So, before anybody could ask what the cause of this new and strange attire was, he explained that he felt that it was necessary to revisit a few clichés. The first one was, `If it works, do not fix it` and the second one was `Do not raise the bridge, lower the river`.
In both cases there was an element of change involved and it was just this element that he felt had to be revisited. He suggested that the `six honest serving men` that Rudyard Kipling had mentioned many years earlier that had to be utilised when considering the need (or not) to decide whether change was necessary.
Just to remind the others he mentioned that the six were Who, Where, When, How, Why and What. He also added that just quoting the `honest serving men` was not the only way in approaching the matter because it was also necessary to add `with a view to improve delivery or save costs`.
Once again, it was the newest member of the team who felt that he was out of his depth and enquired what the reason was for this debate. The reply was simple: “When things have been done in a certain way it is sometimes taken for granted that there is no other way.” That is then that the need for a change has to be debated. “It may very well result in the acknowledgement that the `old way` was still the best`,” but it has to be done to establish the fact.
One of the other members asked whether this approach was only applicable to things that are delivered, such as services or methods or even whether a policy needs to be scrutinised by looking at it from the latest state of affairs, eg petrol prices, electricity tariffs, `entitlements` and so on?
It was one of the older members who said that he seemed to recall that many years ago this kind of thinking was called `brainstorming`, but then it was usually done to prepare everyone for a complete revamping of the current status. The pipe smoker replied that it was just to prevent the approach that is sometimes considered the only way to go forward and that would be to throw out the old system and put in a new one without doing a proper `diligence test`.
It was one of the other members, the soft-spoken one, who asked whether the run-up to the annual budget did not serve this purpose? Sometimes, he added, this approach is cloaked in a `long-term plan`. Quite often such plans are labelled `radical` and even `heretical` and after much debate (and at a great cost) the whole attempt is put on hold and somehow gets forgotten This style is then the cause for that other cliché, `Throwing the baby out with the bath water`!
After several cups of coffee (and even a few mugs of coffee) the pipe smoker asked whether there was any understanding of his first question, namely that it was necessary for each of the `six honest serving men` to come to the table when a change has to be evaluated before conservatives or radicals get the urge to either introduce a change or just block it?
Modesty, or maybe a feeling of guilt, suddenly created a new call for another cup of coffee.
BY STAN DAVIS
