Roads and Traffic
Have you ever wondered why adding more lanes…
…doesn’t alleviate traffic congestion?
For those of you who, like me, are fascinated by counter-intuitive thinking, I’ve got a book you won’t want to miss. It’s entitled Simplexity, http://www.simplexitybook.com/SimplexityBook.html. Jeffrey Kluger, the author, offers fascinating insights into human behavior and why so many solutions we craft don’t produce the results we desire.
One of the examples he offers is the adding of new lanes to a roadway or adding another bridge to alleviate traffic congestion. He admits that for a few months traffic gets better, but only a few months. Then we return to the same congestion as before. How can that be? The population in our community doesn’t grow that rapidly.
Mr. Kluger says that the additional lanes and bridges invite more people to take their cars instead of using alternative transportation systems. The result is that drivers fill the available space (hmmm, sounds like nature abhors a vacuum).
It’s counter-intuitive, but if we want to manage traffic congestion more effectively the key is to use those “road” dollars to make our transit systems more accessible, more reliable and capable of handling greater volumes of passengers.
What implications does this have for your business? If you’re goal is to increase sales don’t focus on increasing the number of customers you serve. You often have to offer incentives to attract those customers. Instead find ways to serve existing customers better so that you can command premium prices. Both approaches increase revenues; the latter is more cost effective.
Similarly, avoid adding staff because “everyone’s busy.” Instead, spend a few minutes determining what your staff is working on and how valuable it really is. One of the reasons for organizational bloat is that, during high growth periods, leadership assumes that everyone in the organization is busy doing valuable work. That’s not been my experience. Indeed, usually 20% of the work being performed has little if any value.
If you have read any books that really knocked your socks off, please share them with The Invaluable Leader readers by posting the information in a comment. If there’s a topic you’d like me to address, send your request to me at dale@furtwengler.com.
Tags: counter-intuitive thinking, invaluable, invaluable leader, leader
January 29th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Hello Dale,
I had the pleasure of hearing you address the Gateway Association of Payroll Professionals last year, and I receive an email each week inviting me to view your blog and I enjoy it very much. Here’s my recent take on counter intuitive thinking: The first thing companies want to do when times are tough is to eliminate employees to save money, or outsource jobs to another country where labor is cheaper. This may save money in the short run but, in the first situation, it also stresses out the employees who are retained and loaded with more work (assuming, of course, that the work is truly valuable – as noted in your blog this week!) thereby possibly increasing illnesses and missed work and lowering productivity and morale. In the second case, outsourcing to other countries, their customers often find themselves speaking to a person who doesn’t truly understand what is being said to them, and who is reading from a prepared script – this angers the customer and loses the company their business. And in BOTH cases there is the other bigger picture – the long term effect: who is going to buy your products when no one has a job to earn money to spend? I wish the big corporations would realize that they are cutting their own throats when they lay off thousands of people. I fear for our country’s economy – and I also fear for our future in all areas if the economy fails. Thanks for letting me having my say. Keep up the counter intuitive thinking – it’s a really good thing!
January 29th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Karen,
You’re right! Many of the actions we’re seeing companies take these days are contrary to their best interests and those of the customers. The leadership in companies large and small don’t seem to realize that the more quickly they stablize the economic environment we’re in, the more quickly a turnaround can be effected.
Thank you for your insightful comment.
Best wishes,
Dale Furtwengler