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More praise for Creating the Vital Organization
“This book presents an easy to understand paradigm for bringing balance and vitality to your organization, using a mixture of data, true to life stories, and commonsense. The practical approach it offers is tremendously insightful. It’s a valuable addition to any OD practitioner’s library.”
—Carrie Speckart, Associate Director of Human Resources, The Trust for Public Land
“Reading Creating the Vital Organization excited me as the director of a nonprofit homeless services organization. It gave me a simple framework of balancing Current Performance with Future Potential. As nonprofit leaders we are so often immersed in the day to day struggles of our organizations. Now I know I need to take time for future planning to create optimum organizational vitality.”
—Terrie Light, Executive Director, Berkeley Food and Housing Project
Creating the Vital Organization Balancing Short-Term Profits with Long-Term Success
Scott M. Brooks • Jeffrey M. Saltzman
Scott M. Brooks San Fransisco, California, USA
Jeffrey M. Saltzman New York, USA
ISBN 978-1-137-53692-1
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-53694-5
ISBN 978-1-137-53694-5 (eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936725
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
Cover illustration: © yganko / iStock / Thinkstock
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer Nature America Inc. New York
This book is dedicated to Barbara, my wife and friend, and my daughter Audrey, whose own work ethic drove me to finish this book. Thank you for putting up with a lot of absenteeism from me so that I could write. And in memory of those close to me whom I lost during this process: Lucy Saltzman, my mom (1925–2015); and my sister-in-law, Louise Wescott (1965–2015).
—Jeffrey Saltzman
I am in continuous awe of my wife Emily for all she does to encourage and support my variously intense and distracting professional pursuits. This book is dedicated to her and to my boys Zander, Zach, and Mitch, whose own journeys have inspired deeper thinking into the concepts of balancing Current Performance and Future Potential.
—Scott Brooks
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Victoria Hendrickson—insightful commenter throughout the process, researcher, and chronicler of the history of Vitality and Ambidexterity, and Amanda May Dundas— editor extraordinaire who made magic with words. Thanks to Laurie Harting, executive editor at Palgrave, who believed in our work and made this happen. Thanks also to Julian Allen, who was able to find any article and research fact needed, Hanna Lerner who answered all of our questions about justice and constitutions, and Edwin Kuo who created compelling model designs. Thanks also to Michelle Turchin and Corrine Donovan for their thoughtful commenting on early drafts. And Walter Reichman, who knows a thing or two, and taught us about perseverance. A special thank you to the various executives who agreed to be interviewed, including Gary Stich, Cristián Samper, Jade Augustine, and John Cavelli. Also to various Friday Group members who allowed Jeff to present the book concepts at meetings and offered helpful commentary. Thanks also to Jeff’s colleagues at Binghamton University, who keep him intellectually stimulated and invited to stimulating events—Kim Jaussi, Fran Yammarino, Shelly Dionne, and Upinder Dhillon, and to his MBA students who volunteered to share their experiences in implementing the concepts in this book.
Finally, we absolutely need to acknowledge the amazing staff at our company OrgVitality, who helped us to manage substantial growth during the year of writing this book, and those who inspire us by embodying the very essence of Vitality—getting things done while simultaneously building the future.
List of Figures
List of Tables
Table 7.1 Difference between evaluating Current Performance and Future Potential
Table 8.1 Incremental versus dramatic change
Table 9.1 Considerations to support change in Current Performance and Future Potential
Table 12.1 Rank order of drivers of “promising future” at my company by country
Table 12.2 Rank order of drivers of “intent to stay” at my company by country 153
Table 13.1 Examples of storytelling
Table 14.1 Structural separation versus traditional approaches for creating Vitality
Table 14.2 Evaluating agendas for Current Performance versus Future
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
In your organization, do you focus on streamlining Current Performance— squeezing more output from your resources, shaving costs, or pressing for speed—or do you step back from the day-to-day and consider the future of your business, including what kinds of products and services your team or business need to provide in the future? Clearly, attention to both is necessary, but each is a distinct pursuit: They require different skills and resources, different ways to evaluate success, and even different time horizons to know if you are on the right track. It is a challenge to focus on both daily and future needs, and especially to have to constantly switch your attention between the two. Often, in the battle between daily needs and future concerns, it is the consideration of the future that suffers, as we dwell on unending firefighting in the present, but this puts an organization at risk of being unprepared when the environment or market changes and current products or services no longer suffice.
New advances in organizational science and the practice of leadership can provide the advice necessary to define and achieve the right balance for you, your function, and your organization. That is what this book is about: Creating vital organizations.
Each day, in every business, leaders make decisions about the short term versus the long term. Decisions get made around maximizing current cash flow and profits, or reinvesting and building for the long term. But if the decisions were as easy as moving money around from budget lines A to B, there would be a lot more successful businesses. A substantial portion of business failures—from the costly to the catastrophic—can be attributed to not paying
attention to the right balance between maximizing Current Performance and building Future Potential. Organizations fail not only when they go out of existence; they also fail when they are not thriving, or when they are neglecting to develop the capability to innovate to meet future needs. They fail their owners, investors, customers, employees, suppliers, and the communities in which they are located.
Disruptive technologies, globalization, emerging and evolving markets, and process innovations change so fast as to keep many organizations teetering on thin profit margins that leave little room for comfort. Survivors learn how to build and lead teams or organizations that are agile and resilient, so that they can turn quickly to pursue new opportunities and can manage bumps in the road. But organizations can do more than merely survive: They can thrive.
Clarifying what organizations do to thrive begins by separating core business pursuits into two broad categories: Current Performance and Future Potential. Some organizations are great at maximizing Current Performance— streamlining costs of production, as well as delivering time-tested products and services to known segments of the marketplace. Other organizations are supremely competent at developing Future Potential—innovating new approaches and offerings, and taking risks to create or penetrate previously unknown markets. Very few organizations, functions, or even individuals are truly good at both. Those good at both are thriving, vital organizations. They are performing today and building for tomorrow.
Saying all this is easy; making it work is hard. But one fundamental truth is that effective leadership of thriving organizations is based on clear strategies, meaningful insights, and inspired action. This book tells stories of strategy, insight, and action that are backed up with rigorous research. Collectively, these stories will create a roadmap that leaders of varying levels within an organization can utilize to maximize the performance of their organizations, their functions, or their teams.
Yes, this book is based on data, metrics, and other kinds of evidence that really matters. However, the insights gained from that data will be presented in the concise format of organizational stories. Critically, these stories are grounded in science. Decision-making traps abound, since we as humans are prone to a murky soup of heuristics, stereotypes, predispositions, and cognitive biases that make true evidence-based leadership more an exception than the norm. Common wisdom is often flawed when the environment changes so fast. How can we know what’s what?
We are organizational psychologists by training, schooled in the measurement of human foibles. Importantly, our focus is not psychopathology (though it is certainly present in the workplace) or the therapy that is often imagined in a narrow definition of psychology. We are devoted to studying how people work, how teams perform, and how organizations function and thrive. Throughout this book, we will present a framework for thinking about and improving organizational effectiveness, and how to read the environment—seeing through and working around the biases we all naturally bring to the workplace—in order to both maximize Current Performance and build Future Potential. Within the private sector, organizations that are successful at achieving this balance, those that are vital, have been shown to have higher performance on a variety of metrics compared to their singularly focused counterparts. Non-profits and public sector organizations have shown similar patterns of success with their own respective measures of outcome performance.
