Efficiency. Again, and again, and again

While we were enjoying the cool winter weather in Chiang Mai a few months ago, the tap water stopped running. We quickly learned that the main water pipe leading into the village was broken. This water pipe was 15 years old and made of concrete. Within 2 hours, the Provincial Water Authority had mobilized the repair team, with digger and all. The leak was located, the old pipe dug up, a new 5 meter long plastic pipe was inserted and the hole filled. After flushing out the brown water for a few minutes, all was back to normal after half a day of minor inconvenience (the swimming pool was a useful backup !).

Until two days later, when the same happened. The concrete pipe had broken in another spot. Same digger, same team, and a new 5 meter long plastic pipe. And then, of course, it had to happen again. Three times in one week.

The repair crew was very efficient. They arrived quickly (once even on a Sunday), started digging, replaced the pipe and filled up the trench. When I asked why they did not replace the entire concrete pipe that was falling to bits little by little, they told me that their “rules” only allowed to put in a new pipe once the old one was broken. So even if the 100 meter long concrete pipe would continue to break, the only possible solution was to replace each 5 meter section at a time, and mobilize the crew a total of 20 times.

The Provincial Water Authority was so focused on executing their procedure in an efficient way, that the obviously more effective solution of replacing the entire pipe, and mobilizing the team for a day or so, could not even be considered

This story makes you want to chuckle at the absurdities in government services. But are these limited to government bureaucracy ? What happens in our businesses ? We put in place processes for some reason at some point in time, often to solve a problem situation (broken water pipe). We train people to execute the new process (mobilize, dig, replace, fill) as efficiently as possible. They get good at doing it, practicing over and over again (3 times per week if needed). The problem gets solved in a rather satisfactory way and complaints are limited (repair within half a day). But then the environment changes (pipe no longer breaks once a year)  – new customer segments, new technology, new competitors – and the old solutions – that worked so well for so long and that we’ve become so good at – have become ineffective.

It is not easy to take a step back and ask the dumb question “why are you doing things this way ?” about something you have been doing for ever. An external eye looking at your processes can probably help to ask a few of those questions. They often turn out not to be so dumb after all.