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 ROWE
CROSSAN
MAURER
ROUSE
S T R AT E G I C A N A LY S I S
NINTH EDITION

S T R AT E G I C
A N A LY S I S
AND A C T I O N

ACTIONAND
ISBN: 978-0-13-337029-4
EDITION
NINTH

www.pearsonhighered.com 9 780133 370294 MARY M. CROSSAN • MICHAEL J. ROUSE

W. GLENN ROWE • CARA C. MAURER
 5 Environment Analysis: The Strategy–Environment Linkage 88
Conducting Environment Analysis 88
Step 1: Focus the Environment Analysis 88
Performance Assessment as a Focusing Tool 90
The Strategic Proposal as a Focusing Tool 91
Jantzen Technologies: A Case Study 91
The Profit Model as a Focusing Tool 93
Defining the Right Time Horizon 95
Minimizing the Risks of Focus 96
Step 2: Test the Strategy–Environment Linkage 98
Demand 99
Supply 102
Competition 103
Government 105
First Check for Fit or Recycle 108
Step 3: Forecast Performance 109
Step 4: Rank against Other Proposals 110
Summary 110
Notes 111

6 Resource Analysis: The Strategy–Resource Linkage 112

The Nature of Resources 112
Other Characterizations of Resources 114
Resources and Competitive Advantage 116
The Dual Role of Resources 119
The Constraining Role of Resources 119
The Driving Role of Resources 120
Resource Analysis 120
Step 1: Identify Resource Requirements 123
Step 2: Test the Strategy–Resource Linkage 123
Recycling 126
Step 3: Develop Gap-Closing Analysis 126
Step 4: Move to the Next Step in the Diamond-E Analysis 128
Dynamic Resources 128
Resources and the Scope of the Firm 129
Summary 129
Notes 130

7 Management Preference Analysis: The Strategy–Management

Preference Linkage 132
Value Creation, Capture, and Distribution 132
Reconciling Stakeholder Interests 133
Corporate Governance 134
Corporate Social Responsibility 137

Contents vii

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 Management as a Key Stakeholder 138
Inconsistency between Proposed and Preferred Strategy 138
Inconsistency between Preferred Strategy and Other Realities 139
The Role of Management Preferences 140
The Roots of Strategic Preference 141
Personal Attributes 141
Character 142
Competencies 143
Job Context 146
Frozen Preference 147
Implications 149
Matching Preferences and Strategy 149
Step 1: Identify the Required Management Preferences 151
Step 2: Test the Strategy–Preferences Linkage 152
Step 3: Develop Gap-Closing Analysis 152
Framing the Gap-Closing Issues—Individual Managers 153
Gap-Closing Actions and Risks—Individual Managers 154
Framing the Gap-Closing Issues—Groups of Managers 155
Management Preferences and Competitive Analysis 157
Summary 158
Notes 159

8 Strategy and Organization 161

Organizational Capabilities 163
Behaviour 166
Culture 167
Step 1: Identify Required Organizational Capabilities 169
Step 2: Identify Capability Gaps 171
Step 3: Develop New Organizational Capabilities 172
Organization Structure 173
Functional Structure 173
Product Organization 175
Geographic Structure 176
Matrix 178
Cellular 178
Strategic Alliances 180
Choosing a Structure 181
Management Processes 182
Decision-Making Processes 182
Operating Processes 184
Performance Assessment and Reward Processes 185
Leadership Behaviour 186
Do You Have the Right Leaders? 187
Using All Three Leverage Points 188
Step 4: Assess Feasibility 188

viii Contents

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 Summary 190
Notes 191

9 Strategic Choice 193

Strategy as a Dynamic Process 194
Setting Direction 194
Focusing Effort 194
Defining the Organization 194
Providing Consistency 194
Strategy as Planning 196
Strategy as Learning 199
Cognitive Biases 200
Organizational Learning and Strategic Renewal 203
Reconciling the Tensions in Strategic Renewal 205
Leadership for Strategic Renewal 207
The Practical Matter of Strategic Choice at a Point of Time 209
Summary 211
Notes 211

10 Implementing Strategy: Change Agenda and Starting

Conditions 214
Types of Strategic Change 215
Strategic Decline 216
Leadership Style 217
Implementing Strategic Change 218
The Change Plan 219
Change Agenda 220
Analysis of Starting Conditions 220
Need for Change: The Crisis Curve 221
Crisis Change 223
Anticipatory Change 225
Reactive Change 227
Organizational Readiness for Change 229
Target Group Identification 229
Target Group Readiness 230
Personal Readiness for Change 232
The View From Below 234
Summary 235
Notes 235

11 Implementing Strategy: Guidelines and Action 238

Establishing Guidelines for Action 238
Priority Objectives 238
Behavioural versus Non-Behavioural Objectives 239

Contents ix

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 Action Priorities 240
Adopters and Resistors 241
Picking Starting Points for Action 244
Focus versus Scope 245
Leadership Style 246
Directive Leadership 246
The Participative Style 248
Pace 249
Implementing Pace Decisions 250
Generic Guidelines 250
Crisis Change 251
Anticipatory Change 252
Reactive Change 255
Creating an Action Plan 257
Monitoring Performance 258
Summary 259
Notes 259

Index 262

x Contents

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 Preface

This book was written to complement case analysis in university and company strategic
management courses. It takes the point of view of the general manager and presents a con-
sistent, operational approach to analyzing and acting on strategic problems. Our intent
is to introduce you to the breadth of material in strategic management, yet enable you to
apply it in a decision-making process. In doing so, we venture beyond current strategic
management texts to help reconcile the diversity, breadth, and complexity of the field.
As we point out in Chapter 1, general managers run businesses and other types of
organizations, and, while their responsibility may be for a small business, a not-for-profit,
public sector, or large corporation, they face the common challenge of guiding their orga-
nizations to success in competitive environments. The aim of this book is to develop the
basic general management skills required to understand a business organization, sense the
opportunities and problems that it faces, deal effectively with strategic decisions, and to
set in place the people, structures, and operations to implement those decisions. We
refer to this as the general management perspective and, as we describe in Chapter 1, it
applies to any person in the organization, not just the general manager. Having a general
management perspective requires a disposition to lead, and therefore having a general
management perspective is consistent with concepts such as strategic leadership and
cross-enterprise leadership.
In preparing the text materials, we have concentrated on analytic concepts that con-
tribute to a practical understanding of specific strategic issues and to the translation of this
understanding into personal action. Further, we have linked these discrete concepts into
a comprehensive framework—the Diamond-E framework—to ensure that the whole of
the situation facing the business is appreciated and that priorities are set for both analysis
and action.
We have made two assumptions about our readers. First, we have assumed that
they are engaged in trying to solve strategic problems—as students of business doing
case analyses or field projects, or as managers on the job. Application and practice are
the prime vehicles for understanding the power and limitations of the concepts in this
text and, more importantly, for developing general management skills. Second, we have
assumed that our readers possess a basic understanding of the background disciplines and
functional areas of business, such as the financial analysis and marketing skills provided
in early courses in university business programs.

APPROACH
The point of view we take on strategic issues is that of a general manager. We assume
that you are willing to share this perspective—to see yourself as responsible for the over-
all direction and success of an organization or business unit. As a general manager, you
must think in comprehensive terms of the total problem you are dealing with, taking
into account the full breadth of its meaning and consequences for the business. Partial

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 analyses from a specialist or a functional perspective may be helpful, but they do not meet
the general manager’s need for the best overall approach to a situation. In addition to the
broad issues of direction, you must worry about the specific steps of execution—about
closing the gaps between strategic choice and practical, personal action. Again, the rec-
ommendations of a consultant or staff specialist may be useful, but their advice will usually
address only the directional aspects of the general manager’s concerns. In short, we ask
you to step into a particularly challenging position in which you must think of problems
in terms of a total business, set priorities, and plan for tangible, practical action.
Three threads weave their way through the fabric of the text: value, advantage, and
globalization. General managers are fundamentally charged with the responsibility of
guiding their organizations to create and capture value with an eye to how that value is
distributed among various stakeholders, including shareholders. Our perspective is that
organizations are mechanisms invented by society to generate value that individuals can-
not generate on their own. The value that organizations generate takes many forms (e.g.,
profit, jobs, self-actualization, goods, and services), and different organizations generate
different types of value. All organizations, however, must generate value—that is the
reason they exist.
Organizational growth or even survivability depends not merely on the generation of
value; businesses must also have comparative or competitive advantage. Why should cus-
tomers buy your valuable product or service rather than another firm’s? As a general man-
ager, you must ensure that your value-generating organization has competitive advantages.
Thirdly, today’s environments are global. Very few industries are not impacted in
some meaningful way by global forces. We deal with some specific issues related to global
diversification strategies, but a basic assumption that we hold, and that we encourage you
to consider as a general manager, is that globalization is no longer a separate, optional
consideration. Globalization is a fundamental element for strategic analysis and action.
Understanding that the role of the general manager has changed in recent years,
we have chosen to underscore this change with the term “Cross-Enterprise Leadership.”
We summarized these changes, and the distinctions between the general manager and
the Cross-Enterprise Leader in an Ivey Business Journal article. There, we concluded that
the forces of globalization, rapid change, and time-based competition had redefined the
role of the general manager and that organizations, as single entities controlling their own
fate, had been supplanted by networks and alliances of enterprises.

