Procrastination or What? A few weеks ago I got acquainted with the chief engineer of a german hardware enterprise who came to my hometown to lead the startup of their affilated factory here. He has been at the factory for entire 8 weeks setting the machines and teaching the attending personnel, so that recently the job is nearly done. By the end of this week, the German delegates are all gone and it supposed to be the time to have finally launched the production of goods. But it's been postponed till January. And as Rainer (the engineer) said, that wasn't the first time when the start had been dеlayed. First, he came here in August and the local top managers asked for the permission to leave the launch for December to train the personnel properly, and now, the sutuation repeats... As Rainer says, the current delay may not to be the last one because nobody wants to take the responsibility there. People are simply waiting for something handind their missions over each other but no one is ready to push the button and say ''let's go!''... Actually, I see the same sutuation every day in my company: I'm a deputy executive director and my job is to coordinate the interaction between all the departments of the company, and I see what a long way the papers do being passed from one hand to another before they will have finally lied signed on my desk... The tendency to procrastinate and to balk unpleasant duties is a very common thing in Russia. Perhaps, it even explains why Russian companies oftenly have so tricky systems of top management.