The scenario: Your boss (“Brad”) assigns you to lead a solution design team. The team’s purpose is to perform an opportunity analysis for creating an augmented reality app that leapfrogs competitors’ YouTube DIY product support.

The result: Your analysis shows the opportunity is large. Not so much for the app itself, which would be profitable but not earthshattering. But the potential profits to be had from licensing the libraries and other IP that would have to be created to make the AR app real would be enormous.

Pleased with the business case and plan you and your team have put together, you (that’s the plural “you”) present your findings to Brad, who agrees you should submit it to the Innovations Governance Committee at its next monthly meeting.

Which you do. Brad introduces you, your team, and the subject. You begin walking the IGC through your presentation. In the middle of slide #4, Brad clears his throat and says, “I’m not really sure this is a good idea. If you want us to pursue it in more detail we’ll be happy to do so. Otherwise we’ll pull the plug on it.”

Leaving you with your bare face hanging out and without even the semblance of a hint as to what just happened.

What you should do: One school of thought says you should always support and never embarrass your boss. You mumble, “Thanks for your time,” to the committee members, exit the room, and take advantage of Brad’s open door policy to suggest that the same school of thought applies in reverse – embarrassing you in front of the committee damaged both of your standings with its members.

A different school of thought begins thusly: You can say anything you want, to anyone you want, but not any way you want. So after Brad has finished cutting you off at the knees you don’t say, “WTF!?!?”

But you also don’t just bite your tongue. You apply your prodigious diplomatic skills to the situation and say, “Before we wrap up, it might be worthwhile to take just a quick look at slide 26. That’s the money slide. I’m not disagreeing with Brad. There’s plenty of risk if we pursue this. But I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t give you some context regarding the opportunity’s potential.”

Later, after you’ve cooled off, you take advantage of the aforementioned open-door policy.

After that you carefully evaluate if you want to continue reporting to Brad, or whether the odds of other pastures being greener are better than 50/50.

The world according to Brad: While you’re presenting, Brad is reading the room, and doesn’t like what he sees.

Especially, over the years Brad has become adept at reading the CFO, who looks like they’re about to jump out of their skin, probably because much of the estimated ROI is speculative.

Which is why Brad decides that, embarrassing as it might be, cutting his losses, and yours, is the least of the possible evils.

What Brad should have done: Assume Brad has read the room … and CFO … right.

Brad had two right ways to handle the situation. He chose neither of them.

The first right alternative was to soldier on. It isn’t up to Brad to make the committee’s decision for it. Brad’s responsibility is to give the committee important information it can use to make up its own collective mind.

The second was to offer to abridge. “Before we continue, we have quite a bit of ground to cover to be thorough. Would it make more sense for us to skip to the money slide and then cover the rest through Q&A?”

Bob’s last word: Managers delegate responsibility. They don’t delegate accountability. They share it.

So in a situation like this one, having the project manager present was the right decision. Before that, working together to create the presentation was also the right decision.

Trying to duck accountability because someone didn’t seem to like what the two of you have concluded? I can’t speak to the return on investment.

But I’m pretty sure everyone involved would agree that it showed no class.

Now on CIO.com:7 tools for mastering organizational listening.” If you aren’t familiar with the concept, read the article for an overview, and Leading IT: <Still> the Toughest Job in the World, Chapter 9, for in-depth understanding.

.Because I have to: Some policy makers are recommending that limiting school access to a single lockable door would be an effective way to reduce school shooting deaths. Without commenting on this approach’s potential efficacy, there’s a point I haven’t read anywhere that deserves attention. It’s that even if this change in school design worked as intended, its impact in the event of a fire would be lethal.

A week ago, the then-one-week-old shooting in Buffalo, New York was appalling. It’s been superseded by this week’s shooting in Uvalde, Texas. In Buffalo the victims were targeted because of their race. More people died In Uvalde than in Buffalo, and all but one were school children.

Who targets school children?

