is trust
and respect for one another, and if people can seek out and build
upon one another's competencies, then their innovative and co-creative
abilities increase dramatically and we can expect a dramatic
increase in Knowledge Turns. Suddenly the old measures have a
new meaning. ROI now focuses us on our Return on Intelligence
and ROCE reminds us of our Return on Competency Employed.
I know a CEO friend
of mine who changed the rules for annual reviews in his organization
and it cost his company absolutely nothing. He simply said to
his VPs that he would measure their performances during their
annual reviews based, in part, on how well they openly shared
knowledge with their colleagues, even when their colleagues did
not ask for this information.
In short, I realize now that there are two key mental models
badly in need of renovation:
- The Economy of
Scarcity -- The Economy of Scarcity AND Abundance
- The Culture of
Distrust and Devaluing -- The Culture of Trust and Co-creativity
What will help us
reflect upon these shifts in mental models? What will inspire
us to move to a more spirited and open exchange of ideas, thoughts,
and feelings? And what will dramatically improve the quality
of our dialogue, our dialogue with one another, with other departments,
with suppliers, with customers and customers' customers?
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Computing
Knowledge Turns
Having understood
this, I believe it may be possible to develop a subjective scaling
process that measures the level of trust between a key persons
or companies. Certainly this is a subjective proxy of the quality
of relationships between people, departments, companies and customers.
As people work together,
both within a company and between companies, they need to develop
the skill of identifying and building upon one another's competencies.
Their skill in doing this also determines our Knowledge Turns.
From my experience, this does not come naturally. But this can
become natural when properly understood. It takes investments
in time and money to update our corporate culture and our operational
values, work that is still waiting to be done.
Inspired by my son,
I am going to try something at my next staff meeting. I will
keep count of the number of honest and opened questions that
are asked of one another to better understand the thinking behind
a colleagues' statement. I have been in meetings where hardly
a single question was asked. Instead, people throw statements
at one another, hoping to one-up them, especially in the eyes
of the boss, and I know how often I have been sucked into this
game. On a scale of zero to ten, most of our meetings rank about
three or maybe four in terms of the quality of interaction between
participants. Given the typical number of meetings we have in
our companies during a year, this is a dreadful waste of time
and ideas. It also lowers our company's ROI. This is exactly
what my son was trying to get across. I'll have to let him know
that I have gotten his message.
I'd like to begin
where we started, with the industrial notion of inventory turns.
We have all developed a skillful eye for measuring how quickly
we are able to take acquired raw materials and turn them into
finished products. Our inventory turns measure is derived on
a yearly basis by dividing the cost of goods sold by the average
inventory.
As I have already
understood, we cannot use such an easily calculated formula in
computing "Knowledge Turns." We do know, however, that
in many organizations people have knowledge, but they do not
readily share it. They do not trust the other person. Or they
want to use the knowledge to help their own career, even at the
expense of the other, for is not competition that is the driving
force internally in our companies?
Certainly, the hoarding
of knowledge may help individuals individually, but usually it
is at the expense of the total organization, and the many other
individuals in it. It likely also hurts the companies' interaction
with suppliers and customers, because things fall between the
cracks.
Economic success
in the 21st Century is dependent on how well we acquire and develop
knowledgeable persons and encourage them to build upon one another's
capabilities. In the Industrial Era, the three wealth generating
factors have been land, labor and capital. Now knowledge is the
forth factor, and it is becoming more dominate day by day.
It seems so simple.
Now we need to parallel our focus on our "return on investments,"
with an equally sharp focus on "return on intellect."
Have we created
a culture that encourages and rewards people for actively building
upon one another's knowledge and capabilities? Have we broken
out of the culture of distrust so prevalent in our Industrial
Era enterprises?
Unfortunately, the
simple answer is: NO!
To enhance our Industrial
Era companies, we actively invested in building, machinery and
systems. To enhance our Knowledge Era organizations, we'll also
need to actively invest in our organizational culture, because
the quality of interaction among and between people at and between
all levels is the new "critical success factor" in
business.
Why?
As we have learned,
things are scarce, but ideas are not.
Interestingly enough
we talk about know and knowing or acknowledge
and acknowledging, but for some reason to talk about knowledge
and knowledging is too much of a stretch. Why?
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Return on
Intelligence and Co-Creativity
Real knowledge comes
alive in context. We need to actively combine our understanding
of what, with how, when, where, and why. To be
innovative and creative, we need to do this in community with
others. This requires the ability for open and honest dialogue,
even hard and probing dialogue. Unfortunately, as we all know,
game players often rise in the hierarchy, at least in terms of
the way we have understood it up until now. But when we discover
the value of authenticity and integrity, a new set of dynamics
comes into play. When the game is played by the rules of "control"
we get one set of results, but when we start to play it according
to the spirit of "co-creativity," a whole new set of
dynamics arise.
Suddenly it becomes
clear to me that the two little letters "c, o (co)"
are all important. Until now we have focused on product and service
quality. Now our challenge is to focus on the "quality of
culture." Are we able at the executive level to engage in
an open, honest and probing dialogue? Or do we just concern ourselves
with our own little empires?
