A Job Done Well - Making Work Better

Unintended Consequences, and How to Avoid Them

• Jimmy Barber and James Lawther • Season 2 • Episode 38

Share episode

In this episode, hosts James Lawther and Jimmy Barber study unintended consequences and how they affect you personally and in business. 

Their discussion ranges from Donald Trump’s tariffs to the introduction of Cane Toads in Australia and the invention of the microwave oven. They also share the unintended consequences that have impacted them personally (both positively and negatively). 

Most importantly, the hosts also explore why these things happen and how to avoid them from derailing your work.

As a bonus, you can learn about the perils of gardening and the joy of realising that you have stopped sitting exams!

Got a question - get in touch. Click here.

Speaker:

Hello, I'm James. Hi, I'm Jimmy and welcome to a Job Done Well, the podcast that helps you improve your performance enjoyment at work.

James:

good afternoon. How you doing?

Jimmy:

I am right James, how are you?

James:

I'm fabulous. Thank you very much for asking. It's Friday,

Jimmy:

you've got to think of another way of describing yourself.

James:

Oh. Well, I do it every morning. I stand up and I look in the mirror and I say, you are a winner. And I come to the conclusion. If I say it afternoon, if I might, you know, there might be some truth one of these days. You live in hope, can't you?

Jimmy:

Keep convincing yourself. You are fabulous. So what are we talking about today, James?

James:

This week we are talking about something fascinating. We're gonna talk about unintended consequences.

Jimmy:

Why are we talking about unintended consequences?

James:

Well, because you see them everywhere in all organizations and unintended consequences. Invariably, not always, but invariably are things that happen that you do not want them to happen. So for example, in the news at the moment, you know, we're all over the fact with Donald Trump and his tariffs. I. He's doing it to bring factories back into the US if that's, you believe what the man says, but he is got all sorts of unintended consequences running wild on him.

Jimmy:

Well also we, see them all the time in every organization we've ever worked with. Where things go wrong, stuff happens. don't we work out that, that everyone spends on, on average in service industry one week a month cleaning up crap that goes wrong. And those are almost always unintended consequences. So,

James:

I've worked some places where the crap was pretty intentional, but.

Jimmy:

so yeah, that's a whole nother episode. And in Ter in terms of what the listener will get out of today, they will learn more about unintended consequences and some excellent examples of that and some ways to avoid them in the future.

James:

So again, I was gonna be so interesting.

Jimmy:

It will be. So what have you been up to since we are last talk, James?

James:

Our major milestone in the law of the family. My el daughter finished her degree. She did all of her exams this week. So that is all gone and there will be no more 21-year-old angst about exams. So I'm looking forward to that. That's a great step forward.

Jimmy:

sweet relief. She may never do another exam in the rest of her life. What a

James:

Yeah, I don't think she's planning on it. How about you?

Jimmy:

Blame her. Well, I have been helping Maya Haik with a gardening project this week. She had the bright idea of building some raised flower beds.

James:

All right.

Jimmy:

entailed going to a place where you buy old railway sleepers.

James:

Okay.

Jimmy:

unbelievable place. They collect them from all over the globe. They had them from Bolivia, from Poland, from the uk, all

James:

So where is this place? Is this local?

Jimmy:

it's just, it's just outside. Not even, it's in Cock grave.

James:

So we have got a sort of a worldwide center in.

Jimmy:

have, have that. It's, it's something like www.railwaysleepers.com can. Yeah. And but, but two things. One, first one was vic a yard of about 10,000 railway sleepers could find the 12 most expensive

James:

What were they?

Jimmy:

Are tropical hardwood, apparently, But not only are they the most expensive, they are also the heaviest. So when it came to unloading 12 railway sleepers that weigh 120 kilos each, my back is still paying the price for that.

James:

Yeah, you need a.

Jimmy:

I had one and the both of us struggled with it. Trust me. So, unintended consequences. Then James,

James:

I have got a definition for you. Here you go.

Jimmy:

Excellent.

James:

So an unintended consequence or sometimes unanticipated consequence or unforeseen consequence, more colloquially known as knock on effects are outcomes of purposeful action that are not intended or foreseen. So you go, pop term was popularizing the 20th century by the American sociologist Robert k Merton. You're glad I told you of them, aren't you?