Whereas general management focused on integrating the various functions within an

organization, the business imperative today requires an approach—Cross-Enterprise
Leadership—that can create, capture and distribute value across a network of
companies, not just within a company. Second, these networks, which we call
enterprises, are complex and dynamic, and must be able to respond as a whole to
the emergent challenges that are continually presented. Third, no one leader can
“manage” the enterprise, and therefore leadership needs to be distributed. Finally,
these changes require an approach to leadership over-and-above that possessed by
traditional business leaders. At its core, Cross-Enterprise Leadership recognizes that
managers operate in a complex world in which the boundaries of organizations are
fluid and dynamic, cutting across functional designations, departments, business
units, companies, geography and cultures.1

xii Preface

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 That value is created cross-enterprise is demonstrated by Coca-Cola and Nestlé,
who are competitors in bottled water and several beverage categories around the world.
But in North America, Coca-Cola is the primary distributor for Nestlé’s Nestea product.
Toshiba reduces its shipping costs by having UPS undertake repairs of Toshiba prod-
ucts, and Singapore-based Flextronics undertakes design and manufacturing services for
companies in the automotive, industrial, medical, and technology sectors. Health care
networks have become a necessary means to deliver on health care needs. While we take
the organization as the primary focus, our perspective acknowledges that the boundaries
of the organization are often blurry, and models of strategy need the flexibility to take
this into account.
For the purpose of this book, we will retain the term “general manager”; however,
our view of the role of the general manager has changed, and these changes are reflected
in the materials presented. The choice and presentation of material in the book have
been guided by experience and practical utility. Our aim has been to provide useful tools
organized into one consistent and comprehensive framework. Our intent is to present the
diversity and complexity of the field but distill it so that it can be applied in a decision-
making process. Additional readings are suggested, where appropriate, at the end of chap-
ters for those who wish to explore specific subjects in greater depth.
Throughout the book, we have frequently used examples to make the connection
between the concepts, which have to be somewhat general for flexibility and breadth of
application, and specific strategic issues. As you read, you might find it useful to think
of examples from your own experience and test the applicability of the concepts against
them.

ORGANIZATION
The book is organized according to a general pattern: problem identification to analysis to
decision to execution. This is a natural, logical sequence and is effective for the cumula-
tive presentation of concepts. But we do not mean to imply that actual strategic problems
can be dealt with in such a neat, serial fashion. On the contrary, most strategic problems
require an iterative approach, in which the analysis moves back and forth between choice
and action. This point will become evident as you read through the book. Its immediate
application, however, is that you should not expect to find business situations, or case
problems describing them, that neatly conform to the flow of the text.
Throughout the book we use the terms business, organization, and firm interchange-
ably. Whether considering a not-for-profit or for-profit organization, a small entrepre-
neurial firm or a large multi-national, a public or private sector enterprise, the concepts
apply to all types of organizations. If there is a particular distinction to be made for a
specific type of organization, such as a not-for-profit, we will flag it. However, these
instances will be rare as the fundamentals of strategy apply to all types of organizations
in all geographic contexts.
There are 11 chapters in the book. Chapters 1 and 2 position the concept of strategy
as a crucial general management tool and then provide an operational understanding and
definition of it. Chapter 3 introduces the Diamond-E framework and the fundamental
logic of strategic analysis. Chapters 4 through 8 elaborate on the processes of analysis by

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 working through the individual components of the Diamond-E framework with a view to
building a comprehensive position on strategic needs and priorities. Chapter 9 discusses
the dynamic nature of strategy, providing a transition to Chapters 10 and 11, which
concentrate on developing personal action plans to move from the analytic results to the
implementation of strategic changes.

SUGGESTIONS FOR USE

At the outset, we suggest that you read Chapters 1 through 3 thoroughly. This will pro-
vide a perspective for your thinking and a basic framework for your analysis. Skim the rest
of the book so that you know where to turn as specific circumstances dictate.
As you deal with problems, use the book selectively. Try to work back and forth
between the problem that you are addressing and the relevant parts of the book. Use the
concepts to check your analysis and, as necessary, to expand it. Common sense is very
important here. Do not try to force the concepts and procedures on a problem; instead
use them to enrich the analysis.
Study the book after you have spent some time working on strategic problems. At
that point, you will more readily appreciate the general analytical approach and see the
applicability of particular concepts. From then on, the building of skills in strategic analy-
sis and action is a matter of practice and more practice. Remember, you are dealing with
the most complex problems in business. Good luck!

NEW TO THIS EDITION

The first edition of this book was published in 1986. In revising it for this ninth edition,
we have updated both the examples and recent theory that support the practical and user-
friendly aspects of the eighth edition.
Many of the changes in theory and practice in recent years have been toward frag-
mentation of concepts and pitting one approach against another. We have found this to
be counter-productive. For example, emphasizing a dynamic approach to strategy does not
negate the importance of understanding strategic positioning at a point in time. Thus,
in this edition, we have tried to make connections between concepts that have become
increasingly fragmented or polarized.
Throughout the many editions, our consistent aim has been to increase the relevance
of the materials for solving general management problems in the field or in the form of
written cases.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our primary acknowledgment goes to Nick Fry and Peter Killing, who launched
the first edition in 1986 and who continued as authors through the years into their
retirement. They provided a vision and platform that has stood the test of time in
its ability to anticipate and adapt to changes in both research and practice. Indeed,
virtually all advances in the field of strategy have been easily accommodated within

xiv Preface

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 the approach they imagined. We are grateful for their leadership in resisting some
early moves in academia and practice away from a general management perspective to
treating strategy as a technical competence. The shortcomings of that approach are
apparent—strategy and leadership are tightly intertwined. We are grateful that as Nick
and Peter have retired from the book, Cara Maurer and Glenn Rowe have joined the
author team.
We have been fortunate to work for many years in institutions that value good
teaching and professional relevance. These cultural attributes have been developed and
reinforced by many people. In all editions, we have benefited from the new ideas and
continuing support of our colleagues in the university and in the private sector. We
would particularly like to acknowledge our immediate colleagues at the Ivey Business
School and at IMD who, over the years, have included professors Jay Anand, Tima
Bansal, Paul Beamish, Oana Branzei, Laurence Capron, the late Harold Crookell, Jim
Dowd, Tony Frost, Michael Geringer, Louis Hébert, Gerald Higgins, Amy Hillman,
Bryan Hong, Ariff Kachra, Mike Levenhagen, Peter Lorange, Pat MacDonald, Alan
Morrison, Eric Morse, Charlene Nicholls-Nixon, Tom Poynter, Paul Strebel, Don Thain,
Stewart Thornhill, Jean-Philippe Vergne, Rod White, Mark Zbaracki, Laurina Zhang,
and Charlene Zietsma.
We are also extremely grateful to the following reviewers for their comments and
suggestions: Wael Ramadan, Sheridan College; Natalie Slawinski, Memorial University
of Newfoundland; Jianyun Tang, Memorial University of Newfoundland; Bob Thompson,
Seneca College.
We are indebted to our publisher, Pearson Canada, and, in particular, Kathleen
McGill, Madhu Ranadive, and Alanna Ferguson for their help in producing and promoting
this book. At Ivey, we are obliged to Nicole Haney for her tremendous organizational and
administrative support.
Mary M. Crossan,
Michael J. Rouse,
Cara C. Maurer,
W. Glenn Rowe
London, Ontario

SUPPLEMENTS
Test Item File (ISBN 978-0-13-430808-1)
This test bank in Microsoft Word format includes over 300 questions. There are
approximately 55 questions per chapter, including multiple choice and true/false. The
Test Item File is available for download from a password-protected section of Pearson
Canada’s online catalogue. Navigate to your book’s catalogue page to view a list of
those supplements that are available. See your local sales representative for details
and access.

