Corporate Learning Series - 7/ Consultants.

A timeless lesson on how Consultants can make a difference for an

organization:

Last week, I took some friends out to a new restaurant, and noticed that the

waiter, who took our order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket.

It seemed a little strange. When another waiter brought our water and

utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt pocket.

Then I looked around and saw that all the staff had spoons in their pockets.

When the waiter came back to serve our soup I asked, 'Why the spoon?'

'Well,' he explained, 'the restaurant's owners hired Andersen Consulting to

revamp all our processes. After several months of analysis, they concluded

that the spoon was the most frequently dropped utensil. It represents a

drop frequency of approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our

personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the number of trips back to

the kitchen and save 15 man-hours per shift.'

As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he was able to replace it

with his spare.

'I'll get another spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making an

extra trip to get it right now.'

I was impressed!

After consuming my soup, I also noticed that there was a string hanging

out of the waiter's fly. Looking around, I noticed that all the waiters had the

same string hanging from their flies.

So when he came to take away our soup bowls, I asked the waiter, 'Excuse

me, but can you tell me why you have that string right there?'

He lowered his voice. 'Not everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I

mentioned also found out that we could save time in the rest room.

By tying this string to the tip of our 'you know what', we can pull it out

without touching it and eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening

the time spent in the rest room by 76.39 percent.'

'After you get it out, how do you put it back?'

'Well,' he whispered, 'I don't know about the others, but I use the spoon.