Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Most organizations have “magic words.” Utter these words and things happen. If you don’t know the words, work slows and frustration rises. None of this makes any sense, but nonsense continues to exist and often thrives.

Years ago, a colleague who lived in a nearby rural area wanted to construct a building on his ten-acre lot behind his house. He made several Saturday trips to the county courthouse and ran around in circles with the bureaucracy. It seemed liked it would be months before he would have a permit to build.

Someone at the courthouse noticed the wanderings and pulled my colleague aside. His instructions were simple, “Get a blank form like the ones you have been using. At the top write ‘shed’ instead of ‘workshop.’ You’ll have your permit next week.”

My colleague followed the instructions and had his permit quickly and easily. All he needed was to know the magic word “shed.”

A similar story occurred just a few weeks ago. A colleague wanted to build an isolated network of three computers in a conference room so a small team of people could work on a project. He slowly worked his way through the building, IT, and security bureaucracies, but it seemed like it would be months before anything happened.

A person pulled my colleague aside and said, “Start over with a new form. Instead of ‘computer network’ write ‘proposal center.’ That will pass through the system in a few days.”

My colleague followed the instructions and … you know what happened.

Magic words: shed instead of workshop, proposal center instead of computer network. This doesn’t make any sense, but this is the way many places work. Reason, communicate, work hard, and the earth refuses to turn on its axis. Say the magic words and things happen.

How do reasonable people in an day of science learn the magic words?

First, admit that magic words exist. They don’t make sense; they can be downright silly, but they exist and they do work magic.

Second, ask what they are. In all organizations there are people who know the magic words. These people neither hold high positions nor receive high salaries. They do, however, know the magic words.

Ask, “Is there anything I could call this that would make it all work?”

Another tactic that I have used successfully is to tell the person the outcome I want and ask, “How would you arrange that to happen?” or “What do you want me to do to make that happen?”

It seems that magic words would be printed on big posters and hung from the walls. Everyone would know them, use them, and accomplish much more work. But then, they wouldn’t be magic.