Chapter 2.
What Lies Behind the Problem

The morning started earlier than usual.

The office smelled of freshly ground coffee and wet asphalt. After the night's rain, the window had been left slightly open, and the cool air mixed with the smell of paper, dust, and something vaguely construction-related that seemed to have permanently soaked into the walls of the place.

One by one, the vans started up in the parking lot.

For the first few seconds, the diesel engines grumbled heavily in the cold, then settled into a steadier rhythm. Doors slammed. Someone shouted across the yard.

— Thomas! Don't take the white one today! The oil light is on again!

An unintelligible reply came from somewhere outside.

Then laughter.

Michael set his cup on the edge of the desk.

After a week, he had already grown used to these first forty minutes of the working day.

In a company of twenty-seven people, the morning resembled the launch of a small airport.

One site was waiting for materials.

Another needed a vehicle.

A third site manager was changing the sequence of work.

A client wanted to know the deadline.

A craftsman was looking for a laser level.

Anna was simultaneously answering a phone call, opening an email, and trying to find out where yesterday's signed quotation had been put.

And Reinhard seemed to run through almost all of it.

He appeared first by the warehouse, then in the office, then between the vans, answering questions with the speed that only comes from years of repeating the same actions over and over again.

Today he entered the office already wearing his jacket.

He had a thin folder tucked under one arm and his phone in the other hand.

— Good morning.

— Morning.

— I'll be gone almost all day today.

He put the folder on the desk.

— The Schneiders.

Michael had already heard the name.

One of the company's main suppliers. Tiles, construction chemicals, some sanitary equipment. Prices had changed several times over the past few months, and Reinhard intended to negotiate fixed terms at least for the main items.

— Serious negotiations?

— If I quickly agree to their price — twenty minutes. If I want a reasonable one — three hours.

There was a knock at the door.

Almost at the same moment, it opened.

A young man of about twenty-five entered the office.

Tall, broad-shouldered. Work trousers, heavy boots covered in white construction dust, a dark blue sweater with a small company logo.

He held his phone in his hand as if he expected it to ring at any moment.

— Klaus, come in.

Reinhard turned to Michael.

— You two haven't really been introduced yet.

Michael stood up.

— Michael.

— Klaus.

The handshake was brief and firm.

Klaus looked at him carefully.

Not with hostility.

More as if he were assessing him.

— My son, — Reinhard said.

— I figured.

— Dad told me about you, — Klaus said.

— Hopefully not everything.

Reinhard smirked.

— I told him you've been walking around the company for a week, asking everyone questions instead of working on the website.

— Then almost everything.

Klaus gave a barely noticeable smile.

Reinhard picked up the folder.

— Anyway, everything goes through Klaus today. I've told him what we've been discussing. You need to go to the Webers anyway. They changed the tiles again last night.

— Not they, — Klaus corrected him immediately. — The wife.

Reinhard looked at him.

— What's the difference?

— A big one for the husband.

— None for our tiles.

The phone in Reinhard's hand vibrated.

He glanced at the screen.

— Damn. They're already waiting.

He answered the call and walked out of the office as he spoke.

A few seconds later, the front door slammed shut.

Through the window, Michael watched a grey Mercedes pull out of the yard.

Klaus remained standing by the door.

— Well, shall we go?

— Let's go.

He had already turned around when he stopped.

— But there's one thing I want to understand first.

— What?

— What exactly are you doing here?

Michael looked at him.

There it was, the first real question.

Not about the website.

Not about the customer management system.

About why he was here.

— I'm trying to build a model of your company.

Klaus had apparently expected a different answer.

— What kind of model?

— Imagine someone takes you to a construction site and says: there's a crack in this wall. What do you do?

— Depends on the crack.

— Exactly.

— What do you mean, “exactly”?

— You don't immediately run off to buy filler. First you look at where the crack is, what kind it is, when it appeared, whether it's spreading, what's underneath it, whether there's a problem with the substrate.

Klaus nodded.

— Of course.

— I'm doing roughly the same thing. Except the object I'm looking at is the company.

— And what does the customer management system have to do with that?

— Nothing, until we understand which wall we need it for.

Klaus smirked.

— All right. At least that makes more sense than the way Dad explained it.

They went outside.

The dampness from the night still lingered in the air.

The inside of Klaus's white van looked exactly the way a working van should: a roll of drawings, gloves, two empty bottles, a box of screws, a tape measure, and a coffee cup in the holder.

Klaus swept everything off the passenger seat into the back.

— Get in.

After the engine started, one warning light on the dashboard took a little longer than the others to go out.

Klaus tapped the plastic with his finger.

The light disappeared.

— German diagnostics.

Michael laughed.

The van pulled away.

For the first few minutes, they drove in silence.

The wipers lazily swept away the remaining drops.

Morning news played quietly on the radio.

— I still think you're overcomplicating things, — Klaus said.

— Possibly.

Michael immediately noticed his own word and smiled.

— Actually, no. Let's be specific. What exactly am I overcomplicating?

— Business.

Klaus changed gear.

— There's no mystery here. A client calls. We look at the site. We make an offer. He places the order. We do the work. Then we send the invoice. That's it.

— Agreed.

