If you work in a large corporation, you're probably used to a lot of management fads and pointless reorganizations. However, the VP in this true story reported by alert SearchWin2000.com member T.H. stands in a class of his own when it comes to overnight technology overhauls.
T.H. had learned to expect the worst when managers with too much time on their hands get the urge to suddenly do something. So when a VP at the large telecommunications he works for announced there was a big technological overhaul on the horizon, everybody in IT knew it was time to hunker down and prepare for damage control.
D-Day arrived and the VP - whose main accomplishment to date was figuring out which side of his CD-ROMs should be up when inserted into the drive - gathered the techies to explain his brilliant vision.
To make his point, the VP showed off his managerial skills by running through a truckload of PowerPoint slides. He had graphs, charts, cutesy animations, funny sound effects and anything else you'd need to make a difficult presentation easier to digest for a middle-school student. However, let's just say the animated cartoon rabbit exhibiting frustration about old computers didn't go over too well with an audience consisting of jaded IT veterans.
One core component of the VP's presentation was a detailed explanation of the different environment in "today's world" versus "tomorrow's world." Having thus set the stage, he continued to lay out the strategies he thought they should use for migrating between the two, which somehow still failed to impress the increasingly uncomfortable IT staff.
It was about halfway through the presentation that the VP suddenly noticed the absence of cheers. In fact, the only one obediently bobbing her head after each sentence was the VP's own assistant. How could this be? He had been so thorough in explaining the difference between "today's world" and "tomorrow's world," yet these guys didn't seem to recognize the scope of the migrations involved.
With newfound energy he turned to the audience and slammed his tiny fist against the table. "People, this is a big challenge before us!" he said, putting on his best General Patton face. "You have to realize, we are not going to go from 'today' to 'tomorrow' overnight!"
There were a few seconds of silence before the laughter exploded in the room. Needless to say, the VP's presentation – and his bold IT initiative – went downhill from there.
Lesson learned: When telling people with 10 times more experience than you have what to do, ask a subordinate to make the presentation.
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