I'm deep into preparing our report to the Board on our new Knowledge Management initiative when the phone jars me back into the reality of my office. Oh no, it's Snarley, aka our VP of Operations. I could let it go to voice mail, but that's like postponing a trip to the dentist. Might as well get it over with.

My phone begins to melt as Snarley responds to my greeting with nuclear retaliation. Filtering out most of his invective, I'm able to determine he wants to know where the supply chain improvements I PROMISED last month are. I did? While the first wave of his attack is still in progress, I pull up his project in Entire to refresh my memory and catch up with recent events.

Yes, we did talk about a month ago and I informed Snarley that he had to commit to putting his people through the training on the new system. He agreed to do that and it was set for two weeks ago, but wait, he postponed the training and it's not yet been rescheduled. When there's no more air left in his body and he has to take a breath, I seize the moment to inform him that until his people start using the system, which requires training, he won't see any changes.

At this point Snarley starts to sputter, but tries to regain his momentum by saying that we're not responsive to his needs. Glancing at Entire, I notice we actually completed his project two weeks ahead of schedule and have now been waiting for 6 weeks for him to allow his people to be trained. I diplomatically remind him of this fact, and the wind immediately goes out of his sails. Now he's apologizing and assuring me that his people will be trained - immediately! Entire has come to my rescue again!