The Unicorn Project

by Gene Kim

  Maxine quickly fills Maggie, Kurt, and Bill in on what happened today and how they’d organized themselves into three teams to support the three Innovation projects.

  Maxine sees Maggie burst into a big smile. “That’s absolutely amazing, Maxine. Great work. Let’s pick this back up tomorrow. But in the meantime, I’d like to buy you all a drink! It’s been a helluva day!”

  “We’re still in business, everyone!” Bill says. Almost as an afterthought, he gestures to Kurt with a smile, “Well, most of us … See you in sixty days, Kurt.”

  He turns to Maxine and says, “Good job on the Horizon 3 stuff today. The next month is critical, so don’t screw it up.” With a smile, he adds, “Let me know how I can help. There is literally nothing else more important.”

  Despite the late night out on Thursday, work begins early on Friday, the last day before most people leave on holiday for two weeks. But everyone knows that the fate of the Innovation pilots is uncertain. No one needs any convincing to get as much done as quickly as they can. The idea of having something, anything, to show at the January Town Hall is an inspiring goal.

  But the peak holiday selling season is also upon them, and work continues unrelentingly on the Unicorn Project. On the infrastructure side, people are more confident than ever because of Brent’s Chaos Engineering efforts. Over the last several weeks, they’ve increased production load testing and even injected faults into the production environment to ensure that they’ve exposed the failure modes that the incredible onslaught of orders coming from the Unicorn campaign could create.

  Brent has proven to be incredibly devious in designing these tests, including unplugging a bunch of network cables during the middle of one of the drills. Incredibly, everything kept limping along instead of blowing up spectacularly like during the Phoenix launch over three months ago.

  For several days, the Rebellion works furiously to support the holiday promotions launch. To Maxine’s relief, the holiday launch goes more smoothly than the Thanksgiving launch, and the early business results look very good.

  Maggie was right—creating great promotions is a game of learning, and it’s obvious that the entire Unicorn team has learned a lot and that Parts Unlimited is benefiting tremendously from it.

  As soon as holiday sales peak, the entire Rebellion shifts their focus to helping the three grateful Innovation teams. But not before having a blameless post-mortem, even though they didn’t have an outage.

  For that matter, nothing even terribly bad happened. But as Kurt reminded them, the purpose of these meetings is to learn.

  It was a fantastic and riveting hour, and Maxine learned about several near misses that could have resulted in something more serious happening. People enthusiastically volunteered for engineering work that could make the system even safer. That’s when Maxine realizes how many people from outside the team have come to watch.

  People are always invited to join these blameless post-mortems, but she never expected so many engineers to show up. In fact, there wasn’t enough room for everyone, so many people joined online. These forums now had a reputation for being the fastest way to learn about the most innovative and exciting things in the company.

  “Where is she?” asks Debra, the director of sales, looking at her watch as she paces around the conference room.

  “Don’t worry, she’ll be here,” Maxine says.

  “Don’t worry? Are you kidding? I’m worried about everything!” Debra says. “We’re driving up costs everywhere, and if I were a store manager, I’d be freaking out at all these manual processes we’re proposing. Bill is even suggesting that we stockpile parts at the service stations to create a safety buffer, without them even paying us for it in advance! And he’s pushing us to do our first test market pilot two weeks sooner than planned!”

  “It makes sense to me,” Maxine says, smiling. “The fastest way to kill the pilot is let these service stations down. If Bill is willing to pay for the added inventory, let him. Usually he’s the one pushing for more constraints, not more slack.”

  Debra stops mid step. “Right. Customer Focus. The Fifth Ideal.”

  “Exactly,” Maxine says. “We’ll certainly be testing how much Steve really believes his schtick around how great customer satisfaction and employee engagement will lead to great cash flow.”

  “You know, it’s incredible how enthused and engaged the store managers are,” Debra says, smiling for the first time. “We’re relying so heavily on them. They’re going to be bringing in more in-store staff to handle the load, and in a pinch, they’ll be personally delivering these parts if no one is available …

  “I think it’s because the data is so persuasive,” she continues. “Thanks again for your help pulling it all together. If there’s anything I’ve learned managing salespeople, it’s that you never want to bring opinions when you’re playing a game that needs facts.”

  Maxine laughs. “I didn’t do that much. It was your team that pulled together all the analysis. We just made sure that all the data they needed was in a place where they could access it.”

  “I wouldn’t minimize your contribution,” Debra says. “There are so many bets we’re making. We needed purchasing histories for each of the pilot service stations, line it up with our parts availability and lead times, their distance from our distribution centers and stores, cross-shipment costs, not to mention all the uncertainties about how to build up a transportation capability … and there’s still so much we don’t know!”

  Maxine nods. Despite (or maybe because of) the high stakes, Maxine is having fun, very much in the spirit of the Second Ideal of Focus, Flow and Joy. Working with the team to generate the analyses, working with the distant silos across the company, studying the transportation challenges … She imagines this is better than any MBA project, because they’re doing it for real.

