It's a new Spring for me, Same old winter for them

If you don't know what you don't know ~ Honour those who do: 

A Season's lesson in looking after core values,
honouring and respectng knowledge, 
and rewarding the people who work in the Engine Room

A little over a year ago I had breakfast with a stranger in a coffee shop not too far from where I am typing this. Chance had brought us together: I had resigned from my previous job because my daughter was coming back from far-away lands and I wanted to free myself up to be with her. The question of gainful employment was furthest from my mind. He was looking for someone to fill a hole, help to move his ship from its present rocky course back into navigable waters and safe passage.

..

It was a cold winter's morning in July, and we had been brought together by a mutual third party. As we sat and drank steaming hot coffee and spoke about the challenges he had, and his vision for the journey, we both felt a sense of a common destiny and purpose. He had a clear understanding of the issues, and I could see clearly where I could make a contribution. We shook hands on it, a mutual agreement that once the space opened I would Lead that part of his convoy. Today marks the end of that venture, and it ends, bittersweet, with both success and failure.

..

The ship has changed course, and sails on a safe passage. There lies the success.
But the crew is decimated, the best have left and callow youths stand in their stead.
The ship's owners, knowing little of the work at hand, what it takes to deliver, or the carrying capacity of their crews, have responded to the successes by raising unrealisable expectations and punishing the shortfalls.

..

This is an analogy of course: in reality we are talking about COTS Software and IT systems:
the "crew" delivered a 51% increase in turnover, 47% increase in profit, the clients were universally satisfied and new, more equitable and sustainable deals were on the table. The owners responded by cancelling all bonuses and cutting back increases: excellence is not sufficient when there are shareholder pockets to be lined.

..

The collapse has followed quickly. How do people respond when they find their rewards yanked, and their targets raised still higher? The best go immediately, the second tier follow in the months to come. Delivery is curtailed, Sales dwindle, existing work can no longer be resourced, and quality drains away as juniors replace seniors. Expectation from existing clients were raised: the new course is working, but alas! The crews do not have the know-how or experience anymore, and those few who remain are worked to the bone: one by one they slip away. Without the leadership and navigational skills, the ship strays once more towards the rocks and shallows.

..

Deming said that you need a deep appreciation of your systems in order to create sustainable processes. If you lack that appreciation, then employ people who do, or who can realise it if there's time. Our owners did the reverse: With the best gone already, and income shrinking, they took to the fire pumps: sideline Management and start a round of retrenchments.

..

Let us change analogies for a moment:
I am reminded of a passage in The Call of The Wild, Jack London's story about sled dog teams in the deep of Alaska ... we are at that point where the team, dogs, harnesses and sled have been sold to a family of Southerners, who know nothing of travelling (or indeed, life!) in the near-Arctic. They know only of the gold they are hoping to prospect, and the smell of it is in their nostrils. They make slow time, they overburden the team, they quarrel and bicker amongst themselves. Time passes and they reach a moment where the lead dog, knowing what is coming on the trail, exhausted (as is his team) by overloading, lack of sleep and poor food, refuses to go further. They beat it half to death, then are forced to cut it loose and leave it on the trail.

..

As they move off, the dog lifts its head and watches as his team staggers out onto the ice, watches as the ice cracks and gives way, watches as the whole lot of them, men, woman, dogs and sled slide to their doom.

..

To reality:
The Leader is gone.
The lead dogs cut loose, and
the best of the pack have long since fallen by the wayside.
Those who remain answer to a Management of lawyers, and chartered accountants, and a sprinkling of old timers who have doubled their salaries by returning as consultants.
But since that was never my way, I refused that offer and will watch them from afar.

..

As for the Stranger and me: we are strangers no more, and the long journey has moulded us both. Its a new Spring for me, and I expect the same for him: but its the same cold winter that waits on them.
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Jack London's "Call of the Wild" is generally taken to be a rather dated childrens story.
That's a great pity.
It tells us a lot about life and what we do to cope and survive.
You can read it on-line here :)

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The images are from the original publication back in 1903, and can be found at the link above. To the best of my knowledge, they are in the public domain