The Real Problem Is...
Be very careful what you think you know!
Sorry for being away for so long as I haven’t had anything to say that I thought might be meaningful, so let me try this story.
Routers-R-Us, a new startup, released a new family of network routers with a functionality and price point very attractive to their target market. The company was elated that they had a product so well accepted by the market and sales took off to the moon. Month after month sales continued to increase. Toward the end of the first-year month over month sales increase began to decline.
Management was convinced sales were just slacking off, content with their past success. As such management began to push the sales organization to get their numbers up. Though the more they pushed on sales the more sales continued to decline.
On the verge of replacing numerous members of the sales organization one insightful member of the management team thought to bring in an outside set of eyes to look at the situation. It didn’t take long for the investigation of the situation to surface that the problem was in fact the sales department, at least in a way. It seems that sales had been so successful in selling the product that production and fulfillment had no chance of keeping up. As months passed the backlog became longer and longer.
As a result of the growing backlog, customers were canceling their orders as they were tired of waiting for the product and were finding other suppliers. Yes, Routers-R-Us had a marvelous product though it was of no use to potential customers if they couldn’t get the product.
The company was caught in what’s typically referred to as a “Growth and Underinvestment” structure where they had not planned how to deal with the success they desired in all segments of the organization.
Russell A. Ackoff was fond of saying that wherever you initially identify a problem the actual source of the situation is most likely somewhere else!
What perspectives might evolve the understanding?
Link List…
Growth and Underinvestment a frequently recurring structure
Russell A. Ackoff on Wikipedia
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Good advice Gene. The visible and the invisible, producing a 'mess' that will happily stay that way...without the means to work with it.
the unknown unknowns :)