Klaus looked at him.

— And?

— Imagine a road on a map.

— All right.

— From above, everything is simple: point A, point B, and a line between them. Now try actually driving that road on a Friday evening.

Klaus smirked.

— Traffic jams.

— Roadworks. An accident. A closed exit. A detour. Weather. A driver who took the wrong turn. A traffic light that isn't working.

— Fine.

— The route remains the same on the map. But the real system is much more complicated than the line.

Klaus was silent for a moment.

— And you're looking for traffic jams?

— Not only traffic jams. I'm trying to understand why they appear, where they appear, and what they affect.

— And then?

— Then we can decide whether we need to widen the road, change the traffic lights, build a bypass, or simply stop sending all the cars down the same street.

Klaus smiled.

— You like analogies.

— They save a lot of time.

The Webers

The Webers' house stood in a quiet residential area.

A detached two-storey house with a small garden and a dark tiled roof.

A company van was already parked outside.

They could hear work going on inside before they even entered.

The short, dry sound of a drill.

Then silence.

Then voices.

The smell of dust, adhesive, and freshly cut tile hung in the hallway.

On the floor, protective fleece had been laid from the entrance all the way to the stairs.

— Morning, — Klaus shouted.

— Upstairs! — came the reply.

On the second floor, the bathroom door was open.

Part of the walls had already been tiled.

On one side, several large grey tiles leaned against the wall.

Markus, the site manager, stood near the window with his phone in his hand.

— Good timing.

He nodded toward a cardboard box.

— The new ones arrived.

Klaus looked inside.

— These?

— These.

— And the old ones?

— Downstairs.

— How many have already been laid?

— Six.

Klaus walked over to the wall.

Ran his hand across the surface.

— When did they change their mind?

— Yesterday evening.

— Who knew?

— Reinhard.

— And?

Markus shrugged.

— He sent me a message.

— When?

— Around eight.

— And you saw it?

— This morning.

Klaus looked at him.

— After the work had already started?

— Yes.

— Why?

— Because at eight in the evening I don't sit staring at my work phone.

— Fair enough.

Klaus took out his own phone.

— What do we do with these six?

— Remove them.

— Without damage?

Markus made a face.

— We'll see.

Michael stood a little to the side.

He did not interfere.

He watched.

Klaus called Reinhard.

No answer.

He called again.

Still nothing.

— He's in negotiations, — Michael reminded him.

— I know.

Klaus looked at the wall.

Then at Markus.

— Take them off carefully. Don't start the other wall yet.

— What about the time?

— I'll sort it out.

Markus nodded.

For him, the issue was settled.

Klaus walked out into the corridor.

Michael followed him.

— That's what I'm talking about, — Klaus said.

— What exactly?

— Real life. You can't describe all of this in some process.

— Why not?

— Because yesterday the client liked one tile. Today she likes another. What process are you going to write for that?

— None.

Klaus looked at him.

— None?

— Why would I describe the client's right to change her mind?

— Then what are you trying to describe?

— What happens after she changes her mind.

Klaus said nothing.

Michael continued:

— Look. The client made a decision. Reinhard learned about it. He sent Markus a message. Markus saw it in the morning, after work had already started. Six tiles now have to be removed.

— Yes.

— The problem isn't that the client changed her mind.

— Then what is it?

— I don't know yet whether there is a problem.

Klaus frowned.

— You just described it yourself.

— I described an event. That's not the same thing.

— Six tiles have to be removed.

— Yes.

— That's a problem.

— For this site — yes. But I don't yet know whether it's a system problem.

Klaus leaned against the wall.

— Explain.

— If this happens once a year, it's probably just normal operational noise. If something like this happens three times a week for the same reason, then it's already a pattern.

— And then?

— Then I want to know what produces that pattern.

Klaus looked toward the bathroom.

The drill started again inside.

— So you don't consider every mistake a system problem?

— Of course not. Otherwise we'd spend our whole lives designing a perfect world that doesn't exist.

— Good.

Klaus nodded.

— Because that's exactly what I was afraid of.

— That I'd arrive with flowcharts and forbid people from thinking?

— Something like that.

— No. A good system doesn't eliminate human judgment. It gives human judgment better conditions.

— Sounds nice.

— Let's see whether it's true.

They went back into the bathroom.

Markus was already removing the first tile.

Carefully.

Millimetre by millimetre.

— Who ordered the new tile? — Michael asked.

— Reinhard, — Markus replied.

— Last night?

— Yes.

— And it arrived this morning?

— The supplier had it in stock.

— So that part worked quickly.

— Very quickly, — Klaus said.

Michael nodded.

— That's important too.

— What?

— Not to look only for what doesn't work.

Klaus glanced at him.

— That's unusual for a consultant.

— I'm not here to prove that everything is bad.

— Then what are you here to prove?

— Nothing.

Michael pointed toward the wall.

— At the moment, I don't see a Markus problem here. I see an event. To call something a cause, I need to understand how typical it is and why the system allows it to repeat.

Klaus watched him for a while.

— And if it turns out Markus simply forgets things?

Michael shrugged.

— Then the conclusion will be simple: Markus forgets things. I don't need to defend a beautiful theory.

