The Goal

50

"Yeah, most of it," Lou says. "I sent it to him; he should get it in the morning. Most of it was like the stuff I gave you."

"What about the rest?"

"Just a few things I have to pull together," he says. "I should have it sometime tomorrow."

"Let me see it before it goes, okay?" I say. "Just so I know."

"Oh, sure," says Lou.

"Hey, you got a minute?"

"Yeah, what's up?" he asks, probably expecting me to give him the rundown on what's going on between me and Peach.

"Sit down," I tell him.

Lou pulls up a chair.

I think for a second, trying to phrase this correctly. Lou waits rxpectantly.

"This is just a simple, fundamental question," I say.

Lou smiles. "Those are the kind I like."

"Would you say the goal of this company is to make money?"

He bursts out laughing.

"Are you kidding?" he asks. "Is this a trick question?"

"No, just tell me."

"Of course it's to make money!" he says.

I repeat it to him: "So the goal of the company is to make money, right?"

"Yeah," he says. "We have to produce products, too."

"Okay, now wait a minute," I tell him. "Producing products a just a means to achieve the goal."

I run through the basic line of reasoning with him. He lis- tens. He's a fairly bright guy, Lou. You don't have to explain ery little thing to him. At the end of it all, he agrees with me.

"So what are you driving at?"

"How do we know if we're making money?"

"Well, there are a lot of ways," he says.

For the next few minutes, Lou goes on about total sales, and market share, and profitability, and dividends paid to stockhold- ers, and so on. Finally, I hold up my hand.

"Let me put it this way," I say. "Suppose you're going to re-.-. rite the textbooks. Suppose you don't have all those terms and vou have to make them up as you go along. What would be the minimum number of measurements you would need in order to know if we are making money?"