The Order
In the spring of 1981, after three captains from a hostile faction of the Bonanno family had been killed, Sonny Black called Pistone into the back room of his club and sat him down at a card table. Pistone recounts the conversation almost word for word, and I’ll give it here, because as orders go it’s one of a kind.
Sonny said one man had slipped away from them, the son of one of the murdered captains. They thought he’d gone to Miami. He had connections with the Colombians down there, and he himself snorted three thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine a day. Find him. When you find him, kill him. And be careful: on coke this junkie does crazy things. On his own he’s a pushover, but anybody with a gun is dangerous. His uncle might be with him. Do you need help?
Pistone said he could handle it alone and laid out a plan: there were a couple of places in Miami where these guys hung out, he’d check with his people, set everything up, then they’d lie low for a few days and look around. Sonny answered in a single sentence, which in Pistone’s account comes to this: do it however you think best.
Sonny, of course, had no idea he was giving the order to an FBI agent who had no intention of killing anyone. But as an order it was flawless. The target named. The reason clear. The dangers listed. Help offered. And the method left to the man who would do the job.
What and Why, Not How
That is the main rule of giving an order: say what you need and why, and don’t dictate how, if the man knows how. The military call this commander’s intent. A commander can’t foresee everything that will happen on the ground. So he explains the aim, and the man carrying it out, when he runs into the unexpected, decides for himself how to reach it.
A bad boss does the opposite. He spells out every step: at nine, make the call; at ten, drive over; say this. And he never names the aim. The man follows the steps, the unexpected arrives, and he doesn’t know what to do, because he doesn’t know what any of it was for. He calls the boss. The boss is busy. The job stalls.
Don Vincenzo gave orders that you could hear through the wall, though he never raised his voice. He would say: “The hotel on the seafront isn’t happy. They’re threatening to go to the people next door. I need them to stay, and in a month’s time I need them talking about us the way they used to. What do you need for that?” How I would pull it off, he never asked. He only asked what I needed and when there would be a result.
The old men in our line of work used to say an order should be clear, short and doable, and there should be as few orders as possible. Clear, so it can’t be taken two ways. Short, so it’s remembered. Doable, so the man doesn’t fail before he starts. And as few as possible, because people who are jerked about all the time stop thinking for themselves and wait for the next instruction. One man decides, but he explains why.
When Everyone’s Watching, Nobody Acts
Second. An order given to “everyone” is given to no one.
When the fight against the Mafia was on in Palermo, Judge Falcone once said something bitter about his fellow townsmen: it was as if the whole city were watching a bullfight from the window, wondering who would win. Everyone saw, everyone knew, nobody stepped in. Each one thought it was someone else’s business.
Saviano describes the same thing in Naples. The streets of Secondigliano had turned into guarded sales outlets, and the people living there, he writes, developed a special selective vision that switches instantly to blindness at the sight of anything unwelcome. A habit of choosing what to see and what not to. The instinct for self-preservation.
In the office, selective vision looks peaceful, but it works the same way. A task given to “the department” doesn’t get done, because each person thinks the one at the next desk is handling it. A problem everyone can see doesn’t get solved, because each one waits for somebody else to raise it. An email sent to twenty people goes unanswered.
The cure is simple. Every task needs one name. Not “somebody ought to”, but “Mario, this is yours, by Thursday.” No name, no task.
We Always Think We’ll Be Quicker
Third. Any plan takes more time and money than it seems when you draw it up. That’s as sure as spring after winter.
We always count on the best case: everything will go as planned, nobody will fall ill, the supplier won’t let us down, the weather will hold. And something always goes wrong. When Don Vincenzo decided on the first shipment of oil straight from Sicily, I drew up the plan: two weeks for the contract, a week for the voyage, a week to get it round the restaurants. It came to six weeks instead of four. The contract took longer, because the mill owner had gone off to his nephew’s wedding. The steamer was held up in Naples. In our port the cargo sat for three days, because I had forgotten one piece of paper. Each delay on its own was small. Together they ate up a month and a half.
The Don looked at my plan and said: “Multiply by one and a half and don’t take it personally.” I’ve been multiplying ever since. You try it too: take your most honest estimate and add half. If you finish early, they’ll praise you. If you finish late, at least you warned them.
Come with an Answer
One last thing, about orders that go from the bottom up. When you go to your boss with a problem, don’t ask “what should I do?” Come with a proposal: here’s the problem, here are two or three options, here’s what I recommend and why.
For forty years that’s how I came to the Don. He couldn’t stand questions without answers. If I said, “The hotel isn’t happy, what should we do?”, he would reply: “Go and think, come back when you have something to suggest.” If I said, “The hotel isn’t happy, I suggest we give them a week of free tablecloth pressing and change the driver on their route,” he’d say yes or no inside a minute. A boss who’s brought ready answers decides fast. A boss who’s brought questions decides slowly, or else decides for you, and not the way you’d have liked.
It’s also the best way to grow. A man who comes with solutions one day starts making the decisions himself. A man who comes with questions stays the one who asks.
The Bottom Line
Say what’s needed and why, and leave the how to the man who knows how. And go to your superiors with answers, not questions. Sonny Black, by the way, knew how to do all of this. He just had bad luck with the man he picked for the job.