The Pipeline

Today I am working on my pipeline. No, it's not a glamorous as you think it is. Oh, you didn't think it sounded particularly glamorous? Well, then, you are right. A pipeline, under the parlance with which I apply it here is the place where salespeople lie the most. The pipeline is the culmination of mysterious math and voodoo mixed with the glue of hope and misplaced optimism all spiked with a dash of self-deception to taste.

Yes, the pipeline is the underground place where I publish, in the form of a report, what business I expect to close, by when and for how much. I get to then get to plop my pipeline on the table in front of all the people I work with while they plop their pipelines on the table and we can all compare.

That doesn't sound at all untoward.

But the funny thing about the pipeline is that I make it as big as I want it to be. That's right, I talked to a guy about a thing for five seconds in the elevator and he said, let's do lunch while avoiding eye contact and throwing his card on the ground while dashing off in any direction but here? Pipeline. A guy that important is worth maybe, what, a million a year? Better make it two, just to be safe.

And that opportunity in another state that you don't really operate in but would if he gave you the business? Pipeline! Let's call that $8M a year with a 237% probability of close. What, too low?

The pipeline is all about liar's poker. It is best served with a huge, steaming pile of moxy. I don't have a problem displaying moxy, but I typically hold off until I know my moxy is well-placed. This wasn't always the case.

Back in first grade, there was a musical that all the classes at Brookwood Elementary School would be performing. Each class would be responsible for a section of the play. It was called Three Ships: The Christopher Columbus Story. I was to be the first grade's Christopher Columbus; at least said I. And I said it to everyone immediately after the audition (a word by the way I had never until that time heard).

I told my family and friends I got the part. I didn't have the part... I had auditioned. I mean, sure I killed it. Nailed it. Right down home plate. But I didn't have the part. I had moxy.

Well, if you are cringing, waiting for the punchline that I didn't get it and it was given to my best friend who then stole my girl and beat me up on the playground you'll just have to keep waiting. Of course I got the part. I told you, I nailed it!

But I learned that that kind of prevenient moxy wasn't going to serve me well in the long run. I got lucky this time. I should learn. I think I learned, because I don't remember any other instances similar to this.

Until today and the exercise of the pipeline. I have some irons in the fire, but I am not comfortable saying with any percentage of possibility when if and for how much they will close. I'm working on it. Isn't that enough?

Well no, it isn't. And why it isn't is because of another nebulous term we use in business - forecast. The forecast is based on the pipeline! Of course! We have taken you through the process of assigning highly dubious benchmarks to your work and now we are going to use them to create the forecast. The forecast is what we are basing next year's budgets and business plans off of.

Wait! You are basing your business plan on a bunch of lying sales people and their self-inflated pipelines which you don't have to be Freud to know are just phallic symbols? That's really bad! I don't have the first clue about what just happened, let alone what will happen in the next year! My crystal ball is in the shop! Oh, momma, what do I do now?

The moral? Your company is run, at least in part off a plan that is made from the numbers gleaned by the reporting of a bunch of pathological liars with a bad case of dissociative adjustment disorder and a smattering of penis envy. And there's not a thing you can do about it!

Be afraid. Be very afraid.