Consultancy

A timeless lesson on how consultants can make a

difference for an organization.

Last week, we took some friends out to a new
restaurant, and noticed that the waiter who took our
order carried a spoon in his shirt pocket. It seemed a
little strange. When the busboy brought our water and
utensils, I noticed he also had a spoon in his shirt
pocket. Then looked around saw that all the staff had
spoons in their pockets.

When the waiter came back to serve our soup I
asked, "Why the spoon?"


"Well," he explained, "the restaurant's owners
hired Andersen Consulting to revamp all our processes.
After several months of analysis, they concluded
that the spoon was the most frequently dropped
utensil. It represents a drop frequency of
approximately 3 spoons per table per hour. If our
personnel are better prepared, we can reduce the
number of trips back to the kitchen and save 15
man-hours per shift."


As luck would have it, I dropped my spoon and he was
able to replace it with his spare. "I'll get another
spoon next time I go to the kitchen instead of making
an extra trip to get it right now." I was impressed.

I also noticed that there was a string hanging out of
the waiter's fly. Looking around, I noticed that all
the waiters had the same string hanging from their
flies. So before he walked off, I asked the waiter

"Excuse me, but can you tell me why you have that
string right there?

"Oh, certainly!" Then he lowered his voice. "Not
everyone is so observant. That consulting firm I
mentioned also found out that we could save time in
the restroom. By tying this string to the tip of you

know what, we can pull it out without touching it and

eliminate the need to wash our hands, shortening the
time spent in the restroom by 76.39%."

"After you get it out, how do you put it back?"
"Well," he whispered, "don't know about the others, but
I use the spoon."