Preface xv

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 Learning Solutions Managers
Pearson’s Learning Solutions Managers work with faculty and campus course designers to
ensure that Pearson technology products, assessment tools, and online course materials
are tailored to meet your specific needs. This highly qualified team is dedicated to helping
schools take full advantage of a wide range of educational resources, by assisting in the
integration of a variety of instructional materials and media formats. Your local Pearson
Canada sales representative can provide you with more details on this service program.

Notes
1. Crossan, M., Olivera, F. “Cross-Enterprise Leadership: A New Approach for the 21st
Century,” Ivey Business Journal, May June, 2006.

xvi Preface

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 Chapter 1
A General Management Perspective

A general manager is someone who has responsibility for all functional facets of the busi-
ness. General managers run businesses and organizations of all kinds, such as for-profit
businesses and public sector and not-for-profit organizations.1 A fundamental challenge
facing general managers today stems from the fact that the external environment in which
their organization operates—which includes current customers, potential customers, com-
petitors, technological innovation, government, suppliers, global forces, and so on—is
changing so rapidly that the firm, with its finite resources and limited organizational capa-
bilities, is hard pressed to keep up. Keep up it must, however, because in a rapidly chang-
ing environment, sticking with yesterday’s strategy, no matter how successful it may have
been, is often a recipe for tomorrow’s disaster.
Although the general manager holds a particular position in the organization, any
individual in a functional position can also have a general management perspective, and
we argue that having one will assist employees throughout the organization. A general
management perspective means having the capacity to understand and to appreciate issues
facing individuals who are placed in the specific role of a general manager. Often, strategic
decisions require difficult trade-offs. To the degree that employees understand why deci-
sions have been made and what needs to be done, personal performance and organizational
performance will be enhanced. A general management perspective also helps you to iden-
tify relevant data, information, and knowledge that are important to strategic analysis and
action. Strategic decisions need to draw on the collective intelligence of the workforce.
We view having a general management perspective as consistent with having a stra-
tegic leadership perspective or cross-enterprise leadership perspective. Strategy requires
both the disposition to lead and the capacity to manage across the enterprise. Yet the
general manager does not act in isolation. Throughout the text we refer to the general
manager, with the intention of including all persons seeking to develop a general manage-
ment perspective.

THE JOB OF THE GENERAL MANAGER

The job of the general manager is to create, capture, and appropriately distribute value for
the enterprise. As a general manager you need to recognize emerging opportunities and chal-
lenges, prepare a response, and ensure the success of whatever plan of action you decide upon.

M01_CROS0294_09_SE_C01.indd 1 28/09/15 4:16 PM

 By way of example, consider the rapidly changing competitive situation in the con-
sumer smartphone industry over the last few years. This is an industry that has grown
rapidly and undergone rapid innovation. BlackBerry, a company that had a dominant
position in the enterprise smartphone market, entered the consumer smartphone market
to increase its revenues and market share. As an early entrant in the industry it initially
had good success capturing higher market share each year. But this came at the cost of
reduced margins, which the co-CEO at the time, Jim Balsillie, described as a deliberate
strategy of a “land grab.” He knew they would sacrifice margins for several years, but felt
that they needed to sacrifice financial performance to claim space in the segment as a
basis for future growth.2
While BlackBerry’s smartphone devices offered a superior email experience, the
release of Apple’s iPhone in 2007 started chipping away at BlackBerry’s market share. By
the second quarter of 2011, Apple had achieved the top position in the smartphone space,
while BlackBerry was in fourth place, with a market share that had declined over the
previous year. What was even more worrisome was the fact that BlackBerry was behind
the curve in its response to Apple’s release of the iPad, and when BlackBerry did release
a competitive product, the market response was tepid and disparaging due to high defect
rates and insufficient functionality. What had gone wrong? How could a company that
had held a leading position in the enterprise smartphone market come up so short in
the consumer segment? Many analysts pinned the failure to BlackBerry’s capabilities and
resources that, while finely honed to understand and lead the enterprise market, did not
seem to understand the needs of the consumer market; BlackBerry was therefore slow to
react to changes in the market, let alone lead it.
After establishing a long-term direction and creating the strategy, the general manager’s
work is not done. In fact, the most difficult part is just beginning. While BlackBerry’s co-CEOs
established long-term direction and created the strategy early on, not enough was done to
develop the capability to allow the organization to provide leadership in both the enter-
prise and consumer market. Capabilities that were deemed superior in BlackBerry’s highly
protected enterprise market were inadequate in the far-more-competitive consumer market.
Further, BlackBerry lacked many capabilities required for success in consumer products.
This example illustrates three of the fundamental components of the general
manager’s job: setting direction, creating strategy, and implementing change. One further
crucial aspect of the job, shown in Figure 1.1, is assessing performance—both current and
longer term. Without a good feel for how well the organization is performing at any point
in time, a general manager could get the other three components of the job very wrong.
Emphasizing lofty but distant goals when the company may not survive the coming year
could lead to disaster; acting as if there is a crisis when a slower pace of change would be
more appropriate can be just as damaging.
A competent general manager will perform all four of these tasks. The tasks will not
be addressed sequentially or in isolation from each other, but as a continuously changing
mix of activities. The double-headed arrows in Figure 1.1 are intended to convey this
interconnectedness.

2 Chapter 1 A General Management Perspective

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 Setting Direction
vision
mission
values

Assessing Creating Strategy

General
Performance determining the way
Manager
today and tomorrow forward

Implementing
Change
making it happen

Figure 1.1 The Job of the General Manager

The primary focus of this book is on the processes and tools you will need for creat-
ing strategy and managing strategic change. Before you embark on the strategy-making
process you need to make sure that you know your starting position, which means that you
need a solid assessment of current performance. You also need a high-level view of what
you are trying to achieve, which will be captured in your vision, mission, and values. In
the remainder of this chapter we address these topics.

ASSESSING PERFORMANCE
We begin with a discussion of performance assessment because the general manager who
is not skilled at this task will have great difficulty with other aspects of the job. Many
corporate tragedies are rooted in the fact that senior managers had a false idea of how
well their organization was performing. Take, for example, McDonald’s, which in 2003
announced its first-ever quarterly loss since becoming a public company in 1965. As a
franchisor, McDonald’s collects royalties that amount to four percent of sales. However,
it is also a real estate company that owns the land and buildings of many of its franchised
locations, with rental income amounting to about 10 percent of sales. McDonald’s focused
on rental income from real estate, which prompted expansive growth. At the same time,
McDonald’s lost sight of deteriorating measures of performance such as same-store sales,
which had been stagnant for a decade, and customer service, where it had ranked last in
the fast-food industry since 1994. To turn things around, management had to reverse its
strategy by dramatically reducing the number of store openings worldwide and, instead,
focus its attention on attracting more customers to existing stores. The results were

Assessing Performance 3

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 Table 1.1 Typical Measures of Operating Performance
Profitability Financial Position Market Performance
• Profit margins • Leverage ratios (debt/equity, • Absolute level and
(gross and operating) interest coverage) growth rate in sales
• Key expense ratios • Liquidity ratios (units, revenue) • Market share
• Return on equity, • Activity ratios (e.g., asset and • New products as %
assets inventory turnover) of sales
• Economic value added

impressive. In 2010, McDonald’s had achieved growth in same-store sales for eight con-
secutive years. From 2003 to 2010, revenues increased by 40 percent and net income more
than tripled. By 2015 performance was lagging expectations and once again management
reviewed avenues for improvement including a restructuring intended to make them more
nimble and responsive to competition.
There are many approaches to take to size up performance, and each industry
and company will have its own metrics based on key performance drivers. For a useful
approach to creating multiple performance measures, see Robert Kaplan and David
Norton’s “Balanced Scorecard.”3 Our assessment of organizational performance is based
on two sets of measures: operating performance and organizational health. Operating perfor-
mance includes the “hard” or more quantitative measures of financial and market perfor-
mance. Some typical measures of operating performance are included in Table 1.1. In any
given situation some of these measures may be more important than others. Whatever
your circumstances, beware of relying on only a single measure of operating performance,
or on solely internal measures.
Measures of organizational health are generally “softer” and more qualitative than those
of operating performance, and include such things as management and worker enthusiasm,
the ability to work across boundaries, the ability of the organization to learn, employee
satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and supplier relationships.4 These and other factors are
described in Table 1.2. Again, you might put more emphasis on some of these factors than
others as you are assessing the health of your organization, but here, too, we recommend
that you focus on more than a single measure, and assess how these factors change over time.
The danger that many senior management teams face is that they think they know
where the business stands in terms of organizational health, when often they do not.
This could be due to several reasons: negative feedback to upper-level managers may be
implicitly or explicitly discouraged; middle managers may choose to filter out information
before it reaches the upper echelons; or senior managers may simply not listen well. One
response used by many firms has been to conduct anonymous employee surveys on a large
scale to try to get a realistic assessment of these measures. Another method is to obtain
360-degree feedback from staff on members of the senior management team. We are aware
of one CEO who did this and who discovered that he was not a very good listener.