Markus laughed.

— I like that version less.

— But it's honest.

Klaus looked at his watch.

— Let's go. The Bergers are waiting.

By the van, Michael stopped.

— By the way.

— What?

— You really are very good at dealing with situations like this.

— I got that already.

— Don't get carried away.

Klaus smiled.

— Now this is starting to sound like a normal conversation.

— But there's an interesting risk here.

— What risk?

— If the fire brigade is exceptionally good at putting out fires, a city can go a very long time without noticing bad wiring.

Klaus opened the driver's door.

He paused for a second.

— Are you saying we're too good at putting out fires?

— For now, I'm only saying what I can see: you're excellent at putting them out.

— And you're still looking for the wiring.

— Exactly.

This time Klaus smiled on his own.

The Bergers

The atmosphere became lighter on the way.

Klaus talked about the company.

Not as if he were in an interview.

As someone who was genuinely proud of it.

At twelve, he had spent his summers going to job sites with his father.

At first, he carried rubbish and tools.

Then he learned to lay tiles.

After school, he trained in the trade and joined the company.

— I know almost all of our long-standing clients, — he said. — I know the craftsmen. Who can do what. Who shouldn't be sent where. Which suppliers work properly and which start telling fairy tales. Who drives which vehicle. Which project is where.

— That's enormously valuable, — Michael said.

Klaus looked at him again as if waiting for what came next.

— No “but”, — Michael added.

— Good.

— Experience is one of the most valuable things in a company. You can't buy it together with a piece of software.

— Now that I agree with.

The phone rang.

This time it was Jens.

— Where are you? — he asked.

— On our way.

— Then hurry. Berger's here.

Klaus frowned.

— He wasn't supposed to come until this evening.

— Well, he's here now.

— And?

— He doesn't like the niche in the shower.

Klaus closed his eyes for a second.

— What exactly?

— Says it's too low.

— It's according to plan.

— I already told him.

— Don't touch anything. We'll be there in a minute.

A few minutes later, they stopped outside an old house from the 1970s.

A pile of removed tiles lay by the entrance. Near the waste container stood an old bathtub with a rusty stain around the drain.

Through the open door came the smell of plaster, dust, and metal.

— Where is he? — Klaus asked.

— Upstairs, — Jens replied.

He was tall and thin, with grey stubble and a pencil behind one ear.

— Mood?

Jens shook his head.

— You'll see.

Mr Berger was standing outside the bathroom on the second floor.

Clean jeans.

A light-coloured shirt.

Arms folded across his chest.

He had the expression of a man who had already explained the same thing several times and was convinced that people were deliberately refusing to understand him.

— Finally, — he said when he saw Klaus.

— Good morning, Mr Berger.

— Maybe for you.

Klaus glanced briefly at Jens.

Jens subtly looked away.

— Please show me.

Berger entered the bathroom first.

A rectangular niche for shampoo and toiletries had been prepared in the wall.

He pointed at it with his palm.

— There.

Klaus looked at it.

— What exactly aren't you happy with?

Berger looked at him as if the answer were obvious.

— It's too low.

— It's at one hundred and ten centimetres.

— I can see where it is.

— That's the height in the approved plan.

— I don't care what's in the plan.

Klaus paused.

— All right. How much higher would you like it?

Berger clearly hadn't expected Klaus not to argue.

— At least fifteen centimetres.

Klaus turned to Jens.

— Can we do it?

Jens grimaced.

— Anything can be done.

— Can it be done reasonably?

— We'll have to open the wall. There's a profile there. We'll move the frame. Two or three hours of work, assuming there are no surprises.

Berger interrupted:

— What do you mean, two or three hours? You're just moving a niche.

Jens opened his mouth.

Klaus raised his hand almost imperceptibly.

— Mr Berger, the niche itself looks simple. But it's built into the wall structure. To move it higher, part of that structure has to be dismantled and rebuilt.

— That's not my problem.

— Of course.

Klaus spoke calmly.

— That's why we'll redo it.

Berger softened slightly.

— Today?

— Today.

— Good. And you'll start tiling today as well?

Klaus looked at Jens.

Jens gave a barely noticeable shake of the head.

— On this wall — probably not.

Berger tensed again.

— What do you mean, “probably”?

— I mean I first want to see how long the alteration actually takes.

— I was told the bathroom would be finished by Friday.

— The main work was scheduled to be completed by Friday.

— No.

Berger took a step closer.

— I was told: everything will be finished on Friday.

Klaus held his gaze.

— Who told you that?

— Your father.

— All right. Then I'll clarify it with him.

— What's there to clarify? I planned to clean everything up this weekend.

— I understand.

— No, apparently you don't. We've been living in dust for three weeks already.

Jens gave a barely noticeable sigh.

Klaus's tone did not change.

— I understand that you want this finished as quickly as possible. So here's what I suggest.

He pointed toward the niche.

— We'll redo it now. The tiler won't wait; he'll start on another wall. I'll rearrange the work so we lose as little time as possible.

— And Friday?

— We'll try to keep the deadline.

Berger frowned.

— “We'll try” isn't good enough for me.

— I don't have another honest answer for you right now.

For several seconds, they looked at each other.