Jimmy:

I am, but I do like the fact knock on effects that, that, that I can, that I can get. I can go with that.

James:

Right. But what is quite interesting, I think, is there are actually three types of unintended consequences and we'll talk'em through. So you can have an unexpected drawback,

Jimmy:

Right.

James:

you can have a perverse results,

Jimmy:

Okay.

James:

or you can have an unexpected benefit.

Jimmy:

Some of the unintended consequences aren't always bad, are they?

James:

No, not at all. So let's talk through each one of those then. So

Jimmy:

Okay.

James:

some historical examples to bring it to a little bit. So an unintended drawback. Now let me give you, I'll give you one and you can come back with one. So my favorite I think is actually Cane Toads in Australia. So they introduced Cane toads into Australia in about, in 1940s or something like that. And the intention was they'd use it to control pests on sugar cane plantations. But they're not a native species. And they just became totally invasive. They spread throughout The eastern coast of Australia, like wildfire. And they incredibly poisonous. And because they're so poisonous, first of all, you know, they themselves predate on native foreigner, but also the sort of big Australian predators. Things like crocodiles and mono lizards. They will eat these things and then they become sick and die. And there's actually risk even to pets and humans.'cause if a pet takes one, it will kill it off. And humans who touch them are in risk of dying from poisoning as well. So there you go. There's my example of an unexpected drawback. I'm not actually sure how good it was at looking after the pest he was supposed to be reducing, but there you go.

Jimmy:

Well, just to build on that, James,

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

is probably part of the driving force behind the strict border controls that they have on stuff coming into Australia'cause of the impact on the environment and that that is one of the best. Guilty pleasures on TV that you can find.

James:

What's.

Jimmy:

Force is a program called Border Force and it's like a, a fly on the wall documentary of the Australian customs stopping people bringing in all sorts of weird and wonderful foods and seeds and all sorts into their country.

James:

Well again, that,

Jimmy:

unintended consequence they did not expect to introduce, can toads and have a TV

James:

yeah, but then depending on how highbrow you are, you see, for you that would be an unexpected benefit. But for me,

Jimmy:

was.

James:

draw.

Jimmy:

Drawback. of the ones that I like best though, is one that touches our lives every day. And that's the internet. Now. The internet has, without a doubt, over the last however many decades, has transformed our lives. It has done so much to bring information, communication, relationships, you name it, it has done it. Fact, there are unintended consequences. I don't think was it, what's his name, sir? Tim. Sir Tim Burners. So, so Tim Burnley,

James:

Yeah. Okay.

Jimmy:

So, Tim Burnley, I don't think he intended when he set up the internet quite to have some of the impacts that he's had. So a good couple of examples were the fact that. Privacy now, and data is such a driving force in behind so much of society, and probably more prevalent is the impact that social media and the internet has on people's mental health. The inability to switch off the pervasiveness that it has, the hate, the echo chambers, all of those things were not intended consequences of the internet.

James:

But have you got any sort of work examples?

Jimmy:

Yeah, so I, I'll give you a good example that I faced once at work. It was looking at outsourcing within an operation, within a service environment. And what we did is what a lot of people are guilty of doing, which is found the simplest tasks and moved them out to India,

James:

Yep.

Jimmy:

supposedly had two benefits. One, it got the simplest tasks done in an environment that was very cheap and they had that capability to do that. And two, it meant that our UK operation could focus on the more difficult, more complex issues. What we hadn't realized was that in the UK operation, they used those simple tasks as an an opportunity to have a bit of a breather from having people shout at them and having to deal with horrible problems all the time. So when you took out those breathers out of their day, made their day a real tough grind. We thought it was great'cause they're focusing on complexity. They thought it was awful'cause they never got a break from people shouting at them. And funny enough, after that. Attrition went up, and absence went up. So that was not a consequence that we were expecting.

James:

There you go. Good example all. Move on to the next one. So the one I like, the one I really like is perverse effects. This is called, it's all on tit up. Right.

Jimmy:

Now, is that the disaster freak in you?

James:

I'm as happy as Larry when it's all gone belly up. We're trying to fix it, but that's another story. So I'll give you two examples of perverse effects., So the one I like, the one I really like is the Cobra effect. So in the, well, in the Indian ra. So when yeah, England rolled the waves in one of the Indian cities. I can't remember which one, but they had a real problem with cobras.

