Speaking in Objectives: A Professional Parable

The following story was one my Dad told me many times as a reminder that it is often most effective to explain what you’re trying to accomplish rather than how you want something done. In my early days as a Program Manager, I had a thoughtful manager who took the time to sit with me and put it in the terms of explaining the “what” rather than the “how”.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t dive deep and work through the complexities of problems, but that we should avoid defining the solution in details that we do not necessarily control.

As a product manager, I enjoy spending time working through detailed integration use cases that define the behavior of a solution, but when it comes to implementation decisions, I engage with my engineering stakeholders to work through the details around architecture and approach. Once we settle on a direction, I can assist with documenting the direction of how we intend to tackle a problem, but I’ve found that the fastest way to come to a solution is to clearly define what needs to be accomplished (including thinking through alternate and exception paths).

“You have to use the night crew at the print shop? Boy you are in trouble.” My friend told me. “They don’t know what they are doing. I spent two hours in the middle of the night trying to get the right color match. They are okay for package printing, but they just don’t understand merchandising standards, and George, our merchandising manager was there until four in the morning doing the same thing,”

This was not good news to me. Printing is an art. When printing with four color processes, mixing of the colors can change the result in strange ways.

Although I dreaded the experience, it was not as if I had a choice. Hanes had an internal print shop which they used to print packaging. In an economic move, management issued a corporate decree saying that we had to use them rather than an outside firm. I had worked with their day crew, and they were competent. I had not had to work with the night crew. I was anxious about having to spend all night there telling people what they should really know.

The call came at 11:30pm to be at the print shop by 12:00 midnight to review the project. When I arrived, I was met by the supervisor who walked me over to the press. He introduced the job-press operator. Three other press operators were standing there. That was unusual, but the supervisor explained that he just wanted them to meet me so they would understand the kinds of things I would be looking for.

They started up the press and ran a few boards to make sure the ink was spreading right. Then they stopped the press and we looked at the result. It was not a particularly complex project and the underwear looked just fine. However, the man and his son looked like ghosts.

“It’s not quite right.” I said. “Something doesn’t look right in the flesh tones.” They brought out the master color sample. When comparing the printed result with the original, I realized what was different. “It doesn’t look red enough on the legs,” I said.

The supervisor immediately asked, “Do you want us to add more red?” He seemed sincere enough. I had worked with many other printers and none of them asked me for advice on how to run their press. And I knew how technicians often like to work over someone who tries to tell them how to do their job.

I turned to the supervisor and said quite bluntly, “Actually, I don’t care what you do. I just want the legs to look redder.”

The supervisor was startled. Then he smiled. He turned to the press operator. Without saying a word, the supervisor nodded his head affirmatively to the pressman.

The press operator jumped on the press and without being told anything, began making adjustments. About two minutes later, he hit the start press button and ran out a couple more boards. They were just right.

“Thanks.” I said. “You obviously have some good people working for you.” We nodded to each other. The entire review had taken place in less than ten minutes. I started to leave. However, before I did, I turned and asked. “Just out of curiosity, what did he do?”

The supervisor grinned and without consulting the press operator replied in a matter of fact tone of voice, “He added yellow.”