Eighteen: Presentation
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Clarke’s Law
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Anderson’s Reformulation of Clarke’s Law
Any sufficiently advanced anything is indistinguishable from utter nonsense.
Digby’s Generalization of Clarke’s Law
Especially if it is sufficiently advanced nonsense to begin with.
Zumwalt’s Corollary to Digby’s Generalization of Clarke’s Law
The council kept Wiz and Malkin waiting for over an hour. While Wiz fidgeted in a too-hard chair in the hall and Malkin ostentatiously checked the place for escape routes, the councilors met behind closed doors. Every so often the sound of shouting or an especially ringing bit of oratory would penetrate through the thick carved doors. Wiz fiddled with his notes and tried not to think about the corners he had to cut.
Some of the pieces, such as the buzzword generator, were beautiful. But other details he had been forced to leave to demons because of the time he lost to the sheriff and his searchers.
True to his word, the sheriff had spent most of the rest of the day digging up the garden. Or, more correctly, the sheriff lounged under a tree while his men dug holes more or less at random in the garden. They didn’t find anything but they didn’t quit until nearly sundown. Wiz was on pins and needles all day, afraid there was something Malkin had overlooked. But in her own way Malkin was as thoroughly professional as Wiz. There was nothing and the sheriff left empty-handed.
At last the doors swung open and the usher beckoned them within. The expression on the man’s face did nothing for Wiz’s confidence.
The council was seated around a long U-shaped table. Their mood was a cross between a lynch mob and the crowd at a formal execution. Which is to say some of them were looking forward to what they were going to do, some of them would reluctantly do their duty and some of them were there for the show.
Wiz started talking before he even reached the center of the U. “Gentlemen, I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to come before you today,” he said as he strode into the room. His confidence was of a piece with his sincerity, but so far they seemed to be buying it.
He gestured grandly and the daylight streaming in through the windows dimmed to twilight. Another gesture and a demon appeared at the back of the room with a slide projector. The projector was already on and a slide flashed on the wall bearing the words “Success And Prosperity” in vivid red and yellow on a bright blue background-a combination carefully chosen to be arresting without quite giving the viewers a headache. There was a brief murmur from the council and Wiz charged on before they could recover.
“My research has shown that you face a unique set of opportunities. To meet them I propose a dynamic, proactive reinvention of the organization to empower the teams using 60-second skills to address for success the strategic planning requirements in light of the Theory Z competitive strategy in time to produce a win-win-win situation.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have spent so much time on the buzzword generator, Wiz thought. But damn! The output was lovely. If the slide-picking demon had done its job nearly as well, they just might, might get out of this with a whole skin.
All the while the demon was flashing slides on the wall, medieval streets crammed with modern tourists, waving fields of grain, several interior shots of the Cloisters medieval museum in New York City. Happy children. Wiz thought he glimpsed a shot of Mickey Mouse at Disneyland but he wasn’t sure.
The torrent of words and pictures had the desired effect. Everyone was so stunned no one thought to ask about dragons.
“Clearly,” Wiz continued, “what is called for is to install a reorganization that promotes a new strategic vision, a tightly focused vision that energizes the new tomorrow.
“While continuing the traditions of the past-“ the mayor smiled and nodded “-we must meet the challenges of the future-“ it was Dieter’s turn to smile “-and provide bold new approaches to the organization’s needs.” That brought a nod from Rolf.
“We must empower ourselves to consistently use our organizational resources to install this vision. This means using team management-focused techniques to create the need to change and to produce organizational systems which reinforce the vision.”
The picture on the screen showed a USDA map of the United States with the dates of the average last frosts marked.
“That doesn’t look like anything around here,” one of the more alert councilmen put in.
“Those are magical isoclines,” Wiz said hastily.
“Still don’t look like the country around here.”
“It’s a transmorphic projection. Maybe we’d better come back to this later. Next.”
The next slide was a pie chart, showing sales of Sara Lee pies for 1993.
The trouble with trusting a demon’s judgment, Wiz realized belatedly, is that it doesn’t have any. He was damn glad none of his audience could read English.
Wiz smiled brightly. “By now you are doubtless interested in the specifics of my recommended action plan. As soon as I have finished, my assistant,” a nod to Malkin, “will distribute copies of the white paper emphasizing the highlights. Meanwhile, let us examine the critical challenges we must meet to empower our vision of empowerment.”
The demon flashed up a slide showing someone going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.
