At the outset, I hauled out the old management-by-walking-around (MBWA) technique, trying to get a feel of the place. Unfortunately, almost everybody in the bank was walking around. Clerks strolled over to their managers to ask the latest cricket scores. Secretaries ambled along, discussing recipes. Executives walked around picking up office gossip. I soon learnt my first lesson--you cannot practise MBWA when everybody else is WA (walking around).

Having failed there, I decided to bring out the light artillery. I tried Six Sigma and the Five S methods, with no results. Single digits were obviously not working, and I had no option but to try a new double digit paradigm--theTop Ten A's.

For those interested in this management practice, here's a sneak preview. Top ten works for a number of reasons. First, it is made up of 1 and 0, and 1, as everyone knows, is the first rank and stands for excellence. 1 and 0 are the numbers on which all computers are based, and today's world is a digital world. The zero signifies that although you may be number 1, bad business practice can soon relegate you to number 0. And finally, top ten, with its association of chartbusting, is comprehensible to even the most dimwitted MBA.

Coming now to the A's, the top ten A's are simply the first ten words in the dictionary. There they are, right in the front, elbowing aside all other words. The parallels with the savage world of business competition should be clear. For those interested in the nitty gritty of the technique, the first ten As are: a, aardvark, aardwolf, Aaron's beard, Aaron's rod, aasogel, abaya, abaca, aback, abacus, according to the Oxford dictionary. As to how these words relate tomanagement, readers will be enlightened on payment of a small fee. Incidentally, the eleventh word is Abaddon, or the devil, snapping at the heels of the top ten.

But in spite of the considerable sophistication of the theory, the 10 A's didn't work either, so the next option was obviously downsizing. Yet I've always felt a curious reluctance to downsize. That's because I believe that the most durable structures in history have been large. Take the pyramids, for instance--they've lasted for thousands of years. It's upsizing, rather than downsizing, that should be attempted. For the algebraically inclined, the pyramid formula for balance sheet size is $= f(x:y), where x and y are the lengths of the sides of the pyramid, $ is clearly balance sheet size, and f is the management function. The flaw is that few organisations are in a position to bring out pyramid-sized balance sheets.

Falling back on MBGA (management by gassing around) seemed to be the only option left. As we all know, in MBGA you get out yourlaptop and make presentations of the most obvious things possible. You hold endless seminars. The idea is to bore the hell out of people, so that they prefer working to attending presentations. But bankers were tough nuts to crack--most of them snoozed happily through my lectures.

The best way to diagnosis is through osmosis. I sat around with the bank staff over innumerable cups of tea in staff canteens, soaking up the atmosphere. What I learnt was that while the staff may be lousy workers, many of them were great writers, dramatists, housewives, social workers, cooks et al, passionately interested in life after office-hours.

The rest was easy. Since the organisation exists for the men and not vice-versa, why not dismantle the bank? Sell off some of the property; convert some branches into hotels; retain some staff as cooks and receptionists; band the others into smaller companies of football critics, actors, dramatists; form a political party. Those otherwise unemployable could becomejournalists.

This entire process is certainly not re-engineering. Re-engineering has such a mechanical ring to it, and it carries with it the connotation of putting an engine right. What is attempted here is more human, more people-centric, more organic. It's a biological process. If taking a machine apart and putting it back is re-engineering, the idea put forward here can only be described as re-production. While the success of both efforts is uncertain, at least the activities leading to reproduction are infinitely more enjoyable than the painful processes of re-engineering.