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

And then no self respecting bureaucrat lights, cobras running, well not running around the city, slithering around the.

Jimmy:

I don't think anyone likes cobras losing around the city, do they?

James:

But the the bureaucrats had the power to solve this. So what they did was they instigated the reward. And for every, you know, snake's head that you brought, demonstrated that you killed the snake, you got a payment, but so this was great because obviously the population of cobras, dropped massively. But interesting. There were some snake hunters who were just infinitely better than the others, and they kept on bringing in snake heads. Everybody else had stopped founding them, but these guys were just red hot founding snake heads. And then after one of the British bureaucrats got a bit suspicious of this, and they realized that what they were doing was they were farming snakes. So instead of hunting them down, you know, nice little revenue earner, they were farming the snakes and they were every now and again, harvest the snake, take the head off and get paid for it. So it was your absolute winner. Of course, the bureaucrats got wises, so then they stopped these payments and then of course they let all the snakes go, which they'd been farming and they went exactly back to where they were, if not worse. So there go, there's one example of a effect. Now, a, a more recent one, which I think is also very good, So what is the name of that? That book that's just been published about Facebook.

Jimmy:

Oh. Care careless people.

James:

Right. Careless people. So it, well, it's a story about this woman worked at Facebook and

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

yeah, they she just pointed out what a bunch of charlatans they were and all the things that they were doing, which really people ought not be doing in business. And so obviously Facebook didn't like that very much, so they tried to ban it from being published. But the very act of going, taking people to court and trying to ban it from being published, just created loads and loads and loads of publicity. So of course when the publishers did eventually publish it, it went straight to number one. Whereas if Facebook had kept their mouth shut, maybe it would've, it would've fizzled out like mine as, so there you go. There's a exact, a perfect example of a perverse fact. I should have written something nasty about Facebook in my book, actually. Shouldn't I?

Jimmy:

should have done. Well, it's like the know, we put out these shorts, short videos from our podcast and our most popular one so far. Was you making a boat joke about JD Vance, wasn't

James:

Well, yeah. And then the second one is the one which I had to beep out.'cause you were, yeah, you'd got a suit

Jimmy:

we talking about

James:

beep. Yeah.

Jimmy:

I won't do it. Just'cause it upsets

James:

Oh yeah. All right.

Jimmy:

So one of the things that Facebook allegedly had done

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

They had picked up one when young girls took a selfie of themselves and deleted it quickly and then put another one on, which meant that they weren't happy with some aspect of how they'd shown up in the, in the photo, and then it was serving them. Things like diet pills and stuff like that. It's just outrageous.

James:

you can understand why Facebook wanted to ban the book, but anyway, so there you go. Perverse effects.

Jimmy:

you can also understand why loads of people went then and went and Yeah, if, if they, if they really don't want me to read this book, bloody, I'm gonna go and read it. I.

Speaker 2:

As well as recording this podcast, we help individuals, teams, and entire organizations achieve outstanding results.

Speaker 3:

If you'd like to find out more about how we can help you, please get in touch email, either jimmy@ajodowell.com or James at ajo dunwell com.

James:

So lemme an example at work.

Jimmy:

Yeah, a good example of a, a perverse effect. I worked with one company who were facing a massive backlog of work, and they rightly thought, we'll use technology to to solve this. But unfortunately, what they did is they built the system so complicated, so complex to deal with. Absolutely every eventuality that it wrapped itself in knots and actually couldn't work out any of the claims. So

James:

Anything at all.

Jimmy:

it couldn't pay anything really. So that's a good example of, you're trying to do one thing. It does the complete opposite. You want it to pay stuff and it pays no one.

James:

What a winner. All right. Too clever of I'm good sometimes. So, not always bad though. Can you gimme an example of a positive unintended consequence?

Jimmy:

Back to a, different outsourcing story. I was running a, a UK team and we set up in, in India. But what we did is we asked the team in India to work overnight for us our time. So in the uk they'd do a half a case. Then they'd send it over to India. India would work overnight for us, they would finish the case. Then when we came back in in the morning, it was there already for us.

James:

All right.

