Catch Me If You Can. The Birth of a King

Catch me if you can. That's what they say to each other. Directors catch their deputies, who catch regular employees, and so on, but no one can catch anyone. And they don't even try. For them, the main thing is the game, the process. They go to work for this game. They will never win. I will.

To be more precise, I have already won. And I continue to win. And I will keep winning. I have created a unique business scheme, a delicate mechanism that works like clockwork. The important thing is that I don't just win; everyone wins. Yes, I succeeded. I am the King.

Let me clarify the origin of my nickname so that you don't think I have a superiority complex. My little daughter loves to play a game – she stands in the doorway, blocks it with her hands, and won't let anyone pass, asking for a password. I pretend I don't know the password, and she says: the password is – the king is sitting on the potty. So, consider me the King on the potty, with a healthy sense of self-irony, understanding my shortcomings and your superiority over me.

Alright, let's get started. I'll briefly tell you about myself – this will make it clearer what tools I use in business and the conclusions based on which I built this particular scheme.

It so happens that I became the director of a large enterprise very early. To be more precise, it was a poultry farm. I was 25 years old at that time. Before that, I had spent three years running a marketing agency.

Both the agency and the poultry farm belonged to the same owner. I came to marketing straight after university; the agency was stagnant – a standard, unwanted set of services, average results, dull advertising, empty market research, lackluster articles, and barely noticeable trickle of money into the owner's pocket. I started as a marketer, but since I was young and passionate, I began to rock the boat, so to speak. I openly pointed out the problems and incompetence of our work, the lack of any ambitions from the director, and the extremely low quality of client interactions. Naturally, the director decided to fire me. We had a very emotional 'final conversation,' but fortunately, the owner happened to walk by the meeting room at that time. He is a straightforward person from the '90s, so he wasn't shy and came in.

Later I learned that he had long been heated against the director, and this time he came with his usual goal – to argue and listen to another lie about how the new management methods, the director's personal initiative, and the united team "this time would really lift the business off its knees." The owner silenced the director and listened to me. From that day on, the marketing agency had a new director.

In the first year, the marketing agency became the leader in growth rates in relative terms within the owner's investment portfolio. In the second year, we became leaders in the industry in terms of sales volume and project portfolio. By the third year, we had absorbed several neighboring regions.

A critical moment arrived – it was time to relocate the company to Moscow. The owner, being a person from the 90s, lived where his main assets were located and had no plans to move in the future. I, by and large, also didn’t want to go to Moscow. We had a heart-to-heart talk and decided that I should be moved to the poultry farm, while the marketing agency could be released.

The poultry farm proved to be an even greater challenge than the marketing agency. Firstly, it was also almost at a standstill. Secondly, I knew nothing about poultry farms. Thirdly, there was a fundamentally different crowd – not urban office youth, but rural workshop kings, little princes, and down-to-earth guys.

Naturally, I was almost laughed at – some city slicker had come to "lift us off our knees." In the first few days, I heard many phrases starting with "do you even know..." followed by some specific information related to chickens, their life and death, feed production and sausage, incubator operations, etc. The guys openly expected me to become a "wedding general" – a meaningless director, which often happens to city managers who move to the provinces. They sit in meetings, nodding their heads, saying something like "we need to track cash flow," but in reality, they don’t manage anything at all. They just sit there looking good and smiling. Or frowning occasionally.

But my situation was different – I was already almost a friend of the owner. I had full discretion. However, I didn't want to just swing the sword – what’s the point of firing, for instance, the poultry farm managers if there’s no one to replace them? There was only one village nearby.

I decided to do what no sensible 'invited' director would do – get to know the business I’m in charge of. It took me a year.

As far as I know, this practice is widespread outside of Russia – managers are literally rotated through all stages, departments, and workshops. I did the same. I established a schedule: in the first half of the day, I handle necessary managerial activities such as briefings, meetings, discussions, project oversight, task setting, and flight debriefings. After lunch, I go to where value is created (the Japanese seem to call this 'genba').

