Chapter 87

On December the tenth, 1997, Dale gave birth to Jordan Thomas Parsons. I say she named him for the basketball superstar, but Dale and her mother have always claimed that the name came from the River Jordan. The Thomas was for my Dad though.

Eddie had come for a visit on the first of December. All of us had held long talks. Eddie had slept with several of the other wives, but she and I still hadn't arrived at anything close to a working understanding.

Eddie wanted to be able to come and go as she saw fit. I told her that this was perfectly fine with me, but not something I could accept from a wife of mine. She could come visit, whenever she chose, but I wouldn't be sleeping with her if she were merely passing through.

Brenda delivered our second son on Sunday, the fourteenth of December. We named him Scott Masters Parsons, but, for some reason everyone immediately started calling him "Sparky". It seemed to fit him, but I don't know why. It just did.

Eddie left us right before Christmas, saying she needed to get back to spend the Christmas holiday with her mother. After she left, Dale told me that Eddie wanted to finish up some things in Chickasaw before deciding any future plans. I didn't ask Dale to explain what needed to be finished.

On January 16th, a Friday, Joyce delivered twin girls. For some reason, she insisted that we name them Emily Grace, and Brenda Jane. I didn't particularly care for either name, but no matter what names I came up with for substitutes, Joyce stuck to her choices. When the babies were born, she went ahead and signed the birth certificates using those two names.

Shirley delivered our son, Kenneth Todd Parsons on January 23rd, another Friday birth. It was a difficult labor for Shirley, lasting longer than her combined labor for the previous three children. We were all happy when her long ordeal was over. Other than feeling completely drained, Shirley came through the delivery well.

Emily delivered on March 1st, another boy. This one we named Garrett Taylor Parsons. I was happy with all the new children, and anxiously awaiting Cindy's delivery sometime in June.

My parents had purchased a nice home in Palm Springs, one situated right on one of the many golf courses in that area. They left right after Christmas, but came back when Joyce and Shirley delivered. They returned home again on the 1st of March, but three hours too late to be there for Emily's delivery.

My father being gone, leaving me in his place at the company, turned out to be only a dress rehearsal for his projected lesser involvement in the day to day operations of the company. From the time that he left, until his final return in March, I honestly believe I spent more time on the telephone, communicating with my Dad than I'd ever done in the past. This was also accomplished using computers, along with three or four long phone conversations each day.

Still, he did manage to spend quite a bit of each day with Mama. Much more time than either of them were used to spending together. They played golf everyday, and had managed to make quite a few new friends in a very short period of time. Their social life in California was much more active than it had ever been in the past.

I learned, early on in the experiment, that I needed to do things quite differently than my father did. While he studied all his options carefully, and did a lot of consulting with others to reach a consensus for taking action, I was far more likely to reach my own decisions and simply announce it to any involved personnel. After I told people what I'd decided, they were free to give me all their input about what they liked and didn't like about my new decision. I listened to their advice and either made changes or not, based upon my own feelings and opinions, but only after first absorbing and considering their thoughts and recommendations.

In the beginning, my management style caused some friction, because people were used to how my father ran the business. Joyce liked the new style, preferring it to all the meetings and consultations before taking any action. In addition to just issuing edicts though, I also left department heads and division managers free to implement my decisions in their own way. I figured they knew better than I did which resources they could spare to get the job done.

Another consequence of my management style was the elimination of most of the monthly meetings that division managers had to undergo with my father. We kept in touch through emails, and I encouraged them to continue to float their ideas around with any of the other division heads who might benefit from what was being discussed.

My father wasn't thrilled that I was instituting these sweeping changes. I told him that I was too busy to be spending all my prime trading and working hours entertaining a bunch of upper management types. I also told him that anyone who felt like he'd missed out on anything by not having these meetings was probably someone who I'd think needed to be replaced anyway.

When my father came back to retake the reins in March, the first thing he did was schedule a meeting with all the division managers. When I found out that he'd done this, I told Larry to go in my place, on behalf of the Quick Snacks company and Macklinson's. I also sent Billy Ray to represent the grain brokerage business.

On the first day of the division managers meeting I stayed in my home office and spent the entire day trading. That night Joyce filled me in on what had taken place during the first day of the meeting. Just as I'd predicted, the best managers felt like they were not using their time to best advantage by being called back to Bolling to sit around and discuss what they'd all been up to. The ones who expressed pleasure at these meetings were invariably managers who liked the opportunity to politic or else just suck up to the big boss. With all the advances in near instant communication, these types of meetings were too inefficient to be allowed to continue. It just wasn't time or cost effective to have these monthly gatherings.

I did show up for the Tuesday meeting, but I only stayed long enough to greet everyone and ask some questions to get some updates I needed answered for a report I was preparing for my father about the two months he'd left me in charge. In all, I hung around for something less than two hours before heading back to my father's office to do some trading and send out some memos to people who weren't at the meeting, people that I needed to contact. In an hour, I'd sent out all the communications I needed to finish up for the day.

At five o'clock, my father came back to the office and found me working at my computer console.

"You missed out on two very productive meetings, Kenny. This is a good opportunity to get better acquainted with the people who you'll need to rely on to get things done for you. I'm disappointed with the attitude you've been exhibiting of late. This is a team effort, and you need to know the resources you have available to you."