The suggestions, advice, and anecdotes you will come across in this book are applicable not just to public or for-profit businesses, but more broadly to all types of organizations. While every organization is unique, there are clear principles that apply to a variety of organizational types because they affect the two things at the heart of these organizations: people and goals. Organizations exist when groups of people come together to accomplish things they could not accomplish on their own. The principles outlined in this book can be applied across all types of organizations and can give any of them an edge at achieving one of the most important goals out there: to be successful at whatever tasks the organization was originally formed to achieve.
Providing a point of view on organizational functioning is easy. Ensuring that any resulting guidance is grounded in science is not. There are of course many pundits who do not hesitate to offer advice. Later chapters will highlight how to critically evaluate strategy and performance, and resist the gravitational pull of the human biases and heuristics that may have their origins in useful shortcuts, but can often lead us astray. For instance, how many times have you heard the phrase “people join organizations but leave bosses”? But try this the next time you have a large group together. Ask for a show of hands as to how many people left their last job because of their boss. In a room of 30 or 40 people, only 10–20% may agree. In general, the relationship with one’s direct supervisor, the boss, is not the reason why most people leave organizations. In fact, bosses are almost invariably one of the most positive aspects
cited about organizations in employee surveys. Are there horrible bosses out there? Yes. Are there people out there who left their last job because of their horrible boss? Yes. But the statement that “people join organizations but leave bosses” is an overgeneralization that simply does not hold true for the vast majority.
One key to figuring out what is real and what is based on faulty assumptions—and to helping people build or lead an organization—is knowing which questions to ask. Asking the right questions about the organization and its performance is critical not only to be successful, but also to maintain that position over the long term. For instance, one president of a company that was struggling with quality and performance issues posed this question to his senior management team: “What can we be good at?” By framing the question that way, he completely divorced his organization from a key constituency: His current customers. He was unintentionally focusing way off into the distance in a long-term view. A more important question for a struggling organization aimed at the here and now is: “What do we need to be good at?” Organizations don’t exist in a vacuum: They exist to serve others, whether those others are within another part of the organization or are external to the organization. “What can you be” is long-term potential (exploration), while “what do you need to be in order to get to the long term” is short-term performance (execution). For an organization to succeed, those questions must be asked and executed on in tandem.
We have spent decades studying and assessing organizations, using metrics, dashboards, large-scale employee or customer surveys, extensive research linking various cultural (or softer) indicators to revenue or profit, as well as interviews, focus groups, and qualitative color commentary to tie it all together. We have worked with about forty of the Fortune 100 and almost ninety of the Fortune 500. We have similarly worked intimately with numerous start-ups and other smaller organizations across a wide variety of industries, including non-profits, governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, and educational institutions. We have drawn from our extensive experience across these various industries to form the conclusions and advice presented here.
Throughout the book, we mix into our story-telling:
● Analogies (e.g., why trying to lose weight is like acting on business metrics—standing on the scale is the easy part);
● Anecdotes from organizational life (e.g., how a few calls a day from a well-known CEO drove more business improvement than all the good intentions in the world);
● Historical comparisons (e.g., what nineteenth-century Russia can teach about labor relations);
● Fundamentals of business strategy (e.g., how employee engagement is not as strategic as people think);
● Case studies (e.g., stories of how listening carefully to the highest performers—such as President’s Club sales people—can be paradoxically tricky and yet easy, and hugely informative);
● Research (e.g., the psychology of and behavioral-economic findings on unjustified dependence on social norms when under stress); and
● Practice-tested tips and advice (e.g., how a small “nudge” of a few sentences can dramatically increase the usefulness of employee dialog).
Readers will learn on two levels. On an individual level, they will learn about how their decision-making is influenced or biased, unexpectedly and unknowingly, by natural human tendencies. For instance, people often think that balancing Current Performance and Future Potential is a trade-off in a zero-sum game. Yet, if instructed properly about these concepts, leaders can break out of this trap and create conditions allowing for both to occur simultaneously in an organization. And on an organizational level, they will learn how these tendencies can affect and damage decision-making. Importantly, they will learn how to overcome these influences to succeed as individuals and as leaders of teams, departments, or entire organizations.
Each chapter will introduce measures or questions that will allow you to evaluate your own organization and gauge how it stacks up on the issues covered by this book and, we hope, will provide some insights on how to address any shortcomings identified.
CHAPTER
2
What Is Vitality?
The Elephant in the Room
Cristián Samper has a big problem. His job as head of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is to preserve wildlife, not to bear witness to its extinction. But if you examine the history of humanity as it relates to protecting wildlife, you may rapidly come to the conclusion that the odds of his being successful are not in his favor. Yet, once you get to know him, and learn what the WCS is doing to prevent species extinction, you may just change your mind. The WCS mission—to preserve wildlife and wild places—will be a hard-fought battle over many years, and will be won only if the majority of us see the long-term benefit in doing so. The long-term success of WCS will be judged by how well it carries out this mission. WCS initially built its reputation by saving the American buffalo from extinction, which was a real success story, and it is now doing some extraordinary things around the globe to prevent the extinction of other species, such as elephants.
Here is what WCS is up against: In Africa today, there are approximately 35,000–40,000 elephants killed each year for their ivory, out of a total population of about 500,000. Research studies have determined that, at this rate of poaching, the population is not sustainable and that elephants will rapidly vanish from the earth.1 Financially, the numbers are a bit staggering. An elephant’s tusks are worth about $6,000 to a poacher, who typically must deliver them to shady marketplaces, full of risk, as they are dominated by
1 Wittemyer, G. et al., “Illegal Killing for Ivory Drives Global Decline in African Elephants,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 2014.
crime syndicates and terrorist organizations such as Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, and Boko Haram in Nigeria. These organizations can turn around and sell the ivory from a pair of tusks on the black market in places like China, where ivory has a long history as a luxury good and is highly prized, for over $300,000. It has been estimated that 40% of Al-Shabaab’s operating budget comes from trading in poached ivory. This is a very lucrative market and important source of income for these unsavory organizations.2 So how can WCS break the cycle?
Since 2003, in the Luangwa Valley, Zambia, and under the guidance and stewardship of WCS, the Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO),3 has been able to create a growing population of farmers (109,322 as of December 2014) who have committed to giving up the illegal poaching of elephants and other wildlife. In return, these farmers receive training on farming techniques and a ready market for any surplus produced, which includes peanut butter, honey, and produce. The efforts have proven so successful that their products are now sold under the brand name “It’s Wild,” and can be found at some of the stores of the corporate supporters of the program, such as the retail chain Shop-Rite and the South African grocery store Pick n Pay.
The result? Since inception, farmers’ incomes have tripled and food-crop variety has increased by 40%. Farmers who had previously struggled to produce enough food to see them through to the next harvest are now using the increased income to send their children to school—creating a better future for them and otherwise providing for their families. And the wildlife? An estimated 1400 illegal hunters, who annually killed 5000 wild animals, including elephants and hippopotamuses, have given up poaching as their livelihood—and that’s just in the one valley.4 The Vitality of the wildlife in this valley, which was in decline, has begun to increase, and the illegal poaching has mostly ceased. People’s short-term orientation of poaching in order just barely to make ends meet has slowly been shifted to one where they can prosper in the here-and-now, but also see longer term futures for themselves
2 “The Tragic Price of Ivory,” The Week, March 15, 2014.
3 Community Markets for Conservation, 2014.
4 Messenger, S., “Exclusive Interview with an Elephant Poacher,” The Doto, January, 2014, and Lewis, D. “Feeding Conservation: An African Vision for Restoring Biodiversity,” National Geographic, Posted by Wildlife Conservation Society, December 18, 2014.
and their children. Achieving this short-term versus long-term balance, what we will call Vitality, has been effective. The farmers are prospering and wildlife is recovering.
