My Favorite Challenge: "It Can't Be Done!"

Coming up through the ranks I always was interested in how things could be made to be more effective, more efficient, especially on a large scale. Because of this I often found myself engaged in many battles over the years against the “status quo” and the entrenched “powers that be”. Many of the projects I pursued and many of the stands that I took were not for the fainthearted. But one of the things I learned and learned to love is that when you go after something big you get big results. Sounds simple enough but it just happens to be true.

Let me say that when you do attempt to make big change for all the right reasons this does not mean you will be appreciated, or that your motives will not be trashed from many different directions. In trying to make things better I’ve been accused of grandstanding, being contentious, or intent on personal adulation. One of my favorite examples of this came about early on in my running the networking environment. I never wanted to be first just for having it be said we were first, but often we were and it paid dividends for our program.

Having built a fairly solid reputation for hard work, integrity, and positive results, I determined to begin looking at ways to improve the overall computing processing environment for our company. We had recently installed brand new technology high speed laser printing systems in the central computing facility which allowed us to print all original copies on smaller paper getting rid of the carbons, print ribbons, and all the storage and maintenance issues that came with the large sheet paper that had been the standard for many years. This was a big deal because now everyone who needed information could read it clearly including the people who actually did the work. Before, the department managers would get the original and everyone else got copies and typically the lowest level clerk who actually used the report to code information got the last carbon which made reading it next to impossible. This change brought good results to everyone.

This got me to thinking. Why not provide this same benefit to the 50 remote locations that were dealing with the same printing issues? Then everyone would be on the same page, literally, pun intended. Well, there was a really good reason why this didn’t make sense at first. Simply stated, the company that at that time was a recognized monopoly owned all the equipment in the network and we rented from them, and they did not have a remote solution that could accomplish this. When I spoke with their team they came up with a number of exotic and costly alternatives that were laughable, therefore, since they couldn’t do it, it was best just to drop it.

Dropping it was not my idea of making progress. Why not find someone else in the technology world that could meet this requirement? I’m not sure where this approach fit on the unpardonable sin list in the monopoly company approach to account management but it was somewhere near the top. The more they resisted, it was the more I persisted. Perhaps it became a contest of wills. I began to receive subtle hints about people who had lost their jobs doing this kind of thing. A board member cautioned my boss since the monopoly company had great influence there. The senior marketing guy with the monopoly company even told me he might lose his job and his children might not go to college and his career would be ruined if he was not able to keep this from happening.

Call me stubborn, hardnosed, or just plain old doing my best to do my job, but I would not let it die. I discovered a group of young engineers who had left a huge electronics firm and formed a company that intended to specialize in the exact application I was looking for. To make a long story even longer, I chose to work with these guys, came up with a proposal to kick out the monopoly company printers, and do what was needed to make this happen.

Yes, I was young and yes, I in some ways put my life on the line. I had confidence in the people running the new company and had confidence in their equipment and capabilities, and since we were one of their first large contracts they pulled out all the stops to make it work. It was not easy and the monopoly company made it as difficult as they could in the interfacing needed to connect into our network and they also continued pressure from all quarters. My boss told me many times he sure hoped I was right. I was and we did it, and the results were tremendous.

To me it was simple. Why not? Did I leave the battlefield with scars? Sure, but I can tell you even today I am proud of doing many types of projects just like this one for the overall good of bringing the best to those who actually did the work for the company. I wasn’t always right and I had a few that got away from me, but in the end I feel really good about my response to the challenge: “It can’t be done.” More later………