Are you a Glazier or a Cobbler? One Man’s Benefit is Another Man’s Loss!

When you solve one problem, you WILL create another. Further, the path laid out by the decisions we make to solve a problem, may lead us to even tougher challenges.

This accurately describes the reality we face as IT and business professionals every day in every decision we make and guide. Perhaps if we considered those statements more as a philosophy, we would not fear that if we make a decision and head down a path, another path will be closed to us forever. We would stay away from processes that try to eliminate completely the risk of a decision by delaying a decision until ALL risks have been eliminated. There were some challenges this week with a team that is trying to initiate initiatives around a foundational business area. Therefore, the impacts to even a small change to get things moving towards the larger strategic intent, is considered high impact and the organizations required to support the change are very loath to be the initiators of these changes. As I like to say, there was a lot “hand wringing” going on and not a lot of “decision making”. Root cause analysis got me thinking about the balance between free choice and the desire to hold the assets of the enterprise above all else which led me to post-French Revolution economics…  (I swear this happened)

A few months ago, I was reading some fangirl article on Frédéric Bastiat.  During one of our above mentioned “hang ringing” sessions, I realized that I was really dealing with a set of glaziers who are worried about putting cobblers out of work. Bastiat’s essay What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen gives us a great example regarding glaziers and cobblers. The gist being that spending money to re-glaze broken windows is money not spent on having shoes repaired. Bastiat’s point reveals a truth that we should consider when identifying and managing change and driving to decisions: “One man’s benefit is another man’s loss”.  Further, because this is inherent in a decision which involves services or capital, the RISK of managing the impact of that loss is the true objective.

Fear of a decision’s outcomes. That is the reality. When we don’t clearly identify the inherent risks in a decision, assess the potential, evaluate likely outcomes, controlling where appropriate, the fear is lying there on the table as the idiomatic elephant in the room. The role of the leader of any decision based effort is to manage the risk so that the fear does not interfere with the decision making process. This is not a new concept. However, risk takes on a larger and impactful role in organizations that are experiencing a significant amount of change. We should simply accept the philosophy that “One man’s benefit is another man’s loss”. By linking the benefit to the loss via a sound risk management technique, we accept the reality as a core element of how we make and implement decisions. And eliminate the hand wringing by ensuring our cobblers will certainly need to repair the shoes of the glaziers sometime in the future.

Let’s get our glaziers and cobblers out there making decisions without fear. Using sound risk management techniques to encourage some risk taking helps eliminate the hand wringing and enable new shoes for all in the future!

Economist Nerd Note

By the way, if you are watching the debates and having same difficult time that the rest of the country seems to be having, brushing up on some basic economic rules around taxes and social services is a great idea. 

Political economy precedes politics: the former has to discover whether human interests are harmonious or antagonistic, a fact which must be settled before the latter can determine the prerogatives of Government. --Frédéric Bastiat