Memoirs of a child of the past century - 8. Chapter 8 : a new job, at different places and with various heads

Before continuing the story of my professional adventures , I want to write something about my first profession and its evolution since I left the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

The profession I learned at school is that of electrical engineer. An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical and practical problems. That's what I did in my first job.

I completed later my formation, becoming a 'rationalization' engineer, applying the methods of Frederic W. Taylor (scientific management) to increase the profitability of work by time-and work-studies. Recognizing the narrowness of this formation, recognizing the narrowness of this formation, I compemented it with a specialization in Human Relation, analysing the behavior of people in groups, in particular workplace groups.

Moreover, I learned the basic principle of the work of an organization consultant: First find out in detail the existing situation before trying to improve anything.

The first steps are to recognize the men involved, to observe their work and their mutual relations, to analyze human relationships from the bottom to the top of the hierarchy, to distinguish between informal and formal organization of the company, to follow the power struggles, to analyze the characters of the company executives.

Recognize and understand the activities and structures of the company is at least 80% of the consultant's work. The rest : to find improvements to be made, to make it clear for superiors and employees, to enforce and monitor the realization, is only a matter of experience and of good knowledge of industrial psychology.

As I said in chapter 5, I signed In July 1958 a new contract as a management consultant for a large professional organization with over 2000 members.
In my first two jobs, I was a junior employee, a young engineer fresh out of school, almost a baby engineer wet behind the ears.
The new work waiting for me represented a significant change of hierarchical level.

My new employer, l’Union Suisse des Négociants en Combustibles (the Swiss Union of fuels traders) in short USNC, was in the late 50s in a new situation, in front of a fundamental change in the market: the switch from coal to gas and oil, in the same way as the owners of stagecoaches, in the early 20th century, at the time of the arrival of motor vehicles, which were result in the disappearance of the horse-drawn carriages.

In Switzerland in the early 50's, more than 90% of homes were heated with coal and wood. Then, throughout this decade, gas and fuel oil heating had developed strongly. In 1958, the percentage of solid fuels (coal and wood) had fallen to 60% and continued to decrease each year. The coal merchants saw their customers disappear. They had to adapt or go out of business.

For some, the strategy was to mechanize the processing and distribution of coal and survive by lower costs and concentration on urban centers. Others preferred to follow the evolution and transform their business from solid fuels to liquid fuels. They bought trucks, built storage facilities for fuel oil and completely changed their suppliers by applying to national oil companies or by directly importing fuel oil.

The USNC had a technical service to advise its members in improving the efficiency of the heating methods of their clients. The intentions of the committee of the USNC was to change the mission of this service, called PROCAL, and make it an institution to help members to rationalize their businesses and to switch from coal to oil.Implementing such a new institution was not an easy task. PROCAL collaborators, specialists in heating, had indicated that they would not follow the committee if this new approach was applied.

Furthermore a significant minority of the committee was opposed to change. So it was that they needed to find a new director for PROCAL, who was capable of persuading the whole committee that this shift was unavoidable.

Mr. Bosson, the committee member responsible for overseeing the management of PROCAL was a prudent businessman, struggling in his business both to rationalize the distribution of coal and to expand its sales of fuel. In his mind, the new director had to act on two fronts: at the same time to do for other members what he did himself in his company and on the other to promote new ideas for change throughout the USNC.

He wrote an ad in the press for the commitment of this rare bird, an engineer able to get his hands dirty, to write articles in the newspaper of the USNC, to lecture and especially to act as a consultant to members, differing in size and the organization of their firms: from individual enterprise to groups of several hundred employees.

I met him once and we worked out the entire list of arguments in my favor. At an upcoming job interview, face to face with the whole committee, the goal was first to obtain a green light for the change of mission of PROCAL and only then to hire me for these new tasks.

Two factors spoke in my favor: first, the fact that I undertook at the beginning of my studies an accelerated training of apprentice mechanic (it was my internship of eight months in a factory; I think I have already mentioned it in a previous chapter). I was not just a 'white collar' but I had also experienced the life of a worker and I learned to work with my hands.

The other element was of another order. Being an officer and following in addition to my professional activities a military career was likely to impress the committee members opposed to change. The political views of members of the USNC were rather conservative, so in favor of a strong army.

The interview was a complete success. I spent many hours preparing my speech, listing all the questions I anticipated I would have to answer. I had obtained information from Mr. Bosson on the personality of each member of the committee, on their position about the change and on their origin. More than half were from the German speaking part of Switzerland. Having learned to speak fluent 'Schwitzerdutch' through my periods of military service was a plus.

In early October 1958, I began my work in Lausanne, a city of 130,000 inhabitants on the shores of Lake Geneva. My family had remained in Chippis, until I found a home big enough for 'two and half' children (!). In fact we were expecting the arrival of a daughter, Catherine, and my wife wanted to wait until after the birth to join me. My new salary was almost twice what I earned before and I began to look for a house big enough for all.

Living in the suburbs has its advantages. We regretted, however, being very distant from the center of the city and soon we moved to establish ourselves in the hills above the city, near highways, in a brand new apartment complex built by an architect who was one of my new friends.

Looking through my archives, while writing this story, I found various documents, including my appointment, my specifications and my certificate of completion.

My new salary was 50% higher than the last. Earning 1,500 francs per month in 1958 would correspond today to a monthly salary of 8,000 francs , an annual salary of about $ 80,000. To this were added the amounts of operating costs and travel expenses equivalent to nearly 500. per month. For the young engineer that I was, it was the jackpot !