The Nuts and Bolts of Manufacturing
What does the illegal poaching of elephants have to do with your business? Plenty. The challenge faced by WCS mirrors those faced by other organizations; namely, that any organization must focus on future possibilities while also maintaining a current business practice.
Consider an example a little closer to home involving a manufacturer of electrical components. This company faced a basic dilemma: How to optimize efficiency while building new production capabilities at the same time. The production executive needed to increase speed while reducing costs and waste. Simultaneously, the heads of research and development (R&D) and product design needed to experiment with new features, which risked unpredictable quality issues and definitely decreased efficiency. If that wasn’t enough, the head of marketing kept asking to change up the production lines in order to provide what amounted to blue or red versions of their core products. This is the classic Vitality challenge.
Vitality exists when the appropriate balance is created between the execution of current revenue streams—creating the cash-flow needed to allow an organization to operate—along with the simultaneous exploration of future revenue-stream potentials, including the development of new products, services, and markets that will keep the business competitive and relevant in the long term. In this case, the manufacturer followed the practices of Vitality, along with the supporting pillars of agility and resiliency, in how it eventually came to manage its product lifecycles. In simplified form, each product that this manufacturer produced was tracked by years since the last “refresh.” The company conducted research on the expected lifecycle of its products, or how long each product was viable if left unchanged in the marketplace. Confirming a product life span of five years, they then determined that each year 20% of their product catalog would need to be refreshed, either by being given new capabilities or being completely redesigned to be current for the marketplace. Every five-year period would therefore see a complete turnover of their product line to new and enhanced products. There is a certain predictability to this. In order to achieve 20% ratio of new or enhanced products
each year, a certain amount needed to be set aside for R&D and other efforts to innovate. They knew how many people in engineering, marketing, production, and so forth were needed, and on which products they should be focused. They tracked the progress they made towards achieving their 20% per year refresh targets and their longer-term five-year product-line turnover target. They considered themselves scoring well on Vitality if they were on track to make their targets. When they fell short, they could drill in and see why a product redesign was falling behind schedule and, what was needed to be done to get back to their Vitality targets.
The Harvest Waits for No One
Have you ever lain awake at night wondering how best to harvest the fruit of the jatropha plant? It is a pretty safe bet to say that most people have not given it much thought. But one person who has is Gary Stich, the CEO of Oxbo Corporation. Oxbo, a manufacturer of specialty harvesting equipment, states its mission as to “Provide innovative solutions to agribusiness worldwide.” In 2007 Goldman Sachs labeled Jatropha fruit, which has very oily seeds, as one of the best candidates for biofuel production. But there was no easy way to mechanically harvest the crop at scale. To appropriately harvest it, you have to pick only the ripe fruit from this small bushy plant, which can grow in marginal conditions, maximizing the oil content contained in the seeds. And you need to do this without damaging the plant itself, so that other fruit can continue to ripen and be picked at the appropriate time. Fast forward to 2015. After field-testing several harvester models, it turns out the Oxbo 9240 Jatropha Harvester, based on Oxbo’s coffee harvester, does all that just about perfectly.
Year in and year out, Oxbo must strike a balance between Current Performance and Future Potential. Its business cycles are not based on fiscal years or calendar years but on harvests. In the northern hemisphere, things start to get busy in August, and by September things are positively roaring. This is the season of performance—when the company must execute at maximum capacity and efficiency. Many of the specialty harvesters that Oxbo makes are the size of small houses and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. To make optimal use of these assets, they are often run continuously during the harvest. A farmer cannot afford to have a major piece of machinery sitting in a field not working, putting the annual crop in jeopardy.
If a harvester has a mechanical issue during the harvest period, Oxbo is on it. Middle of the night? Rain pouring down? They are there. During this intense period of activity, it would be very easy to say that the company has no time to pay attention to anything but the harvest itself. However, Oxbo has chosen a different path. Stich knows that Current Performance must be maintained, and at the same time you must pay attention to building the Future Potential of the company. That Future Potential may be related to annual business and strategy processes, or it may be related to refining the next generation of harvester, or inventing a new harvester for a potential up-and-coming crop like Jatropha. For instance, Oxbo performs an annual employee survey. It would be easy to push off this process into less busy times, but Oxbo always conducts it during this hectic period. Very simply, if you can achieve the benchmarks and goals suggested by your strategy and set forth in your employee survey during this period of maximum Current Performance, you can be pretty sure that you are doing okay during the rest of the year as well. There is of course a structural separation between those focusing on the mechanics of the survey and those focusing on the mechanics of the harvesters, but Oxbo has consistently achieved high response rates on the survey among all employees. This is but one example of how they push ahead during times of peak performance with their future planning efforts.
Vitality Balance
The stories above highlight three organizations’ approaches to balancing Current Performance with Future Potential. Each illustrates an important point about Vitality: It is simultaneous. While it may be tough, and met with resistance, the Vitality process of balancing the here-and-now with the future is never an either/or choice. They both must happen at the same time. For short stretches, organizations can emphasize one over the other. On the one hand, start-up companies, business units, or “new-venture” functions can work on developing the future, so long as they remain funded without having to generate their own cash in the short term. On the other hand, organizations in relatively stable environments can push hard within appropriate windows of time to drive production or revenue. But these are temporary situations. Start-ups will eventually run out of funding, and organizations who delay innovation risk stagnation.
Figure 2.1 illustrates the balance that must be struck. On the vertical axis we have Future Potential and on the horizontal axis Current Performance. Your organization is in the upper left-hand box if you see yourself as focused on creating Future Potential, but not generating what is needed to keep the organization running as it currently exists. The work done here is risky, such as investments in developing products or services with an unproven return. Many start-ups fall in here, and they cope with the lack of Current Performance by bringing in venture capital or other investment to carry them to the point where their Future Potential begins to become Current Performance. New-venture groups within larger organizations also fall here, where their efforts are funded by more mature product lines.
As start-ups get traction in the marketplace, and as new ventures become established products, what was once Future Potential begins to pay dividends in Current Performance As these markets mature, initially high margins become narrower, as competitive differentiation is less about unique or innovative design, and more about speed, reliability, and eventually lower cost. Delivery becomes standardized and streamlined, enabling greater mass production. At this point, the balance has swung to maximizing Current Performance, which places you in the lower right-hand box. Eventually, products risk becoming price-sensitive commodities. Say you have to stop on the
Fig. 2.1 The Vitality Matrix
way home from work to fill up the tank with gas. If there are two gas station next to each other, and one is selling a gallon of gas substantially more cheaply than the other, assuming everything else is equal, you will go for the cheaper gas. (Major gasoline brands work very hard and mostly unsuccessfully to differentiate themselves from the competition.)
If you are unfortunate enough to be part of an organization whose products or services are performing poorly in both the realms of Current Performance and Future Potential, you are in the lower left-hand box, and your organization is engaged in what can only be called irrelevant activity. These are organizations that may have had an attractive product at one point—say a record store—but because they neglected or did not clearly see the future, they simply could not compete when a disruptive technology or other environmental change came along.
The ultimate goal of appropriately balancing Current Performance with Future Potential is to be placed securely in the upper right-hand cell. Here is where your Current Performance is creating a healthy organization, which continually renews itself so to stay current with its products and services amid changing market or other environmental conditions. How you define your balance, as well as nurture and monitor it, is the task of building and leading a vital organization.
Commonality of Vitality
WCS, Oxbo, and the electrical component manufacturer are stories of Vitality—creating, managing, and leading a vital organization through the proper balance of short- and long-term needs, and building the resiliency and agility to enable that to happen gracefully. While the activities and characteristics that would define success in the three examples were very different, their overall goals were in fact very similar. They were all making sure that the performance of their respective organizations was focused not only on the here-and-now, but also on long-term success.