Jimmy:

really efficiently and that worked well. What we hadn't realized was that in asking the Indian teams to do those hours, actually they were great hours for them. Most of the, outsourcing business where they're working for the uk, they mirror the UK hours. That means they're working really unsociable hours in India because they weren't mirroring. The UK hours were working really great hours. They loved it. So we

James:

Okay.

Jimmy:

like, we had no attrition off our campaign. Everyone else had massive attrition. We had none. And because we had no attrition, they got really skilled. They did a great job for us. I'd love to tell you that that's why we did it, but that was definitely an unintended consequence. And it, it was really positive.

James:

Yeah, You've had one positive and one negative on the outsourcing. Your net neutral. Yeah, right.

Jimmy:

but you will have no doubt a good story for

James:

I've got two for you. One is Perry Spencer. Have you ever heard about Perry Spencer?

Jimmy:

No.

James:

So, Perry Spencer apparently worked for a company called Raytheon and they made, I think they're called magnetrons for radars and, I dunno when this was in 1940s or something like that. But they're working away on these magnetrons. And he discovered that his chocolate bar, which got in his pocket, had melted. And that led to the development of the microwave oven.

Jimmy:

Oh, wow.

James:

There you go.

Jimmy:

I, to confess, James, I do love a microwave

James:

Well, you go, And then there is of course the other point, which is, you know, what is positive and what is not positive. So here's one. I mean, you tell me, is this positive or not? Elon Musk. Fascia salute Tesla stales. Now, that is definitely an unintended consequence, but whether it was a positive one or a negative one, I suppose, depends on where you're sitting.

Jimmy:

If you're Elon Musk or a an investor in Tesla, I think you would say that was definitely a negative one. If you are the large numbers of Elon Haters, you'd say that was definitely a

James:

Uh, So there you go. We've discussed unintended consequences, but why is that so prevalent a problem in business, do you think?

Jimmy:

Well, I think that there are probably a few reasons that we can talk through and I think one of the key things is it's just the psychology of people at work, psychology of managers, how we think about things.

James:

Yeah,

Jimmy:

So I think we should we should go through. I think there are also. with how we target people.

James:

yeah,

Jimmy:

Probably the other way is of thinking about is a lack of understanding of how our businesses, how the systems within our business. And by systems I don't mean the technology, I mean the whole ecosystem of our business, how that actually works.

James:

Okay, so let's psychology then

Jimmy:

Did you know James? My, my dad was a reasonably eminent psychologist.

James:

it,

Jimmy:

Yeah.

James:

no, I did not.

Jimmy:

spent years not actually being able to spell the word psychology. I.

James:

Well, let me just give you one example, right? So you can talk about bias, you could talk about boundary rationality. I won't because I'm not entirely sure what it means. But group think, group think is an example of psychological think. So one of the stories which I think demonstrates group thing quite nicely is at Pearl Harbor. So before Pearl Harbor happened, apparently the all the sort of navy guys in Pearl Harbor, the elite there had been warned about this, right? So they'd been warned, I dunno, the main US government had heard from spies, so there was a planet Foot, so they'd been warned about that. They'd seen spotter planes. I think somebody also saw some ships coming over. But the guys at Pearl Harbor, between them just convinced themselves that there was no way on God's earth that, the Japanese could attack. Got into the whole group think thing and'cause of the group think thing. Well the rest is history. So there you go. There's a an example of psychology for you.

Jimmy:

and you do see group thinking in a lot of organizations where, you know, people build almost a, a cult-like belief in what the organization's doing or. The path that we're taking is right, and they can't move themselves away from that, that group think.

James:

Yeah. Another one, here you go. Loss aversion. So you see this quite a lot as well, but people don't want to well they don't wanna make a loss, but, well, sorry it's been talked about loads of times, but the classic example of that is Kodak. Yeah. A business that went versus because they were too worried about and what they had rather than what they could have. So there you go. There's a couple of psychology ones for you.

Jimmy:

I've got another one for you,

James:

Go then

Jimmy:

bias, optimism, bias.

James:

then. Yeah.

Jimmy:

A lot of organizations, we get caught by optimism bias. So it'll all be all right. It'll all work out. You get into a big project where you start to invest in the system. It's not quite working. The project's not quite going the way you want, but we can't step away from it'cause we're always optimistic. It'll be all right. It'll work out. Lots of lots of managers in the uk do suffer from optimism bias.