My specifications were 'monumental'. I can’t resist the pleasure to present it in its entirety:

Description of the scope of my work:

1. Corporate consulting in the following fields :

General organization of companies (enterprise policy, development plans)
Analysis of the operating structure (internal organization, distribution of tasks)
Administrative problems (streamlining of tasks, introduction of computers)

Accounting (financing plans, introduction of cost accounting and standard cost, budgetary systems)
Production (planning of facilities and construction workshops, study of material flow, preparation of work, working methods)
Problems of staff (salary, administration)
Management of raw materials (storage devices, management of the distribution)
Economic issues (implementation of the company, market research, comparisons between companies)

2. Execution of construction projects in the following fields:

All industrial buildings in connection with the fields listed under 1.
Construction of storage facilities for coal systems and tanks for member companies, both for solid fuels, for heating oil and gasoline (from the determination of the location to the design and the control of the execution.’

In fact, my interventions did not only cover all the activities of a company, but I still had to participate in specific activities of the USNC:

Promote my work as a consultant by articles in the professional press on the radio and on television,
Participation in seminars as a speaker and moderator of debate
Participation in international conferences of the European Union of Fuel Merchants in Vienna and Paris.’

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After my first experiences in Chippis, I had the opportunity to practice my new job as a consultant 'on the spot' (learning by doing), while developing some aspects of my professional skills I had not yet had to practice : - to know and like teaching, to speak before many audiences, to know how to conduct negotiations as conciliator or as arbitrator –

I spent seven years at the USNC, from 1958 to 1965. I really learned my profession by participating in the fate of many companies and completing my formal training through seminars and correspondence courses. I've made many friends and several enemies too, that I learned to fight with diplomacy.

The opportunity was given to me through the benevolence of the leaders of the USNC, to extend 'smoothly' the field of my 'clients' by accepting mandates of non-members, while remaining an employee of the USNC, so I could prepare my departure peacefully. When I became independent by creating my own office as engineer and consultant, I had all the trumps in hand to succeed quickly.

My consultancy work was facilitated by the fact that most member’s firms had strong similarities. They had similar goals and were distinguished only by their magnitude (surface deposits, number of employees and vehicles, quantities stored, size of the radius of delivery, volume of activity) and the level of training of managers and executives. Some companies had secondary or additional activities (cleaning of tanks, storage for third parties, real estate management contracts), which could nevertheless be clearly distinguished and treated separately.

Because of this similarity, the problems and therefore the solutions were always the same. So I could rationalize my own work, using each time the same methods: patterns of intervention, questionnaires, visitation programs, standard reports and others.

Here some typical examples of consultancy :

Example 1 :

The owner of a coal processing company wanted to modernize its facilities of storage and preparation of coal. He wanted to put in place the means of mechanization of the coal handling (machines to automatically fill the coal in sacks, displacement of the coal by conveyor belts, construction of coal stalls placed in height to feed the machines from above).

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We studied and implemented the new layout of the site. With a small investment of tens thousands of francs, the owner realized significant savings in personnel. But he retained his staff, who were able to devote more time on sales and take better care of its customers.

Example 2 :

A large firm employing nearly 100 people was divided into two areas: a sales department of liquid and solid fuels, and a transportation department with fifty trucks, working on the request of third parties. The owner had entrusted his son and the husband of his daughter the management of each department and both found it difficult to get along. I had to resolve both short-term problems resulting from this discord and a long-term problem: the terms of succession of the owner, aged over 70 years but still occupying the position of CEO.

I began by analyzing the skills, character and experience of both the son and son-in using all the means offered by the engagement procedures, review curriculum vitae interview and handwriting analysis. After establishing the complete picture of each, I researched their common personality traits, which should enable them to reach an agreement in the sharing of power after retirement of the father.

Finally, armed with all this data, I organized a family meeting with the father and the two couples. It was a long and difficult discussion because it was a matter of personality differences and not an organizational problem. My intervention has enabled everyone, father and children, to assume their responsibilities and to put in the forefront the future of the business rather than their personal interests.

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Example 3 :

The owner of an average company, eager to change the location of his depots, had told me to study and realize the potential of a new location. It was to build new storage halls, new installations for bagging coal, installations for filling oil cans for sale to owners of small stoves, operating offices and changing rooms for personnel. My work consisted of drawing plans for the new facilities, obtaining a building permit, selecting and directing the construction companies, establishing the budget and monitoring construction costs.

Many small businesses in the same area had the same difficulties. They were too small for profitable operation. By grouping them in one place and rationalizing their collective exploitation in one common repository, it was possible to reduce overall costs and allow them to survive.

We were in the midst of the Cold War. To ensure the supply of fuel for at least 6 months, the authorities had set up a program to promote the construction of large tanks facilities. Any company building such facilities and agreeing to permanently store a quantity corresponding to the 6 months consumption of its clients received a grant representing 80% of the construction costs.

Many members agreed to participate in this program and asked me to oversee its completion. My task was to negotiate with the authorities, to conclude the storage contracts, to achieve the construction of tanks and to monitor the payment of the granted subventions.

A group of oil companies were trying to rationalize the distribution of oil by decentralizing their storage depots across the French speaking part of Switzerland.
They charged me to find new locations by selecting the best land, minimizing the distances between depots and customers and the distribution costs. For me it was an opportunity to apply a new method of scoring, listing the advantages of different locations and assigning points for each selection criterion. The sites chosen were those who got the most points.

My activities were numerous, varied but always interesting, because they gave me the opportunity to attack new domains and to complete my training on the job.
I had found my true vocation, without however being really conscious of it: to be an interface between two cultures, between employers and employees, between technology and human relations.

At the same time the exercise of military command during my periods taught me to lead men, to insert myself into a hierarchy by being at the same time the subordinate of my senior chiefs and the leader of the men under my command.