Articles—Issue 20, March 2007 Back to Article Index The Law of Unintended Consequences Perhaps like me, you have charged a hill, shot from the hip or used an “obvious” solution only to find out that the fish downstream were killed. I admit to having a bias for action and believe that executives who do not are dangerous. If you wait until you have enough information for the decision to make itself, you will be 100% confident that your buggy whip is the best designed in the world.  Even “Ready, Fire, Aim” is preferable to “Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim…”   However, what often happens in organizations is that consideration is not given to how decisions or actions will impact the rest of the organization or even worse, your customers; ergo, the phrase, “unintended consequences”. (Donald Rumsfeld—though a very bright fellow—might have benefited from a better understanding of this concept.)   There is no stronger evidence of this law in business than in compensation. Reward systems and the field of economics can explain most human behavior. How often have you seen compensation plans change to reward certain behaviors, but then cause even worse problems?   Here is another example from a conversation that I recently had. Well meaning activists force a manufacturer in a third world country to stop using 14 year old children for labor. Unfortunately, the education system ends at a younger age so our 14 year old child doesn’t have a better option. The children end up as beggars or prostitutes. The family that they were helping to support falls on even harder times.   This is the terrain of “systems thinking”; a formal thought process that considers the whole system and studies the challenges of reductionism. (Remember Descartes from your high school philosophy class?) This is actually quite fascinating and those who are adept in systems thinking have some very cool tools and techniques to guide decision making. A good current author is Peter Senge.   How can you easily employ a bit of systems thinking in your world? Try to view decisions in the larger context. Ask, “Who or what else might this impact and how?” “How will they react?” Be decisive, but consider the unintended consequences of your actions. (c)2007 by Tood Ordal. You are welcome to share this informational article with others. Todd Ordal is a business consultant helping executives struggling with execution. Prior to founding the consulting firm Applied Strategy LLC, Todd spent over 25 years in management and executive roles such as President and CEO. You can contact Todd at todd@appliedstrategy.info