A vital organization is one that successfully balances the maximization of Current Performance with the development of Future Potential, and is supported by the characteristics of resiliency (the ability to bounce back from adversity and consistently risie to face challenges), as well as agility (the ability to get things done quickly, to try new things, and to “fail fast”). In academic circles, this is similar to “Organizational Ambidexterity,” the simultaneous
pursuit and balance of execution (Current Performance) alongside exploration (Future Potential).
More than ever, organizations struggle with tensions driven by the need to optimize Current Performance—to make money now—while building capacity for the future—to invest in potential. Competition in the global marketplace is fierce, and the demand for immediate return on investment is intense. Wall Street brutally punishes companies that miss their target numbers. When IBM announced fourth quarter 2014 earnings that Wall Street did not like, even though it beat analysts’ estimates, its stock lost over 2% of its value—$3.45 per share—in just one day. At the same time, products, companies, and even industries can become obsolete faster than ever. The demise of the drive-in theater shifted an industry, but it took place over the course of quite a few years. Today, things change much more quickly. It wasn’t long after the introduction of cellphones that payphones began disappearing at a very rapid rate. When is the last time you actually saw a payphone?
Consider the life span of the original “dumb” flip cellphone: Rather than a generation or two, it lasted only a few years before giving way to smartphones. Think back to the prevalence of book stores only a decade or so ago. Today, when you drive through a small town that still has a book store, you get warm memories and a feeling of quaintness.
At the same time, there is an inherent tension between these two forces. The more streamlined, cost-optimized, and waste-proof production processes are, for example, the harder it is to adapt to new products. Optimizing Current Performance often depends on standards, processes, and conformity in order to lock down the process and tirelessly eliminate deviations from that process, which is the mantra of Six-Sigma quality control. Building Future Potential requires investments in creativity, innovation, and working in new paradigms: in other words, shaking things up. The most successful organizations have mastered Vitality—the balance between these two.
Vitality creates the capacity to thrive in varied environments, to excel where others struggle, and to create a purposeful existence that excels, both today and tomorrow. Such organizations strike the correct balance between maximizing internal efficiencies and generating the continual change that allows them to adapt quickly and gracefully to evolving and varied external conditions (e.g., market, economic situation, competition).
The Benefits of Creating a Vital Organization
The odds are against you. And we are not talking about a weekend trip to Las Vegas or the likelihood of the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series. The competition out there is fierce and getting fiercer. Borders, Saab, Amoco, Pan Am, Blockbuster, Lehman, Woolworth’s, Circuit City, Joseph Schlitz Brewing, MCI, Virgin Records…. The list of well-established, well-known brands that have disappeared is long. Remember how successful Hummer seemed to be? It became so unpopular that its parent company General Motors (GM) couldn’t even sell it. And GM itself, one of the most iconic brands in the USA, as well as a host of financial-services companies, would also be on that list if not for being bailed out by the government. One research study done in 2011 found that less than one-tenth of 1% of all organizations make it to their 40th anniversary.5 Among young companies, roughly half fail within four years, 70% by year 10. Of the organizations that failed, it was estimated that about one-third was due to either a lack of managerial experience or to the lack of balance between the maximization of Current Performance while positioning and reinventing itself for the future. The landscape and market conditions that organizations must pay attention to are increasingly complex and move with a speed that is increasingly swift. Disruptive technologies, while rapidly enhancing the ability for some organizations to compete, makes others who cannot adapt rapidly obsolete.
Apple released the first iPhone in June 2007. Since then, according to a predictable rhythm, each year has seen a new model released. Nine versions of iPhones have been created since their launch, and some analysts say Apple will have sold one billion iPhones by summer 2016. In just the last quarter of 2014, Apple sold 74 million of its newest models of the iPhone 6, helping it to post the largest quarterly corporate profit in history. This ability to maximize performance by generating sales that result in cash and profits due to the brisk sales of iPhones, while at the same time keeping up the speed of innovation and consistently coming out with new products that the consumer wants, is in no small part what has propelled Apple to become one of the most valuable publically traded companies in the world. Apple is squarely in our upper right-hand quadrant of being a vital organization.
5 Hendrickson, V., “The Traits And Behaviors Of Ambidextrous Individuals: How Exploration And Exploitation Are Integrated At The Individual Level,” 2015.
Over the last 20 years, there has been an ongoing search for practical and research-based guidance for how organizations can resolve the paradox of running lean and creating maximum returns with the need to innovate and consistently drive towards future capabilities. These efforts are beginning to bear fruit. Research has shown that, compared to average organizations, those that measurably exhibit more Vitality characteristics have also been shown to have higher sales growth, higher sales revenue, higher customer satisfaction, more product innovations per year, and longer survival rates.
Assessment: Evaluating your Vitality
The following questions will help you assess your current Vitality-oriented policies and procedures, and help you frame your own thinking as you read the rest of this book. For each of the statements below, check the items that reflect the reality of your organization:
We excel on Current Performance metrics dealing with efficiencies like speed, efficiency production, service ratings, cash flow, and profitability. We have a healthy Future Potential “pipeline” of products and services we are experimenting with or have under development that will keep us relevant, competitive, and unique in the future.
More than 50% of my organization’s products or services have been refreshed or introduced in the last five years.
My organization is able to balance gracefully the competing needs of executing and streamlining Current Performance, while simultaneously exploring and building Future Potential.
We effectively share resources across the organization from successful Current Performance in order to fund efforts to build Future Potential. Over time, we effectively convert Future Potential ideas and innovations into streamlined execution that delivers Current Performance.
Our company has demonstrated the ability to grow without sacrificing the quality of what we deliver.
I have confidence in the future of my organization.
Give yourself one point for each statement that you could clearly and unhesitatingly check. If you checked seven or eight items, then your Vitality discipline is better than most, and you will be well-positioned to leverage
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Ed io ho le tasche piene di palle, — disse il dottore.
— Ed io una scure, rispose l’indiano.
— Ed io una cassetta di proiettili, — disse don Raffaele. — Siamo ricchi e possiamo disporre d’un migliaio e più di colpi. Non credevo di possedere tanta fortuna.
— Vedi, cugino, che possiamo respingere i caimani?
— Non dico il contrario, ma io domando quando potremo lasciare questa incomoda posizione.
— Attraverseremo il fiume a nuoto, Raffaele.
— Coi caimani alle costole.
— Prima li fugheremo. Ne vedo sei o sette che si avanzano verso di noi e faranno presto conoscenza colle nostre armi.
— Purchè non ci rodano l’albero! — disse il dottore. — Hanno tali denti da spezzarlo in pochi minuti.
— Diavolo! Che brutto capitombolo! Eccoli!... Il bersaglio è abbastanza visibile.
Una banda di caimani, che poco prima giuocherellava presso la cascata, dopo un po’ d’esitazione, causata forse dalla sorpresa di veder sparire quel grosso battello, s’avvicinava lentamente formando un cerchio minaccioso.
Senza dubbio quei voraci mostri avevano indovinato di che natura era quello strano grappolo pendente da quel tronco e accorrevano sperando di fare un lauto banchetto. I loro brutti occhi a riflessi azzurri, si fissavano già con ardente bramosia sulle future vittime e le loro mascelle si richiudevano con rumore formidabile, come se già pregustassero quelle carni.
I naufraghi però non erano uomini da lasciarli avvicinare, nè spaventarsi. Si erano accomodati meglio che potevano a cavalcioni del picco della randa ed avevano afferrati i fucili.