— I could tell you, “Yes, definitely Friday,” — Klaus continued. — Then two hours from now we'll open the wall, find something unexpected, and in the evening I'll be explaining why my promise meant nothing.

Berger remained silent.

— Or I can tell you the truth now: the change is possible, we'll make it, I'll do my best to keep the deadline, but I won't promise something I can't yet control.

Silence.

The sound of a drill came from downstairs.

Berger looked at the niche.

— But technically, this is your mistake.

Klaus frowned slightly.

— Why?

— Because you made it too low.

Jens turned toward him.

— Excuse me, but...

Klaus stopped him again with a gesture.

— Let's look at the plan.

Jens went out into the corridor and returned a few seconds later with a folder.

Klaus placed the drawing on the windowsill.

Found the bathroom.

Next to the niche was a note:

1100 mm. Approved.

Below it was Berger's signature.

Klaus turned the sheet toward him.

— Is that your signature?

Berger looked at it.

— Yes.

— Then we built it exactly as agreed.

— Yes, but at the time we couldn't imagine what it would look like in real life.

— That happens.

There was no irritation in Klaus's voice.

— That's exactly why I'm not arguing with your wish to change it.

Berger looked at him more carefully.

— And there won't be any extra charge for this?

There was a brief pause.

Now the question had changed.

Klaus did not answer immediately.

— This is additional work.

— Why additional? The bathroom isn't even finished yet.

— Because the work already completed matches the approved plan. Now we're dismantling it and doing it differently.

Berger visibly tensed.

— I'm not going to pay several hundred euros just because you put some niche fifteen centimetres in the wrong place.

Klaus remained calm.

— You're not paying because we put it in the wrong place. It's exactly where it was agreed to be.

He tapped the drawing with his finger.

— The additional cost arises because the agreed solution is now being changed.

— Very convenient.

— I understand that you don't like it.

— Of course I don't.

— I wouldn't like it either.

That sentence unexpectedly stopped Berger.

Klaus continued:

— So let's not argue about the amount right now. First we'll open it up, calculate the actual additional cost, and I'll show you separately what that cost consists of.

— And if I don't agree?

— Then we'll discuss it.

— So you'll do the work first and then present me with a fait accompli?

— No.

Klaus shook his head.

— Jens will only open the structure for now. Before the final alteration, I'll give you an estimated cost.

Berger looked at him.

Then at the drawing.

Then back at the niche.

— All right.

Pause.

— But try to keep Friday.

— We will.

— Good.

Klaus held out his hand.

This time Berger shook it.

Without the previous tension.

— Would you like some coffee?

— Thank you. Another time. We still have other sites to visit.

When Berger went downstairs, Jens exhaled.

— You're too nice.

Klaus looked at him.

— Why?

— After “it's your mistake,” I'd already have shoved his signature in his face.

— And then what?

— Well...

— He would've become even angrier. We'd have lost twenty minutes. And we'd still have to redo the niche.

Jens shrugged.

— Fair point.

— Better tell me how much time we'll really lose.

— With the alteration? Half a day.

— Friday?

Jens smirked.

— Are you serious?

— Yes.

— We won't make it.

— We will.

— Klaus...

— Where's Marek today?

— In Pasing.

— What's he doing?

— The ceiling.

— Until what time?

— I don't know.

— Call him. Send him here after lunch.

— What about Pasing?

— He'll finish the ceiling tomorrow.

— They have deadlines there too.

— Nobody's moving in there tomorrow morning.

Jens thought for a moment.

— And if Marek doesn't finish here?

— I'll stay.

— You?

— Yes.

Jens shrugged.

— All right.

Within a few minutes, Klaus had rearranged the work.

The tiler changed the sequence.

The material for the frame would be picked up on the way.

Jens rescheduled some of the tasks.

Marek was going to be pulled off another site.

Michael watched.

This time differently.

He wasn't looking for a mistake.

He was looking at exactly what Klaus's decision was made of.

The client.

The deadline.

Marek's skills.

The status of two construction sites.

The sequence of work.

Material availability.

Klaus was holding all of it in his head at the same time.

When the conversation was over, Michael said:

— That was a good example.

— Of what?

— Of why I don't want to replace people with software.

Klaus smirked.

— That's a relief.

— In five minutes, you just made a decision that took into account the client, the work, the people, the deadlines, and two different sites. That's professional judgment. A good system should help you make decisions like that, not think instead of you.

— So what exactly do you want to change?

— Imagine a chess player.

— All right.

— A good player makes his own decisions. He doesn't need a computer to move the pieces for him. But if half the board in front of him is covered with a newspaper, even a champion will make worse decisions.

Klaus looked at him.

— You think half my board is covered?

— I don't know if it's half.

Michael smiled.

— But I want to find out whether you can see everything you need in order to make decisions like these.

Klaus picked up his phone.

At that moment, it rang.

The screen showed:

Pasing.

— Yes?

He listened for several seconds.

— No. Stop. Then don't move Marek.

He hung up.

Michael said nothing.

Klaus looked at him.

— The electricians are closing the ceiling there tomorrow.

— And if Marek had come here?

— The electricians wouldn't have been able to finish.

— So the decision was wrong?

