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A Christmas carol Retold
A CHRISTMAS CAROL RETOLD Wherein we discover the real motive for Scrooge's hardheartedness and Scrooge learns management principles which lead him from near bankruptcy to success in the retail poultry business. WILLIAM L. RABY
6
Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that. Which left only Scrooge to carry on with the firm of Scrooge & Marley. And that was the root of the problem. Scrooge and Marley bought and sold commodities and contracts therein, and in their small way contributed to the functioning of the world economy of their day. Marley had handled coffee and his grasp of that market had been unparalleled in London. Scrooge had never really understood that side of their business and so after Marley's death found the coffee portion of the firm's activity producing frequent and large losses. No wonder he felt that he was haunted by the ghost of Marley !
W I L L I A M L. RABY is a p a r t n e r and n a t i o n a l d i r e c t o r o f tax services for T o u c h e Ross & C o m p a n y and the a u t h o r of four b o o k s , n u m e r o u s articles, and a w e e k l y tax c o l u m n in the National Law Journal.
BUSINESS HORIZONS
Christmas of 1877 was a bleak one for Scrooge. He did not even know whether he could keep his fifteen-person organization afloat for another year. Pay increases for the staff were out of the question. In an effort to keep overhead to a minimum, Scrooge husbanded the fuel for every fire and even kept a careful watch over the paper clips. Sunk in despair, Scrooge retreated to his apartment on Christmas Eve overwhelmed with frustration and guilt. Physically and psychologically drained, he lay back in his easy chair and fell into a meditative trance. If only Marley had not died! Scrooge had never fully appreciated the sacrifices that Marley had made for the firm, the dedication he had brought to the coffee trade, the many ways in which he had kept the full burdens of management from resting on Scrooge's shoulders. As he reminisced about the past, Scrooge suddenly recollected something he
A Christmas Carol Retold
0
P
DECEMBER 1979
WILLIAM L. RABY
8
had heard at a meeting of the Board of Trade which he and Marley had attended just before Marley's demise. The speaker had been a young accountant from Edinborough, with an odd sort of last name. Scrooge now remembered his words as vividly as if they were being spoken in his own living room. "The future is what y o u make of it! Plan your work, and work your plans." What was the y o u n g man's name? Ah, he had it. George. George Rouche. Accountant of Edinborough. Waking with a start, Scrooge j o t t e d down that information on a pad and then fell back into a deep sleep. Early Christmas morning, he repaired to his office and piled into his briefcase the annual financial reports for Scrooge & Marley for the last ten years. Then he was off b y coach to Scotland to seek out the y o u n g accountant with the funny last name. But getting to Edinborough and getting to George Rouche proved to be two different matters. The clerk in the outer office of George Rouche & Co., a young fellow named Toss, explained patiently that Mr. Rouche was fully b o o k e d for at least the next six months with a number of bankruptcy cases which required his complete attention. Scrooge was not so easily put off. "What kind of an accountant is he a n y w a y , " he shouted, "to be more concerned with the already bankrupt than with helping one who might be saved?" In response to that, the door to the inner office was flung open and the bearded George Rouche gazed benignly down on the livid Ebenezer Scrooge. " Y o u are right," he said courteously. " H o w can I be of aid to y o u ? " The two men were soon ensconced in Rouche's office while Scrooge poured out his problems. So distraught was he that he even touched on childhood memories and unburdened himself of all the frustrations he felt while growing up, recalled the great mistake of his y o u t h in not marrying the girl that he loved, recounted the story of his entering the commodities business, becoming partner with
BUSINESS HORIZONS
Marley, achieving some mild eminence on the street, and finally told of Marley's death and his own straitened position. Through all of this, George Rouche listened patiently, now and then interjecting a question, b u t mostly letting Scrooge unburden himself at his own pace and in his own way. When he saw that Scrooge had pretty well run down, the accountant leaned forward and placed his hand on Scrooge's knee. " N o w I have two questions for you," he said. "You've told me where y o u have been and h o w y o u got here. N o w I want to know where it is you really are, what your balance sheet looks like today. And the second question I would ask of y o u is where y o u really want to go." For the first question, Scrooge was well prepared. He pulled from his briefcase the most recent balance sheet that his clerk, Bob Cratchit, had prepared from the general ledger. "You're almost insolvent, sir!" observed Rouche. " T o o true," said Scrooge mournfully. "I deduce from y o u r recital that y o u may not be cut out to be a c o m m o d i t y trader on your own," said Rouche. "It takes a certain dedication, a certain willingness to gamble, a certain flair for insight into a whole range of economic, social, and political developments, plus substantial doses of just pure luck. You seem to lack the stomach for it yourself and need someone with more of these attributes on w h o m to lean. N o w that Marley is dead, is it possible to look to one of your staff, or to someone from outside, to provide this kind of strength to your management?" While Scrooge had nothing b u t kind words to say about Bob Cratchit, the upshot of his analysis was that neither Bob nor any of the other staff had the "instinct for the jugular" of a Marley. Nor did Scrooge know anyone who had that capability and also knew the commodities business well. "Kind of hopeless," he concluded. "Well, not so," said the accountant. "All we have done is to conclude that y o u are in
