Shifting the burden

Lord I have had a bad day!

I knew it was going to be a bad day when my diary showed I was stuck in back to back meetings for eight hours on the trot. Worse still, those meetings had been shrunk to 30 minutes each. That way I could have 16 customers scream at me instead of the standard 8…

8 hours and 16 screaming customers. Like I said, it was a bad day. You can guess how the rest of the week played out.

The quick fix

Fortunately I have a solution. It is about a foot tall, weighs a couple of pounds and contains 750ml of red liquid. There is nothing quite like a bottle of red wine to push your troubles away.

A bottle of plonk is the solution, it is expedient, efficient, cheap and effective. The only thing that improves its performance is a packet of Marlboros on the side. I save them for horrifically bad days. It is good to have an escalation route.

Fixing the symptom and not the cause

Non of this solves the problem. It just makes me feel better, a classic example of addressing the symptom and not the cause. I will go into work tomorrow and face another 8 hours of bitching and moaning.

At least I know my friend Wolfgang Franz Otto Blass will be there waiting for me when I get home.

A vicious cycle

Of course the more I rely on Herr Blass to solve my problem the more I will end up needing his help. There is nothing quite like turning up to work with a thick head (or a full blown hangover) to ensure that your customers and your boss make your life worse.

It is a very slippery slope. Perhaps I need some help

The real solution to my problem

Unfortunately, addressing the cause is a whole lot more difficult than fixing the symptom. It involves spending time with my customers and employees. I need to understand what their real problems are, work through what I can do about it and then take action.

I could be there for months, maybe even years before I see a good day.

Wolfgang will sort me out far faster.

I’m not the only one

The behaviour is so common that people who study systems thinking even have a name for it; Shifting the Burden.

There are plenty of managers who are hooked on fixing the symptom without addressing the cause.

If your sales revenue drops, discount your price

If your operational expense is too high, capitalise it

When profitability is low stop recruiting

If you have a customer service problem, lay on some overtime, or bring in the temps

Like my bottle of wine these solutions are so good that they are addictive. They are all quick and the results are compelling, at least at first. In the long term they will make your problems worse, and much more difficult to solve.

Have you got the time to play the long game?

Like the man in a leaky boat you have two options:

Drag it out of the water and fix the leak Keep bailing

Do you have the time to drag your boat to the shore? Do you have a choice?

What are you going to do, play the long game or take the quick fix?

I need to lay off the booze, it is a very bad habit. Maybe I will stop tomorrow.

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