Not Bad Enough

Forget any quests or searches for excellence. Many workplaces operate on the benchmark of Not Bad Enough.

The Not Bad Enough standard means that no corrective action will be taken until disaster has struck or is minutes away. Earlier warnings are dismissed as alarmist or a waste of time and money. The line "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is frequently employed. Stories are told of times in the past when someone uttered a dire prediction and nothing bad transpired. Executives who can erupt in anger if a restaurant order is slightly late suddenly attain the patience of Buddhist monks.

Don't worry, they purr. It's not bad enough to merit that sort of strenuous response. The more open among them urge waiting for additional evidence.

Naturally, there are times when their words make sense. Specialists often see crises everywhere and a leadership group that listened to all of their predictions would either be paralyzed in fear or running off in all directions.

The Not Bad Enough advocates, however, are a different crew. They operate not from a rational resistance to alarms but from three perspectives. Some live in a fantasy world in which nothing terrible will take place because the organization is just so big and powerful that terrible events scurry away at its approach. Others are calculating careerists who figure that it is wiser to wait for irrefutable evidence of a problem - such as lawsuits or explosions - than to leap into a decision that might harm one's progress up the ladder. Still others may secretly welcome a crisis because it will be a break from their usual humdrum routine and will provide many opportunities for heroic action.

Those who seek to move this Not Bad Enough crowd will have to show:

1. The danger is real;


2. There is greater career damage and risk in delay than in action;


3. To take action now is heroic.
   

If those criteria are not addressed, then the odds of persuasion are remote. After all, things are bad enough.

Prevention versus Remedy

The Prevention versus Remedy debate has always fascinated me.

Those of us who are in the Prevention ranks can be baffled at the recklessness of the Remedy crowd. How can they sit around and wait to get clobbered by a crisis that anyone with basic vision can see is bearing down on us like a truck on a possum? How can they fail to take simple actions that will save loads of money and time down the road?

The Remedy people, however, have a defense. You Prevention types, they say, are world-class worriers. You would tie us up in drills for everything from earthquakes to hang-nails and, as a result, we'd get little done. The employees would spend part of the day looking over their shoulders, waiting for the End of Days, and the team would become demoralized and unproductive. Your perfectionism is paralyzing!

Those points, I believe, can be easily brushed aside as hyperbole, but the Remedy advocates also raise a more difficult argument when they mutter:

Besides, management favors the Remedy camp.

This is hard to dispute. Point out dangers on the horizon in some outfits and you are relegated to status of wimps, nay-sayers, and what my father's generations used to call Nervous Nellies. Favor "Action now!" and "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" and you'll score big time as a bold decision maker.

You can ascribe this to upper management's bias for action. I believe, however, that another bias is in play. Management likes crises. Dealing with a crisis is exciting, it frees us from monotony, and overcoming crises has made many a career. You seldom get promoted for avoiding a disaster, but all sorts of upward movement can come if you vigorously respond to a mess.

Which leads to some other questions: If crises are attractive and career-boosting, how often are they subconsciously produced? Is what the Prevention camp sees as madness really a method?