Dan 4: Dan & The New Bosses: Expectation

There's a new regime coming to town: Dan, the Hyper-Active Boss Man, is excited!

This is the perfect opportunity for Dan. He is ready. The old crowd, the Legacies, stood in the way of everything Dan was told to accomplish when they brought him in two years ago, have stonewalled almost every idea Dan has proposed.

And Dan has lots of ideas.

But back to the new regime: A family owned jobbie, the Company, there is no line of succession - kiddies went to other fields - and the two old brothers running the place are on their third wives each: whatever new spawns arise from their loins will be too young to head the helm for 25 years at least. In a way, this is for the best. Back when a couple of the owner-brothers' grown-up kids were being groomed for heir-apparent, there was a lot of passive-aggressive competition among all, seeing who would emerge top dog. Now that the kids are all founding their own fledgling careers elsewhere, only the Old Dogs are still here - and they reached their impasse of understanding long ago.

But now they need a succession and have hired in a Development Consultant and a small Board of Directors to work out the new steps for succession. After all: all complaints aside about minor problems, turf wars and egos, this is a successful Co. with several dozen millions of gross profit annually. Not such a hotcha profit margin, but certainly nothing to close the doors on when the Old Dogs retire.

So, now, Dan is excited: The Board and Dev Consultant are bypassing the baker's dozen of Legacy Veeps and looking for a new President - and they are soliciting input on the company from all of the Directors. Ideas are Director Dan the Hyper-Active Man's meat-and-potatoes.

He may be going a bit overboard, though. The Dev Consultant has given each Director a questionnaire asking 25 or so rather pointed questions on strengths of the company, problem areas, areas of opportunity, of weakness, of suggested solutions. Dan, of course, has answers and ideas for all of them. He's already up to 174 problems - and solutions.

174 problems - all of them real, definitely - all of them relating to other departments, legacy management & structures, turf war opponents.

Solutions - all of them solid - all of them revolving around Dan's department and/or way of doing things.

Focus, diplomacy and common sense are not, apparently, Dan's stronger points.

Dan has GREAT expectations for how the new regime will receive his input. He's creating a 5-year Business Plan right now that will cut through the stagnation that has dogged the company's growth for the past decade - it's a strong company, but not getting stronger, only "maintaining" - and Dan's biz plan addresses that problem. He will be presenting it to the Board, unrequested, shortly.

There's a new regime coming to town: Dan, the Hyper-Active Boss Man, is excited!