— Mirate sui fianchi o in bocca, o le palle si schiacceranno contro quelle scaglie dure come il ferro, — disse don Raffaele.
— A me il primo, — disse Alonzo.
— Ed a me il secondo, — rispose Velasco.
— Fuoco! — comandò don Raffaele.
Tre spari risuonarono e tre caimani, i primi, si rovesciarono sui fianchi feriti, contorcendosi furiosamente e vibrando formidabili colpi di coda. Gli altri, spaventati da quelle detonazioni, che forse mai avevano udite in quei luoghi abitati dai soli indiani, s’inabissarono precipitosamente.
Dei tre colpiti, uno, dopo una spaventosa agonia, cessò di vivere e la corrente lo trascinò su di un banco; ma gli altri due fuggirono lasciando alla superficie delle macchie di sangue, nè si fecero più vedere.
— Credo che ne avranno abbastanza per ora, — disse don Raffaele, lieto di quel successo.
— Che non ritornino? — chiese Alonzo.
— Non credo. I caimani sono feroci bensì, ma non molto coraggiosi di fronte all’uomo e non sempre osano assalirlo.
— Allora possiamo tentare la traversata, cugino. Sento che l’albero trema sempre più fortemente e non vorrei che l’impeto della corrente lo schiantasse.
— Yaruri, — disse don Raffaele, rivolgendosi all’indiano. — Vuoi tentare la prova? — Sì, padrone.
Si legò la scure attorno ai fianchi, si aggrappò alle griselle e discese guardando attentamente l’acqua. Crollò il capo due o tre volte, come se dubitasse di qualche cosa, poi s’immerse.
Si era appena allontanato nuotando vigorosamente, quando lo si vide arrestarsi bruscamente, guardare l’acqua con due occhi
spaventati, poi lo si udì gettare un grido acuto.
— Yaruri! — gridarono don Raffaele ed i suoi compagni con angoscia.
L’indiano non rispose. Nuotava disperatamente verso l’albero, come se fosse inseguito da qualche mostro. S’aggrappò alle griselle e si mise a salirle con rapidità incredibile. Solamente allora i suoi compagni si accorsero che il suo petto e le sue gambe erano insanguinate.
— Yaruri! — gridò don Raffaele. — Cosa ti è accaduto?
— I caribi, — rispose l’indiano con voce tremante.
— I pesci maledetti?
— Sì, padrone!
— E....
Non potè finire. Un sibilo acuto si era udito in aria e poco dopo una freccia sottile, partita da un gruppo di cespugli situati su di un isolotto vicino alla sponda, si era piantata nell’albero, pochi centimetri sotto l’indiano.
Alonzo, che teneva il fucile in mano, rispose con una scarica.
Nessun grido si udì alzarsi fra i cespugli, ma in mezzo alla foresta che si stendeva sulla sponda, echeggiarono le quattro note dell’onorato, do.... mi.... sol.... do...., ma con un’intonazione ben diversa da quella di quei bizzarri uccelli.
— Sali, Yaruri! — esclamò don Raffaele. — E tu, Alonzo, prendi la mia carabina e fa fuoco sul primo uomo che si mostra.
L’indiano s’affrettò a raggiungere gli uomini bianchi.
— Presso di me sei al sicuro, — disse il piantatore. — Quei misteriosi uomini non osano lanciare le loro freccie contro noi.
— Padrone, — disse l’indiano, — la via ci è tagliata; i caribi popolano il fiume e se osiamo scendere ci faranno a pezzi.
— Ed i nemici vegliano!... Che brutta prospettiva!... — esclamò il dottore.
— Vedi nessuno, Alonzo? — chiese il piantatore.
— No, cugino.
— Pure la freccia è partita da quell’isolotto e l’uomo che si è nascosto fra i cespugli bisognerà che si mostri, se vuole guadagnare la sponda.
— Aspetterà la notte per attraversare il canale, — disse il dottore.
— Non comprendo una cosa, Raffaele, — disse Alonzo, il quale, pur chiacchierando, sorvegliava l’isolotto. — Mi stupisce come quegli indiani, che noi sappiamo armati di fucile, non se ne servano per abbatterci.
— È un mistero anche per me, Alonzo.
— Come non comprendo perchè lancino le loro freccie solamente contro Yaruri e risparmino noi.
— Ecco un’altra cosa che nemmeno io so spiegare.
— Che non osino assalire noi?...
— Tutti questi indiani, in generale, odiano gli uomini di razza bianca e non esitano quando si tratta di ucciderne qualcuno. Avranno i loro motivi per non prendersela con noi.
— Comunque sia, siamo imprigionati, — disse il dottore. — Non so cosa ci accadrà fra ventiquattro o quarantotto ore, senza un biscotto da mettere sotto i denti e senza un po’ di spazio per poter dormire.
— La nostra situazione infatti è grave, — rispose don Raffaele. — Cosa dici, Yaruri?
L’indiano non rispose: pareva immerso in profondi pensieri.
— Parla, — disse don Raffaele. — Hai qualche risorsa?
— Forse, — rispose l’indiano. — Abbiate pazienza.
Poi si accomodò a cavalcioni del picco e non parlò più, ma i suoi sguardi si fissavano con ostinazione verso la cateratta, come se da quella parte attendesse un soccorso.
Passò un’ora senza che la situazione dei naufraghi si fosse cambiata. Non si era udito più alcun segnale, nè alcun indiano era uscito dalle macchie dell’isolotto. Aveva potuto, colui che aveva lanciata la freccia, attraversare il canale senza essere veduto e guadagnare la sponda, o attendeva, dal suo nascondiglio, un’altra occasione per lanciare una seconda freccia?...
In quanto ai caimani, non avevano più osato rinnovare l’attacco, ma non avevano però lasciati quei paraggi e non perdevano di vista le prede umane. Ronzavano ai piedi della cateratta, ma fuori di portata delle armi da fuoco, ed ogni volta che i naufraghi si muovevano per cambiare posto, s’affrettavano ad avanzarsi, sperando che l’albero fosse per cadere.
I caribi poi, attirati dal sangue dei tre caimani colpiti dalle palle, si erano radunati a migliaia presso l’albero ed in mancanza d’altre prede, si sfogavano a divorarsi l’un l’altro con accanimento senza pari.
Già le tenebre stavano per calare, quando Yaruri, che fino allora non si era mosso, tese le braccia verso la cascata, dicendo:
— Ecco la nostra salvezza!
XVIII.
L’assalto dei caimani.
Sulle onde che si rovesciavano furiosamente giù dalla cateratta, si vedevano scendere, urtandosi gli uni cogli altri, parecchi tronchi d’albero, i quali filavano lungo il canale che i viaggiatori avevano tentato di risalire.
Erano stati lanciati dagl’indiani per frantumare, coll’urto di quelle masse, l’albero della scialuppa, o la corrente li aveva sradicati da qualche isola o da qualche sponda sommersa? Comunque sia, Yaruri aveva gridato «ecco la nostra salvezza,» e quell’uomo astuto doveva avere le sue buone ragioni per aver dette quelle parole.
— Attenzione, — diss’egli, impugnando la scure e recidendo, con pochi colpi, due paterazzi. Se ci lasciamo sfuggire quest’occasione, non potremo più mai abbandonare quest’albero.
— Ma cosa vuoi fare? — chiese don Raffaele.
— Tirare a noi due o tre di quei tronchi d’albero.
— Ma per cosa farne?
— Una zattera.
Pel piantatore fu una rivelazione.
— Bravo Yaruri! — esclamò. — Vengo ad aiutarti!
