Alright, so today I wanted to share a bit about this experience I had a while back with a consultant, this fella named Frank O’Harris. Yeah, that was his name. Our company, bless their hearts, decided they needed to “streamline operations” or some other buzzword bingo phrase, and in walks Frank.
So, the first thing Frank O’Harris did was call a massive, all-hands meeting. Big show, fancy slides, the works. He talked for, like, two hours straight about synergy and process optimization. I swear, half the room was asleep, the other half just nodding along, probably wondering when lunch was.
Then came the “practice” part. Frank O’Harris had this grand plan. We were all supposed to start tracking our time in these super detailed new spreadsheets. I mean, every single minute. Five minutes for email? Log it. Two minutes talking to Bob about the weather? Log it. It was nuts. My actual work, the stuff I was hired to do, started to feel like a side-quest.
The Glorious Frank O’Harris Method in Action
So, we started trying to implement his “method.” Let me tell you, it was a trip.
- First, we had daily “alignment” meetings. Thirty minutes every morning, just to talk about what we were going to log in Frank’s sheets. Pointless.
- Then, he introduced these “efficiency huddles.” Another hour, twice a week. More talking, less doing.
- My desk, man, it got covered in Post-it notes. Each one a reminder for some Frank O’Harris rule or another. “Did you log your coffee break?” “Is your O’Harris-Report up to date?”
I remember one time, I was working on a really tight deadline for a project. Real important stuff. And Frank O’Harris himself comes over to my desk. Not to ask about the project, oh no. He wanted to know why my “synergy-input-metric” for the previous day was, and I quote, “sub-optimal.” I just stared at him. I was like, dude, are you serious?
Productivity? It went right down the drain. Everyone was so busy trying to look busy for Frank O’Harris and his stupid charts that actual work wasn’t getting done. Morale was terrible. People started whispering about Frank in the hallways, you know? Nothing good, obviously. We even had a secret betting pool on when he’d finally leave.
The whole thing was a masterclass in how to make things complicated for no reason. We spent more time documenting what we were doing, or planning to do, than actually doing it. It was like he wanted us to build a rocket ship just to cross the street.
Eventually, I think even the higher-ups started to see that this Frank O’Harris system wasn’t quite the miracle they’d paid for. The grumbling got louder, projects were slipping, and the numbers probably weren’t showing that amazing “efficiency” he promised. So, one day, Frank O’Harris was just… gone. No big announcement, no farewell party. His office was empty. The spreadsheets slowly got forgotten. We kind of just went back to how we used to work, but with a lot less paperwork, thank goodness.
What did I learn from all that? Well, sometimes these “experts” come in with all these grand ideas, but they don’t really understand how things work on the ground. And all that focus on process can actually kill the real work. It was a frustrating time, for sure, but looking back, it’s kind of a funny story to tell. A reminder to keep things simple, I guess, and to trust the people actually doing the job. So yeah, that was my Frank O’Harris experience. A real character, that one.