4 Chapter 1 A General Management Perspective

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 Table 1.2 Typical Measures of Organizational Health
Enthusiasm Boundaries Problem Solving Learning Sustainability
How Do individuals Are problem Does the Can the pace
enthusiastic identify areas identified organization at which
are managers with narrow and dealt with learn from its people are
and employees sub-groups or hidden and experiences? working be
about their or with the ignored? From others’ sustained?
work? organization experiences?
as a whole?

It is also important to recognize that the drivers of performance for any company or
industry are often interrelated in important ways, with both key leading and lagging indi-
cators. For example, a fast-food chain developed a causal model that proposed the drivers
of strategic success. They found that selection and staffing choices impacted employee sat-
isfaction, which in turn affected the value that employees were able to add to the business.
Employee value-added service affected customer satisfaction, which affected customer
buying behaviour, profitability, and overall shareholder value.5

Using the Performance Matrix

We use the performance matrix to classify operating performance and organizational health
as roughly positive or negative and ask three questions: (1) where was your business three
years ago, (2) where is it today, and (3) in which direction is it currently moving? Our main
emphasis is on the current position of the business, but a discussion of this naturally leads
to consideration of where the business has been and which way it is moving. In Figure 1.2
we have illustrated the hypothetical case of a business that has moved from Quadrant 2
(Q2) through Q4 and is currently in Q3, hoping to move upward to Q1.

Quadrant 2 Quadrant 1

+ complacent desired
Organizational Health

organization state
three years
ago tomorrow?

today
troubled
– crisis
organization

Quadrant 4 Quadrant 3
– +
Operating Performance
Figure 1.2 The Performance Matrix (with illustrative example)

Assessing Performance 5

M01_CROS0294_09_SE_C01.indd 5 28/09/15 4:16 PM

 Clearly, the desired state is Quadrant 1, in which operating performance and orga-
nizational health are both positive. If your analysis suggests that your business is in this
quadrant, and you expect it to stay there, your strategy review will probably be a question
of fine tuning, and perhaps taking a farther-than-usual look into the future. But do not
take the strategy assessment process lightly. You need to ensure that you have placed your-
self in this quadrant as a result of thorough analysis, not complacency or wishful thinking.
The picture in Quadrant 2, on the other hand, may be of an inward-looking and
self-satisfied organization where people enjoy their work but collectively are performing
inadequately in terms of market and financial standards. There may be recognition by a
few that there is a need to change, but getting a meaningful strategic review underway
may be difficult, as currently happy employees will not want to face the prospect of mak-
ing uncomfortable changes to improve operating performance.
In Quadrant 3 the business is achieving its operating objectives at the expense of
organizational health. This may arise because management has applied pressure to obtain
short-term profits, often via downsizing, without upgrading the skills of their people.
Management also may have given little thought to the processes by which work should be
done. It is a classic case of doing the same work with fewer people, and everyone burns out.
Quadrant 4 represents a clear-cut problem situation in which immediate and com-
prehensive action is necessary. It may well be a crisis; if so, strategic analysis had better be
fast. Shortcuts may have to be taken, but our hope is that if your firm is in crisis a quick
look through this book will at least help you decide where to start, and which parts of the
strategy creation process will quickly yield the most value to you and your business team.
In later chapters we will discuss other perspectives on performance. In Chapter 5,
for example, we will ask you to predict the likely performance of your business if it con-
tinues with its existing strategy; this is your “base case” scenario. In the last two chapters
of the book, which deal with the management of change, we will discuss the crisis curve
concept, which involves tracing the past, current, and projected future performance of a
business to determine the urgency for change.
We now turn to another task of the general manager that needs to be considered before
we turn to strategic analysis: that of establishing the overall direction for the business.

SETTING DIRECTION: VISION, MISSION, VALUES

Organizations need a strong sense of direction—a vision—to bring coherence to the many
strategic and operating decisions that managers at all levels are constantly called upon
to make. There are three basic reasons for starting strategic analysis with work on vision-
ing. The first is to resolve confusion over the purpose of the business: why it exists. For
example, visioning is often most visibly used in family-owned companies, when disagree-
ments arise among the family shareholders over such issues as dividend income or family
employment. Other examples are found in newly privatized enterprises that now have to
decide on fundamental objectives and whom they are to serve. All organizations need a
clear sense of what and who they are.

6 Chapter 1 A General Management Perspective

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 The second reason for developing or changing a company’s vision is to revitalize it.
In 2007 Apple dropped “Computer” from its name, signalling a shift to make Macs a hub
in a networked world of digital devices. Fortune magazine described CEO Steve Jobs as
having

… exercised his increasing power with the facility of a jujitsu master. Consider: He
elbowed aside the likes of Sony to change the dynamics of consumer electronics with
the iPod. He persuaded the music industry, the television networks, and Hollywood to
let him show them how to distribute their wares in the Digital Age with the iTunes
Music Store. He employed the arch austerity of his hugely successful Apple Stores to
give the big-box boys a lesson in high-margin, high-touch retailing. And this year, at
the height of his creative and promotional powers, Jobs orchestrated Apple’s over-the-
top entry into the cellular telephone business with the iPhone, a lozenge of glass and
aluminum encasing a do-everything digital device.6

Finally, you might decide to prepare a mission statement when your business is oper-
ating reasonably well, and you think that creating one may help to reinforce your existing
informal “sense of vision.” You could also see it as a public relations exercise that helps
better present the business to shareholders, customers, or regulators.
The challenge in developing a vision is to simultaneously raise people’s sights,
give them direction, and stay realistic. While it usually helps to formalize agreements
about vision, mission, and values in an explicit mission statement, the existence of a
formal statement may actually mean very little; the critical factor is whether the vision
has permeated the organization. Achieving a powerful sense of mission depends very
heavily on the day-to-day decisions and actions of an organization’s leaders. People
look to actions, not words, for guidance. If a purpose like “to be the best and most
successful company in the airline business” is to have real motivating power and direc-
tional meaning, then the actions of senior management in everything from investment
decisions for aircraft to the budgets for cleaning cabins had better be consistent with
that vision.
There are many frameworks and references on the subject of vision, mission, and
values. A list of references is provided at the end of this chapter. One pair of research-
ers, James Collins and Jerry Porras, studied highly successful companies and found that
what they had in common was an enduring set of core values and purpose, unique to
each company, that remain fixed even though their business strategies evolved over
time.7
The Collins and Porras framework is a good example since it is based on solid
research, yet provides a practical approach for applying the concepts. Collins and Porras
state that “at the broadest level, vision consists of two major components—a Guiding
Philosophy that, in the context of expected future environments, leads to a Tangible
Image.”8
In the Collins and Porras framework, the guiding philosophy includes the core pur-
pose and core values of the organization. The core purpose and core values need to be

S e t t i n g D i r e c t i o n : V i s i o n , M i s s i o n , Va l u e s 7

M01_CROS0294_09_SE_C01.indd 7 28/09/15 4:16 PM

 translated into a tangible image in the form of a mission and a vivid description of that
mission. Whereas environmental analysis plays a pivotal role in the case of strategy, in
the case of vision it plays more of a moderating role in translating purpose into mission.
Aspiration plays a stronger role with vision such that there is a fine line between the
possible and impossible. Although Collins and Porras advocate that strategic analysis
should be done after the vision and mission-setting process, this is rarely the case. The
practical matter is that vision and strategy operate in tandem as we discuss later in this
chapter.