I thought over what he'd told me. I wasn't angry. I had known that he and I would clash over our differing styles. He was a lot more patient than I was. He was willing to take the time to shape the pegs he needed to fit into any of the open holes he found. My style was to tell the peg where it needed to fit and then let the peg find some way to accomplish what I needed from it. It had taken my father fifteen years to finally admit our old phone system was no longer able to handle our needs. I knew how he'd been taught things ought to be run. When he'd been schooled though, there were no inexpensive ways to communicate with people who were a long distance away. At least part of the problem he was having with keeping himself on top of everything was that he felt he needed to micro-manage everything.

We were both coordinating the things that needed coordination. My way took less of my time and effort. I was positive that there weren't enough hours in a day for me to try to do things my father's way. I didn't process facts the same way he did, and my retention of details wasn't as good as his. I also didn't want to lock myself away from my family every night after dinner in order to prepare myself for the next day's activities. He did it, and, apparently enjoyed doing it. I wasn't prepared to make the same sacrifices he had.

"I learned some things while you were gone Dad. I can't be like you when it comes to managing everything. I liked running the company, but I can only do it my way. For me, showing others what I want and letting them get it for me in their own way is how I have to do things. For the money we're paying some of these people, they should be able to deliver what we've asked of them. If they do that, consistently, then we don't have any problems. If they can't do that, or if they won't, then we need to find ourselves someone else who will. I didn't make any personnel changes while you were gone, but my report is going to include the names of two individuals I think we should terminate."

"Ralph and Glen?"

"Ralph and Dave Stearn. Why did you think I'd want to terminate Glen Farrell?"

"Tell me first why you think Dave Stearn should be cut loose? He's been with us ever since we first acquired that company."

"Dave doesn't know how to initiate anything. Whenever I told him we needed to change anything, I'd get twenty five emails from people in his division asking me for clarification. He just doesn't seem able to implement anything without needing too much hand holding from the home office. He doesn't ask questions himself, no matter how little he understands what he's been asked to do."

"He asks me questions. I've never had any problems with him."

"Tell me about what you have against Glen Farrell."

"I don't have anything against him. I just assumed you were having problems with him. I know he's sometimes slow with making changes, just like I am, but you also know how I've always felt about you making those quick decisions of yours."

"I like Glen. I never had any problems with him doing what I asked. In my opinion, he's one of our best division heads. His people nearly always impress me when I speak with them. It also doesn't hurt that he's always meeting the targets we set for his division. Like you, he delivers everything he's supposed to. Dave doesn't. You didn't say anything about Ralph. Aren't you interested in why I think we need to let him go?"

"I've been grooming Ted to take over for him. Ralph gave us a lot of good years. He hasn't been the same man since Connie left him. I think he drinks too much now, and probably spends most of his time and energy brooding."

"I like Ted, too. When are you going to make the change?"

"I was going to talk to Ralph tomorrow about taking an early retirement. I don't think he'll put up too much of a fight. He knows he hasn't been at his best. I'll leave you to find a replacement for Dave. When you do, I want you to handle his termination. He has over twenty years working for that division. He won't take it well that you're replacing him. He's also fully vested in the pension plan. You should offer him two weeks of termination pay for every year of service he's given to that company."

"Why do you think these monthly meetings are necessary?"

"Because it gives me an opportunity to look at all these people that are helping us run this company. Circumstances have a way of changing with people. By seeing them, and listening to how they express themselves, I keep a good picture on how they're doing. I'm able to see if they might be heading for trouble, or if the work we're presenting them with is more than they can handle."

"Four days every month is too much of a cost in effective man hours for us to just be able to accomplish something as small as that. Most of them flew in on Sunday, and they will only be back to doing any real work on Friday, unless they leave here Wednesday night and take a late flight back home. Can't you just keep in closer phone contact and accomplish pretty much the same thing?"

"I'll consider what you're saying. Perhaps you're right. Maybe it is a carryover from a less efficient era. Do you think quarterly meetings would still accomplish as much for us?"

"I don't know, Dad. I can't see the need for them myself. I talked to all of them almost everyday while you were in Palm Springs. We exchanged several emailed memos daily. Perhaps you can find a less disruptive way to keep informed about how they're doing? I don't know."

"People need to feel appreciated, Kenny. They like recognition and praise. Bringing them here lets them have a chance to brag to each other about how well they've been doing, and it fosters healthy competition among them."

"I was sending out weekly sales and production figures to every division head, with a complete breakdown of year to date accumulated figures. I sent you copies every week. Every division head could read those breakdowns and know right away where his division stood compared to all the others."

"I noticed those reports when you sent them. I remember thinking that you were spending too much time generating those weekly reports. I was going to talk to you about it, but it slipped my mind."

"Accounting takes everything right off the computer on Monday morning. There is a program that compiles everything from the raw data fed in the previous week. It takes like three computer keystrokes to generate the report and then send copies out to all the division heads. We do the same thing with every department now. These go directly to all the department heads. We have the information here already. All we're doing is breaking it out and emailing it."

"What happens if some of our competition gains access to this information? Have you considered what might happen if they do?"

"Joyce did. We aren't putting out any of our costs or disclosing how much profit these sales or production numbers are generating. We already know we're the most efficient producers, and we also know our sales and transportation costs are the lowest. You have to weigh the benefits of every department knowing where they stand against any possible industrial espionage. I figured the better information our people had, the easier it might be for them and us to identify areas where we could be improving."