HOW I NEUTRALIZED THE MALEVOLENT MAVES NUMBER.
When the world was young in the early 1960's, I started working for Zenith
Radio, at that time a friendly company, with caring management and loyal
employees. Times were simpler then, capitalism still had a human face, and
downsizing was unknown. The company slogan was touchingly direct: THE QUALITY
GOES IN BEFORE THE NAME GOES ON. And quality in those days was hand-wiring, a
feature Zenith advertised proudly. Hand-wiring conjured up an image of
careful craftsmen lovingly putting TV sets together, like wise, old German
clock makers building cuckoo clocks.
Toward the end of the 60's all that changed when business majors, accountants
and lawyers replaced engineers in running the company. As our new leaders were
technically illiterate, they hired a firm of management consultants to teach
them how to scientifically manage scientists and engineers. The consultants
didn't know anything about science either, but they had more high school math.
In due time group leaders like myself, were told that intuition was out in
determining salaries. Instead we were to calculate for each of our employees a
so-called Maves number, named after the founder of the consulting company (I
have changed the name slightly to protect the innocent.) This magic number
was to be inserted into formula X ("attached to this memo") which would then
reveal what the employee's new salary should be.
The theory behind the Maves number was a masterpiece of pseudo-science, an
inspired mishmash of geometry, algebra and pop psychology. You couldn't help
but admire the mad genius who had dreamed it up. It was completely useless, of
course. Who of your people would gladly accept a salary decrease because magic
formula X said so?
I thought about this for some time and arrived at the greatest invention of my
career: formula Y. Formula Y was the mathematical inverse of formula X. This
is how it worked. You entered your employee's present salary into formula Y
and out came the right Maves number that, when used in X, gave the present
salary again. It was simply brilliant, and I used it at once for all my
people, sometimes fudging a little so they would have a salary increase. I
then sent my list of Maves numbers in to upper management and awaited the
result.
After a few days I was called in to see one of the vice- presidents. "It's
really amazing, Dr. Korpel." he said. "When we used your Maves numbers in
formula X, we got about the same salary figures you have been using all along.
I have to hand it to you, you have a real intuitive feel for what people are
worth."
He didn't offer me a raise though. Probably couldn't calculate my Maves
number.
At Random - Adrian Korpel