“The first challenge is organizational. The traditional organization emphasizes musty, sterile parliamentarianism at the expense of action which would clearly reflect the true makeup of the council.” That brought nods from the mayor, Dieter and Rolf, all of whom were absolutely convinced the council was really behind them.
“This means your present decision-making process is diffuse and suboptimal. We must proactively react to counteract this tendency with a broader vision which is only available at the top.” The mayor beamed and Dieter frowned.
“However, given the present organization this is clearly impossible because of the workload such a top-down environment imposes on the mayor. Therefore the key to repositioning the products and services to build a corporate advantage is install an action-direction vision by creatively teaming together. To that end, we create an Office of the Mayor to actualize the latency by creative teaming. Working directly with the mayor on this critical team will be innovation powerhouses representing the major resources within the present council. While the mayor will clearly be the team leader he will benefit from the synergy and creative flow of ideas from the team structure.”
Again smiles from the critical three. The mayor saw it as a way to subordinate his main rivals to him and the other two saw it as giving them a power base close to the top. That alone should guarantee absolute gridlock, Wiz thought as he paused for breath.
That was a mistake. “What about the rest of the council?” demanded one of the councilmen off to the side. “What about money?” demanded another.
“Yes, money. What about money? What about taxes?” several other voices chimed in.
“I’m glad you raised that critical point,” Wiz said brightly. “That is the second platform of my recommendations, but perhaps we can deal with it out of turn.
“The important fiscal consideration is to provide revenue enhancement without increasing taxes. In fact, as you can see clearly from this revenue elasticity chart-“ up went a phase diagram of the melting point of lead-tin-antimony solder alloys “-the projected revenue needs can be met with a decrease in current taxes.
“Clearly what is needed is a proactive, projective infrastructure investment of the revenue stream.”
“There ain’t no revenue,” one of the councilors objected.
“That is precisely why you apply the revenues projectively,” Wiz assured him. “As you can see from this next chart-“ up flashed a bar chart showing the amount of track laid by the Indian railways from 1850 to 1900 “-the revenues can be applied to development in a fashion which will encourage and develop the trade.”
That produced an approving mutter from Dieter’s faction. The mayor’s people sat in puzzled silence and Rolf’s followers looked to their leader for their cue.
“Let us go back to the organization for a moment,” Rolf said smoothly. “I believe there is more.”
“There is indeed,” Wiz said, relieved that he didn’t have to do his New Age Bugaloo around the difference between “revenue enhancement” and “tax increase.”
Up on the screen flashed an organizational chart of the Supreme Soviet.
“Now this,” Wiz said, gesturing with his pointer, “is your present structure. I’m sure all of you can see the inefficiencies and conflict potential implied here so I won’t dwell on them. Next slide,” he commanded before anyone could object.
Up on the screen flashed the current Miss July, blond, pneumatic and airbrushed to perfection.
Wiz closed his jaw with an audible snap. “Uh, that was just to make sure you were awake. Next slide.”
Up came an even more baroque organizational chart. Glancing at the legend Wiz saw it was for General Motors circa 1965.
“Here is my recommendation. A more modern, teaming approach to today’s challenges. Rather than concentrating the burdens, it spreads them throughout the organization to make management more effective.
“As you can see, this emphasizes creative teaming to empower all the members of the council to make the crucial decisions needed to create tomorrow. By establishing internal task forces, the Office of the Mayor can be freed from the day-to-day detail of running operations to concentrate on developing an action-directed migration plan to create tomorrow. These teams will prioritize opportunities for infrastructure enhancements using the new revenue stream as it comes on-line.” That got a stir of approval as the council members considered the opportunities for graft. “Naturally, every council member will have several team assignments to fully tap into the organization’s creative resources. I won’t bore you with the details of these teams,” mainly because I didn’t have time to work them out, “but I would like to point out the compensation committee, which will determine remuneration for the council members.”
“You mean we’ll get paid for sitting on the council?” someone asked.
“It seems only fair,” Wiz said blandly.
“And just who’s going to be on this compensation committee?” demanded a voice from the side of the room.
Wiz tapped the image at random with his pointer. “That is up to the personnel committee, here.”
“And who’s on the personnel committee?”
“That is the responsibility of the organizational committee. As a consultant it would be unethical of me to advise you on the makeup of these committees. I’m sure you will be able to work out these details among yourselves.”