Scesero le griselle e s’arrestarono a fior d’acqua. I tronchi d’albero, che scendevano la cateratta a precipizio, non erano lontani che poche centinaia di passi.
— Ti occorre un aiuto, cugino? — chiese Alonzo, preparandosi a lasciare l’albero.
— No, — rispose Yaruri, prevenendo la risposta di don Raffaele. Noi due bastiamo; invece sorvegliate gl’indiani.
La corrente trascinava quei tronchi verso la scialuppa affondata, la quale occupava buona parte del canale. Yaruri, tenendosi aggrappato alle griselle con una sola mano, li aspettava, stringendo nella destra una corda che si era legata attorno al corpo.
— Padrone, — diss’egli rapidamente, porgendogli l’estremità della fune. — Tenete fermo e ritiratemi a bordo o la corrente mi trascinerà via!
Il primo tronco era vicino e stava per urtare contro l’albero. Yaruri, che si era raccolto su sè stesso come una tigre, si slanciò innanzi e cadde a cavalcioni dell’albero.
Pronto come il lampo, impugnò la scure e la infisse profondamente in un secondo tronco che seguiva il primo.
— A voi, padrone! — urlò.
Don Raffaele, aiutato da Alonzo che era sceso dal pennone, lasciando al dottore l’incarico di vegliare sugli indiani, ritirò rapidamente la fune e pochi istanti dopo i due alberi si trovavano riuniti presso quello della scialuppa.
— Ecco la zattera, — disse Yaruri, con aria trionfante. — Ora possiamo sfidare i caribi.
I due tronchi in pochi istanti furono legati coi paterazzi della scialuppa e ormeggiati all’albero.
— Velasco, — disse don Raffaele, — vedete nulla sulla riva?
— No, — rispose il dottore.
— Non è comparso alcun indiano?
— Non ho veduto alcuno.
— Allora scendete. La zattera ci aspetta.
Partiamo?
— È meglio approfittare dell’oscurità.
Il dottore s’affrettò a scendere lungo le griselle.
— Collocatevi nel mezzo e badate a non immergere le gambe o i caribi ve le rovineranno, — disse Yaruri.
— Ed i caimani? — chiese Alonzo.
— Li respingeremo a fucilate, — rispose don Raffaele. — Orsù, imbarcate.
Tutti e quattro si collocarono fra i due tronchi d’albero, due grossissimi paiva, che parevano recisi di fresco. Quella specie di zattera, che galleggiava benissimo quantunque fosse così carica, fu abbandonata alla corrente, ma Yaruri, che si era munito del picco della randa, bene o male cercava di dirigerla.
I rapidi flutti della cateratta facevano trabalzare disordinatamente i due tronchi e li facevano girare, ma non riuscivano a separarli nè a farli rovesciare, essendo tutti e due saldamente legati.
Avevano già disceso il fiume per tre o quattrocento passi, accostandosi lentamente alla sponda sinistra, quando Alonzo scorse alcune code emergere a breve distanza e poco dopo dei musi lunghi e armati di denti formidabili.
— In guardia! — gridò. — I caimani c’inseguono.
— Preparate i fucili, — rispose don Raffaele.
Avevano appena dato quel comando che un caimano mostruoso, con un potente colpo di coda si lanciava verso i due tronchi d’albero, cercando di salirvi. L’urto fu così potente, che i quattro naufraghi per poco non furono sbalzati nel fiume.
Yaruri però si era prontamente rimesso in equilibrio. Vedendo il caimano quasi a portata delle mani, afferrò robustamente la scure e lo percosse sul cranio con forza sovrumana.
Si udì uno scricchiolìo sonoro, come se l’arma fendesse una corazza, ed il mostro cadde, scomparendo sott’acqua.
Altri quattro o cinque caimani s’avanzavano però verso la zattera, colle mascelle aperte, pronti a ritentare l’assalto.
— Fuoco! — urlò don Raffaele.
Una scarica seguì quel comando. Gli anfibi, spaventati da quei lampi e da quelle detonazioni e feriti dalle palle che erano penetrate nelle loro gole, abbandonarono la partita fuggendo in tutte le direzioni.
— Animo, Yaruri! — gridò il dottore. — La sponda è vicina.
Velasco non si era ingannato. L’urto dato dal primo caimano aveva spinto i due alberi verso la riva e questa non era più lontana che pochi metri.
Ad un tratto la zattera s’arrestò.
— Abbiamo toccato? — chiese don Raffaele.
— Siamo su di un bassofondo, — rispose Yaruri, che aveva misurata la profondità del fiume col picco della randa.
— Possiamo abbandonare la zattera?
— Non vi sono che due piedi d’acqua.
— Scendiamo.
Tutti abbandonarono i due tronchi mettendo i piedi su di un banco di sabbia appena sommerso, il quale si prolungava verso la sponda. Stavano per raggiungere i primi alberi che si curvavano sul fiume, proiettando una cupa ombra, quando Yaruri, che marciava alla testa, s’arrestò bruscamente.
— Cos’hai, Yaruri? — chiese don Raffaele.
— Ho udito muoversi dei rami, — rispose la guida.
— Che siano gl’indiani?
— Non lo so.
— Carichiamo le armi e procediamo con precauzione. Attenti alle freccie che possono essere intinte nel succo del curare.
— Non abbiamo da fare cogl’indiani, — disse Yaruri, dopo d’aver osservata attentamente la riva.
— E con chi adunque?
— Guarda, padrone!
Don Raffaele, che aveva terminato di caricare il suo fucile, si fece innanzi e scorse, non senza un fremito, delle ombre vagare sotto i rami degli alberi.
— Dei giaguari forse? — chiese.
— O dei coguari? — disse l’indiano.
— Preferisco questi ai primi.
— Ma nemmeno i coguari sono avversarii da disprezzarsi, specialmente se sono più d’uno, — rispose il dottore.
— Quanti ne hai veduti, Yaruri? — chiese don Raffaele.
— Mi parvero quattro, padrone.
— Diavolo!... Dopo gl’indiani ed i caimani ecco le fiere delle foreste!...
— Cosa decidiamo? — chiese Alonzo. — Non possiamo rimanere fino all’alba immersi fino alle anche.
— Proviamo a forzare il passo, — rispose il piantatore. — Se non sono affamati, spero che se ne andranno.
— Eccone uno là, sotto quella pianta, — disse Alonzo, alzando il fucile. — Provo a fare una scarica.
Presso il tronco d’una massimiliana si vedeva agitarsi un’ombra e brillare due occhi che avevano dei riflessi verdastri. Si udì un sordo brontolìo a cui rispose una specie di miagolìo che usciva da una macchia vicina. Alonzo s’avanzò verso la sponda e puntò l’arma, ma la riabbassò quasi subito, emettendo un grido di dolore.
— I caribi! — aveva esclamato.
Quasi nell’istesso istante Yaruri aveva spiccato un salto innanzi, emettendo pure un grido acuto.
— Fuggite! — esclamò don Raffaele, che si sentiva già mordere le gambe da quei feroci pesciolini.
Senza più pensare ai coguari che miagolavano sotto gli alberi, i quattro naufraghi, inseguiti dai piccoli mostri, si precipitarono verso la sponda perdendo già sangue da più ferite e s’arrampicarono su per l’erta, riparandosi ai piedi degli alberi.
Si erano appena riuniti, quando udirono un rauco ruggito echeggiare quasi sopra il loro capo.
— Il coguaro! — esclamò don Raffaele, scostandosi rapidamente dalle piante.
— È sull’albero! — gridò Alonzo, additando quello che avevano appena lasciato.
— Badate che non vi piombi addosso! — disse Velasco.