A Christmas Carol R e t o l d
the wrong business. You are hardly the first person of w h o m that might be said, nor will y o u be the last. "The issue y o u face at this point is really quite simple. Are y o u going to wait until events inevitably put y o u out of business and leave y o u with no resources with which to start another? Or are y o u going to take your fate in your hand and walk confidently into a future that y o u will structure and that will fit the Ebenezer Scrooge of today rather than your or Marley's impression of what Ebenezer Scrooge might have b e c o m e ten or twenty years ago. All that we have concluded is that leadership for this must come from y o u and not from others. This is hardly an earth-shattering conclusion to one raised, as y o u were, in the Judeo-Christian tradition. If man cannot affect his fate, then what is sin all about anyway ?" "But what can I do with the paltry resources at m y disposal?" asked Scrooge. "Bob Cratchit and the others are just ordinary people, and I am hardly any great gift to the business c o m m u n i t y either." The two talked at length about Scrooge's appraisal of the London business scene, augmented b y George Rouche's view of the worldwide economic dynamics of the late nineteenth century. "I really think that the whole consumer picture is changing in these later years," concluded Scrooge. "As we get more and more people living in the cities, with more and more of them working in factories and offices, the whole establishment involved in distributing the essentials of life, and some of the luxuries, has to change from the present pattern of small independent shops. Even m y nephew, a salesman if I ever saw one, has the sense to realize this and has gone into the marketing end of things." "And so should y o u , " urged George Rouche. "Pick out an area in which y o u have some interest , study it a bit, change your antiseptic life style and try to think more like a typical consumer. You have an organization, y o u have assets, and now all y o u have to do is
to re-deploy them into an industry with growth potential in which y o u can start to develop some of your latent gregariousness and build a more meaningful organization." The two men had covered all of Scrooge's life-past, present, and what might yet be. The hours had passed and midnight was almost upon them. Scrooge and Rouche shook hands and parted. By the time they met again, many years later, Rouche had become Sir George Rouche, the most prominent chartered accountant of his day, and Ebenezer Scrooge was chairman of the board of the largest retail food and poultry organization in the entire United Kingdom. His was one of the first companies to provide comprehensive medical care for its employees, complete management development programs, and a counseling system that kept turnover to an absolute minimum. "I've seen the future, and it works," Scrooge was fond of telling his employees at their annual family picnic. " A t a crucial point in m y career, I encountered the ghost of m y former partner, Marley. He might have been m y undoing, but instead he proved to be m y salvation. I was able to see the past, the present, and the potential of the future, and so altered m y strategy in order to move first into the poultry business, providing turkeys that were a little plumper and delivery service that was a little better than anyone else could offer at Christmas time, and thence into this broader spectrum of retailing that all 2,500 of y o u are involved in today. And I came to realize, as I saw those ghosts of the past and phantasms of the future, that m y role in all of this could only be one of catalyst, and that it had to be the people working with me--Bob and Tim and all of y o u - w h o would have the motivation and the skills to make it all happen. I was trapped and unhappy in the commodities business, and then one day a wise man showed me that my fetters were of my own making. I cast them aside, my heart laughed within me. And it is laughing still. May all of y o u be truly able to say that of yourself as well. God bless us, everyone!" [Z]
DECEMBER 1979
9
6
Marley was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that. Which left only Scrooge to carry on with the firm of Scrooge & Marley. And that was the root of the problem. Scrooge and Marley bought and sold commodities and contracts therein, and in their small way contributed to the functioning of the world economy of their day. Marley had handled coffee and his grasp of that market had been unparalleled in London. Scrooge had never really understood that side of their business and so after Marley's death found the coffee portion of the firm's activity producing frequent and large losses. No wonder he felt that he was haunted by the ghost of Marley !
