Jenga situation //
The first time an organization sets out to make an impact, they discover that they have no customers, clients or constituents. It shows up, makes an offer, and listens.
Early days are exciting. The customer is seen, heard and served. As problems are solved, variations and value are produced.
Early on, the employees who are most admired by their employers are those who can determine what someone wants and then find a solution to meet that need.
It’s possible, once the organization has gained traction and is gaining traction, that a person who maximizes short-term profits will join the team. They treat customers like replaceable flanges – almost identical income opportunities that need to be processed. What about the employees? These are not employees, but expenses.
Jenga is a popular game among children. It involves building a wooden tower with identical sticks. You win by removing the sticks without letting the tower collapse.
You may think that the fastest way to increase profits for a stable company is to simply remove some sticks. More flanges can be processed with less expense. Reduce overheads, measure easy stuff and do it faster.
Here is a simple example of a service business to illustrate the point.
Labcorp came up with a great idea: affordable blood tests that were convenient for both doctors and patients. Doctors didn’t need to worry about whether or not instructions were being followed because a nationwide chain was in place. Patients didn’t need to visit the hospital to get something they could do in a medical park. The organization could afford to develop better reporting and calendaring software if it had a large number of patients.
What happens next?
Take out some Jenga pieces. Why hire a receptionist if you can cover the whole facility with one technician? No big deal if people have to wait for an hour or more. Give people too much work and don’t worry about turnover. If they quit, you can hire someone else. Customer service? You can offer forms and surveys but you don’t need to read them.
Jenga is contagious. After a competitor does it, short-term investors will put pressure on you to follow suit. Profits that were the motivation for growth are now the only thing driving the company, and it’s a race to bottom where no one wins.
The tower becomes unstable when too many Jenga blocks are removed or when the technology changes. Someone else then builds a rival and starts the whole process over.
A marketer in a large company is faced with the challenge of short-term industrial thinking. The worst mistake you can possibly make in marketing is to follow the bean counters. The organization isn’t about the beans, they are a side-effect.
We spend far too much time on shaky buildings. We cannot let a few hustlers, who are obsessed with measuring the wrong things, threaten our resilience, which is built on people connecting, organizations evolving, service, clarity, and generative work.