Si erano ritirati sull’orlo della sponda armando precipitosamente i fucili e guardavano fra i rami d’un saponiere.
Colà un animale grosso quanto e forse più d’un cane di Terranuova, ma di forme più slanciate, si teneva rannicchiato, fissando su di loro due occhi che brillavano stranamente fra quell’oscurità.
Emetteva dei bassi ruggiti, ma non osava ancora assalire, tenuto in rispetto dalle canne dei tre fucili.
— Lascia fare a me, Alonzo, — disse don Raffaele, traendolo indietro. — Quell’animale può piombarti addosso anche dopo ferito.
— E poi ve n’erano degli altri su questa sponda, — disse il dottore.
— Pensiamo anche a quelli per non farci sorprendere.
Il piantatore si era avanzato di qualche passo e aveva alzato il fucile, mirando attentamente e con grande sangue freddo.
Il coguaro continuava a ruggire e lo si udiva stritolare la corteccia del maot colle potenti unghie.
Il piantatore lasciò partire la scarica. Il fumo non si era ancora dissipato che la fiera, con un balzo immenso, si precipitava in mezzo agli avversarii. Cadde, tentò di risollevarsi per gettarsi addosso a Yaruri che era vicino, ma le forze le mancarono e stramazzò al suolo rimanendo immobile.
L’indiano con un colpo di scure le spaccò il cranio, per essere più certo di non vederla rialzarsi.
— Bel colpo, cugino mio! — esclamò Alonzo, rivolgendosi a don Raffaele.
— Ma la mia palla per poco non bastava, — rispose il piantatore. Ma.... dove sono fuggiti gli altri coguari?
— Avranno preso il largo, — rispose il dottore.
— Non fidatevi e rimanete uniti, — comandò Yaruri. Forse ci spiano e strisciano fra i cespugli.
Si addossarono al tronco colossale d’un summameira che stava dietro di loro e attesero l’alba coi fucili montati.
Alonzo aveva trascinato presso l’albero il cadavere della belva e lo osservava con viva curiosità.
Era un vero coguaro, chiamato anche puma dagli indiani e leone d’America dagli uomini bianchi. Come dicemmo, era grande quanto un cane di Terranuova, ma nelle forme e anche pel colore del pelame, rassomigliava assai alla femmina del leone africano. Aveva la testa rotonda come quella dei gatti, ornata di lunghi baffi irti, gli orecchi corti e la coda era lunga e sottile.
Questi animali hanno una forza straordinaria quantunque siano relativamente piccoli e sono feroci al pari dei giaguari, e assaltano nello stesso tempo animali e indiani. Di solito, specialmente se non sono affamati, evitano gli uomini bianchi sapendoli armati di fucili,
ma se sono messi alle strette si difendono con accanimento senza pari e si slanciano sui cacciatori senza contarli.
Tuttavia, quantunque siano così sanguinari, presi piccini si affezionano ai loro padroni, ma non bisogna fidarsi troppo, poichè qualche giorno, quando meno si sospetta, giuocano dei pericolosi colpi e non è raro che finiscano col divorare i loro guardiani.
Intanto i coguari, poco prima veduti ronzare sulla sponda, non si facevano vedere. Spaventati forse da quello sparo, si erano internati nella foresta, in mezzo alla quale si udivano a ruggire e balzare fra i cespugli.
Verso l’alba però scomparvero, nè più si fecero vedere, nè udire.
— Andiamo a visitare questa sponda, — disse don Raffaele. — Poi penseremo a metterci al lavoro ed a rifabbricare la nostra scialuppa.
XIX.
Il pane degli indiani.
Il luogo ove avevano approdato era una lunga striscia di terra, larga forse venti metri, coperta di grandi alberi e che aveva dietro di sè una savana tremante d’una estensione così immensa che non si potevano scorgere i confini.
Su quell’istmo, che divideva le acque dell’Orenoco da quelle nere della savana, crescevano colossali bambù d’un diametro di uno o due metri; macchioni di spine ansara e di erbe taglienti che producono ferite pericolose; ammassi di calupi, piante le cui frutta tagliate a pezzi dànno una bevanda rinfrescante, e di calupi diavolo i cui semi, messi in infusione coll’acquavite, sono uno specifico contro i morsi dei serpenti; gruppi di niku, gambi sarmentosi simili alle liane, colla scorza bruna e che tagliati a pezzi dànno un succo lattiginoso che si lascia colare negli stagni per ubriacare i pesci; poi un grande numero di palme, le graziose bactris, le nane marajà, le esili euterpe edulis, le folte cargia (atlalea spectabilis) che sono quasi senza fusto e che si curvano verso terra, le spinose javary (astrocaryum) e le grandi manassù (atlalee speciosæ).
Numerosi uccelli svolazzavano fra quelle piante e sull’orlo della savana tremante: i maithaco, piccoli pappagalli, cicalavano su tutti i toni; le arà lanciavano le loro grida acute di arà, arà; gli aracari, uccelli simili a un merlo ma col becco grossissimo volavano via a stormi; gli azulao, piccoli uccelli colle penne azzurre, canticchiavano fra i niku e le spine ansara, mentre gli japu, appollaiati sulle cime
degli alberi, facevano un baccano indiavolato col loro cinguettìo sgradevolissimo.
Fra i cespugli poi, svolazzavano gli splendidi colibrì, i piccolissimi uccelli mosca chiamati anche beja-flores perchè pare che bacino i fiori e dagli indiani capelli del sole o piccoli re dei fiori. Erano grossi come un tafano e mostravano, ai primi raggi dell’astro diurno, le loro splendide penne scintillanti.
V’erano anche i trochilus pella o colibrì topazii; i trochilus auratus o colibrì granato e i trochilus minimus, i più piccoli di tutti, ma i più battaglieri. Trillavano sull’orlo dei loro nidi graziosissimi, fatti in forma di coni rovesciati, facendo scintillare le loro piume verdi, o turchine, o nere porporine a riflessi dorati.
Gli animali invece mancavano ed anche i quadrumani, di solito numerosi sulle sponde dell’Orenoco, non facevano udire le loro grida discordi. Solamente una coppia di saiminé, o scimmie scoiattolo, saltellavano fra i rami d’una lantana camara, gentile arbusto rampicante carico di graziosi fiori variopinti.
—È un luogo tranquillo, — disse Alonzo.
— E sicuro, — aggiunse il dottore. — Questa savana tremante impedirà ai misteriosi indiani, che si ostinano a perseguitarci, di sorprenderci.
— A te, Yaruri, — disse don Raffaele. — Affidiamoci all’uomo dei boschi.
— Prima di tutto pensiamo al canotto, — rispose l’indiano. — Ecco là un grosso bambù che fa per noi.
— È grosso come una botte, — disse Alonzo. — Sarà facile abbatterlo?
— Impossibile per un uomo bianco, ma non per un indiano, rispose Yaruri.
— Resisterà alla scure?
— L’arma rimbalzerebbe senza intaccarlo. Questi bambù sono leggeri ma tenaci.
— Ed allora come farai ad atterrare questo gigante?
— Lo vedrete, — rispose Yaruri.
Si mise a raccogliere dei rami morti e li accumulò alla base del bambù, poi vi diede fuoco.
— Ecco fatto, — disse. — Il legno si consumerà lentamente ed il colosso questa sera cadrà. Intanto possiamo metterci in cerca di viveri per preparare le nostre provviste di viaggio.
— Non so dove ne troverai, — disse Alonzo. — Non vedo che uccelli.
— La foresta ha mille risorse per l’indiano, — rispose Yaruri. — Voi incaricatevi della selvaggina, ed io ed il padrone penseremo a procurare il pane.