  Although Debra frets about all the manual processes, Maxine knows that this is all about creating a Minimum Viable Product to test their offerings and confirm their hypotheses of what capabilities are required to fulfill them. This rapid iteration and learning before they invest heavily in rolling out a big, disruptive process is a great example of the Third Ideal of Improvement of Daily Work.

  Similarly, having all the expertise within the team and the data they need at-hand is a great example of the First Ideal of Locality and Simplicity, and the crazy ideas that people are willing to offer up certainly shows the presence of the Fourth Ideal of Psychological Safety.

  “Why are you smiling?” Debra asks, staring at her.

  Maxine just shakes her head, and instead, greets the Director of Operations as she and her staff file into the conference room.

  CHAPTER 19

  • Tuesday, January 13

  From:

  Steve Masters (CEO, Parts Unlimited)

  To:

  All Parts Unlimited Employees

  Date:

  8:45 a.m., January 13

  Subject:

  Sarah Moulton is no longer with the company

  Effective immediately, Sarah Moulton is taking a leave of absence to spend more time with her family. Maggie Lee will be taking over all retail-related concerns, and Pamela Sanders will be taking over product marketing, analyst relations, and public relations. For other matters, please refer them to me. We thank her for all her contributions to the company over the last four years.

  See you at the next Town Hall! Steve

  From:

  Alan Perez (Operating Partner, Wayne-Yokohama Equity Partners)

  To:

  Steve Masters (CEO)

  Date:

  3:15 p.m., January 13

  Subject:

  Congratulations on a remarkable quarter

  Steve—in confidence …

  Congratulations on a remarkable quarter. As they say, two data points don’t make a trend, but it is still exciting to see. Your record-breaking Black Friday and Christmas holiday sales performance and contributions to profits are noteworthy and definitely
change the financial posture of the company. I can see the glimmer of a growth story taking shape.

  I am glad we supported you throughout this turnaround. Good luck closing the books, and I look forward to seeing the final numbers for the quarter.

  Cheers, Alan

  PS: It’s too bad Sarah never fully bought into your vision. She could have been a fantastic asset.

  Maxine is sitting in the second row at the January Town Hall. She can’t stop smiling from the news of Sarah’s departure. And better yet, Chris sent out a memo saying that Kurt had been reinstated and cleared of all wrongdoing. Kurt is sitting next to her, and against all her wildest expectations, they both have a minor role in today’s agenda.

  At ten a.m. sharp, Steve turns on the microphone and addresses everyone in the audience. “Good morning and Happy New Year to you all. And given the fantastic holiday season and the earnings call that I just got off of, here’s to this year being the best year for the company yet!” Everyone in the auditorium applauds and cheers. Maxine had seen the fantastic press about the company’s amazing quarter. Steve goes through his usual reiteration of the company mission, and then gives more specifics about the incredible performance of the company during December. To roaring applause, he asks Maggie to take the stage. “Congratulations on a job well done helping with the urgent inventory audit, and your new position as the SVP of retail operations!”

  Until this Town Hall, it had always been Sarah talking about the company strategy. Maxine is so delighted and proud that Maggie has taken her place and is being recognized in front of the entire company.

  “Thanks, Steve,” she says, looking sharp in her designer suit. “I’ll make this really short. In December we set records all across the board: revenue, average order sizes, conversion rates for promoted items, and margins. Even customer satisfaction.

  “Because of all the amazing groundwork that Phoenix laid down, the Unicorn teams were able to quickly create promotions capabilities to drive people to our mobile app, e-commerce site, and physical stores. Of course, it wasn’t just Marketing. It was an amazing combined effort that included in-store staff and the technology teams,” she says. “In particular, I want to call out the amazing work of Kurt Reznick and Maxine Chambers and the entire Unicorn Project team.”

  Maggie points out Maxine and Kurt from the stage, insisting they stand up and wave to everyone from their seats. Maxine waves at everyone, gritting her teeth.

  Maggie walks through a series of graphs. “… In short, due to this incredible performance, Steve and Dick announced our first profitable quarter in almost two and a half years.”

  Maxine hears people cheer wildly and realizes how significant this is to the future of the company. Maggie says with a big smile, “Rest assured, this is just the beginning. Steve won’t let us rest on our laurels. In fact, he’s raised our targets, and we’re scrambling, trying to figure out how to meet them. Thank you all very much!”

  Steve takes the microphone back from Maggie, thanking her again for her great work. “I’d like to officially announce the winners of the Innovation Contest that we held in December. Over thirty teams were selected to pitch their ideas to a group of judges we picked from across the company,” he says. “There were a lot of incredible ideas, and I’m so delighted by the committee’s decisions.”

  To Maxine’s utter delight, she watches as Brent, Shannon, Dwayne, and Wes go up on stage to be recognized by Steve, as well as the teams who pitched the service station ratings and the four-hour parts delivery.

  Pointing at the people on stage, Steve says, “Incredibly, each of these teams have already worked with Maxine and her teams to explore, prototype, and validate these ideas. We will report the results to you quarterly.”

  Each team gives a five-minute presentation of what they’re planning, and each are able to show a demo of what they’ve already created, what they plan on doing next, their goals for the next three months, and the help they’re looking for.