James:

Yeah. Yeah, so there's also, I suppose, just the way we think as managers.

Jimmy:

Yeah. And. Often, it's just the way we structure our, our organizations, you know, whether it's like budget cycles, annual performance reviews, even five year terms for government, stuff like that, they all force thinking within a certain time scale. And the problem with that is. You don't necessarily think through the consequences of what's going to happen in the longer term. You know, I've got to hit this year's number. How am I gonna hit this year number? Cut out a load of people. Well that's okay, but how do I deal with the volumes I've got next year? Or you, and that the Labor Party's going to have to do this as they come towards the next election. How do I make it look like I've achieved loads? When we're talking about fixing things like the NHS over a 10, 15 year period, but they've got a five year term, so you, you're naturally driven to stuff that's going to be solved within those timescales.

James:

Yeah, and there is also, so you've gotta hit a short term time scale, but actually get rewarded for making quick decisions. There's almost a cultural thing there.

Jimmy:

Yeah, we will always talk about being decisive as being positive. We won't necessarily talk about being reflective as being equally positive.

James:

No. Absolutely. Yeah.

Jimmy:

think through, and, and I've definitely been guilty of this, is some of the consequences that we've discussed. I. You have to really think quite deeply and thoroughly to work out that they were ever gonna happen. And I think it's much easier just to not think things through as fully and just get on and move. And I know I'm one, we talk a lot about progress, not perfection, which is a good mantra, but at least know the progress you're making is in the right direction

James:

Yeah, there's a term for that, mate. Consequences not being offered. Bounded rationality. You don't know what you don't know.

Jimmy:

there you go.

James:

There you go. Wasn't your dad a psychologist? You should have known that, mate. You should have known that.

Jimmy:

As I told you, James, I struggled to spell the word psychology, let alone understand what it was all about.

James:

All right. So there you go. There's that. Then you go into the whole thing about targets. I think we've probably done targets to death,

Jimmy:

I. I think we co, we covered targets in our recent episode on myths and way back on our episode on what Gets Measured gets done. So if people wanna have a listen to them, they can find out. All of your rants on targets

James:

it. Yeah, absolutely. They're, I'll leave you One thought, I've probably said this before, but you hit the target and miss the point. So other than targets, what else would you say is a reason? What else did we say?

Jimmy:

Well, also there is the understanding of the system that you're working within. By system we don't, let's say we don't mean technology, we mean the whole system. Whether that's technology processes where you manage people, the environment you're working in, the, the whole nine yards. People don't really understand how their systems work, do they?

James:

No, and you've got a whole load of interconnecting components and independencies and, well, lemme give you a very simple example. It's a little bit like the cane toads in a way, but there was a, a bit of a scandal a while back. So kin on Tweed, which is on the English Scottish board of those of you don't know they had a lot of swans at Swans living on the tweed. And then they woke up one day and, you know, half these swans are dead and the rest are sort of scavenging through the town looking for food and what the hell has gone on and what's happened. There'd been a European directive about reducing effluence and one of the local plant, I think it was a Bali malting plant, used to discharge its effluent into the tweed and had been told to stop, to stop pollution in the North Sea. But that was actually the the main source of food for the Swans, hence a they of starving swans. But these sorts of connections people don't think about. So yeah, things are much more complex than we think they are. So there's one,

Speaker 4:

If you've enjoyed our podcast, please share it with someone you think would benefit from it.

Speaker 5:

Also, like and follow us wherever you get your podcast, or on LinkedIn, TikTok or YouTube. And five star reviews are always welcome.

Speaker 4:

And equally, if you've got any feedback on how we can improve the podcast subjects you'd like us to cover or questions we can help you with, please do get in touch. Email Jimmy at ajo. Done well.com or James as a job done well.com.

Jimmy:

And, another good one would be the story about Uber. So this is a good example of where there is a non-linear relationship between things within your system. So, as Uber built their network, nothing was happening. Nothing was happening. They kept building and building and building, and then all of a sudden it takes off. And when it takes off, it takes off in an exponential way, not just in a straight line way. So it's understanding those kind of dynamics of how your system works and how it responds to things that people don't think through or understand.

