Trigger Question #173:
Imagine this conversation between a worker and his supervisor somewhere in Ohio. Worker: “Those branches are growing pretty close to the power lines. They will touch before we’re due back here again.” Supervisor: “Those trees look just fine. Focus on the really critical ones. You know they cut our budget. Besides, it’s getting late, and I bet you just want some overtime pay.”
Now, if your goal is to be efficient, the supervisor makes sense, doesn’t he? But if your purpose is to make damn sure that electricity flows uninterrupted, who then makes more sense, the worker or the supervisor? Maybe the following real-life example will help you decide.
Do you remember what happened in the USA on August 14th, 2003? That’s when about 50 million people in the US and Canada had no electricity. The official task force blamed the blackout on overgrown trees: “Overgrown trees, as opposed to excessive conductor sag, caused each of these faults.”
The trees did it! (To be more accurate, the task force blamed FirstEnergy Corporation for not adequately managing the growth of the trees near its transmission lines.)
But what reason could there be that FirstEnergy Corporation did not prune the trees according to the regulations, which require transmission lines to have a “designed clearance area”? I suspect it was a focus on productivity and efficiency at the expense of why the energy utility exists. Let me explain.
Business schools and other training centers teach managers to think in terms of productivity and efficiency. The more you produce with less, the higher your productivity and the more efficient you are. (And the more money you make. In the short term.) So it would not surprise me if many managers at energy utilities saw their job ultimately as one of producing as many units of electricity as cheaply as possible. Hence, the problem they must solve is how to deliver more, and to deliver more with less.
But here’s the catch. Do consumers care about more and more productivity, more and more efficiency? Or do they care about having an uninterrupted supply of electricity?
Let’s consider the real purpose of an electricity utility. Is it to be efficient? No, its reason for being is to supply electricity. Actually, it is more than that. It is to have a positive impact on our quality of life. Electrical utilities make modern-day life possible. We forget that, don’t we? Until the lights go out.
Surely, the managers at the energy utility had no intention of disrupting power to over 50 million people. But I wonder what the linemen in Ohio would have done if their bosses at head office had expected them to think in terms of their contribution to society, and not productivity and efficiency, when they saw trees growing close to, but not yet touching, power lines. Power lines that were likely to sag in the summer heat.
The focus on productivity and efficiency at the expense of purpose and meaning invariably has unintended consequences. We know that already. Because it happens a lot. Remember BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig “accident” in 2010? Or the FAA reducing air traffic controller staff in the name of efficiency, directly causing a plane crash in Kentucky in August 2006 because there was only one controller, performing both tower and radar duties?
On top of that, the focus on productivity and efficiency is often the root cause of why managers struggle to motivate employees. Because, too often, our productivity and efficiency come at the expense of us doing something meaningful with that productivity and efficiency. Productivity and efficiency become the end, not the means.
Invariably, the conflict we experience between what management demands of us and what we find meaningful, even if only at a subliminal level, results in a personal energy blackout. And that’s when nonsense happens.
So, ask yourself, you leader and manager of people, when was the last time you made your business decisions, not based on your quest for productivity and efficiency, but in terms of the real, meaningful purpose of your organization? Or does it not have one?
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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Quote of the Moment:
“I often mean to be more productive, but the more I try, the meaner I get.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
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