W I L L I A M L. RABY is a p a r t n e r and n a t i o n a l d i r e c t o r o f tax services for T o u c h e Ross & C o m p a n y and the a u t h o r of four b o o k s , n u m e r o u s articles, and a w e e k l y tax c o l u m n in the National Law Journal.
BUSINESS HORIZONS
Christmas of 1877 was a bleak one for Scrooge. He did not even know whether he could keep his fifteen-person organization afloat for another year. Pay increases for the staff were out of the question. In an effort to keep overhead to a minimum, Scrooge husbanded the fuel for every fire and even kept a careful watch over the paper clips. Sunk in despair, Scrooge retreated to his apartment on Christmas Eve overwhelmed with frustration and guilt. Physically and psychologically drained, he lay back in his easy chair and fell into a meditative trance. If only Marley had not died! Scrooge had never fully appreciated the sacrifices that Marley had made for the firm, the dedication he had brought to the coffee trade, the many ways in which he had kept the full burdens of management from resting on Scrooge's shoulders. As he reminisced about the past, Scrooge suddenly recollected something he
A Christmas Carol Retold
0
P
DECEMBER 1979
WILLIAM L. RABY
8
had heard at a meeting of the Board of Trade which he and Marley had attended just before Marley's demise. The speaker had been a young accountant from Edinborough, with an odd sort of last name. Scrooge now remembered his words as vividly as if they were being spoken in his own living room. "The future is what y o u make of it! Plan your work, and work your plans." What was the y o u n g man's name? Ah, he had it. George. George Rouche. Accountant of Edinborough. Waking with a start, Scrooge j o t t e d down that information on a pad and then fell back into a deep sleep. Early Christmas morning, he repaired to his office and piled into his briefcase the annual financial reports for Scrooge & Marley for the last ten years. Then he was off b y coach to Scotland to seek out the y o u n g accountant with the funny last name. But getting to Edinborough and getting to George Rouche proved to be two different matters. The clerk in the outer office of George Rouche & Co., a young fellow named Toss, explained patiently that Mr. Rouche was fully b o o k e d for at least the next six months with a number of bankruptcy cases which required his complete attention. Scrooge was not so easily put off. "What kind of an accountant is he a n y w a y , " he shouted, "to be more concerned with the already bankrupt than with helping one who might be saved?" In response to that, the door to the inner office was flung open and the bearded George Rouche gazed benignly down on the livid Ebenezer Scrooge. " Y o u are right," he said courteously. " H o w can I be of aid to y o u ? " The two men were soon ensconced in Rouche's office while Scrooge poured out his problems. So distraught was he that he even touched on childhood memories and unburdened himself of all the frustrations he felt while growing up, recalled the great mistake of his y o u t h in not marrying the girl that he loved, recounted the story of his entering the commodities business, becoming partner with
BUSINESS HORIZONS
Marley, achieving some mild eminence on the street, and finally told of Marley's death and his own straitened position. Through all of this, George Rouche listened patiently, now and then interjecting a question, b u t mostly letting Scrooge unburden himself at his own pace and in his own way. When he saw that Scrooge had pretty well run down, the accountant leaned forward and placed his hand on Scrooge's knee. " N o w I have two questions for you," he said. "You've told me where y o u have been and h o w y o u got here. N o w I want to know where it is you really are, what your balance sheet looks like today. And the second question I would ask of y o u is where y o u really want to go." For the first question, Scrooge was well prepared. He pulled from his briefcase the most recent balance sheet that his clerk, Bob Cratchit, had prepared from the general ledger. "You're almost insolvent, sir!" observed Rouche. " T o o true," said Scrooge mournfully. "I deduce from y o u r recital that y o u may not be cut out to be a c o m m o d i t y trader on your own," said Rouche. "It takes a certain dedication, a certain willingness to gamble, a certain flair for insight into a whole range of economic, social, and political developments, plus substantial doses of just pure luck. You seem to lack the stomach for it yourself and need someone with more of these attributes on w h o m to lean. N o w that Marley is dead, is it possible to look to one of your staff, or to someone from outside, to provide this kind of strength to your management?" While Scrooge had nothing b u t kind words to say about Bob Cratchit, the upshot of his analysis was that neither Bob nor any of the other staff had the "instinct for the jugular" of a Marley. Nor did Scrooge know anyone who had that capability and also knew the commodities business well. "Kind of hopeless," he concluded. "Well, not so," said the accountant. "All we have done is to conclude that y o u are in
