Slack by Tom DeMarco/Review: J. Colannino

Tom DeMarco wrote Slack in 2001.  However, I have a ten-year rule on management books.  If they're still around in ten years, then I read them.  I formulated this rule after reading Blue Ocean Strategy which was mostly abject nonsense.  Maybe I am already crotchety (is there a such thing as a young fogey?) but after more than 25 years of leading high performance teams I don't have much patience for most management consultants and their books.  DeMarco is a bit different because he has practiced in real life what he has preached in his book. 

Slack has something important to say, but first, the bad news.  Although the book is short (220 pages) I often found it boring.  The good news is that it is also interesting and insightful in some important places.  And besides, having written a 630 page book on combustion modeling I am in a dicey position to complain about boring reads.

DeMarco starts out by describing an old puzzle you may remember if you are over 40: a square 2"x2"puzzle with 8 plastic tiles in a 3x3 grid with one space left over. The object was to order the tiles from 1 to 8 by sliding them around and interchanging tiles and spaces. DeMarco proposes a new "optimized" puzzle: 716/483/259. Great! If you like 716/483/259 then the puzzle is already in its final "optimized" configuration. The only problem is that there is no space left over to move the tiles around.  Not much of a game, but think of the analogy with today's manufacturing model.  All the air is squeezed out of the process.  The minimal amount of effort is required to maintain 123/456/789. Everything is great, UNTIL you need to respond to changing market conditions, and then, you can't!  There is no slack in the process.  All unessential overhead has been cut.  Folks are so busy doing their jobs and the jobs of one or two others that have been let go that they can't possibly do anything more. 

As far as DeMarco is concerned, optimization is fine on the shop floor, but not with knowledge workers because thinking takes time and freedom, the very things that have been squeezed out of the process.  No one is available to redirect the process.  The best an organization can manage is some incremental improvement here or there. No breakthroughs can occur; just the same thing better, faster, and cheaper until better, faster, and cheaper can no longer compete.

My first chemical engineering professor actually worked in a buggy whip factory.  How much better do you suppose their buggy whips became before they went broke?  How much faster were they produced?  How much cheaper did they become?  Here is a link to a better, faster, cheaper buggy whip.  Quite a bargain for under 13 dollars, especially when adjusted for inflation.  So did a few better, faster, cheaper businesses survive?  Not really.  The company I reference started in 1973, and they do lots of other stuff besides buggy whips.  Businesses only survive when they can adapt. Being best in class is important, but the ability to change or create the class is more important.

The book is organized into 33 short chapters in four parts.  Part One introduces the concept of slack.  Part Two: Lost, but Making Good Time illustrates a saying of mine: "When you're headed in the wrong direction, speed is not your ally."  Part Three addresses change and growth, and Part Four speaks to risk and risk management.

DeMarco makes many good points; e.g., people are not fungible; transaction costs are almost always underestimated or ignored; invention requires resources; tactics without strategy is disastrous, etc.  However, he also makes several blunders, almost all of which come from his errant view of anthropology and ultimately theology. 

In Chapter 5, Managing Eve, DeMarco's worldview gets in the way. According to DeMarco, Eve made the right decision by breaking the rules rather than limiting her "growth as a person."  I am no prude, but there are lots of experiences for which we are the poorer, not the better, and sensible policy is designed to limit bad consequences.  Do organizations entertain destructive policies?  Yes, but our job should be to reform the policy, not to do our own thing. 

DeMarco also analogizes blind obedience to management policy as religion, but this is a poor analogy.  The Christian religion is responsible for the hospital, the university, and science.  Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater.  Blind adherence to anything (including policy) is never a good idea, but that has much more to do with totalitarianism than religion. 

Elsewhere (Chapter 28,Change Management) DeMarco decries the family as a poor model for business, especially during the changing times that we find ourselves in.  But this is founded on an inadequate and misguided model of family as an authoritarian regime.  Good family does have clear structure and authority.  But that is not all it has.  It also has apprenticeship, nurturing, guidance, training, and it prepares its junior members for succession to greater responsibilities.  All in all, I think that is a very good model for business.

Yet and despite my disagreements, the book is a worthy read and a reasonable antidote to the blind dogma that poses for leadership in many organizations. One can only hope that those indicted are up for the challenge.