Danny,
Read my post again. It is not about CRI, the orginization, it is about ONE individual who is part of that orginization, Werner Braun.
There are over 400 carpet mills and one person is not going to know every detail about all of their policies, operations and decisions.
Most good managers delegate a lot of decision making to others. The larger the outfit, the more it is necessary. Hand in hand with that: the better the manager, the more he/she delegates.
Consequently, the person at the top is usually NOT a walking encylopaedia of every tidbit of information.
This is why I went on to suggest that OTHERS should be interviewed as well.
As I understand it, the guy in the KNOW at CRI about SOA is not Werner Braun, it is Ken McIntosh. Werner is aware of the overall scope of the program, but Ken probably has a much larger cache of details about SOA, at his disposal.
Everyone wants to rag on Mr. Braun for not addressing/answering every single question asked with a straight YES or NO, but it just isn't that simple.
If the customer asks YOU "Will this stain come out of may carpet?", Do YOU answer with a YES or NO? Most experienced cleaners do not. They say something like: "Mrs. Jones, we will make every effort to do our best to remove that stain, but it may not come out completely. This is because some stains cause dye changes or even bleaching that is often not revealed until after cleaning."
To take the same analogy a bit further: After you explain REALITY to the customer in those terms, does the customer call you a liar or say that you are a slick politician?
Because you did NOT give a straight YES or NO answer. What you said, in fact was, "I DON'T KNOW."
Think about it.............
MIKE