"Long Live Wishy-Washy"

by Michael Finley

Copyright © 2000; all rights reserved

I was at the early retirement party of an old boss a few weeks ago, and it brought back memories. Specifically, it reminded me of a negative self-assessment Maureen used to make, that she was too "wishy-washy" to be a dynamic manager.

Now, I always thought wishy-washy was an odd phrase, possibly inspired by the sloshing sound of a Kenmore agitator. By it, Maureen meant you could talk her into almost any position on any issue, if you were persuasive.

She wished she wasn't that way. "Aren’t great leaders decisive? Once they make up their mind, that's it? I could never do it. First I could see one side of an issue, then I could see the merits of the other side. So my final decision was often to make no decision."

It occurred to me at the party that she was describing computers, not leaders. Computers are better than us at ignoring shades of gray, and damn the ambiguities, plunging into action.

A computer either performs a task or it doesn’t. It knows only two truths, the 0 and the 1. It either can do long division or it can’t. Either on or off. Up, down. Black, white. Here, to hell and gone.

Which describes a core problem of the new economy. It's being run by people who think it is a virtue to think like computers. It's all about automation and efficiencies of scale. It should still, as in days of old, be about making a life.

Have you ever wondered about the logic of implementing a computer-based strategic defense system, in which a supercomputer monitors the stratosphere, alert for incoming missiles, and able to plot a course of response within seconds of a sighting?

I recognize the necessity of being able to launch mass numbers of nuclear payloads without stopping to think. But the argument could be made that it's a shame to let the world die without someone in authority somewhere experiencing a single nanosecond of vacillation.

I mean, I spend my whole life that way.

Maureen's problem, back on earth, was that she was too decent a person to act in a binary fashion.  I can imagine that there were moments when, as a manager, she might not have pulled the trigger quickly enough on a project that was going sour. Her managerial motto was something like: "Be nice, work hard, and hope for the best."

On the other hand, she ran her part of the department trough twenty of ceaseless reorganization. In all that change, morale was a rollercoaster of ups and down. As far as I can recall, she always made her deadlines, came in under budget, and kept the folks who worked under her from going at one another with crowbars.

Issuing feather dusters to staff was, looking back on it, a stroke of genius.

Which makes me want to reassess her baleful assessment of wishy-washy. Maybe dynamic managers, the sort who send their teams to hell to fetch a pail of water, are not the final word on effectiveness.

The further this information revolution drags on -- what is it, 25 years since the Altair 8800 kicked off the microprocessor age? -- the more I see the need for machines to suggest harsh solutions, but for us to stand up and be wishy-washy implementing them.

Let them blast way at us with uncaring clarity, and let us respond with texture and nuance and ambiguity.

You know how this story ends. Maureen didn’t just take early retirement, she was squeezed out by the pod people. They didn’t tell her to go, they just made her life so miserable -- she, who gave the organization everything that was in her -- that leaving began to look good.

Well, it's the company's loss and our gain, because the crying need in the workplace today is not for faster, crunchier numbers but deeper, better people. Brute speed is an idiot intelligence. The human touch -- a wishier-washier approach to management -- is harder to program.

 

 

 

 

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