The story of "The Reason"

One day there appeared a consultant in a company who had never seen one before.

Primitive, backward elders, who were sitting huddled round a cold dark strategy, looked up at the consultant, and with trembling fingers, swearing that they had seen a sign, a sign from their gods (the executive) which meant that they must now arise at last and go and slay the evil workers.

In the cramped labyrinths of the open plan office, the workers looked up and saw the consultant too, and received it unmistakably as a sign from their gods (pay rise) that they must go and set about the accursed elders.

Between these two tribes sat a learned group of individuals, the analysts. The analysts looked up and saw the consultant with fear and apprehension, for they knew precisely what it foreshadowed, and they bowed their heads in despair.

They knew that when a process reared its head, it was a sign.

When the process was found wanting, it was a sign.

When the change control procedure was conceived, it was a sign.

When the change control procedure was found to have no legs, it was a sign.

When in the land there was born at the midnight of a full moon, a goat with three heads, that too was a sign.

So there was no doubt at all that the appearance of a consultant was a sign of a particularly spectacular order.

And each new sign signified the same thing - that the elders and the workers were about to beat the hell out of each other again.

This in itself wouldn't be so bad, except that the elders and the workers always elected to beat the hell out of each other in the domain of the analysts, who always came off worst in these exchanges, though as far as they could see it never had anything to do with them.

Sometimes, after the worst of these outrages, the analysts would go to either the leader of the elders or the leader of the workers and demand to know the Reason for this intolerable behaviour.

The leader, whichever one it was, would take the analysts aside and explain the Reason to them, slowly and carefully and with great attention to the considerable detail involved.

The terrible thing was, it was a very good Reason. It was very clear, very rational, and tough. The analysts would hang their heads and feel sad and foolish that they had not realised what a tough and complex place the real world was, and what difficulties and paradoxes had to be embraced if one was to live in it.

'Now do you understand?' the leader would say.
The analysts would nod dumbly.

'And you see these battles have to take place?'
Another dumb nod.

'And why they have to take place in your domain, and why it is in everybody's best interest, the analysts included, that they should?'
'Er well...'

'In the long run.'
'Er, yes.'

And the analysts did understand the Reason, and the analysts returned to their domain. But as they walked back through pictures of culture and team building, and all that was noble, they found that all they could remember of the Reason was how terribly clear the argument had seemed. What the Reason actually was they could not remember at all.

This of course was of great comfort when next the elders and the workers came hacking and blaming and chanting things like 'add value', 'interactive dialogue'. 'core competencies', and 'improvement opportunities' through the analysts domain.

The Reason surrounding the sign of the consultant was a particularly detailed one and was thus almost completely lost on the analysts the moment they heard it. So the Reason was given again but this time from another consultant but the detail had merely been arranged in a different order and accompanied a piece of paper headed 'Invoice' (the sign of the consultant) and was thus dismissed by the analysts as complete bunkum.

Finally, the consultant fearing that he would disappear up his own sphincter, issued the Reason again, this time in colour and with little funny characters depicting the Reason, in the vain hope that he would get his message across. The analysts took the output, and realising the consultant was deeply concerned about his sphincter shoved it up his arse.

And that's why analysts are never listened to by either the elders or the workers because the sign of the consultant is sacrilege and must be checked at least six times by both tribes; for this is the very Reason that elders and workers exist at all.

Credits:
© Hyde The Darker Side-
adapted from Douglas Adams - The Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy