Peter Senge once said that today’s problems often come from yesterday’s solutions. More pointedly, when someone else makes a decision to solve his or her own problem, he or she creates a new problem for someone else. Why is this so? The answer lies in good, but thoughtless intentions.
Consider this true story. My wife is a teacher. She teaches Prep, which involves some outside playtime every day. Last week, the school groundsman was working through his end-of-year to-do list. As we live in North Qld, he wanted to ensure the school was ready for any cyclones that may come our way over Christmas—certainly a noble intention. My wife was also busily preparing for next year, as she was about to host an open day for next year’s Prep students. This is a day with nearly ten 4- and 5-year-olds playing a host of indoor and outdoor games. When the day came, my wife went to school early and, to her horror, noticed that all the shade sails that had previously covered the outside playing area were missing. The groundsman had taken them down and crossed another task off his list. He didn’t do this to cause problems for my wife or to make outside playtime an unpleasant experience for the last two weeks of school. He did it to achieve his good intention, but without any consideration for how his action may have unintended consequences for others.
You will find this same scenario played out by different people within your own organization. People make decisions to achieve a noble intention, but they do so without considering how their decision will have unintentional, negative consequences for others. Sadly, managers are particularly guilty of this. The very nature of their work requires them to regularly size up situations and make choices about how best to proceed.
The antidote is to simply relate to people—talk to them and discuss your ideas. Take the time to see how the action you are considering will affect them. There was nothing wrong with the groundsman wanting to prepare for the cyclone season, and his giving of his own time to get through his end-of-year to-do list is admirable. However, when we act on our own good intentions without taking the time to consider how actions may adversely affect others, our thoughtless good intentions lead us into poor decisions.
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