A quick glance from the mayor to Dieter to Rolf showed them all deep in thought. Rolf was smiling benignly, Dieter was looking sideways at the other two and the mayor was rubbing his chin and nodding.
“Gentlemen, the tide has turned.” Up came a tidal chart for New Bedford, MA. “Opportunity awaits us. Fortune favors the brave.”
Up came the GM organizational chart once more.
“More importantly we must team together to form an empowerment matrix which will reinvent the corporation, uh, organization, in an entrepreneurial model to reach beyond the present to grasp the opportunities of the future!”
They didn’t quite give him a standing ovation, but there were one or two tentative claps from the back of the room.
Wiz let out his breath with what he hoped was a not-too-audible sigh.
“Very well. Are there any questions?”
“Can we go back to that last-but-two slide?” came a tremulous voice from the back of the room.
Malkin didn’t have much to say on the way home. That was fine with Wiz. He was weak with relief and completely exhausted from everything that had happened in the last three days. What he wanted now was sleep, not conversation.
However, Malkin did have one observation. “I don’t know if you’re the greatest wizard I’ve ever met,” she told him as soon as they came through the front door, “but you are sure the luckiest.” With that she turned and went up the stairs.
Wiz started to reply, but then he realized that she was right and that left him with nothing to say.
After a minute he also realized he was hungry. He vaguely remembered eating something after the sheriff’s men got through searching the house, but he wasn’t sure if he’d had anything since then. Rather than going upstairs to bed, he went downstairs to the kitchen.
Down in the kitchen his assistant wizard was enchanting his maid.
“ . . . so we escaped before the bandits even realized what had happened.”
“That’s so exciting,” Anna breathed.
Llewllyn waved a hand dismissively. “Oh tut. All in a day’s work for a journeying wizard.”
He had a wonderful rich voice and talked enchantingly with hand gestures, smiles and just the right amount of eye contact. If you treated the content as some kind of fairy tale, it was great.
Anna obviously thought it was great. She sat at the table with her chin in both hands, her pale blue eyes fastened rapturously on his face. He didn’t have his arm around her waist yet but things were definitely moving in that direction.
Wiz cleared his throat. Both of them started and turned toward the door. Anna blushed and for an instant Llewllyn looked flustered. “Ah, My Lord, how was the meeting with the Council?” he asked before Wiz could say anything.
“Productive. Very productive.” Produced more confusion than anything I’ve seen since the last Total Quality Management seminar. “Can I see you upstairs Llewllyn?”
The young man turned and bowed to the still-blushing Anna. “Forgive me My Lady, but duty calls.”
“Okay,” Wiz said as soon as they were in the front room, “the council’s going to be reorganizing following a proposal I presented to them. Since you’re the one in the office most of the time they’ll probably be coming to you with questions. Refer any and all questions to me. Don’t try to answer them yourself. The situation’s kind of, ah, delicate.”
Llewllyn smiled knowingly. “Am I to be permitted to know the nature of this plan?”
“Malkin’s got copies of the materials I gave the council. You can get one from her.”
“Very good, My Lord. Is there aught else?”
“Yes. One other thing.” Wiz thrust his face very close to Llewllyn’s. “If you mistreat Anna in any way I will personally break you in two.”
The younger man’s eyes widened. “By magic?”
Wiz flexed his muscles. “That wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.”
“And you think that I . . . ? For shame.”
“Spare me the speeches. Just don’t, okay?”
With that he turned on his heel and went upstairs to his workroom.
Wiz ran into Malkin in the upstairs hall. “Our favorite house pest was in the kitchen,” Wiz told her. “I filled him in and he’s probably going to ask you for a copy of that presentation. Give it to him, but don’t let him get any ideas about doing anything on his own, especially answering questions.”
The tall woman nodded.
“Oh yeah, one other thing. Llewllyn seems to be making a play for Anna.”
Malkin snorted. “You finally noticed that did you? You may,” she said, stressing the word may, “be a mighty wizard, but you’re still blind as any other man. Well, you have nothing to worry about on that score.”
“I know,” Wiz said. “I told him I’d break him in two if I caught him messing with Anna.”
Malkin grinned nastily. “I told him I’d have his balls for earrings and do it with a dull butter knife.” The grin got broader and nastier. “Slowly. With a red-hot butter knife.”
Looking at her expression, Wiz felt a certain tightness in a very sensitive spot. “Oh,” he said in a very small voice.