Recently I lunched with Lindsay, the owner of the factory where Dick works in the waste management department.  He said all was not yet right with Dick, despite all the work done on his department.   While Dick’s area was definitely fixed, it wasn’t working normally, with unexpected, almost uncontrollable, rushes of waste production at short intervals. 

Lindsay was concerned that, though Dick was now working, he was merely acting according to the whim of the Central Control department, headed by Brian (known in the company as ‘the brain’ because of his widespread knowledge of all the systems in the factory. Lindsay felt that Brian the brain was telling Dick to open the waste management pipe too often, when there just wasn’t enough waste to justify a run.  Lindsay felt that whenever Brian was in certain situations – coming back through the door to his department, running water or just thinking about Dick  – he would just tell Dick to open the pipe.

So Lindsay took Dick to a different expert, Emma, who specialised in human movement. But this time he took Brian along too, because Lindsay thought it might be Brian that needed fixing more than Dick.  Lindsay was quite sceptical that Emma would be able to address the psychological problems that he thought Brian and perhaps Dick had, but she was recommended, he was desperate and so he decided to give her a go.

After listening to the history of the case, Emma did an ultrasound of Dick and showed Lindsay that Dick still wasn’t working properly, particularly on shutting the pipe off now. She told Dick to do a series of exercises to fix this.  She also concluded that there was a psychological problem with Brian’s decision making and gave Lindsay a series of techniques designed to change Brian’s behaviour and disrupt his negative influence on Dick.  She said Lindsay needed to be tougher on Brian and, in turn, Brian needed to be tougher on Dick.

Apparently Lindsay has been working on these new recommendations, but it seems it will take time. Brian is now his key problem.  Brian’s not anxious to relinquish his control over Dick (he has a lot of control over other functions that Dick performs and he sees Lindsay’s incursion into his area as an invasion of his personal control).

The worst part for Lindsay is that he has had to change the mix of supplies to the factory. Emma said  he had to cut down on coffee, tea and alcohol, which formed a large part of Lindsay’s normal liquid supplies.  More water, she said.  Boring, he said.  But he agreed to do it, if it meant he got Brian and Dick fully back under control.  I’ll have to wait till I have lunch with Lindsay again to see who’s winning the psychological battle.