THE MANAGER'S MEMO

FROM: P. Clydesdale, President
TO: A. Jablonski, Comptroller
RE: Reports from the Finance Department

I am getting tired of being bombarded with incomprehensible reports from the Finance Department. Your hotshot MBAs may think they are impressing me with their fancy words and long columns of numbers, but they are just telling me they are too big for their britches.

Just last week, I received five more reports from different members of your staff. One report was 23 pages long. When do these people think I have time to read this stuff?

Long as the reports are, they are woefully short on policy ideas. So what if gross margin return on investment is up 3 % over the last quarter? What does that tell us about our business of selling fire-fighting equipment? Believe me, having started this business from scratch, I could tell your pinstriped people a lot about fire-fighting equipment!

Please establish some guidelines to stem this tidal wave of paper, and then let me know what you've done.

CASE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Assume that you are the comptroller, and respond to the president's memo. In setting guidelines that will meet the president's needs, consider what you have learned about perception. In writing your response, try to follow any relevant guidelines you have set for your staff members to follow in their writing.