Cliche #6 - The Truth

Frank's Management Cliche #6                                

"There can be only one source of the truth"

Explanation:

If there is only one source of the truth, then everyone can rely on it.  If there is more than one source of what is believed to be the truth, then if they all don't say the exact same thing, the organization will not know which to believe.  The best source of the truth is something that everyone can access.  If it is company information, then that source should be the company database in the computer.  Here is a good example: 

Bob, the production supervisor, walks into the manager's office and says "I have twenty parts short on the Alpha machine.  Here is the list I made".  The manager says "OK, let's go over to Production Control and make sure they are chasing those parts."  The manager and supervisor walk over to the planner for the Alpha product and ask her what parts she is chasing.  Jill says "right, I made a list of the missing parts yesterday and here it is". The manager compares the two lists and sees that there are parts on the supervisor's list that are not on the planner's list, and vice versa.  The manager takes the supervisor and planner in tow and walks over to the buyer's desk.  The manager says "It appears there are parts short on the Alpha machine and I want to make sure you are ordering them as an emergency with our vendors".  The buyer, Tim, says "I know, Jack called me the other day and told me to order some parts, and I called and put the parts on order. The parts will be here today."  The manager breathes a sigh of relief until he looks at Tim's list.  It is different than both Bob's and Jill's lists.  The manager notices that all the lists are hand written and muses "I wonder what the computer thinks."  Tim makes a few key strokes and produces a list of parts the computer shows as missing from the Alpha machine.  It is different than all three hand written lists, and probably just as wrong. 

The above example is just one of many that would illustrate the same thing.  Other examples include the group travel schedule, customer contact list, project task list, personnel roster, etc. Basically anything that changes dynamically. 

The manager should insist that there be only one source of the truth.  That way as soon as someone learns of a change, or additional piece of information, the single source can be updated with this new information.  To train people to do this, the manager should only rely on the single source.  If someone brings information from some other source, the manager should send them away to get the single source.  If new information is different from the what the single source shows, a reconciliation must take place to make sure the single source is accurate.