The meeting’s tone transformed from Executive Suite to a gym, with each speaker hoping to demonstrate insight and commitment by trying to “out-macho” all preceding comments.
Close to me sat a frustrated product manager and list development manager.
“Not possible. I don’t believe it,” the product manager began, shaking his head.
“Doesn’t matter,” answered his colleague. “Scott is obviously pissed about this and BS flows downhill. We’ve got to come up with something.”
“But what idiots! No one, simply no one ever gets such an outrageous response rate. It’s just BS! And they believe it and expect us to do better. Can’t be done.”
Turning to me, the Product Manager asked, “Well, Dr. Research, if it’s not a breakthrough, what is going? It’s your damn report.”
“First, it’s not our report. Some other organization is buying a syndicated report from a research company. So not only the company paying twice for the same report, but some one is cherry picking the data. I can’t speculate on their motivations, good or bad, but I remember and investigated when I first read the report – because that number was so wildly off-the-wall.”
“So what gives?”
“The research company claims they are just reporting what they found. Which, of course, is bogus. In this case, the published table combined results from combined multiple reports. Whoever sent this up the line might not have explained that, or they may have deleted all the footnoted caveats regarding unique sampling size issues, which make the competitor’s number totally unreliable. ”
“Because they didn’t want any technical issues detracting from the point they wanted to make with the EVP?”
“Or it could be that some junior staffer here may have stripped the number out of the report and had no idea what it means or what trouble it might cause, especially taken out of context.”
“Who would create a fire storm so they can sell their solution to the new fire chief?”
“Well, there already is a fire drill. Just look around. But to get anywhere, our conversation needs to move away from a Blame-Game blind alley and focus on the real issues.”
“Which are….?”
To be continued………………
Dr. Bob
Comments welcome!
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I want to quote your post in my blog. It can?
And you et an account on Twitter?