Neil was a man who despised waste. When it came to the wasteful company practice of
hiring too many middle management people, he was incensed. He looked down the
company flow chart and saw many positions that he believed were redundant. He fired
off memo after memo to the senior vice president outlining his plans to save the company
millions of dollars in wages and benefits by eliminating some positions and combining
others. Eventually, as the profit margins settled into a steady decline, he got upper
management's attention. The announcement came that the company was going into a