I worked in poultry farms – both where chickens lay eggs and where broilers are raised for slaughter. I participated several times in the sorting of chicks that had just hatched from eggs. With a heavy heart, I worked in the poultry slaughterhouse. After a few days, there was no trace of disgust, fear, or revulsion left. I personally administered antibiotic and vitamin injections to the chickens. I traveled with the guys in an old ZIL truck to the manure storage facility to dispose of chicken waste. I spent several days in the smoking workshop, where we wade through grease. I also worked in the processed products department, where sausage, rolls, etc., are produced. Together with the lab technicians, I conducted research on the grain delivered to us from all over the region. I laid under an old KAMAZ truck, helping the guys mount a T-150 wheel, and I realized the absurdity of filling out a route sheet while being involved in the life of the transport department.

Then I worked in all the offices of the factory management. I studied partner reliability alongside lawyers. I grasped the basics of the double-entry principle, the RAS chart of accounts, main entries (with emphasis on the second syllable, not 'entries'), tax tricks, cost simulations, and the wonders of procurement with the accounting team. I personally visited grain farms, called South Africa about lowering spice prices, and resolved customs issues while working with suppliers. I learned the difference between STP and UTP twisted pair when I was pulling it through the attic of a birdhouse with systems administrators. I discovered what 'verp' is, how to create macros, and the reason for the long delay in reports from economists ('damn accounting, when will they close their month?'). Finally, I saved the programmer for last.
The programmer at the factory was the only one, had been working there for quite some time, and sat in a small isolated cubicle. I placed him at the end of my training plan not because I thought of a programmer as dessert. On the contrary – I thought that there would be nothing useful from communicating with him. As you can guess, I am a seasoned humanitarian. I expected I wouldn't last even a day – I just couldn't bear to look at unfamiliar programming code, libraries, databases, and a dirty T-shirt for long.

To say that I was wrong is an understatement. As you may remember, I considered myself a pioneer of the 'learn the business from within' approach. But it turned out that I was just second. The programmer was the first.

It turned out that the programmer had also worked in almost all departments of the factory. Of course, he wasn't trying to do what the workers did – the programmer focused on automation. However, true and proper automation is impossible without understanding the process with which you work. In this sense, the profession of a programmer is akin to that of a manager, in my view.

I was riding in the hatchery just for fun, while the programmer calibrated the sensor and positioning system tracker, as well as the fuel consumption monitoring sensor. I took a syringe and injected medicine into the chicken, while the programmer observed the process from the side, knowing exactly how many of those syringes were being wasted, discarded, and "disappeared" somewhere. I carried meat and semi-finished products between processing stages in the processing plant, while the programmer weighed this meat between stages, discovering and preventing the very possibility of theft. I lamented with the drivers about the complicated process of approving and issuing route sheets, while the programmer automated its creation, linking it to the tracker and discovering that the drivers were transporting unauthorized loads. I knew more about the slaughterhouse than he did—there was an automated Dutch line working there, and the programmer had nothing to do.

The situation is similar with the office workers. I was checking the reliability of partners with lawyers, while the programmer selected, configured, integrated, and implemented a service that checks this reliability and automatically informs about changes in the statuses of counterparties. I talked with accountants about the principle of double-entry, while the programmer told me that a day before that conversation, the chief accountant rushed to him and asked him to explain this principle, because modern accountants are mostly data entry operators in some well-known software. I was making reports in Excel with economists, while the programmer showed how these reports are built in the system in seconds, and explained why economists continue to work in Excel—they're afraid of being fired. And he doesn't insist since he understands everything—there were no employers besides the poultry factory and a stall in the village.

I spent more time with the programmer than in any other department. I derived true, multifaceted pleasure from communicating with this guy.

Firstly, I learned a lot about all the areas of business I was managing. It wasn’t like anything I had seen with my own eyes. Naturally, everyone in the departments knew that I was the director and prepared for my arrival. I didn’t hide the order in which I was studying the business, and by the time I arrived, everything was ready. Of course, I dug into the dark corners that weren’t prepared for close examination – like Elena Letuchaya in 'Revizorro', but I heard little truth. Who would be shy around a programmer? People in his profession have long been considered somewhat of an addition to the system, if not the computer, in provincial factories. You could even dance naked in front of him – who cares what that oddball thinks?