Guiding Philosophy
The guiding philosophy has two elements, the core purpose and the core values. The core
values are the starting point for the guiding philosophy.
Values Values represent the basic beliefs that govern individual and group behaviour
in an organization. These may be brief and highly abstract, or much more detailed and
specific. Coca-cola talks about spreading optimism and happiness, providing a refreshing
experience, making a difference, and adding value. They aspire to achieve this by their
seven rules:Leadership, Collaboration, Integrity, Accountability, Passion, Diversity and
Quality. While many organizations may share these types of values, the expression and
application can be quite different. For example, when it comes to the value of collabora-
tion Coca-Cola focuses on being able to “leverage collective genius” and they want their
leadership to have “the courage to shape a better future”.9
Of course, the real test is whether a company lives its values. For example, Starbucks
has a set of values that include providing a great work environment and embracing
diversity. Starbucks backs up its values by treating its associates better than the industry
standard. This can be seen in the employee stock plan, benefits, a first-class working envi-
ronment, heavy investment in training, and other practices.
It is not surprising that Starbucks demonstrates these values since they are strongly
held by its CEO, Howard Schultz. Schultz was deeply affected by the experiences of his
father, whom he has described as a broken-down blue collar worker who was not valued
or respected by his employers, and became very bitter as a result. Schultz was commit-
ted to ensuring that Starbucks would be a different kind of company that would not
leave anyone behind.10 Having witnessed the financial stress on his family when his
father was unemployed with a broken ankle and no medical benefits, Schultz is commit-
ted to treat all employees with respect and dignity. As a result, thousands of part-time
Starbucks workers have full medical benefits. The proof of the values is that Schultz is
not willing to compromise. Although his profit margins are lower than other fast-food
or restaurant businesses, Schultz says that it is the price you have to pay for doing busi-
ness his way.
By achieving these goals, Starbucks has proved that it is different from many
other companies. Creating a values list that looks good is not so difficult; living up

8 Chapter 1 A General Management Perspective

M01_CROS0294_09_SE_C01.indd 8 28/09/15 4:16 PM

Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sous les déodars
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Sous les déodars

Author: Rudyard Kipling

Translator: Albert Savine

Release date: September 27, 2023 [eBook #71738]

Language: French

Original publication: Paris: Stock, 1910

Credits: Véronique Le Bris, Laurent Vogel, Chuck Greif and the

Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de
France (BnF/Gallica))

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOUS LES

DÉODARS ***
 SOUS LES DÉODARS
L’auteur et l’éditeur déclarent réserver leurs droits de traduction et de reproduction pour tous les
pays, y compris la Suède et la Norvège.
Ce volume a été déposé au Ministère de l’Intérieur (section de la librairie) en septembre 1909.

TABLE DES MATIÈRES

DU MÊME AUTEUR ET DU MÊME TRADUCTEUR

Simples Contes des Collines.

Nouveaux Contes des Collines.
Trois Troupiers.
Autres Troupiers.
Au blanc et noir.

DU MÊME TRADUCTEUR

Juan Valera.—Le Commandeur Mendoza.

Narcis Oller.—Le Papillon, préface d’Émile Zola.
— Le Rapiat.
Jacinto Verdaguer.—L’Atlantide.
Emilia Pardo Bazan.—Le Naturalisme.
Henryk Sienkiewicz.—Pages d’Amérique.
Andrew Carnegie.—La Grande-Bretagne jugée par un Américain.
Elisabeth Barrett Browning.—Poèmes et poésies.
Th. de Quincey.—Souvenirs autobiographiques du Mangeur d’opium.
Th. Roosevelt.—La Vie au Rancho.
— Chasses et parties de chasse.
— La Conquête de l’Ouest.
— New-York.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.—Œuvres en prose.
Robert-L. Stevenson.—Enlevé!
Algernon C. Swinburne.—Nouveaux Poèmes et Ballades.
Oscar Wilde.—Le Crime de lord Arthur Savile.
— Le Portrait de monsieur W. H.
— Poèmes.
— Le Prêtre et l’Acolyte.
— Théâtre.—I.—Drames.
— Théâtre.—II.—Comédies.
A. Conan Doyle.—Mystères et Aventures.
— Le Parasite.
— La Grande Ombre.
— Un Début en médecine.
— Idylle de banlieue.
— Nouveaux Mystères et Aventures.

EN PRÉPARATION

Rudyard Kipling.—La Cité de l’épouvantable nuit.

— Lettres de marque.
— Au hasard de la vie.
A. Conan Doyle.—Rodney Stone.
— La merveilleuse Découverte de Raffles Haw.
Henryk Sienkiewicz.—La Préférée.
Armando Palacio Valdes.—L’Idylle d’un malade.
José-Maria de Pereda.—Au premier Vol.
Robert-L. Stevenson.—Les joyeux Drilles.
Bret Harte.—Maruja.

BIBLIOTHÈQUE COSMOPOLITE—Nº 38

RUDYARD KIPLING

Sous les Déodars

 Traduction d’ALBERT SAVINE
Et comme il est incapable
d’employer, d’utiliser
convenablement le court laps de
temps qui
lui fut confié en dépôt et qu’il le
gaspille d’une
façon ennuyeuse et morne en peines
et sots
tourments, en querelles, en plaisirs,
naturellement,
il réclame à grands cris l’héritage de
l’éternel avenir, pour que son mérite
puisse se
donner libre carrière,—ce qui
évidemment
est de toute justice.
(La Cité de l’épouvantable nuit.)

PARIS—Iᵉʳ
P.-V. STOCK, ÉDITEUR
155, RUE SAINT-HONORÉ, 155
DEVANT LE THÉATRE-FRANÇAIS
—
1910

De cet ouvrage il a été tiré à part,

sur papier de Hollande, huit exemplaires
numérotés et paraphés par l’éditeur.

A NONCE CASANOVA
20 Avril 1909.
 Nous connaissons tous le cèdre du Liban. Les Poètes de la Bible l’ont
chanté comme le plus altier et le plus superbe des arbres de l’Asie, et
Jussieu, au siècle le moins créateur de légendes, a renouvelé la sienne en le
rapportant à travers les flots de la Méditerranée et en le nourrissant de
partie de sa ration d’eau.
Nous en savons bien moins long sur le Déodar ou Déodara, le cèdre de
l’Himalaya. Bien qu’on l’ait acclimaté dans la forêt de Fontainebleau, ce
conifère aux rameaux flexibles et inclinés, à la feuille glauque et
blanchâtre, nous est à peu près inconnu.
Voici Kipling, qui va nous initier aux charmes des Déodars qui couvrent
les pentes de l’Himalaya.
N’était-il pas naturel qu’il empruntât, lors de ses débuts, le titre d’un de
ses recueils de nouvelles à un arbre aussi abondant au Jakko et aux bords
de Simla.
C’est, en effet, à la période de sa vie ou il venait d’écrire les Simples
Contes des Collines, Trois Troupiers et Au Blanc et Noir que se
rattachent les pages que nous présentons aujourd’hui au public français.
Nos lecteurs y retrouveront Madame Hauksbee en compagnie de son
amie Madame Mallowe, le Tertium quid dont Kipling leur a ailleurs
promis l’histoire, la Colline de l’Illusion. Ce sont d’anciennes
connaissances qu’on revoit volontiers.
A. S.
 L’ÉDUCATION D’OTIS YEERE
Dans les retraites du charmant
verger, «que Dieu bénisse tout nos
profits», disons-nous. Mais «que Dieu
bénisse nos pertes», voilà un souhait
qui convient mieux à notre situation.
(Le Berceau de verdure perdu[A].)

