People and organizations have a tendency to overreact to undesired outcomes. Sometimes this leads to remarkable results (see: ever-decreasing airline fatalities) and sometimes it has unintended consequences (see: close attention to children’s safety). Personally and professionally, we are often better served by increasing space between stimulus and response rather than quickly doing something simply for the sake of doing something. This is particularly true when performing a remedial action implies a performance deficiency existed. Numerous discussions start with, ‘We have a problem…’ and end with the opposite conclusion. Recognize that you can’t prevent every low-probability event, the issue may be perception and an ideal response may be doing nothing.
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Tagged: Analysis, Performance, Questions