Secondly, the programmer turned out to be a very intelligent and well-rounded person. At first, I thought that only this particular guy was like that, but later I realized that most factory programmers have a broad outlook, not just in their craft. Among all the professions represented at the factory, only programmers have professional communities where they communicate, share experiences, and discuss issues that are only indirectly related to automation. The others just read the news, memes, and the Instagram accounts of celebrities. Well, with rare exceptions, like the chief accountant and financial director, who keep an eye on changes in legislation, refinancing rates, and bank license revocations.

Thirdly, I was amazed by the capabilities of the information system we had in place. Two aspects struck me: the data and the speed of modification.

When I managed a marketing agency, we often had to work with client data. But we never really cared about how that data was obtained. We would simply send a request containing something like, 'let’s have everything we can in the form of tables linked by unique identifiers, in any format from the list,' and received a large array of information in response that the analysts would process as best they could. Now, I saw that data in a structured, raw form.

The programmer honestly said that this data is needed by no one. And his work on ensuring the quality of this data is even less so. Moreover, the programmer didn't do this just randomly or on a whim; he approached it scientifically. I had heard the word 'controlling' before, but I thought it was some variant of control (like the Present Continuous from the word 'control'). It turned out to be a whole science, and the programmer adopted the requirements for data, based on which management should be implemented. To save you a trip, here are these requirements (taken from Wikipedia):

Information support:

• correctness by fact (the reported corresponds to the requested)
• correctness by form (the reported corresponds to the predetermined form of messaging)
• authenticity (the reported corresponds to the fact)
• accuracy (the margin of error in the message is known)
• timeliness (on time)

Transmission and/or transformation of information:

• authenticity of the fact (the fact is unchanged)
• authenticity of the source (the source is unchanged)
• correctness of information transformations (the report is correct in hierarchical transmission)
• archival preservation of originals (analysis of work and failures)
• access rights management (content of documents)
• registration of changes (manipulations)

The programmer provided the enterprise with quality data, which was supposed to serve as the basis for management, but did not. Management was done as everywhere – manually, based on personal contact and ingratiating oneself. What is called 'catch me if you can'.

The second aspect that surprised me was the speed of creating and implementing changes in the system. I asked the programmer several times to demonstrate how he does this, and was amazed every time.

For example, I ask him to calculate and fix some indicator in the system, like 'Percentage of critical positions in supply', by quantity or in rubles, regarding the total volume of needs. Do you know how long it took the programmer to do this work? Ten minutes. He did it in front of me – I saw the real number on the screen. And while I went to my office to get a notebook to write down the number and grill the supply manager in the meeting, the number had already changed, and the programmer showed me a graph with two points.

The longer I worked with the programmer, the stronger the strange, contradictory feeling became – a mix of excitement and anger.

Well, the excitement is understandable; I've already talked a lot about it.

And the anger stems from the incredibly low utilization of the capabilities and data of the system by managers and employees. It felt like automation was living its own, incomprehensible life, while the enterprise was living its own. At first, I hoped that the managers simply didn’t know what they were missing. But the programmer showed me how blind I was.

One of his own inventions was the so-called CIFA – Automation Functionality Usage Statistics. An elementary (according to the programmer) universal system that tracks what each person is using – documents, reports, forms, metrics, etc. If you check the metrics – CIFA remembers. Who started the tool, when, how long they stayed in it, and when they left. The programmer generated data for the managers – and I was horrified.

The chief accountant only looks at the balance, some control report on taxes, and a few declarations (VAT, profit, and something else). But they don't look at accounting cost metrics, reports with errors and their duration, discrepancies in analytics, etc. The financial director looks at two reports – cash flow and a summarized budget. But they don’t look at the forecast for cash gaps and the structure of expenses. The supply manager controls payments, keeps an eye on leftovers, but knows nothing about the shortage report and the timing of needs.

The programmer proposed his theory as to why this happens. What managers use, he called primary information – analytical reports created based on transactions. Incoming money, outgoing money – this is primary information. A report that shows incoming and outgoing money – is also primary information, just gathered in one form. Primary information is simple and understandable; you don’t need much intelligence to use it. But...

But primary information is not enough for management. Try to make a management decision based on such information: "Yesterday we received payments of 1 million rubles", "There are 10 bushings in the warehouse" or "The programmer solved 3 tasks in a week." Do you feel what's missing? "And how much should there be?"