This means the leadership
team needs to model the behavior and attitudes that will unlock
the power of knowledge within the enterprise. When others see
they can actively live to and build upon one another's capabilities,
they too will begin to model this behavior. When the managers
and employees see that instead of rampant distrust, there is
honest trust and respect, then they too will feel respected and
appreciated for their own capabilities.
Therefore, it would
be good if executive teams began to actively measure their own
"Knowledge Turns." This can be determined by dividing
their "Ability to Build Upon one another's Capabilities"
by the "Level of Distrust."
How can this be
done? We already know that there are no existing measurements
that determine these numbers. Our only choice is to begin with
a subjective sense of our present reality and put it in objective
numbers. Is this scientifically verifiable apart from human behavior?
Of course not, nor should we hope for the same scientific validity
in dealing with things. As knowledge and knowledging are all
about people, we need to start where we are, and work from there
in an open and reflective manner.
The next question
then becomes, how do we determine our ability to build upon one
another's capabilities? We have already realized that we are
so much better in finding faults with the activities and accomplishments
of our colleagues. We have a long memory for their screw-ups,
their blunders and their failing. Why? If we can make the other
look bad, then we have a better chance of climbing the ladder.
This has been the conventional wisdom in a hierarchy that creates
an artificial sense of scarcity in terms of moving up in the
organization.
If, on the other
hand, we realize that our success is dependent upon our ability
to network and support the various talents of our colleagues,
then another dynamic enters the organization. Just as an artist
used a pallet of colors to create a holistic painting, so too
we need to skillfully combine multiple talents and capabilities.
When I think about it, I realize how insightful Betty Summer
is with our finances. She sees connection we could not even have
imagined. And Frank Schmidt has the ability to tap the creative
side of his engineers. Now if he and Bentley Jones could more
skillfully bring our marketing and engineering departments together
with a few of our key customers, I am sure we could co-innovate
and co-create many new products and services.
Although it is a
subjective number, we have a sense of how well we engage with
the talents and capabilities of our colleagues. We can fairly
accurately measure this on a scale of 1 to 10. Certainly, as
we involve more people, the validity of our sample increases.
Again we return
to the notion of knowledging. Knowledge is not just knowing
about, or knowing how, but it is a combination of what, when,
where why, what and how, the real task for Betty, Frank and Bentley,
among others. These elements become so much clearer through vigorous
dialogue. This means we need to skillfully listen. It means we
need to ask powerful questions. It means we have to push back
until the truth of the matter is discovered. Of course, this
can never happen if there is not realistic trust.
I call it "realistic
trust" because trust is not just willed into being, but
it has to be won every day among and between people. We have
all experienced the devious, the weak and the uncertain, those
who are ready to bend the truth to please their boss or to cover
their incompetence.
I have made my own
share of mistakes, so I know realistic trust is never blind or
naive. It is, on the contrary, demanding and at times impatient.
It does not suffer foolishness lightly, but seeks to find the
multiple interacting forces in a situation or opportunity.
I am sure if we
asked people on a scale of 1 to 10 to rate how open and trusting
our organization is, they can be pretty accurate.
It has become clear
to me how rich and complex are our interactions. We deal with
one another as individuals. We also deal with one another in
the context of functions and departments. In larger companies,
we may find there are multiple lines of businesses that may or
may not support one another.
Recently our company
along with many others has discovered the importance of our suppliers
and customers. It is strange, because this should have been assumed
from long ago. But the recent talk of Supply Chain Management
and Customer Relations Management is one indication that executives
now realize their worlds extend way beyond their own payrolls.
In addition, I am
beginning to realize that we need to understand the aspirations
of our customers' customers, because this determines how we can
better strengthen our customers' abilities to be successful with
their customers.
Now it is clear,
our challenge is to measure, even subjectively, the quality of
our ability to build upon one another's capabilities, be the
other an individual, another function, another line of business,
a supplier, a customer or a customer's customer. This is our
starting number. We then identify how trusting the relationships
are between individuals, functions, lines of business, suppliers,
customers and customer's customers. We do this best by measuring
the levels of distrust.
Once we divide these
two numbers for each of the categories, we begin to get a sense
of the level of our Knowledge Turns.
Over the next two
weeks my son and I worked on a simple form that can easily be
used within any meeting to begin the self-reflective process
of how well the participants are finding and building on one
another's talents, skills and competencies. The interesting thing
is that after spreading the use of this form throughout the organization
for four months, one could see and feel a definite difference.
There is more energy; excitement and even our customers are beginning
to notice.
In addition, people
have become much more self-reflective of our culture and values,
and beginning to ask themselves individual and in working teams
about the values that open themselves to a more co-creative culture
. I see I will need to put more investments into this process
so that we can indeed increase our ROCE, return on competency
employed.
Actually these things
come at a very timely point, because, thanks to the work of my
IT and HR directors, we are evolving a leading edge business
model that will allow us to "plug-n-partner" with other
companies, finance, logistics, HR, design and PR using the new
capabilities of Web Services over the Internet. This means we
can get new life out of our legacy systems, and we can rejuvenate
our hierarchy with a new spirit of collaboration.
"Son, thanks
for your questions. I am amazed how much I have learned from
you! It is nice to be able to work with a new mental model, one
that fits the emerging knowledge economy. I am sure we'll be
able to increase our ROI. And now I save the best for last: son,
I see a bright future for you and for our company, need I say
more?"
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