A Christmas Carol R e t o l d
the wrong business. You are hardly the first person of w h o m that might be said, nor will y o u be the last. "The issue y o u face at this point is really quite simple. Are y o u going to wait until events inevitably put y o u out of business and leave y o u with no resources with which to start another? Or are y o u going to take your fate in your hand and walk confidently into a future that y o u will structure and that will fit the Ebenezer Scrooge of today rather than your or Marley's impression of what Ebenezer Scrooge might have b e c o m e ten or twenty years ago. All that we have concluded is that leadership for this must come from y o u and not from others. This is hardly an earth-shattering conclusion to one raised, as y o u were, in the Judeo-Christian tradition. If man cannot affect his fate, then what is sin all about anyway ?" "But what can I do with the paltry resources at m y disposal?" asked Scrooge. "Bob Cratchit and the others are just ordinary people, and I am hardly any great gift to the business c o m m u n i t y either." The two talked at length about Scrooge's appraisal of the London business scene, augmented b y George Rouche's view of the worldwide economic dynamics of the late nineteenth century. "I really think that the whole consumer picture is changing in these later years," concluded Scrooge. "As we get more and more people living in the cities, with more and more of them working in factories and offices, the whole establishment involved in distributing the essentials of life, and some of the luxuries, has to change from the present pattern of small independent shops. Even m y nephew, a salesman if I ever saw one, has the sense to realize this and has gone into the marketing end of things." "And so should y o u , " urged George Rouche. "Pick out an area in which y o u have some interest , study it a bit, change your antiseptic life style and try to think more like a typical consumer. You have an organization, y o u have assets, and now all y o u have to do is
to re-deploy them into an industry with growth potential in which y o u can start to develop some of your latent gregariousness and build a more meaningful organization." The two men had covered all of Scrooge's life-past, present, and what might yet be. The hours had passed and midnight was almost upon them. Scrooge and Rouche shook hands and parted. By the time they met again, many years later, Rouche had become Sir George Rouche, the most prominent chartered accountant of his day, and Ebenezer Scrooge was chairman of the board of the largest retail food and poultry organization in the entire United Kingdom. His was one of the first companies to provide comprehensive medical care for its employees, complete management development programs, and a counseling system that kept turnover to an absolute minimum. "I've seen the future, and it works," Scrooge was fond of telling his employees at their annual family picnic. " A t a crucial point in m y career, I encountered the ghost of m y former partner, Marley. He might have been m y undoing, but instead he proved to be m y salvation. I was able to see the past, the present, and the potential of the future, and so altered m y strategy in order to move first into the poultry business, providing turkeys that were a little plumper and delivery service that was a little better than anyone else could offer at Christmas time, and thence into this broader spectrum of retailing that all 2,500 of y o u are involved in today. And I came to realize, as I saw those ghosts of the past and phantasms of the future, that m y role in all of this could only be one of catalyst, and that it had to be the people working with me--Bob and Tim and all of y o u - w h o would have the motivation and the skills to make it all happen. I was trapped and unhappy in the commodities business, and then one day a wise man showed me that my fetters were of my own making. I cast them aside, my heart laughed within me. And it is laughing still. May all of y o u be truly able to say that of yourself as well. God bless us, everyone!" [Z]
DECEMBER 1979
9