I
Cette histoire est celle d’un insuccès, mais la femme qui échoua disait
qu’on en pourrait faire un récit instructif et qui mériterait d’être imprimé
pour le plus grand profit de la génération nouvelle.
La génération nouvelle ne demande point à recevoir des leçons, étant
tout à fait prête à en donner à quiconque voudra bien lui en demander.
Qu’importe! Voici l’histoire.
Elle commence où doit commencer une histoire qui se respecte, c’est-à-
dire à Simla: c’est là que toutes commencent et que quelques-unes finissent
d’une façon funeste.
La méprise vint de ce qu’une femme des plus intelligentes commit une
maladresse, et ne la répara point.
Les hommes ont le droit reconnu de faire des faux pas; mais qu’une
femme intelligente commette une erreur, c’est en dehors des voies
régulières de la Nature et de la Providence.
Tous les braves gens savent en effet qu’une femme est la seule chose
infaillible qu’il y ait au monde, excepté le titre d’emprunt émis par le
gouvernement en 1879, et portant intérêt à quatre et demi pour cent.
Toutefois nous devons nous rappeler que six jours consécutifs passés à
répéter le rôle principal de l’Ange Déchu au Nouveau Théâtre de la Gaîté,
où les plâtres ne sont pas encore secs, c’était bien suffisant pour produire
une certaine rupture d’équilibre intellectuel, capable à son tour de conduire
à des excentricités.
Mistress Hauksbee arriva à la «fonderie» pour déjeuner avec mistress
Mallowe, son unique amie intime, car elle n’était en aucune façon femme à
frayer avec son sexe.
Et ce fut un déjeuner entre femmes, porté interdite à tout le monde.
Et toutes deux se mirent à parler chiffons, ce qui en français est
équivalent de «mystères.»
—J’ai joui d’une période de santé parfaite, dit mistress Hauksbee, le
déjeuner fini, et quand les deux dames furent confortablement installées
dans le petit boudoir qui communiquait avec la chambre à coucher de
mistress Mallowe:
—Ma chère petite, qu’est-ce qu’il a fait? dit avec douceur mistress
Mallowe.
Il est à remarquer que les dames d’un certain âge se traitent
mutuellement de «ma chère petite» tout comme des fonctionnaires qui ont
vingt-huit ans de service se disent: «Mon garçon,» entre employés de même
grade dans l’Annuaire.
—Il n’y a point de il dans l’affaire. Qui suis-je donc pour qu’on
m’impute toujours gratuitement quelque conquête imaginaire? Suis-je un
apache?
—Non, ma chère, mais il y a presque toujours un scalp en train de sécher
à l’entrée de votre wigwam, et un scalp tout frais.
C’était une allusion au petit Hawley qui avait pris l’habitude de courir
tout Simla à cheval, à la saison des pluies, pour aller rendre visite à mistress
Hauksbee.
Cette dame se mit à rire.
—Pour mes péchés, l’aide-major de Tyrconnel m’a condamnée, l’autre
soir, à me placer auprès du Mussuck. Chut! Ne riez pas. C’est un de mes
admirateurs les plus dévoués. Quand on servit les entremets—il faudrait
réellement que quelqu’un aille leur apprendre à faire les puddings, à
Tyrconnel,—le Mussuck fut enfin libre de se consacrer à mon service.
—La bonne âme! Je connais son appétit, dit mistress Mallowe. Est-ce
qu’il s’est mis, oh! est-ce qu’il s’est mis à faire sa cour?
 —Grâce à une faveur spéciale de la Providence, non. Il a expliqué
l’importance qu’il avait comme une des colonnes de l’Empire. Je n’ai point
ri.
—Lucy, je ne vous crois pas.
—Demandez au capitaine Sangar. Il était en face de nous. Je disais donc
que le Mussuck poitrinait.
—Il me semble que je le vois faisant la roue, dit d’un air pensif mistress
Mallowe, en grattant les oreilles de son fox-terrier.
—Je fus impressionnée comme il convenait, tout à fait comme il
convenait. Je bâillai franchement.
—Une surveillance sans trêve et l’art de jouer des uns contre les autres,
disait le Mussuck en engloutissant sa glace par pelletées, je vous en
réponds, mistress Hauksbee, voilà le secret de notre gouvernement.
Mistress Mallowe rit longtemps et gaîment:
—Et qu’avez-vous dit?
—M’avez-vous jamais vue embarrassée pour répondre? J’ai dit:
—C’est bien ce que j’ai remarqué dans mes relations avec vous.
Le Mussuck se gonfla d’orgueil.
Il va venir me voir demain. Le petit Hawley doit venir aussi.
—«Surveillance constante et l’art de jouer de l’un contre l’autre. Voilà,
mistress Hauksbee, voilà le secret de notre gouvernement». Et j’irai jusqu’à
dire que si nous pouvions pénétrer jusqu’au cœur du Mussuck, nous
verrions qu’il se regarde comme un homme de génie.
—Comme il est des deux autres choses. Il me plaît le Mussuck, et je ne
vous permettrai pas de lui donner des noms d’oiseau. Il m’amuse.
—Il vous a convertie vous aussi, à ce qu’il paraît. Parlez-moi de cette
période de santé parfaite et, je vous en prie, donnez à Tim une tape sur le
nez avec le coupe-papier. Ce chien aime trop le sucre. Prenez-vous du lait
dans votre thé?
—Non, merci. Polly, je suis lasse de cette vie: elle est vide.
—Mettez-vous à la dévotion dans ce cas. J’ai toujours dit que vous
finiriez par Rome.
—Cela se réduirait à planter là une demi-douzaine d’attachés en
uniforme rouge pour un seul costume noir, et si je jeûnais, il me viendrait
des rides, qui ne s’en iraient jamais, jamais. Avez-vous remarqué, ma chère,
que je vieillis!
—Merci de cette courtoisie, mais je vais vous la rendre. Oui, nous ne
sommes plus tout à fait, ni vous ni moi... comment dirai-je?
—Ce que nous avons été. «Je sens ça dans mes os,» pour parler comme
mistress Crossley. Polly, j’ai gâché ma vie.
—Comment ça?
—Le comment importe peu; mais je le sens. Je prétends devenir une
Puissance, avant de mourir.
—Alors soyez une Puissance. Vous avez de l’esprit assez pour faire
n’importe quoi... et la beauté.
Mistress Hauksbee brandit une cuiller à thé dans la direction de son
hôtesse.
—Polly, si vous m’accablez ainsi sous les compliments, j’en viendrai à
ne plus croire que vous êtes femme. Dites-moi comment faire pour devenir
une Puissance?
—Apprenez au Mussuck qu’il est le plus enchanteur et le plus svelte des
hommes d’Asie, il vous dira tout ce qui vous plaira, en gros et en détail.
—Fi du Mussuck! Je vise à devenir une Puissance intellectuelle, et non
une force motrice. Polly, je vais organiser un salon.
Mistress Mallowe se tourna languissamment sur le canapé et posa sa tête
sur sa main.
—Écoutez les paroles du Prophète, le fils de Baruch, dit-elle.
—Vous déciderez-vous à parler raisonnablement?
—C’est mon intention, ma chère, car je vois que vous êtes sur le point de
commettre une sottise.
—Je n’ai jamais de ma vie commis de sottise,—du moins de sottise pour
laquelle je n’aie pu trouver une explication, après coup.
—Sur le point de commettre une sottise, reprit mistress Mallowe sans se
déconcerter. A Simla, impossible d’organiser un salon. Un bar offrirait plus
de chances de succès.
—Peut-être. Mais pourquoi? Cela semble si facile.
—C’est justement en cela que la chose est difficile. Combien y a-t-il de
femmes intelligentes à Simla?
 —Deux: vous et moi, dit mistress Hauksbee sans l’ombre d’une
hésitation.
—Quelle modestie. Mistress Feardon vous en saurait gré. Et combien
d’hommes intelligents?
—Oh! une... des centaines, dit mistress Hauksbee, d’un air vague.
—Voilà l’erreur fatale! Il n’y en a pas un seul. Ils sont tous engagés
d’avance par le gouvernement. Voyez mon mari, par exemple. Jack a été un
homme intelligent. Je le dis: d’autres le diraient aussi. Le gouvernement lui
a mis le grappin dessus. Toutes ses idées, tous ses talents de causeur,—et
jadis il était vraiment un causeur de talent, même aux yeux de sa femme—
tout cela lui a été ôté par ce... cet évier de gouvernement. Il en est de même
pour tous les hommes qui ont quelque emploi ici. Je ne suppose pas qu’un
condamné russe sous le régime du knout soit fort propre à amuser le reste
de son équipe, et tout notre monde masculin est une troupe de forçats en
habits à dorures.
—Mais il y a des douzaines de...
—Je sais ce que vous allez dire: des douzaines de gens en congé, de gens