Klaus frowned.

— Based on what I knew at the time, it was a perfectly reasonable decision.

— I agree.

The answer came immediately.

Klaus had clearly expected something else.

— You agree?

— Of course. You made the decision based on the information you had.

— Exactly.

— But the outcome doesn't depend on the information you had. The outcome depends on the whole reality.

Klaus looked at the phone.

Michael continued:

— That's the difference between information and understanding the system.

— Explain.

— You knew a lot of facts: who was working where, how much time everyone needed, what Berger wanted. But one fact was sitting with another person — the electricians are coming tomorrow. And that one fact changed the meaning of the entire decision.

Klaus remained silent.

— Understanding isn't the amount of information in your head, — Michael said. — It's the ability to see the relationships between facts and predict the consequences of a decision.

— So I needed to know about the electricians.

— For this decision, yes. But I'd frame the question more broadly: why does the necessary information depend on whether one particular person remembers to tell it specifically to you?

Klaus looked at him.

— Now we're getting into your system.

— This is exactly where it starts getting interesting.

They walked toward the van.

Klaus was silent for a while.

— But it's impossible to record absolutely everything.

— And you don't need to.

— Then how do you decide what needs to be recorded?

— That's the job of architecture. Not to store everything that exists in the world, but to give a person the necessary context at the point of decision.

Klaus opened the van.

— Can you say that like a normal human being?

Michael laughed.

— Sure. When you're deciding who to move from one site to another, you need to be able to see immediately everything that could make that move impossible.

— There. That's normal.

— I'll remember that.

Klaus started the engine.

— And by the way, we're not moving Marek after all.

— What are you going to do?

— Find someone else now.

— That's why they pay you the big money.

— Not big enough yet.

They both laughed.

Between Firefighting and the System

The café stood by the road between a car wash and a building materials store.

The coffee machine hummed behind the counter.

The air smelled of coffee, fried onions, and pastries.

— The usual? — the woman behind the counter asked.

— Yes, Sabine.

She looked at Michael.

— And for you?

— What's his usual?

— Currywurst, fries, and coffee.

Michael looked at Klaus.

— Then I'll have something else.

Sabine laughed.

— Smart man.

— He's only just arrived and everyone's already against me, — Klaus said.

At the table, the phones were finally put aside.

For a few minutes, they simply ate.

Then Klaus said:

— You know what I still don't like about this whole approach?

— What?

— Outsiders always draw an ideal world.

— That's true.

Klaus raised his eyebrows.

— You're not even going to argue?

— Why would I? I've seen projects like that.

— Exactly. On paper, the process is perfect. Then someone gets sick, the client changes their mind, the supplier doesn't show up, a van breaks down — and the whole diagram falls apart.

— Then it was a bad diagram.

— Why?

Michael put down his fork.

— Imagine a bridge designed to work only in sunny weather.

Klaus smiled.

— Great bridge.

— Exactly. An engineer doesn't design for the absence of wind. He accounts for the wind. The load. The temperature. A safety margin.

— And in business?

— Same thing. A normal process should account for the fact that people forget things, clients change their minds, employees get sick, contractors are late. If a system works only when nobody makes a mistake, it isn't a system. It's a hope.

Klaus thought about it.

— That's well put.

— Feel free to use it.

— For free?

— For now.

Klaus took a sip of coffee.

— Then tell me specifically. What did you see today?

Michael put a napkin on the table and picked up a pen.

— Three things so far.

He wrote the number one.

— First. You're very fast at dealing with consequences.

— We've established that already.

— Yes. And that's one of the company's strengths.

Number two.

— Second. A significant share of decisions depends on the experience of specific people.

— How else could it work?

— Experience itself is good. Dependence on that experience existing in one person's head is already a risk.

Number three.

— And third. You have the information, but it's distributed across people, messages, calendars, and memory. So sometimes a decision is made without the one piece of context that could change everything.

Klaus looked at the napkin.

— And your conclusion?

— Not a conclusion yet. A hypothesis.

— Which is?

— The company has become very good at compensating for weak points with strong people.

Klaus immediately tensed.

— So now I'm “compensating for weak points”?

— You just heard a judgment about yourself that I didn't make.

Michael looked at him calmly.

— I'm saying the opposite. You're a strong person within the system. And precisely because of that, the system can afford some weaknesses.

Klaus said nothing.

Michael continued:

— Imagine the human body. If one leg is injured, a person can shift the load onto the other for a while.

— Yes.

— A strong second leg allows the person to keep walking. But if they walk like that for years, eventually the second leg develops problems too.

Klaus leaned back.

— You mean my father...

— I think Reinhard has spent many years compensating personally for a huge number of imperfections in the company. And you're gradually doing the same thing.

Now Klaus was looking at him very differently.

— My father built this company.

— Absolutely.

— None of this would exist without him.

— I'm not disputing that at all.

— Then why are you talking about him as if he's the problem?

— I'm not saying Reinhard is the problem.

Michael pulled the napkin closer.

— Imagine a load-bearing column.

— All right.

— It's holding up an enormous building. Is the column strong or weak?

— Strong.

— And what if, for some reason, the entire building is resting on that one column?

Klaus understood.