— Quello dei palmizi forse?
— No, il manioca, — rispose Yaruri.
— Ma speri di trovarne qui? — chiese don Raffaele, con tono incredulo.
— Qui no, ma presso la cascata sì. Un tempo vi sorgeva una missione di padri bianchi e so che gl’indiani vanno ancora a raccogliere la manioca.
— Verremo con te, — disse Alonzo. — Sono curioso di vedere questa pianta e di assistere alla preparazione della farina.
— Ma non abbiamo nè un colubro, nè uno staccio, nè una piastra di ferro per cucinarla, — disse il dottore.
— Yaruri avrà tutto, — rispose l’indiano. — In cammino.
— Ma io ho fame, — disse Alonzo. — La foresta non potrebbe regalare qualche cosa all’indiano?
Yaruri gettò intorno un rapido sguardo, poi prese una fiaschetta che il dottore portava appesa alla cintola, dicendo:
— La foresta vi offre del latte.
— Hai scorto qualche mucca? — chiese Alonzo, ridendo.
Yaruri non rispose, ma s’avvicinò ad un grande albero col tronco liscio, alto dai venticinque ai trenta metri, colla corteccia rossastra e coi rami carichi di frutta rotonde, grosse come aranci e giallastre.
— La mimosops balata, — disse il dottore. — Avremo del buon latte che nulla avrà da invidiare a quello delle mucche.
L’indiano aveva estratto il coltello e fatta sul tronco di quell’albero una profonda incisione. Tosto un getto di succo lattiginoso zampillò, cadendo entro la fiaschetta del dottore.
— A voi, — disse l’indiano, porgendola ad Alonzo. — Bevete.
Il giovanotto, dopo una breve esitazione, mandò giù due o tre sorsi.
— Ma è vero latte! — esclamò. — Foresta benefica!... Si sono mai veduti degli alberi surrogare le bovine?
— Bevete, o il succo sfuggirà tutto, — disse l’indiano.
Alonzo vuotò la fiaschetta, poi bevettero il piantatore, Velasco e ultimo Yaruri.
— Ora in marcia, — disse questi.
Rinvigoriti da quel latte, si misero in cammino costeggiando la savana tremante e oltrepassata la lunga lingua di terra che la divideva dal fiume, guadagnarono la grande foresta che si estendeva lungo la cateratta.
Yaruri s’arrestò alcuni istanti per orientarsi, poi condusse i suoi compagni nel folto della selva e s’arrestò sul limite d’una radura, in mezzo alla quale si vedevano ancora sorgere gli avanzi di alcune capanne.
Tutto all’intorno il terreno era diboscato per un grande tratto e portava ancora traccie di coltivazione. Qua e là crescevano alberi di
cocco, ma ormai mezzi selvatici; banani già carichi di frutta deliziose e profumate; piante di batolo le cui foglie, messe in infusione, calmano le febbri, piante di tabacco che un tempo dovevano aver servito alla missione; aranci, cedri, mangli che si curvavano sotto il peso dei loro frutti che sono eccellenti e succosi ma impregnati d’un legger sapore di terebintina, qualche albero di cacao e qualche pianta di caffè, ma ormai semi-infruttifera per mancanza di cure.
Yaruri però non si curava di quelle piante. Egli mosse diritto verso certe pianticelle, sollevò rapidamente la terra ed estrasse un grosso bulbo somigliante ad una patata, esclamando:
— La manioca!... Il pane è assicurato.
— È buona questa manioca? — chiese Alonzo.
— Eccellente, — rispose il dottore.
— Assaggiamola.
— Sei pazzo! — esclamò Velasco. — Se la mangi così morrai.
Alonzo lo guardò con stupore.
— Ma contengono del veleno questi bulbi?
— E potente, giovanotto mio. Basta una piccola dose del succo di questi tuberi per produrre vomiti, convulsioni, gonfiezza del corpo e quindi la morte.
— Ma come si mangiano adunque?
— I bulbi devono prima subire una speciale preparazione per sbarazzarli del succo velenoso. Vedrai Yaruri all’opera.
— Tutti gl’indiani sanno prepararli?
— Tutti, e nell’America del Sud si fa un consumo enorme di cassava e di cuac.
— Cosa sono la cassava e il cuac?
— Te lo dirò poi. Al lavoro.
L’indiano continuava a scavare aiutandosi col suo largo coltello e accumulava i bulbi. Don Raffaele ed il dottore si accomodarono per terra, si misero a pelarli, poi a tagliarli in fette sottili.
— Sarebbe necessaria una raspa, — disse il dottore ad Alonzo, — ma in mancanza di questa faremo col coltello.
— Posso aiutarvi?
— Sì, ma bada a non ferirti, poichè una scalfittura fatta con un coltello bagnato nel succo di questi tuberi produce la morte.
— Agirò con prudenza, dottore. Ma non vi è alcun antidoto per questo veleno?
— Sì, uno solo, il succo della rundiroba cardifolia, ma non ho veduto nessuna di queste piante in questa foresta.
Yaruri aveva terminata la raccolta e si era seduto dinanzi ad un ammasso di foglie che aveva prese nella foresta. Erano di palme murumurò, adoperate dagli indiani per fabbricare delle stuoie finissime.
L’indiano le intrecciava rapidamente formando una specie di budello lungo e grosso come la coscia d’un uomo.
— Cosa intreccia? — chiese Alonzo al dottore.
— Prepara il colubro, — rispose questi.
— Ma a cosa servirà quel budello? A fare dei salami forse?...
— A sbarazzare la manioca del veleno. Affrettiamoci, chè Yaruri ha quasi terminato.
Mezz’ora dopo l’indiano sospendeva il colubro, che era lungo due metri, al ramo d’un albero e lo riempiva, a tutta forza, in modo da farlo quasi scoppiare, di pezzi di manioca. Ciò fatto si mise a comprimerlo cominciando dall’estremità superiore, facendo schizzare, attraverso i pori delle foglie, un succo lattiginoso. Era il veleno.
Spremuta per bene quella polpa farinacea, di colore giallastro, l’indiano vuotò il colubro e ripetè l’operazione con tutta l’altra, aiutato dal piantatore e anche da Velasco.
— È mangiabile ora? — chiese Alonzo che seguiva attentamente quel lavoro.
— Non ancora, — rispose il dottore. — La manioca non s’e sbarazzata del tutto del veleno e potrebbe ancora procurarti la morte.
— Cosa richiede ancora prima di venire adoperata?
— Innanzi tutto uno staccio per sbarazzare queste fecole dei filamenti che contengono.
-Ma noi non lo possediamo.
— S’incaricherà Yaruri di fabbricarlo colle fibre dei cocchi.
— E poi?
— Poi Yaruri con dell’argilla fabbricherà un piatto, non possedendo noi alcuna piastra di ferro. Stenderà la manioca su quel piatto e la lascierà seccarsi a lento fuoco per far sparire gli ultimi residui di veleno. Si potrebbe farne anche a meno però della piastra, poichè lasciando la manioca un paio di giorni all’aria libera, perde egualmente le sue proprietà velenose.
— E perchè?
— Pel semplice motivo che il veleno della manioca si volatilizza al pari dell’acido cianidrico. La farina ottenuta si chiama cuac e si mette in commercio entro barili ove si conserva benissimo per lungo tempo.
— E le cassava cosa sono?
— Sono le galette fatte colla farina di manioca. — È vero, dottore, che questi tuberi sono molto nutritivi?
— Basta mezzo chilogramma di cassava per nutrire ed abbondantemente un uomo per ventiquattro ore.
