ORacle
The Congressman's Parable
By Doug Samuelson
The O.R. analyst had finally surmounted his most recent technical challenge, but it hadn't been easy. "You wouldn't believe it, Carol. I had to go over and over the data and keep going back through the system," he grumbled. "I finally did see where the model was missing a couple of key points, basically one wrong assumption from the start, and then it worked. But you'd think — or at least my boss thinks — that I should be more efficient at developing models by now."
His friend, a newspaper reporter, smiled knowingly. "So, Jim, you think experience means you're supposed to know short cuts?" she inquired innocently.
"That's exactly what it should mean a lot of the time," the analyst asserted. "I've seen similar problems before, so I should get the key ideas right away."
"Only if the problems really are similar," Carol objected. "And what's the quick way to be sure of that?"
The analyst paused. He had to think about this, he decided.
"You see," Carol said, "this is where we reporters have training you analysts could use. Our editors keep reminding us, 'Don't assume this story is like the last one, or the last 10. Don't assume you already know how certain people are going to act. Check everything. Interview everyone with something worthwhile to contribute. Check again.' Experience may make it easier to know what to ask, and it certainly makes it easier to get people to consent to be interviewed. But there are no shortcuts in the basic things you have to do — or, at least, there are no safe shortcuts!"
"Now that you put it that way," Jim agreed, "I see this is what my dissertation advisor kept telling me, too. 'Work through the details until you really understand why something's true,' he'd say. 'You'll end up seeing a lot of related insights the bright whiz-bangs miss.' It seemed tedious at the time, but now I'm seeing how right he was.
"When I was working on signal recognition a few years ago," he went on, "I thought it was a real pain sitting there for hours listening to the system through headphones, but I wound up finding some patterns the more experienced, more heavily math-focused guys missed. I guess there's no substitute for deep knowledge of the subject, is there?"
"I think you know the answer to that question," Carol grinned. "And it's not just for technical types. You've heard of 'Management by Walking Around,' haven't you?"
Jim nodded. "Get out there and see what people are doing, rather than relying on plans and reports and meetings," he said.
"Well," Carol followed up, "what's that but taking the time and trouble to immerse yourself thoroughly in the details of what's going on, and not relying on some grand theory you've developed over the years? It's the same idea, isn't it?"
Jim nodded again, recognizing how important and wide-reaching this whole insight was.
Carol added, "Maybe your whole profession would be better off if you'd had the visit I had, years ago, with my congressman."
Now Jim was puzzled. "What did your congressman have to say about systems analysis?" he asked.
"More about 'progressing' to the point where you think there are too many short cuts," Carol explained. "In any profession, it's tempting to think you know more than you do — and, of course, as you get more experienced, you get paid more, so there's more pressure to do things quickly and not wander around in the details. That means you're encouraged, maybe even compelled, to forget the good work habits that made you successful. And that's what the congressman's story is about.
"When I was just out of high school," she recounted, "my family and I celebrated with a trip to Washington, D.C. Our congressman had a little free time, and I wound up sitting across from him in his inner office. He asked if there were any questions he could answer for me. I was young and enthusiastic, maybe a little brash. I pointed to my chair, then his, and asked, 'How do I get there from here?'
"He gave me a kindly smile," she continued, "and waved his hand at the wall behind him. 'I'll let you in on my biggest secret,' he told me. He had all his certificates of election framed and hung there, for primary and general elections. This was his seventh term, so they covered most of the wall. 'You see those?' he said. 'I have those there to remind me, every time I come into this office and sit down at this desk, what it took to get here.
" 'I know lots of people don't think I'm the greatest legislator, or political idea man, or whatever,' he conceded. 'Some of the party leaders don't like me much. But I'm busy all the time being with my constituents, hearing what they're thinking and what they care about, and helping them as much as I can. Every one of those certificates represents a whole lot of hard work. And the first time I think I just deserve to be here and don't have to do all that hard work any more, that will be the one I don't get.' "
Doug Samuelson is president of InfoLogix, Inc., a consulting firm in Annandale, Va., specializing in analysis of complex systems. He is also a former federal policy analyst, a patented inventor, a high-tech entrepreneur and executive, and an adjunct faculty member at The George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania.
OR/MS Today copyright © 2005 by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. All rights reserved.
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