He didn't agree.

But he understood.

— Then the problem isn't the column.

— Exactly.

— It's the structure.

— Exactly.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

At the next table, someone was loudly talking about pouring a foundation.

Klaus ran his finger across the napkin.

— So you think my father took too much on himself.

— I think that when there were five of you, it was the perfect model.

— And now?

— Now I want to find out whether the company has become too large for the architecture that once made it so effective.

— And me?

Michael looked up.

The question sounded unexpectedly serious.

— What about you?

— You said I'm doing the same thing.

— Yes.

— And that's bad?

— No.

Michael thought for a moment.

— But if one day Reinhard stops dealing with day-to-day issues and all those calls simply start going to your phone instead of his...

He pointed to Klaus's phone.

— ...the company will have changed the person. But not the system.

Klaus said nothing.

The phone on the table vibrated.

He looked at the screen, but for the first time that day, he didn't pick it up immediately.

— You know what's funny? — he said.

— What?

— I always thought the opposite.

— How?

— That my job was to learn to do everything my father does.

— That's a perfectly natural thought.

— And you think?

— I think your task may be more difficult.

— What is it?

— To build a company that doesn't need a second Reinhard.

Klaus smirked.

— I'm starting to think you just don't like managers.

— Quite the opposite. I want to free them up for the work that nobody else can do.

— What work?

— Developing the company.

Klaus looked out the window.

— Instead of looking for tiles.

— For example.

A few seconds later, he finally picked up his phone.

Answered the message.

Then put it back down.

— We found someone else for the Bergers.

— Excellent.

— So the fire is out.

— So we won't need the fire engine today.

Klaus smiled.

The tension disappeared.

But the thought remained.

When Facts Are No Longer Enough

By evening, the office was almost empty.

The last van had left the parking lot.

Anna said goodbye.

Someone switched off the lights in the warehouse.

Only the desk lamp remained on in the office.

Michael spread several sheets of paper across the desk.

Not for a presentation.

For himself:

• The Webers.
• Change of tiles.
• Client.
• Markus.
• Klaus.
• Craftsman.
• Material.
• Then the Bergers.
• Client.
• Niche.
• Jens.
• Marek.
• Pasing.
• Electricians.

He connected events not by people, but by consequences.

Within a few minutes, the sheet began to turn into a web.

— I knew it.

Michael looked up.

Klaus was standing in the doorway.

— What?

— Pretty arrows.

— They're not very pretty yet.

Klaus came in.

He put a bottle of water on the desk.

— Is that today?

— Part of it.

He leaned over the sheet.

— Why are the Bergers connected to Pasing?

— Because changing the niche almost changed the schedule on another site.

— But it didn't.

Michael looked at the line.

He picked up a pencil and erased it.

Klaus looked surprised.

— Why did you erase it?

— Because you're right.

— Just like that?

— What am I supposed to do with a wrong line? Keep it out of respect for myself?

Klaus smirked.

— Consultants don't usually work like that.

— That's why you don't like them.

Klaus picked up another pencil.

— Give me that.

For several minutes, they drew together.

Klaus corrected Michael.

— No. Materials don't go through the office at all here.

— Then we remove that.

— But any price change above a certain amount has to go to my father.

— Why?

— Because above a certain amount, the site manager isn't allowed to decide.

— Where is that amount written down?

Klaus thought about it.

— Nowhere.

— Then how does the site manager know?

— He knows.

— How?

— My father told him.

Michael nodded.

— That's more important than the amount itself.

— Why?

— Because we've just discovered a business rule that exists, but exists nowhere except in people's memory.

Klaus looked at the diagram.

— There are hundreds of rules like that here.

— I'm beginning to suspect that.

He drew three blocks:

• Information.
• Decision.
• Consequence.

— Look. This is what I'm trying to piece together right now.

Klaus moved closer.

— No decision happens in a vacuum. A person needs certain information. After the decision, part of the system changes. Sometimes one part. Sometimes five.

— Like with the niche.

— Yes.

— And if the person making the decision doesn't see the connection...

— They can make a perfectly logical decision that leads to a bad result.

Klaus looked at Michael.

— Like I did with Marek.

— Exactly.

— So the problem is information after all.

— Partly.

Klaus laughed.

— No, don't start again.

— I'm not. I'll explain.

Michael took a clean sheet of paper.

He drew a person.

In front of him — ten dots.

— Imagine an air traffic controller. You can give him a million pieces of information.

He added many more dots.

— The weather in Spain. The price of fuel in Japan. The name of the pilot of a plane arriving next week.

Klaus smiled.

— Useless.

— Exactly. He doesn't need all the information. He needs the right information at the right moment.

Michael circled three dots.

— So the problem isn't where to store the data. The problem is how the system determines what each person needs to know for a particular decision.

Klaus looked at the diagram.

— Software won't figure that out by itself.

— Exactly.

— So first we have to understand it ourselves.

— Yes.

Klaus looked at the sheet once more.

— And only then the software.

— Or maybe not software at all. Some issues may turn out to have much simpler solutions.

— Such as?

— A rule. A change in responsibility. A different process. An automatic notification. A shared schedule. Sometimes just one additional field in the system you already have.

