Now that you've had a chance to give a very quick thought, our topic here is good and timely on this particular decision. I know from prior experience that some of you have written down $39, a few of you have $22, other rooms have $83, some are at one $161. And I know from prior experience that probably at least, if we put 25 people in a room together, there are at least seven or eight different answers. That's a statement by the way. This is a very tough problem. But if we now took the next step going back to let's say John Chambers and the work of Kathy Eisenhardt we have made our own decision we've written down the answer. But at this point we haven't communicated, we haven't talked with a trusted advisor, a counselor. So what I would do, we're not going to do it here, but what I ordinarily would do I'd recommend in your office that you do this later today, is before you make the final concluding judgment call turn to somebody else whose advice you know is informed and you trust and try this out with them. When we do that in a room pretty quickly discussion explodes as these people for example, at $61 wants to know from the $39 or maybe from the $161 why the others are wrong in the room. But in the process of that consultation the discussion you're thinking, will evolve. And let me bring in that label, that strategic intent commander's intent factor as well. As we look at this problem here, my guess is sitting in your office looking at this here, some of you probably did wonder, should I take into account a bad check fee or maybe opportunity costs? Or what about reputational damage? And a question back to you is, should those be in your thinking or out of your thinking? And since I didn't make that clear at the outset, I have failed to be clear in my strategic intent which makes it tougher for you to make this decision. I should have been clear. I'll be clear now. Take everything out aside from just cash in and cash out. No reputational damage, nothing else. And then finally, my strategic intent not yet fully clarified. Here's my final clarification. If we had time I would have you get into a room with people, share your answers talking back and forth and then I'm going to say my purpose in this exercise, my intent, was not that you get the right answer. It felt that way. But actually that was not my intent. My intent was that you, the people in the room, collectively, jointly have the right answer. And all we need is 70% to go back in that Marine Corps provision to call it quits once we get to 70% agreement we're done. And with that statement that the objective, the intent, is not for you to be right, but for the organization, the community group, the company, the hospital, the university that you may be managing to be right. I've noticed that, call it human behavior in the room, it materially changes. Up until that point, people are kind of taking their own counsel, kind of puzzling through their own thinking. But as soon as I say my intent is for you collectively or at least 70% to have the right answer, then people begin to step forward, people will go to a blackboard or a whiteboard begin to track it through. With that being said, as you look at the answer that you have written down just keep that in mind. And now I'm going to walk us through what is quote the right answer. This is such a tough problem that we decided to adjudicate, decide, what is the right answer by asking professionals who do this for a living to take a look at the problem and give it their best shot. Thus we arranged for 30 certified public accountants, people who look at cash in and cash out of companies and organizations through their career, to take a look at this problem. We gave them one minute to write down their best shot the 30 people working individually and at the end of that 60 seconds, there were 13 different answers in the room. Believe it or not, some were at 22, a couple were at 39, others 61, some were at 161, one said zero, one said more than 200. Now, we might take that to be a criticism of the profession that there's disagreement among professionals. But we gave them a few more minutes to work this through now collectively and they actually sat and began to cross talk. I encourage people who didn't agree with others in the room to spend time talking across the room. We also made it clear that the agenda here was for the 30 CPAs to have the right answer, not just individually to have reached a tentative conclusion. And with that additional time, with strategic intent made clear, with discussions among other people, in a sense metaphorically, trusted counsellors the Certified Public Accountants after about five or six minutes they did say in their professional judgment the correct answer is $61. Very briefly $39 out to buy the necklace, 22 in change, the jeweler received $100 from the neighbor, returned $100. Put those four numbers together and it's a $61 loss. Now with that, all this is meant to drive home the five points from the work in Silicon Valley comparing fast and slower moving, in this case firms in the software industry. Keep in mind those four concepts out of the U.S. Marine Corps. Keep in mind what John Chambers said, just amplify that point of having a trusted counselor. Several of those factors not all, but several of those factors we've seen it work here. To sum this up, once I clarified strategic intent in several different ways, that's important idea that was number two on that Marine Corps list. And once we talk with others in a room in whom we have a lot of trust, and faith, and confidence, and one strategic intent that is not a individual outcome we want, but we want something that's going to benefit the organization, be optimal for the organization. Then predictably groups like I just described, will end up almost always at $61. Most people aren't that when they look at it individually. Most call it a team, if there's cross collaboration here. Most cross collaborating teams, good people in the room, do end up at 61. Kind of a confidence builder that these factors for the Marine Corps, in the valley Silicon Valley, and for John Chambers indeed are practical and in fact impactful.
