Include Olm's Law in Your Management Training!

 "Tell us another story about the old days in the MBA program, Grandpa!"

"Heh heh. Oh all right, you crazy kids. What ever happened to fairy tales, anyway?"

"Your MBA stories are fairy tales, Grandpa! We love 'em!"

"Hmph. What's that supposed to mean? Oh, never mind! Okay - you know, kids, of the two most important things I learned in the MBA program, number one was what I call 'Olm's Law'."

"You mean 'Ohm's Law,' right, Grandpa?"

"No, no - Olm's - named after Dr. Kenneth Olm. Wait - how'd you know about that other one, you young whipper-snappers? Oh, never mind! So, we were in this small business class - had to design and start up our own business, and we had to make every decision ourselves, changing according to new rules Professor Olm snuck in all the time - you know, changing business conditions and the like."

"Oh, wow, Grandpa! That must have been exciting!"

"Yep - but the really exciting part was all the new-fangled technology - why, we had to punch all the information for our decisions into cards and then feed them into a main-frame computer!"

"Cool, Grandpa! Just like Hal in Space Odyssey 2001!"

"That's right - except this one didn't talk to us! Wait - how'd you know all that? Oh, never mind! Anyway, the strangest thing was that the student teams that got the best grades turned out to be not the ones that made huge piles of money but the ones that lost the smallest piles of money."

"Oh no, Grandpa! That's weird - why was that?"

"Well, because we all had a tendency to keep on spending money on our businesses when things went bad - we just kept pouring money in - it's called throwing good money after bad."

"Well, that's stupid - why didn't you just quit?"

"'Cause when people get in deep, they just seem to get in deeper - that's why we have so much stuff and keep having to rent new places to store all our stuff! That's why we keep putting money into stuff should just replace with newer, more efficient technology - but we put all that money into the other thing, so in order to think we didn't waste it we keep putting more in. It's like the investment becomes you!"

"Boy, Grandpa, I hope we're smart enough not to do that!"

"Well, kids, it's just human nature - that why I tell young management trainers these days to make sure they include a module in their training on how managers can recognize the tell-tale signs of a need to cut their losses - and how to deal with their own feelings about it. That's the hardest part, as your Grandma is always saying about how I should sell or give away all my old treasures that pile up and I keep putting off doing anything with them. But it's so hard to let go!"

"Don't worry, Grandpa, we'll take care of them for you! What was the other important thing you learned?"

"'Buy low, sell high, and use somebody else's money,' but that was Mettlen's Law - let's save that for later, I need a nap!"