Klaus nodded.

It was no longer an argument.

It was collaborative work.

— So what do we need to understand now?

Michael drew a line around several blocks.

— Three things. Where decisions are made. What information those decisions require. And what consequences each decision creates for the other parts of the company.

Klaus looked at his watch.

— Not bad for a man who wasn't doing anything this morning.

— I also had lunch today.

— Major progress.

They worked for another twenty minutes or so.

At one point, Klaus stopped.

— Wait.

— What?

He pointed at the sheet.

— It looks like almost every important route sooner or later ends up either with my father or with me.

Michael looked.

He was right.

Not every route.

But far too many.

— Looks that way.

— Is that bad?

— Not in itself.

Michael picked up the pencil.

— In a small company, it can be an advantage. Short path. Fast decision. No bureaucracy.

— And in a bigger one?

— Imagine a village with one road.

— All right.

— As long as there are twenty cars, it's a perfectly good road. Building an interchange would be pointless.

— And then there are ten times as many houses.

— And everyone keeps using the same road.

Klaus looked at the lines.

— Traffic jam.

— The road didn't become bad.

— The scale changed.

Michael smiled.

— Now that's systems thinking.

Klaus shot him a look.

— Don't start teaching me.

— Too late.

Michael laughed.

Klaus did too.

A few minutes later, Klaus got ready to leave.

He stopped at the door.

— Have you already figured out how everything should work?

— No.

The familiar expression appeared on Klaus's face, but Michael continued before he could react:

— And that's a perfectly normal answer.

— Why?

— Because today was the first time we saw several of the relationships. That's enough to form hypotheses. It isn't enough to rebuild the company.

He pointed at the diagram.

— Imagine a doctor who's received the first test results. He can already rule out some diagnoses. He can decide what to examine next. But he isn't going to operate based on one test result.

Klaus nodded.

— I like it better when you explain it like that.

— What?

— When you explain instead of sitting there with a mysterious look on your face.

Michael looked at him.

— Noted.

— Seriously?

— Of course. Feedback is part of the system too.

— Oh God.

Klaus laughed.

— See you tomorrow.

— See you tomorrow.

When the door closed, Michael looked at the diagram again.

He picked up his notebook.

He wrote:

Facts show what happened.

Below that:

Understanding shows why it happened and what will happen next.

He thought for a moment.

Then added:

A good decision requires not the maximum amount of information, but enough understanding of the relationships.

This time, he didn't cross it out.

Understanding

The next morning, Reinhard returned at around eight.

— Well? — he asked from the doorway. — Haven't killed each other yet?

Klaus, standing by the desk, looked at Michael.

— Not yet.

— That's progress already.

Reinhard noticed the diagram.

— What's that?

— Yesterday, — Klaus replied.

— You spent the whole day drawing?

— No. First I worked, and he got in the way.

— That's not true, — Michael said. — I also ate.

Reinhard laughed.

— All right. Show me.

Klaus began explaining it himself.

The Webers.

Markus's message.

The Bergers.

Marek.

The electricians in Pasing.

Michael hardly interrupted.

When Klaus finished, Reinhard looked at the sheet.

— So it is an information problem after all?

— That's one layer, — Michael said. — But something more important became visible yesterday.

He turned the diagram around.

— Look. The client changes the tiles. It seems like a small event.

He traced the lines with his finger.

— But it can change the material, the cost, the craftsman's work, the deadline, and the supplier order.

He moved to another part of the sheet.

— The client changes the niche. Again, a small decision. But it affects the sequence of work, people's workload, deadlines, and potentially another site.

Reinhard nodded.

— That's construction.

— Of course. And we're not going to change the clients.

— Good start.

— The question is different. To respond to a change correctly, a person has to understand not only the event itself, but also its connections.

Michael picked up a pen.

— Yesterday, Klaus made a perfectly reasonable decision: move Marek.

Klaus nodded.

— But he couldn't see one dependency — the electricians.

— Because Jens knew about them, — Reinhard said.

— Exactly. So the problem wasn't a lack of intelligence or a bad decision. The picture was incomplete.

Reinhard looked at his son.

— That happens.

— All the time, — Klaus said.

Reinhard turned toward him.

Klaus shrugged.

— Once you start looking at things the way he does, you notice it.

Michael smiled.

— That's worth a pay rise right there.

— Earn your own salary first, — Reinhard replied.

Then he became serious again.

— All right. What does this mean for us?

Now Michael could finally give a concrete answer.

— It means I still wouldn't buy a new customer management system yet.

Reinhard sighed.

— Again.

— Wait. This time there's a specific reason.

He pointed at the diagram.

— A system like that can store information very well. But first we need to define the decision architecture: who is responsible for what, what information they need to see, where the boundaries of authority lie, and which changes must automatically reach the other people involved.

— What if we simply put everything into one system?

— Then we'll get one enormous warehouse.

— What do you mean?

— If I unload every tool the company owns into one huge hangar, they'll all be “in one place.”

— Yes.

— Will that make the work easier?

Reinhard smirked.

— No.

— Because the purpose of a warehouse isn't to put everything under one roof. The purpose is to make sure the right tool reaches the right person when it's needed.

