The Dead Cat in the Living Room: Becoming an Efficient Organisation - Part 3

Mrs. Smith’s beloved cat has just died in the living room. Because the cat was so dear to her, she is so devastated that she can’t do anything to it. Even seeing it lay on that floor already makes her so distressed, and so she calls her son who lives nearby to come and help. 

So on the same day in the evening Mr. Smith Jr comes and he finds the cat laying stiffly on the floor in the middle of the living room. Not wanting to touch the dead cat himself, he finds a big cardboard box and puts it over the cat to cover it. Problem solved and off he goes back to his home. 

Of course, the next day it starts to smell. And Mrs. Smith has to call again his son to come over. So, again he comes, sniffs the smell in the living room, grabs a room deodoriser and starts spraying all over the room. He then lights several scented candles around the cardboard box and tells his mother to keep spraying the deodoriser every few hours. Another problem solved and back home he goes. 

You see, Mrs. Smith’s house is small, and so is the living room. It feels even smaller now because of the big cardboard box in the middle of the room, with candles around it, making it difficult to move around and the living room unusable. So, again Mrs. Smith calls his son and again he comes to the rescue. 

Upon analysing the situation, he concludes that she will need to have a bigger living room and so he does the drawings and costings for her and tells her to get a builder to do the extension. Long story short, a builder comes and does the construction for her. They even give her a discount at the end because she is a pensioner and the works have been easy. 

Now, I can go on and on with this story but I’m sure you’ve got the point :). 

There are two types of people in every organisation based on the way they deal with problems. The first type is what I call the Problem Surfer. A Problem Surfer, as the name suggests, surfs above all problems. They are skilled in surviving any problems thrown at them, sometimes even manage to benefit from them and come out on top. However, while they are surfing above the problems, others are flooded by the same problems and are gasping for air. You see, the Problem Surfer’s goal is never about stopping the problems from ever occurring again. Their purpose is solely the personal survival and focus on short term solutions. Instead of trying to find the root cause of the problems and solve it, they would ‘fix’ the symptoms, therefore creating a false sense of value and more problems instead in the future. Dealing with the root cause of a problem can sometime mean challenging a long-buried issue that no one wants to deal with, and this does not go well with the Problem Surfer’s goal. This is where the symbiosis between an effective person and an effective organisation ends, as a Problem Surfer could be a very effective person at achieving their purpose or goals, but when put into an organisation they hinder the organisation’s effectiveness. 

Obviously the second type is the Problem Solver, and yes they solve problems. This is the type of people who would deal with the dead cat, even if it smells or was held dearly by someone important. They would apply the root cause analysis appropriately, ask the difficult questions (a lot of whys!), design a checking / control mechanism and get their hands dirty to ensure that the problem is solved thoroughly and prevent it to ever occur again. Needless to say, an effective organisation is one that is full of Problem Solvers top to bottom.

Bear in mind that this is a spectrum with one type on each of the extreme, meaning that everyone would be in between the two extremes, some would be more to the left, some more to the right, and this is changeable at any time and situation. The purpose of this article is not to provide a tool to judge or eliminate certain individuals in your organisation, but rather to emphasise the need for organisations to create a culture and system that will move everyone to become more of the Problem Solver. My next articles will explain how. 

As promised, this is the last of our discussion about behaviour (culture, people). The next article we will start with focus on system (process, tools) that is practical and can be implemented by any organisations straight away. These system, process and tools are what will help create the behaviour, culture and people that we need to be efficient. Stay tune!

Check out the previous articles here:

Part 1 - The Purpose Driven Things: don't start work unless you know what the purpose is!

Part 2 - The Power of Definition: make the definition of everything clear for everyone involved!