I love inventories. Really. They are great. They are the best investment that I make in time and energy. I get more returns from inventories than anything else I do in the program, or indeed in life.
In business, my wife and I invested in many companies and situations. As an investor, I learned the importance of inventories. Management could not run the company without knowledge of their stock. As a Managing Partner in a law firm, I also learned the importance of inventories, but law firm inventories are different. They do not do inventories of stock, but of lawyers and clients. In either case a prudent owner looks at his inventory and quickly gets rid of bad stock, which makes room for good stock.
In my sobriety inventories of my life are just like inventories of stock, talent, or clients in business. They often involve surprises, things that I had not seen when just thinking about the business, things that I had not seen when thinking about my life. I remember a lawyer, a great lawyer, who knew the law backwards and forwards. He was very personable and intelligent. He dressed well. But an inventory of billings showed a different picture. This hard-working great lawyer was not producing. The reality was that he was not profitable, and changes had to be made. (He moved into a better position that we helped him secure and demonstrated excellence beyond anything we could have imagined.)
I remember a lawyer, a great guy who knew his stuff backwards and forwards. He was very personable and intelligent. He dressed well. A real credit to the firm. But an inventory of his billings showed a different picture. This hard-working great guy was not producing. The pleasant and industrious appearance was misleading. The reality was that he was not profitable, and changes had to be made. (He moved on to a better position that we helped him secure and he excelled beyond anything we could have imagined.)
I remember a company that had a large part of its warehouse tied up in bags of cement that was precious and when needed was needed RFN. Clients had to have it immediately if they needed it. But the inventory revealed that some of the bags were 15 years old. Something was wrong. We had way too much. It turned out that clients had found other solutions and we were holding a huge inventory of this special product for their legacy installs. Anything new used the new solutions. Now we knew about the new solutions. We installed them and knew that the special cement was not needed as much. But until we saw the inventory numbers, we had not seen the patterns in the changed business model.
So, inventories are surprising. They show patterns that we deny or at least don’t perceive.
That was my story. My first sponsor did not frighten me with words or grimaces and stories of how terrible the inventory process was, he just told me to get to it. And he said that any effort was better than no effort.
I put pen to paper and started. I did some every day for a few weeks. It was, looking back, not searching and fearless, but casual and cautious; but it was getting done. One day I wrote something, something about a girl. I stopped, I thought “I have written this before.” Sure enough, that was the fifth time that I had written the same sentence and phrase about girls. But here was the kicker; if you had asked me before I started this inventory, “Does this phrase reflect your attitudes and beliefs about women?” I would have enthusiastically rejected it. The sentiment was misogynistic, but of course, I was a young, urban cosmopolitan lawyer. Sophisticated and modern. But there was the phrase, in my own handwriting. It pointed to outmoded, antediluvian thinking and attitudes.
I put down my pen and spent the next months working on that defect with my sponsor and the woman who would become my wife.
Every time I have done an inventory I have found a surprise. I look forward to it now because I have done so many. And it is easier with repetition.
My wife and I used to host large dinner parties for clients and friends. We would have regular dinners for 15 or 20. They were great.
But the early parties were harder than the latter. For the early parties, we had to think about everything. We had to find the dishes and cutlery. The silver was not well used, so it had to be polished. But as we did dinner parties more frequently they became easier. We did not think because so many of the steps had been habituated. With practice and repetition, we remembered where things were stored and how things came together. We found that with the base work done we could focus on the extras. I started buying small host gifts, thinking about guest seating more carefully, etc. Repetition and frequency make things easier and easier.
So too with inventories. They became easier and more familiar. Better. I could focus on higher level issues.
So just start. Do the best you can and enjoy the fun.
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