Operations Research Management Science

OR/MS Today - October 2002

ORacle

The Harbor Pilot's Parable

by Douglas A. Samuelson

The OR/MS analyst and his wife had been on vacation only a few days, but already the charm and slower pace of the city had them feeling relaxed. Now, as they sat on the hotel balcony, watching the ships entering and leaving the harbor and feeling the gentle, cool breeze from the waterfront, their everyday concerns seemed far away.

"It must be nice," the analyst said, "to have a job like piloting those ships. Look how long they take just to get in or out of here. It's a half-day's work, or more, and I hear they're paid pretty well."

"It's not bad," a white-haired, well-tanned man sitting near them smiled. "Sorry, I couldn't help overhearing. It so happens I'm a retired harbor pilot myself, and yes, it was a good living — but maybe not quite the way you think. Actually, there's some stress — the currents keep changing, sometimes even the channel has been changed, you never know what other craft may do next, and, of course, you're in big trouble if you make a mistake and there's a collision. People on the ship may not cooperate as you'd like. So it isn't all as easy as it might look from up here."

"So what was it like?" the analyst asked. "I hadn't really thought about how bad it could be if you slipped up. And don't the people on the ship pretty much do what you say?"

"They're supposed to," the pilot laughed. "Of course, they may misunderstand, or just slip up themselves, and that can cause problems. But there are three things about the job that I really did like, things you'd most likely appreciate in your own work. By the way, what do you do?"

The analyst explained, and added that his wife was a government lawyer. "About what I thought," the pilot nodded. "We get lots of visitors down here who work in offices in big organizations, trying to make something work better and get credit for it. And since I retired and started spending lots of time sitting here, I've chatted with quite a few of them."

"So what were the three things you especially like?" the analyst's wife inquired.

"Ah, you're a good listener," the pilot said. "The first good thing is, I never have to decide where to go, just how to get there! Don't you wish your clients had to decide what they wanted before they ever came to you?"

"And how!" the lawyer groaned. "One of my law professors always told us, 'Tell your clients not to ask you what to do. They should decide what they want to do, and have you tell them how to do it. Both you and they will do better that way.' It sounds like your description of your job!"

"Right," the pilot smiled. "And the second good thing is, you know when you're done, and you know whether you got it done right! Either you got in or out without trouble or you didn't. And they know it, too, so you get credit for a good job immediately."

"I wish I did," the analyst grumbled. "I'm liking your profession better and better. What's the third thing?"

"We're licensed and we get reviewed regularly," the pilot said, "so everyone knows who's good and who isn't. Mess up, and you're not a harbor pilot any more. But the world is full of unmarried or many-times-divorced marriage counselors, childless 'experts' on raising children, wacky psychotherapists, professors of management who couldn't manage a Friday night bowling league, and — my favorite — financial advisors who couldn't run a car wash at a profit! One of those fools told my brother-in-law to declare bankruptcy four years ago in order to clean up some credit card debt. Somehow things didn't go quite the way the advisor expected after that, and my poor brother-in-law is still trying to get his credit back. But you can bet the advisor got paid in full, just before everyone else got stiffed!"

"It's a wonder idiots like that don't get sued more often," the lawyer growled angrily.

"Sometimes they do," the harbor pilot said softly.

The OR/MS analyst, meanwhile, had been doing some thinking. "I think I see how I could make my life a whole lot better," he mused, "without changing careers." "And how is that?" the pilot encouraged him.

"I'm going to tell my clients to think of me as a harbor pilot!" the analyst grinned. "Don't ask me what your strategic goals are or all that stuff. Define a process problem, and let me guide you through how to make it work!"

"Nice idea, but you won't stay fed that way," the pilot corrected him gently. "But you could help them decide on their goals and decide which process improvements they need, then help them figure out how to measure whether they're getting there. Spend more time listening and asking good questions — don't jump ahead to the first technical problem you're sure you can solve. Then, when you have made a technical analysis, take the extra time to show them how they'll know it helped them meet their goal.

"And one more thing," the pilot added. "Tell them to stay far, far away from anyone who starts telling them how to get there before finding out where they want to go!"

Douglas A. Samuelson is president of InfoLogix, Inc., a consulting company in Annandale, Va. He is also an adjunct professor at The George Washington University and at the University of Pennsylvania, and an external research professor at the Krasnow Institute, George Mason University.

Table of Contents

OR/MS Today Home Page

Lionheart Publishing, Inc.
506 Roswell Rd., Suite 220, Marietta, GA 30060 USA
Phone: 770-431-0867 | Fax: 770-432-6969
E-mail: lpi@lionhrtpub.com
URL: http://www.lionhrtpub.com