Supply Chain

The Best Things Said Often Come Last

March 13, 2012

The notion of Managing While Wandering Around was attributed to Hewlett Packard in the 1970's and popularized by Tom Peters' In Search of Excellence. Maybe a modern version might also include Managing in the Doorway. In his book Things I Overheard While ...

Andrew R. Thomas Blog

The notion of Managing While Wandering Around was attributed to Hewlett Packard in the 1970's and popularized by Tom Peters' In Search of Excellence.

Maybe a modern version might also include Managing in the Doorway.

In his book Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself, Alan Alda observed, "the best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart."

I read this a few years ago and have since started paying closer attention to the doorway.

Alda is a lot right from what I can tell.

People in my case now mostly colleagues and students will come into my office and ask the standard "How are you?" "Did you watch so and so last night?" or "What is going on with this or that?"

The conversation will ebb and flow. Then it will seemingly end as they head for the doorway: until the comment or question that originally brought them there is mentioned.

Then we'll talk again, but this time more seriously and direct about the compelling issue.

As I think back to my days as a manager, many of the most important conversations I had with both my boss and team members happened in a similar fashion.

It seems the doorway- in addition to the water cooler and conference room can also be counted as one of the more important locations in an office.

About the Author

Andrew R. Thomas Blog | Associate Professor of Marketing and International Business

Andrew R. Thomas, Ph.D., is associate professor of marketing and international business at the University of Akron; and, a member of the core faculty at the International School of Management in Paris, France.

He is a bestselling business author/editor, whose 23 books include, most recently, American Shale Energy and the Global Economy: Business and Geopolitical Implications of the Fracking Revolution, The Customer Trap: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake in Business, Global Supply Chain Security, The Final Journey of the Saturn V, and Soft Landing: Airline Industry Strategy, Service and Safety.

His book The Distribution Trap was awarded the Berry-American Marketing Association Prize for the Best Marketing Book of 2010. Another work, Direct Marketing in Action, was a finalist for the same award in 2008.

Andrew is founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation Security and a regularly featured analyst for media outlets around the world.

He has traveled to and conducted business in 120 countries on all seven continents.