Klaus looked at his father.

— Yesterday he explained the same thing with an airport.

— Today I've got a warehouse.

— What will it be tomorrow?

— I don't know. Depends on the audience.

Reinhard laughed.

Then he looked at the diagram again.

— So understanding means seeing all the processes?

— Not exactly.

Michael sat opposite him.

— There are three levels.

He raised one finger.

— Information: the client changed the tiles.

A second finger.

— Connection: changing the tiles affects the order, the craftsman, the price, and the deadline.

A third.

— Understanding: if we change the tiles now, these consequences will move through the system, and these people need to know about it before the work begins.

Reinhard nodded slowly.

— So understanding a business means seeing the consequences in advance.

— Among other things. Seeing what's happening, why it's happening, and which elements influence one another.

Klaus looked at the diagram.

— And the bigger the company gets, the harder it is for one person to see everything.

— Exactly.

— So we need more reports, — Reinhard said.

— Not necessarily.

Michael smiled.

— One of the most dangerous illusions is believing that more data automatically creates more understanding. You can have a hundred metrics and still not understand why profit is falling.

— And you can have five?

— And see the entire causal chain.

Reinhard thought about it.

— All right. What do you suggest we do next?

— Now I actually have a concrete next step.

Klaus looked at him.

— Thank God.

— We need to reconstruct the company's architecture.

— We're back to architecture again, — Reinhard said.

— Yes. But now we know why.

Michael walked over to the board.

He wrote:

Who makes the decision?

Below that:

Based on what?

What changes after the decision?

Who needs to know?

Where does authority end?

— If we answer these questions for the key processes, we'll be able to see which parts of the company actually need to change.

Reinhard looked at the questions.

— And after that, the customer management system?

— After that, we'll know whether we need a new system at all, what exactly it should do, and who will use it.

— The website?

— Same thing.

— Advertising?

— Same thing.

— Artificial intelligence?

Michael smiled.

— Especially artificial intelligence.

Klaus looked at his father.

— I told you he's not against technology.

— I was starting to wonder.

— I'm against expensive ways of automating something nobody has properly understood, — Michael replied.

Reinhard picked up his cup.

He was silent for a while.

— You know what's strangest?

— What?

— I actually know almost everything drawn on this sheet.

— Of course.

— But I've never seen it all at the same time.

Michael looked at him.

There it was.

Not a lack of information.

A lack of the complete picture.

— Because knowing individual facts and understanding the system are two different things.

Reinhard studied the sheet again.

— So I've been running a company for eighteen years that I don't fully understand?

Michael shook his head.

— No. That would be too strong a conclusion.

He paused.

— You understand a huge part of the company through experience. So well, in fact, that you make many decisions almost automatically.

— Then what's the difference?

— Imagine an experienced driver.

Reinhard smiled.

— Another analogy?

— Bear with me.

Klaus laughed.

— He isn't going to stop.

— An experienced driver feels the car. He doesn't need to think about when to change gear. But ask him to design a gearbox, and he'll need a different model of understanding.

Reinhard nodded.

— I know how to run my company.

— Yes.

— And you want to understand how it's built.

— Exactly. Because now we're going to change it.

Silence.

That sentence changed the conversation.

Until then, they had been talking about yesterday's problems.

Now they were talking about the future.

Reinhard put down his cup.

— All right.

He looked at the diagram.

— Then show me how it's built.

Michael took a clean sheet of paper.

— To do that, we'll first have to answer an uncomfortable question.

Klaus smirked.

— Finally, some suspense.

— No suspense.

Michael wrote one word at the top:

ARCHITECTURE

— Every company has an architecture. The only question is who designed it.

Reinhard frowned.

— What do you mean, who? I did.

— Part of it, absolutely.

— And the rest?

Michael pointed at yesterday's diagram.

— Some of it was created by circumstances. Some by habits. Some by decisions that were once supposed to be temporary. Some things appeared because there were only five of you. Some because Klaus joined. Some because one day you bought a piece of software. Some because a messenger app turned out to be the fastest way to send a photo.

Klaus nodded slowly.

— And all of it stayed.

— Yes.

Reinhard looked at the sheet.

— Even though the company became different.

— Exactly.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

A phone rang outside the office.

Anna answered.

A van drove into the parking lot.

Someone opened the warehouse.

The ordinary working day was gathering speed again.

Reinhard picked up the sheet with the word “ARCHITECTURE” on it.

— And how do we tell which part of this system was designed properly and which part simply evolved historically?

Michael looked at him.

This time the answer was simple.

— That's what we'll find out next.

He turned the sheet over.

On the other side, Klaus had drawn several dots in pencil the day before and connected them with lines.

Michael placed it between them.

— Because sometimes the main problem in a business isn't that the system works badly.

He ran his finger along the lines.

— It's that nobody remembers anymore why the system was built that way in the first place.

Klaus looked at his father.

Reinhard looked at the diagram.

And for the first time since Michael had arrived, it seemed to him that they were both looking at the company a little differently.

Not as people.

Not as projects.

Not as a list of problems.

As a structure.

And sooner or later, every structure has to be asked one question:

does it still match the load it is supposed to carry?

To be continued: who is really designing your business?