James:

Yeah, so, so it's a very simple example of that. There was a story about a, a, it was a experiment they did, it was about selling jam and they set up a jam stall on a market and they sold one type of jam. And they found out, you know, if I sell this one type, I get this much sale. So then they tried telling, selling two types of jam, and they got double the sales and then went three types of jam and here we go, four types of jam. But what was really interesting was they ended up, you know, selling 14 types of jam and by the time they got to that point, they hardly sold any jam at all.'cause people couldn't make their bloody minds up about which type of jam they want. So more is definitely not always more,

Jimmy:

well, we had the, the, a similar experience when we were looking at cars a, a few years ago, and I from my sins, and this was pre his Nazi salute days,

James:

yeah.

Jimmy:

a Tesla and they had very limited number of choices. It was rather so simple, three or four choices. That's it. at the same point, Vic was getting a, Range Rover and you could have so many permutations. She completely got lost in it and it really was quite a pain in the ass to try and work out. Which particular type that you got and you always felt that you missed out on something, you've got something wrong. Completely unnecessary to give people Too much choice, isn't it?

James:

Yeah, absolutely. But just there you go. Relationships are not linear and then you just get all sorts of loops. I mean, I'll just go one,'cause we've both seen it, but in call centers you can get into a callback spiral or a death loop or we, well, company we were for, they called it something very macho, what do they call it? Turbo? That was it.

Jimmy:

Turbo.

James:

Yeah. Yeah. But you know, if you don't answer the

Jimmy:

But

James:

phone.

Jimmy:

is, trouble is Jane Turbo sounds quite positive, doesn't it? I

James:

Yeah,

Jimmy:

Turbo. no,

James:

no, you really do. You do not wanna

Jimmy:

what turbo is, you've messed something up. You've got people calling you, you're not answering it, and then they keep calling you and calling you build up this whole kind of, it's

James:

these massive noise, horrible, horrible, horrible experience. So there you go. The whole host of system dynamics, which can cause unintended consequences. So here you have question is very easy to point at these things, but what can you do to stop them from happening?

Jimmy:

So I think there's, there's a few things that you can do to, help. One is about talking more and thinking more about the decisions you're making. So, you know, we, we talk quite a bit about diversity and the importance of diversity, but getting different opinions on something can help you see some of those potential risks, some of those potential consequences.

James:

I think you're right. Sorry. Diverse opinions, that's really important. It's very easy for, well, particularly if you happen to be a middle-aged white bloke, but to think you know all the answers. But it never ceases to amaze me when I'm talking to my teenage daughters about the things they know about different apps and different things on the internet, but I haven't got the first idea about. So diversity brings a whole different perspective to things.

Jimmy:

I, I think another good point around when, when you're in that planning phase role playing scenarios. I always absolutely hated scenario planning because I always thought it was such a theoretical exercise. And actually I worked for an organization. Where you had to be prepared to deal with all sorts of different

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

they wouldn't happen very often, but when they happen, they had quite devastating consequences, so you had to get it right. So we invested quite a lot of time in scenario planning, and what that meant is that we thought through what those consequences could be, and also we would be ready for them. had decided on how we were going to respond when things were calmer and you had chance to think when you do it in the heater battle, you can't think

James:

Yeah. Next one I think is just reduce your blindside and, you know, stiff you all have heard of, but call out the assumptions that you've got. Yeah. So I believe they support these reasons. Well, and people can challenge your assumptions and you'll learn something different.

Jimmy:

Yeah. And when I was working in one team, we did a, a whole thing about our risk profile as a team, and we found that we had real optimism bias in a lot of us, but one person in the team didn't have optimism bias. They were completely opposite. So we realized that, actually we probably should listen to them a little bit more rather than viewing them as the outlier, as the naysayer.

James:

Yeah. And, you know, I spent my life doing this, but post-it notes and lines and arrows and drawing out the system and just thinking, well, what am I dealing with? How do I think this possibly could be working? So just thinking about, yeah.

