Unintended Consequences: Look Before You Leap

For every action, there are innumerable possible reactions (with apologies to Sir Isaac Newton).  This is a basic law that applies to virtually every decision you and your teams make.  That’s why it’s important to consider the big picture before you take action.  What appears to be a solution to a local problem can have unanticipated ramifications on a larger scale.  For example, I ran an institution that was composed of many satellite units.  Every decision made at the corporate, central level had an impact on the operations at those satellite locations.  On more than one occasion (many more) I received calls from the field asking what idiot made a particular call on business operations.  Whoops, that would be me.  For instance, centralizing all HR functions was a great cost-saving move for the organization.  But it was incredibly inefficient for local operations that needed the ability to move quickly in hiring staff.  And inefficiency comes with a cost attached.

In this case, the error was structural.  We needed to be sure that proposed organizational changes were reviewed by a committee that had representation from field locations. That seems like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how easy it is to overlook the obvious. And this committee kept us from making similar goofs on any number of occasions.

Another time a manager came to me with a plan to eliminate a particularly troublesome employee.  He was simply going to eliminate the position that the employee filled—problem solved!  Wrong.  I pointed out to him that his unit contained several positions identical to the one he proposed doing away with.  That being the case, if a position were to be eliminated, he would need to dismiss the person with the least tenure, other things being equal.  In fact, the person he wanted to do away with was the longest tenured, was age-protected, and was a protected minority.  That being the case, to accomplish his goal he would need to eliminate the entire set of positions at that level.  That, of course, was not his plan at all.  He finally conceded that the damage he would inflict was not worth the benefit of having the employee gone. 


This same principle plays out in a variety of scenarios where parity and impartiality must be maintained, for example in compensation determinations. In both cases, the lesson for leaders is the same.  Look before you leap.  Know how deep the water is before you dive.

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