désœuvrés. Je l’admets, mais ils se répartissent en deux catégories
détestables: le civil qui serait enchanté de posséder la connaissance du
monde et la distinction du militaire, et le militaire qui serait adorable s’il
avait la culture du civil.
—Mot détestable. Les civils ont-ils de la culture? Je n’ai jamais étudié
cette espèce à fond.
—Ne vous gaussez pas de l’emploi de Jack. Oui: ils sont comme les
théières du bazar de Lakka, bonne matière, mais sans aucun chic. Ils n’en
peuvent mais, les pauvres mignons. Un civil ne commence à devenir
supportable qu’après avoir roulé par le monde une quinzaine d’années.
—Et un militaire?
—Quand il a servi pendant le même temps. Les jeunes de chaque
catégorie sont affreux. Vous en auriez par douzaines dans votre salon.
—Je ne le souffrirais pas, dit mistress Hauksbee avec une résolution
farouche, je dirais au portier de les balayer. Je mettrais leurs colonels et
leurs commissaires de planton à la porte pour les empêcher d’entrer. Je les
donnerais à la petite Topsham pour en faire joujou.
 —La petite Topsham vous saurait gré de ce cadeau. Mais revenons au
salon. Admettons que vous ayez réuni tous les hommes et toutes les femmes
ensemble, qu’en ferez-vous? Les faire causer? Mais ils se mettraient à
flirter d’un commun accord. Notre salon deviendrait un Peliti de bon ton, un
Hôtel de la Médisance, éclairé par des lampes.
—Il y a une certaine dose de raison dans cette remarque.
—Il y a toute la sagesse de ce monde. Certes, douze saisons passées à
Simla auraient dû vous apprendre qu’il est impossible de concentrer quoi
que ce soit dans l’Inde, et un salon ne peut réussir qu’à la condition d’être
permanent. En deux saisons, tout votre personnel serait dispersé d’un bout à
l’autre de l’Asie. Nous ne sommes guère que de petites boules de terre sur
les flancs des collines, et qu’un jour ou l’autre, la vallée aspirera de son
souffle. Nous avons perdu l’art de causer—du moins nos hommes l’ont
perdu.—Nous n’avons point de cohésion...
—George Eliot ressuscitée! interrompit malignement mistress Hauksbee.
—Et puis, ma chère railleuse, ni hommes, ni femmes n’ont
collectivement d’influence. Venez à la vérandah et jetons un coup d’œil sur
le Mail.
Les deux dames vinrent considérer la route qui se peuplait rapidement,
car tout Simla était dehors pour profiter d’un entracte entre averse et
brouillard.
—Que comptez-vous faire pour fixer ce flot? Regardez: voici le
Mussuck, un homme, qui est la bonté même. C’est une puissance dans le
pays, bien qu’il mange autant qu’un marchand des quatre saisons. Voici le
colonel Blone, le général Grucher, sir Dugald Delane et sir Henry
Haughton, et Mr. Jellalatty, tous des chefs de service, tous des gens
puissants.
—Et tous mes fervents admirateurs, dit mistress Hauksbee avec onction.
Sir Henry Haugton est fou de moi. Mais continuez.
—Pris à part, chacun d’eux est un homme de mérite. Réunis, ils ne sont
plus qu’une cohue d’Anglo-Indiens?. Qui s’intéresse à des propos d’Anglo-
Indiens? Votre Salon n’arriverait pas à souder ensemble les différents
ministères et à vous rendre maîtresse de l’Inde, ma chère. Tous ces gens-là
se mettraient à parler de leur boutique administrative et le feraient, en se
groupant dans votre salon, tant ils ont peur que leurs propos ne soient
surpris par les gens de condition inférieure. Ils ont oublié tout ce qu’ils ont
pu savoir de littérature et d’art... Quant aux femmes...
—La seule chose dont elles puissent causer, ce sont les dernières
Courses, ou les gaffes de leur dernière bonne. Ce matin, j’étais en visite
chez mistress Derwills...
—Vous croyez cela? Elles savent causer avec les petits officiers et les
petits officiers savent causer avec elles. Votre salon ferait admirablement
leur affaire, si vous respectiez les préjugés religieux du pays, et que vous
vous teniez amplement pourvue de Kala juggahs[B].
—Quantité de Kala juggahs! Oh! ma pauvre petite idée! Des Kala
juggahs dans un salon politique! Mais qui donc vous en a appris aussi long?
—C’est peut-être que j’en ai essayé moi-même ou bien que je connais
une femme qui en a essayé. J’ai fait un sermon en règle pour peser le pour
et le contre. La conclusion, c’est...
—Inutile d’achever... c’est le mot: néant! Polly, je vous remercie. Ces
maudites bêtes...
Et mistress Hauksbee, de la vérandah, montra de la main deux hommes
fendant la foule qui passaient au-dessous, et qui la saluèrent d’un coup de
chapeau.
—Ces mauvaises bêtes n’auront pas la joie de posséder un second hôtel
des Potins, ou un Peliti d’extra. Je renonce à l’idée de tenir un salon. Cela
me paraissait pourtant bien séduisant. Mais que faire? Il faut pourtant que je
fasse quelque chose.
—Pourquoi? N’y a-t-il pas Abana et Pharpar?
—Jack vous a rendue presque aussi malicieuse que lui. Il me faut cela,
naturellement. Je me lasse de tout et de tous, depuis une partie de campagne
au clair de lune, à Seepee, jusqu’aux charmes du Mussuck.
—Oui, ces choses-là arrivent tôt ou tard. Avez-vous encore assez de
vigueur pour tendre votre arc?
Mistress Hauksbee ferma la bouche d’un air rageur.
Puis elle se mit à rire.
—Je crois m’y voir. De grandes affiches rouges sur le Mail: «Mistress
Hauksbee! Irrévocablement: sa dernière représentation sur quelque scène
que ce soit. Qu’on se le dise!» Plus de danses, plus de promenades à cheval,
plus de petits déjeuners, plus de représentations théâtrales suivies de
soupers, plus de querelles à l’ami le plus aimé, le plus cher, plus d’escrime
avec un partenaire mal choisi qui n’a pas assez d’esprit pour habiller d’un
langage décent ce qu’il lui plaît d’appeler ses sentiments, plus d’exhibition
publique du Mussuck pendant que mistress Tarkass va, de maison en
maison, partout Simla, colporter d’horribles histoires sur mon compte! Plus
aucune de ces choses si profondément assommantes, abominables,
détestables, mais qui, tout de même, donnent tout son intérêt à l’existence!
Oui, je vois tout! Ne m’interrompez pas, Polly, je suis inspirée. Un «nuage»
à raies mauve et blanc sur mes superbes épaules, une place au cinquième
rang à la Gaîté, et les deux chevaux vendus! Vision délicieuse. Un fauteuil
confortable, où aboutissent trois courants d’air différents, dans chaque salle
de bal, et de beaux souliers amples, raisonnables, qui permettent à tous les
couples de trébucher en se rendant à la vérandah. Puis on va souper.
Pouvez-vous vous imaginer la scène? La cohue gloutonne est partie. Un
petit sous-lieutenant qui se fait prier, aussi rouge par tout son visage qu’un
baby auquel on vient de mettre de la poudre... On ferait vraiment bien de
tanner les petits sous-lieutenants avant de les exporter... Polly... La
maîtresse de maison le renvoyant à son service, il traverse la pièce d’un pas
furtif, dans ma direction, en tourmentant un gant deux fois trop grand pour
lui,—je déteste les gens qui portent les gants à la façon d’un pardessus,—et
tâche d’avoir l’air d’avoir pensé à cela pour la première fois: «Puis-je
havoir le plaisir de vous offrir mon bras pour le souper?» Alors, je me lève
avec le sourire que donne l’appétit. Tenez, comme ceci.
—Lucy, comment pouvez-vous être aussi absurde?
—Et je m’avance majestueusement à son bras. Comme cela! Après le
souper, je partirais de bonne heure, vous savez, parce que je craindrais de
m’enrhumer. Personne pour s’occuper de mon rickshaw, le mien, s’il vous
plaît. Je resterais là, avec ce «nuage» mauve et blanc sur la tête, pendant
que l’humidité trempe mes chers, mes vieux, mes respectables pieds, et que
Tom appelle à force de jurons et de cris l’équipage de la memsahib. Puis, on
rentre. On se couche à onze heures et demie. Voilà une vie vraiment
excellente, où l’on est réconfortée par les visites du Padri, qui vient à
l’instant même de conduire quelqu’un en terre quelque part là-bas.
Elle montra dans le lointain les pins qui cachaient le cimetière et reprit
avec un geste violemment dramatique:
 —Écoutez, je vois tout... tout jusqu’aux corsets! Quels corsets! Six
roupies huit aunas la paire, Polly, avec de la flanelle rouge, ou bien de la
lisière, n’est-ce pas? Ce qu’on met au bout de ces choses terribles! Je
pourrais vous en faire un dessin.
—Lucy, au nom du Ciel, finissez donc d’agiter les bras de cette façon
idiote. Songez qu’on peut vous voir de tout le Mail.
—Eh bien, qu’on voie! On croira que je m’exerce pour l’Ange Déchu.
Tenez, voici le Mussuck. Comme il se tient mal à cheval! Voyez.
Elle envoya, avec une grâce infinie, un baiser au vénérable
administrateur indien.
—A présent, voilà qui lui vaudra d’être blagué au Club, en ces termes
délicats qu’affectent ces brutes d’hommes, et le petit Hawley me rapportera
tout, en atténuant les détails de peur de me choquer. Ce garçon est trop bon
pour vivre longtemps, Polly. Je songe sérieusement à lui recommander de
donner sa démission et d’entrer dans le clergé. Dans l’état d’esprit où il se
trouve présentement, il m’obéirait. Heureux, heureux enfant!
—Jamais, dit mistress Mallowe avec une indignation affectée, jamais
vous ne déjeunerez plus ici, Lucinde, votre conduite est scandaleuse.
—C’est votre faute, répliqua mistress Hauksbee, pourquoi avoir voulu
me suggérer d’abdiquer? Rien que cela! Non, jamais! ja-a-mais! Je jouerai,
je danserai, je chevaucherai, je flirterai, je ferai des cancans, je dînerai en
ville, je m’approprierai les prisonniers légitimes de toutes les femmes qu’il
me plaira, jusqu’à ce que je tombe, ou qu’une femme plus forte que moi me
confonde devant tout Simla, et ma bouche ne sera plus que poussière et
cendres avant que je capitule ainsi.
Elle se dirigea vers le salon.
Mistress Mallowe la suivit et lui passa le bras autour de la taille.
—Il n’y a rien à redire à ma conduite, reprit mistress Hauksbee d’un air
de défi, et cherchant son mouchoir. Voilà dix soirs que je dîne en ville et
que je passe l’après-midi à répéter. Vous en seriez fatiguée vous-même. Je
suis seulement fatiguée, rien que fatiguée.
Mistress Mallowe ne témoigna point de compassion à mistress Hauksbee
et ne l’engagea point à aller se coucher. Elle lui donna une autre tasse de thé
et renoua la conversation.
—J’ai passé par là, moi aussi, ma chère, dit-elle.
 —Je m’en souviens, dit mistress Hauksbee, avec un rayonnement de
malice sur les traits, en 84, n’est-ce pas? La saison suivante, vous vous êtes
beaucoup moins surmenée.
Mistress Mallowe sourit d’un air de supériorité, d’un air de sphinx.
—Je suis devenue une Influence.
—Grands Dieux! mon enfant, vous ne vous êtes pas envolée parmi les
Théosophistes, et vous n’avez pas baisé le gros orteil de Bouddha, n’est-ce
pas? J’ai voulu m’affilier jadis, mais on m’a écartée comme sceptique—ce
qui m’ôte toute chance de perfectionner ma pauvre petite intelligence.
—Non, je n’ai pas théosophisé. Jack dit...
—Ne parlez pas de Jack. Ce que dit un mari, on le sait d’avance. Qu’est-
ce que vous avez fait?
—J’ai fait une impression durable.
—Et moi aussi... pendant quatre mois. Mais cela ne m’a pas le moins du
monde consolée. J’avais pris l’homme en grippe. Est-ce que vous n’allez
pas cesser de sourire de cet air insondable et me dire où vous voulez en
venir?
Alors mistress Mallowe parla.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
.
—Et vous prétendez soutenir que tout cela fut purement platonique de
part et d’autre?
—Absolument; et dans le cas contraire, je ne m’y serais point
embarquée.
—Et c’est à vous qu’il doit sa dernière promotion?
Mistress Mallowe affirma d’un signe de tête.
—Et vous l’avez mis en garde contre la petite Topsham?
Autre signe affirmatif.
—Et vous lui avez parlé du mémoire particulier envoyé sur son compte
par sir Dugald Delane?
Troisième signe affirmatif.
—Pourquoi?
—Quelle question à faire à une femme? D’abord, parce que cela
m’amusait. Aujourd’hui, je suis fière de ma conquête. Si je vis, il
continuera à réussir. Oui, je le mettrai sur le chemin qui mène tout droit à la
croix de Chevalier, à tout ce qui peut avoir quelque prix aux yeux d’un
homme. Quant au reste, cela le regarde.
—Polly, vous êtes la plus extraordinaire des femmes.
—Pas le moins du monde. Je me concentre, voilà tout. Vous, vous vous
éparpillez, ma chère, et bien que tout Simla connaisse votre habileté à
conduire un attelage...
—Ne pourriez-vous pas employer un terme plus gracieux?
—Un attelage à six, depuis le Mussuck jusqu’au petit Hawley, vous n’y
gagnez rien, pas même de vous amuser.
—Et vous?
—Essayez ma recette. Prenez un homme et non point un gamin, notez
bien, un homme très mûr, sans attaches, et soyez pour lui un guide, un
philosophe, une amie. Vous trouverez là l’occupation la plus intéressante à
laquelle vous vous soyez jamais adonnée. C’est chose possible, vous n’avez
pas besoin de me regarder comme cela—puisque je l’ai fait.
—Il y a là un élément de danger qui donne de l’attrait à l’aventure. Je
chercherai un homme de ce genre et lui dirai: «Maintenant, il est bien
entendu qu’il ne doit pas être question de flirt. Faites exactement ce que je
vous dirai. Mettez à profit mes renseignements et mes conseils, et tout ira
bien.» Est-ce là votre idée!
—Plus ou moins, dit mistress Mallowe avec un sourire énigmatique,
mais assurez-vous que l’on vous comprend.
II
Pan! pan! Pouf! pouf! Quel nuage
de poussière sale. Ma poupée a eu un
accident. Et toute la sciure de bois est
partie.
(Chanson de nourrice.)
Ainsi, à la Fonderie, d’où l’on voit tout le Mail de Simla, mistress
Hauksbee était aux pieds de mistress Mallowe, et recueillait les leçons de la
sagesse.
Le résultat de cet entretien fut la grande idée que mistress Hauksbee était
fière de prendre à son compte.
 —Je vous en avertis, dit mistress Mallowe, qui éprouvait déjà quelques
remords de sa suggestion, la chose n’est pas aussi aisée qu’on le croirait. La
première femme venue,—la petite Topsham elle-même—, conquérir un
homme, mais il en est très peu, très peu qui sachent le manier quand il est
pris.
—Mon enfant, j’ai été un Saint Siméon Stylite féminin, qui regardait
d’en haut les hommes, pendant ces... ces dernières années. Demandez au
Mussuck si je m’entends à les mener.
Mistress Hauksbee s’en alla en chantonnant: j’irai à lui et je lui dirai du
ton le plus ironique, pendant que mistress Mallowe riait toute seule.
Puis, elle devint tout à coup sérieuse:
—Je me demande si j’ai bien fait de conseiller cette distraction. Lucy est
une femme avisée, mais un peu trop étourdie.
Huit jours plus tard, elles se rencontrèrent à un concert du lundi.
—Eh bien? demanda mistress Mallowe.
—Je le tiens, dit mistress Hauksbee, les yeux pétillants de gaieté.
—Qui est-il, petite fille? Je suis désolée de vous avoir parlé de cela.
—Regardez entre les colonnes, au troisième rang, le quatrième à partir
du bout. En ce moment, vous pouvez voir sa figure. Regardez.
—Otis Yeere! C’est bien le dernier auquel j’aurais songé. Je n’aurais
jamais cru! Je ne vous crois pas.
—Ah! Eh bien, attendez que mistress Tarkass ait commencé à démolir
Milton Wellings, alors je vous dirai tout. Chut! la voix de cette femme me
rappelle toujours un train souterrain qui passe sous Earl’s court avec les
freins serrés. Écoutez à présent. Il s’agit vraiment d’Otis Yeere?
—Oui, je le vois, mais il ne s’ensuit pas qu’il soit votre conquête.
—Il l’est, par droit de premier occupant. Je l’ai trouvé abandonné, sans
amis, le soir même de notre entretien, au Burra Khana[C] de Dugald Delane.
Ses yeux m’ont plu et j’ai causé avec lui. Le lendemain il m’a rendu visite.
Le surlendemain, nous avons fait ensemble une promenade à cheval.
Aujourd’hui il est attaché par les mains et les pieds aux roues de ma voiture.
Vous verrez, quand le concert sera fini. Il ne sait pas encore que je suis ici.
—Grâce à Dieu, vous n’avez pas choisi un gamin. Qu’allez-vous faire de
lui, en supposant que vous ayez fait sa conquête!
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