Chicken Salad Sandwich
Posted By Rob Millard - 0 Comments -
The Movies are what Tom Cruise’s character Maverick (in the 1986 movie Top Gun) would call a “target-rich environment,” when it comes to metaphors for strategy. My colleague Gerry Riskin and I got to discussing this while watching the Academy Awards in a hotel room a few nights ago. He mentioned a really good one featuring Jack Nicholson in the 1970 movie, Five Easy Pieces. I was in Grade 4 in 1970, so I doubt that many others my age or younger have heard about it. So here goes …
In the movie, one of Nicholson’s first, Jack plays “Bobby,” an angry young man on his way home to visit his dying father. In the movie’s most famous scene, he’s in a roadside diner and is trying to order breakfast from a waitress who is determined to stick 100% to the rules and not bend one inch. Bobby is the wrong person to tell that she is not going to accommodate his (very reasonable) request:
Bobby: I'd like a plain omelet. No potatoes, tomatoes instead. A cup of coffee and wheat toast.
Waitress: No substitutions.
Bobby: What do you mean? You don't have any tomatoes?
Waitress: Only what's on the menu. You can have a number two - a plain omelet. It comes with cottage fries and rolls.
Bobby: Yea, I know what it comes with, but it's not what I want.
Waitress: I'll come back when you make up your mind.
Bobby: Wait a minute, I have made up my mind. I'd like a plain omelet, no potatoes on the plate. A cup of coffee and a side order of wheat toast.
Waitress: I'm sorry, we don't have any side orders of toast. I'll give you an English muffin or a coffee roll.
Bobby: What do you mean "you don't make side orders of toast"? You make sandwiches, don't you?
Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?
Bobby: You've got bread. And a toaster of some kind?
Waitress: I don't make the rules.
Bobby: OK, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. I'd like an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A number two, chicken sal san. Hold the butter, the lettuce, the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Bobby: Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.
Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
Bobby: I want you to hold it between your knees.
The waitress orders them to leave. Bobby/Nicholson sweeps the drinks off the table with his arm.
Back in the car:
Hitchhiker in the back seat: That was great, how you could lay that down on her and get your toast.
Bobby: Yea, but I didn't get it, did I?
You do get it, though. Don’t you?
There are times when there are good reasons why things cannot be changed. Often, though, changing something is not only possible, but there is no good reason not to, if that is what the client wants. The trouble comes when the latter is the reality while the former is the perception.
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