  Maxine is very, very impressed with what they’ve all created.

  Steve thanks them, asking each team to share a learning, whether from a mistake or from an experiment. “It’s important to share our wins and losses,” he explains.

  “Our future depends on innovation,” he says. “That doesn’t come from process. It comes from people.” He describes the Three Horizons to everyone, as well as the steps he’s taking to move people from Context to Core.

  “As a company, we don’t want to leave anyone behind. We want to invest in you at a level we haven’t since the 1920s, when the founder of Parts Unlimited made it his mission to create the most skilled workforce in the nation.

  “To that end, I’m increasing the frequency of these Town Halls from bi-monthly to monthly, and I invite everyone to submit questions in the chatroom we’ve created for this, or you can even just post an emoji,” he says, projecting all the questions and emojis behind him.

  This is exciting and new, Maxine thinks.

  Before he adjourns, Steve says, “Oh, one more piece of news. I’d like to congratulate Bill Palmer, who has been promoted to chief information officer, allowing me to vacate that position. And I’m pleased that I’ve gotten board approval to make him provisional chief operating officer, provided that he doesn’t wash out of a special program we’ve created for him over the next two years.”

  Maxine looks over at Bill in surprise. She had absolutely no idea this was coming. No wonder it seemed like Bill had such a great relationship with Steve. She punches him on the shoulder and says, “Congratulations, Bill.”

  As promised, Steve has another Town Hall in February. From the stage he says, “Every month in between our normal Town Halls, I’ll have one like this. It’s only an hour, and it will be mostly for small announcements and then open questions and answers.” He talks again about the vision of the company and the focus on enabling Core by managing down Context.

  He says, “Before Q&A, I have an announcement to make. I said last time that we must become a learning organization or we will lose to another organization that is. To help advance this, thanks to Maxine Chambers, we are creating something called Teaching Thursdays.”

  Maxine’s heart leaps at the mention of this. This was something she had lobbied for, and now she’s getting it. Not just for the technology organization, but for everyone in the company.

  “Every week we will create time for everyone in the company to learn. For two hours, everyone is expected to teach something or learn something. The topics are whatever you want to learn: cross-train in another silo or business unit, take part in our famous in-store training program, spend time in our stores or manufacturing plants, sit with your customer or our helpdesk, learn about Lean principles or practices, learn a new technology or tool, or even how to better manage your career. The most valuable thing you can do is mentor or learn from your peers. And you can expect to see me there too. Learning is for everyone, and it is from there that we will create competitive advantage.”

  In that moment, Maxine feels an incredible sense of professional pride, and by announcing his participation, Steve has gone a long way to reduce the embarrassment that often comes with learning something new. Leaders must model the behaviors they want.

  “Good job, Maxine,” Bill says, who is sitting right next to her. “This is absolutely awesome.”

  Maxine can’t stop smiling. As Steve starts fielding the Q&A, the #ask-steve-town-hall chatroom is projected behind him. As promised, he asks how people feel about the company, asking them to fill out a poll question where the answers are emojis. The majority of people answer with a heart or smiley face. About five percent answer with the poo emoji, which results in Steve encouraging them to email him about their complaints or with any suggestions.

  The next Thursday, Maxine is sitting at the front of the lunch room with over forty other people. It’s Teaching Thursday, and Shannon and a data scientist are in the front of the room giving a tutorial on creating machine learning models using real c
ompany data from the Panther data platform. Everyone, including Maxine, has their laptops open, following along with the lab assignment.

  Steve is sitting next to her with his laptop open. When Maxine stares at the machine learning book next to his laptop, he says, “What? I was in logistics for decades. I actually wanted to study math in graduate school but didn’t have the money to go. I used to love linear algebra and statistics. I’m still the best at Excel of anyone I know. But I’ve got a lot to learn too.”

  Maxine is impressed. Looking around the room, she sees many of her former MRP teammates, as well as some of the project managers and QA and Ops engineers whose positions were going to be eliminated. A few appear to be here only grudgingly, but most have jumped in with gusto, including Derek from the helpdesk. Good for him, she thinks.

  As painful as the RIF exercise was, to see all these people here eagerly learning some of the hottest and most-desired skills makes Maxine smile. It removes all doubt that it was the right thing to do, not just for the company but for these engineers as well.

  Maxine acutely understands the psychological barriers that sometimes come with learning new things. Which is why she is here too, showing that even she needs to be learning new things.

  Many years ago, when she took a workshop at MIT, her instructor said that adult learners often hide the fact that they’re trying to acquire a new skill, whether it’s learning a new language, swimming, or even taking golf lessons. It usually comes from embarrassment or being afraid of being seen doing something that they’re not good at.

  Indeed, decades ago she wanted to learn to be a better swimmer. She couldn’t even swim one lap without stopping in the middle of the pool. She was embarrassed, imagining that the other swimmers, both kids and adults, were laughing at her. She was incredibly self-conscious about the lifeguards sitting in those chairs whose job it was to watch everyone.