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Links to more articles at the end

Years ago, in the realm of America’s business schools that were offering Masters in Business Administration degrees to aspiring future executives and decision-makers, there was a fictional anecdote passed around that was meant to impart some wisdom to the MBA candidates. It was called “The Orange Juice Test.”

What is “The Orange Juice Test” ?

Imagine you work for a mid-sized company, located in a major city. You have been tasked with making the decisions and taking care of the logistics for your firm’s annual shareholders’ meeting. This is an all-day meeting with about 2,000 people in attendance. So, right off the bat, you’ll be looking at large hotels that have a business conference facilities large enough for that many people. In your city, there are six suitable hotels with a room of that capacity. 

It’s kind of like being a wedding planner – for a big wedding. This is a complex event, and you don’t want anything to go wrong. 

How do you choose which hotel to reserve for your meeting? You use “The Orange Juice Test.” 

You meet with the Event Managers of the hotels and you tell them this: The president of your company has an unusual demand for the shareholders’ meeting. The meeting starts at 9:00 a.m. sharp. When the attendees enter the room, on the banquet tables in the hall will be 2,000 large sixteen-ounce glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice. And — here’s the kicker — the orange juice must be freshly squeezed within 20 minutes of people coming into the room.

The responses from the hotel Event Managers fall into three categories.

• The First:  “That can’t be done. It’s impossible. You can’t provide 2,000 glasses of fresh orange juice in 20 minutes.”
  Obviously, that hotel doesn’t get your contract. You are being told straight-out that they cannot do what you’re asking for.

• The Second:  “Sure, we can do that. Not a problem. We handle all kinds of difficult tasks here. We deliver what the customer wants.”
  The hotel doesn’t get the contract either. The Event Manager is just saying fluff to make the sale. The response is vague, without thought or real consideration.

• The Third:  “You want 2,000 glasses of fresh orange juice delivered in 20 minutes? That’s not going to be easy for us. Hold on a second, let me think about this. We’ll need about two and a half tons of oranges… We’ll need about 200 people at the juicers and about 100 servers.  We can do it. Your cost will be between $18 and $22 per glass. I can firm up that number and get back to you.”

And that’s the one you choose. The hotel with the Event Manager who doesn’t say “It can’t be done” and who doesn’t say “Sure, we can do that — it’s not a problem.”

You select the one who recognizes what the problem is, can figure out a way to solve it, and gives you an idea of the cost.

Home Ownership in the Gateway Area Plan

In multiple surveys and from a variety of public input, Arcatans have told us what is of maximum importance to them. At the top of the list (and here) are actual affordable (workforce affordable) housing and opportunities for home ownership.

Affordable housing and how to promote creation of homes that people can own are not simple issues. People everywhere are trying to find solutions.

But to believe that “the market” — meaning what developers choose to do and build here in Arcata — will take care of this is just wishful thinking. Giving the developers minor enhancements and incentives is not going be enough.

Arcata’s Housing Element from 2019 clearly states that the Gateway area is to be designated as 20% affordable housing (80% AMI). In the current (December 2023) iteration of the Gateway plan, we are offered 6% affordable housing. That is to say, the prospect of real affordable housing is considered as being impossible.

In the anecdote of the orange juice test, you don’t select the manager who believes the problem will take care of itself, or the manager who regards the problem as impossible to solve.

You choose the manager who recognizes the situation as a real problem — and that it’s not easy to create success. And then who figures out solutions.

I’m not saying I have the answers. I do, however, believe a solution is out there. We have many smart people in Arcata. Smart, forward-thinking people gave us the Community Forest, the Arcata Marsh and Wildlife Sanctuary / wastewater treatment plant, the Ranney wells for our drinking water from the aquifer under the Mad River — all this, and much much more. If we can show that it’s possible to reduce construction costs by 20% or 25%, then the resulting rents can be that much closer to being affordable. 

Rather than saying “We’ll leave affordable housing up to the developers” or “Ownership (as condominiums) is unlikely to happen in today’s economic climate” —
Let’s look at finding solutions.

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For further reading on Arcata1.com

Three things California must do to address Affordable Housing

Pre-Fab Modular Housing – a dozen articles and more

Berkeley modular “village” housing with rooftop garden

Former Arcata Mayor Susan Ornelas says: Let’s create opportunities for Home Ownership

Rentals Percentage in Arcata: “Do the math”

Arcata speaks: Home Ownership is of supreme importance

Housing at reasonable rents in the Gateway proposal will not happen unless you demand it

OLLI Presentation: The Affordable Housing Challenge

Arcata’s Housing Element calls for 20% affordable housing for the Gateway Plan. What happened?

Affordable Housing: Thinking ‘Outside the Box’

Affordability and Home Ownership for housing in Arcata – Selected Articles

The background of “The Orange Juice Test”

“The Orange Juice Test” comes from Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully. (1985) by the famous computer scientist and teacher of the psychology of software development — and management author — Gerald Weinberg.

The book is filled with anecdotes and memorable lines, many of which Weinberg collected from other sources, and many which have been re-worded and have found their way into our thoughts.

• The Law of the Hammer: “The child who receives a hammer for Christmas will discover that everything needs pounding.”

  [First attributed to Abraham Kaplan, from 1964: “I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding.”]

• The Law of Raspberry Jam – The wider you spread it, the thinner it gets.
• Start with the worst problem, and then handle the smaller ones.
• “If you can’t think of three things that might go wrong with your plans, then there’s something wrong with your thinking.”
• A student who learns to think like a lawyer will discover that anything can be turned into an argument.
• “What you don’t know may not hurt you, but what you don’t remember always does.”
• It is more satisfying to help people solve their problems in such a way that they will be more likely to solve their next problem without help. [Another way of saying the “teach a person to fish” proverb.]
•  Your ideal form of influence is first to help people see their world more clearly, and then to let them decide what to do next.