Last week I cited experts who say anger, not hate, is the root cause of most mass shootings. This week’s perpetrator, allegedly an 18-year-old high school student, was, we’ve learned, a loner and high school dropout who was subjected to frequent ridicule and bullying.

Seems to fit. If you’re the parent of a teenager, let them know that, given a choice between taunting classmates and vaping, vaping is the safer choice.

Hell, heroin might be a safer choice.

Once again we’re hearing the same, tired old reasons we can’t, or shouldn’t, do anything about gun violence. I have no choice but to write about this. The why-not memes are, at this point, tired. I’ll try to avoid boring you with the same tired old memes on why we can and should.

Do-nothing meme #1: Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.

They do. 79 percent of the time, the people who killed people killed them with a gun.

Do-nothing meme #2: Thoughts and prayers.

If thoughts and prayers were of any value, by now we’d be seeing fewer mass shootings, not more of them.

Do-nothing meme #3: Relatively few gun fatalities are the result of mass shootings.

This might mean something if those who make this point continued by suggesting ways to curb other forms of gun violence. But they don’t.

Do-nothing meme #4a: If guns are illegal, only criminals will have guns.

That would mean children wouldn’t have guns. I’m thinking this would be a net improvement. I couldn’t find any statistics on the subject. Google did deliver some headlines, though, all variations on a theme. A sampling:

Toddler Shoots Playmates At Michigan Daycare

6-Year-Old Shot by Playmate, 4, in Critical Condition

5-year-old killed in Lithonia home was shot by playmate

Girl, 8, Is Killed as Playmates Imitate Film’s Shooting Scene

Boy, 4, shoots and kills playmate, 6

A four-year-old boy in New Jersey has shot dead a playmate aged six with a .22-calibre rifle in what police have said was an accident.

Prince. George’s shooting involves 4- and 5-year-old playmate

US boy (4) shoots playmate (6) dead

Three-year-old boy shot by playmate in Washington state – police

Do-nothing meme #4b: If guns are illegal, only criminals will have guns.

I guess nothing should be illegal, then. For example: If drunk driving is illegal, only drunks will drive. Or something.

Do-nothing meme #4c: If guns are illegal, only criminals will have guns.

Nobody is suggesting making guns illegal. It is, however, tempting to make strawman arguments illegal.

Do-nothing meme #5: [Solution] won’t stop all shootings, for all values of [Solution].

As always, perfect is the enemy of better. Just because a proposed course of action won’t fix everything that doesn’t mean it won’t improve the situation.

Do-nothing meme #6: District of Columbia v. Heller guarantees the individual’s right to “bear arms.”

When does it stop being an “arms”? I mean, if assault weapons are arms so far as Heller is concerned, are Molotov cocktails okay too? How about hand grenades? Rocket launchers? Tanks?

Do-nothing meme #7: The solution to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

And when the good guy with a gun isn’t properly trained, shoots anyway, and misses the bad guy with a gun, where do you think the good guy’s bullet ends up?

Bob’s last word: I try to limit KJR to subjects about which I have some expertise, and which you, as a business leader or IT professional might find useful. I hadn’t planned on a second column about mass shootings in as many weeks.

But I really had no choice.

I expect some subscribers will write this off as just more evidence, as if any were needed, that “Bob’s liberal bias is showing.” Maybe it is. If so, I’d be interested to know what of the above is characteristically liberal, or antithetical to conservative political philosophy.

Bob’s sales pitch: I’ve got nothing this week that’s worth selling. Instead, if your senators and congressional representatives might be influenced by what their voters want them to do … even if it’s just a little … then please take the time to write them. Gun control laws will only get passed if legislators think voting for them won’t get them voted out of office.

Or, more to the point, if legislators think not voting for gun control laws will get them voted out of office.

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I’m sending this out early because I’m planning to take the Memorial Day weekend off. And if you find this foray into public policy annoying, rest assured it’s temporary. When I’m back in the saddle a week from next Monday, KJR will once again be about keeping your joint running.