Jimmy:

Well, and, and one of the things that we always talk about James, is, thinking through the system holistically rather than just doing it in the parts. So do I understand how the things I do in my department impact the other departments and the impact other parts of the organization? Often we just think about our little silo and optimize within our little silo, and that almost always has and intended consequences for someone

James:

And the problem with all these suggestions on things you can do is they're all very worthy. Right. You, you can see people's eyeballs roll into the back of their heads, but there is value in doing them. I'm reminded of that. Fabulous year ago fail to plan, plan to fail. Do you like that? That's good, isn't it?

Jimmy:

You are, you're full of cliches today, James. That's

James:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jimmy:

What's the, what's the other one that's similar?

James:

Go on. Poor planning gives piss poor performance. The five P model.

Jimmy:

one,

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

that's the one. Yeah.

James:

planning, but yeah, so do as I say, don't do as I do.

Jimmy:

No, but in fairness, know, when, when I, we have experienced that, we have absolutely seen the value. So you do have to invest the time.

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

is, going into the things that naturally, whether optimism bias, whether it is the desire

James:

I.

Jimmy:

whether it's the desire to be decisive, all of these things, it is about, spending some time thinking through those consequences.

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

'cause I think if, you could, you know, back to your point about there are three types of unintended consequences. One outta the three was positive. I bet if you worked out how many times you've suffered the two negative ones, they far outweigh the benefits of the one positive one, which is, let's be right. Is is a case of luck really,

James:

Yeah, absolutely. Other than that though, there are I think some more practical things you can do rather than having a talking shop. The one I just run, some pilots test small. If you're gonna make a, a change, I. Test it first of all, see what's gonna happen. We are a little bit in love with going gung ho'cause you've got courage in your convictions, but actually running a test is a really valuable thing to do.

Jimmy:

On that, that James that is particularly important in today's world because we're often using things like AI to do stuff and we don't fully understand.

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

often the AI has to learn about how you're doing things. We did a. A really great test in one organization I worked with, but it took us a while to fine tune the systems, to be able to work out the answers that we needed, the stuff it was doing at the start. Absolute nonsense. It was awful, but it's just'cause it hadn't learned. So you have to run these tests and give time to learn and then, then you run really fast when you've actually then done that, that testing.

James:

Yeah. And then the other one is if you're gonna change something for, you know, I would say this is an analyst, but monitor performance. So look and see, well, what do I think is gonna happen? What are these numbers? And check to see what's going on. Very straightforward. But if you're gonna get hit by an unintended consequence, make sure you catch it quick. I.

Jimmy:

Well, one of the, the disciplines that we used to do in, in one of the operations I, I worked in is you, we used to have a morning huddle and an end of day huddle. And this is when we were going through a lot of change. And what we would do is we'd talk about the change that we had going on in the morning. We would implement it and see how the day went. And at the end of the day, we would review what had happened and what were the consequences were. That meant that we got on the unintended consequences really quickly, so we could change it for the next day.

James:

Yeah,

Jimmy:

But you have to, again, invest the time to,

James:

do that.

Jimmy:

sorts of things.

James:

And then my last one, If you must use targets, go at something at a high level, you know, don't go at a sales rate, go at an overall profitability or something like that. And try and reduce the incentives,'cause incentives, people will cheat to hit incentives.

Jimmy:

Well, when, when I've looked at overall customer satisfaction for an organization and everyone was targeted on the overall customer satisfaction. It all of a sudden, everyone in the organization became interested in, in that, and that was linked to the organization's overall purpose. So, done in the right way, you can mobilize a lot of action and interest in the right direction for your company.

James:

Yeah, so there you go. Things you could do to stop unintended consequences there. You hope it's more interesting than you thought it was gonna be, wasn't it?

Jimmy:

James, you're always more in, you're always

James:

you didn't have high hopes. Yeah. All right.

Jimmy:

But in fairness, hopefully we've lived up to what we said that we've educated people on the different types of unintended consequence. We've talked about how they happen, why they happen, and what you can do about it.

James:

Yeah. And you've learned, never pick up a cane toad if you see one in Australia.

Jimmy:

And we've got Cantos to thank for Border Force,

James:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

who you.

James:

Who knew? All right. Thank you very much. I should speak to you next week.

Jimmy:

Thanks everyone.

James:

Cheers now.

People on this episode

Head Shot

James Lawther

Co-host
Head Shot

Jimmy Barber

Co-host