This "And how much should there be?" is something all managers prefer to keep in their heads. Otherwise, as the programmer said, they could be replaced by a script. In fact, he tried to do just that — he developed second and third order management tools (his own classification).

First order is "what exists". Second is "what exists and how it should be". Third is "what exists, how it should be, and what to do." That very script that replaces the manager, at least partially. Moreover, third-order tools are not just spreadsheets with numbers; they are tasks created in the system, with automatic performance control. However, they are uniformly ignored by all company employees. Managers ignored them voluntarily, while their subordinates were ordered to ignore them by their managers.

As fun as it was to sit with the programmer, I decided to finish my training. I had a strong desire to urgently elevate this guy's rank in the company — such knowledge, skills, and eagerness for improvements shouldn't rot in a small cubicle. But after seriously pondering and consulting with the programmer himself, I decided to leave him there. There was a very high risk that, once promoted, he would turn into an ordinary manager. The programmer was afraid of that too — he mentioned he had already experienced something like that at his previous job.

Therefore, the programmer stayed in the cubicle. We kept our close acquaintance and further collaboration a secret. To all colleagues, the programmer continued to be just a programmer. And I increased his income fourfold — out of my own pocket, so no one would know.

Returning to the role of director, as they say, full-time, I began to shake the company like a pear. I rocked everyone, from top to bottom and left to right. No one could play the game "catch me if you can" with me anymore — I knew everything.

There was no longer any doubt about my competence, as I could replace, if not every line employee, then certainly any manager. No one could pull the wool over my eyes when mistakes happened. I knew the key details and parameters of all processes. I evoked very mixed feelings among my subordinates. On one hand, they respected and feared me—not because of management outbursts or unpredictable behavior, but due to my competence. On the other hand, they hated me because they had to work for real—some for the first time in their lives.

I implemented second- and third-order tools very simply: I started using them myself and communicated with managers through the lens of these tools.

I call, for example, the finance director and say—you're going to have an unsecured cash gap in a week. He makes wide eyes—where did this information come from? I open the system and show him. Clearly, he is seeing this for the first time. He says—it's not taking into account the foreign currency deposits we use to hedge against such situations as a last resort. I start digging and find out that a significant part of the working capital is frozen in these deposits—while I have been actively pursuing investment activities. The finance director wants to run away, but I keep insisting—return the deposits, especially since they are short-term, but don't use them to cover cash gaps, direct them to the budget for building a new feed shop. The cash gap remains a problem. The finance director wriggles out of it—saying that the system is providing some strange data. I ask directly—are you aware of this tool? He says he is. I open the CIF; pfft, the finance director has never been there. I remind him not to try to pull the wool over my eyes. He scurries off to the programmer, and I expect no excuses in a week about the system giving incorrect figures. Five minutes later, the programmer writes that the finance director has come. Two hours later, he writes that everything has been done. And so it goes with everyone.

Over the course of several months, I enacted a downgrade for fifteen managers, including three of the deputy directors. All of them were from the neighboring village and, surprisingly, agreed to be demoted to lead specialists. I fired five—those who commuted from the city.

The company was at my fingertips, as Bill Gates used to say. I knew everything that was happening – successes, problems, downtimes, efficiency, cost structure and reasons for its imbalances, cash flows, and development plans.

In two years, I transformed the poultry farm into an agribusiness holding. We established a modern feed mill, a pig complex, a second deep processing site (where we made pork sausage), our own retail network, a recognizable brand in several regions, a proper logistics service (not the old KamAZ trucks), and our own arable land for grains. We received several prestigious federal and regional awards in quality and HR.

Do you think the King was born here? No. I was simply a successful director of an agribusiness holding and a former successful head of a marketing agency.

The King was born when I realized what set me apart from other leaders. I analyzed my path, successes and failures, management approaches, attitude towards automation and programmers, my level of business understanding and ways to achieve that level, and managed to correlate all this with my colleagues' experiences.

The results of this analysis astonished me. So much so that I decided to step down from my position. I saw clearly and distinctly what I needed to do. Where exactly I would become the King.

The conversation with the owner was not the simplest, but he let me go. A good guy, albeit a bit tough. He paid me a huge severance package, even though I didn't ask for it. Later, that money helped me greatly in the rise of the King.

Source: habr.com