A Story of Unintended Consequences

Many years ago, I came across an interesting story about a plant manager who was fed up with the extremely high turnover at a factory on the border of the United States with Mexico.  “I’ve had enough!”, he proclaimed against his staff’s advice, “We’ll just raise wages to be the highest in the area.”  The neighboring plant executives were none too pleased either because this associate had significantly moved the needle of the prevailing wage rate and thereby snatched some of their valued employees. 

Yet three months later, the turnover more than doubled. “How could this be?”, thought the plant manager.  One day, one of his workers stopped him in the aisle to shake his hand and thank him.  “Because of you, I do not have to work here for 6 months before returning to my hometown. I only had to be here for 3 months. I will be leaving tomorrow.” 

Unintended consequences, (sometimes referred to as ‘unanticipated results’ or ‘unforeseen issues’) are outcomes of a purposeful action that were not intended or foreseen.  In the example cited above, it turned out that cash was the key motivator for many migrant workers since they were mostly transitory.  The extra (unexpected) pay allowed workers to leave sooner than originally planned.  

The concept of unintended consequences has been around since the late 1690’s, when John Locke, English philosopher and physician, wrote about how a law restricting interest rates might affect borrowers by discouraging lending. In 1936, American Sociologist, Robert K Merton of Harvard University, popularized this concept in a review titled, “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action”, where he identified five sources of unanticipated consequences, including ‘ignorance’ or ‘error’.  The three most common categories of unintended consequences are: 

  1. When there is an unexpected drawback that occurs in addition to the desired effect of the change. In 1990, the Australian state of Victoria mandated all bicyclists wear a safety helmet. The overall number of head injuries did reduce significantly, but there was also an unintended reduction in the overall number of bicyclists. Young riders thought helmets were simply “not cool” while more experienced riders were fed up with steep fines (and possibly jail time) so they gave up riding altogether. 
  1. An unexpected benefit, which is a positive, unplanned outcome. A warehouse operator installed new lighting with advance motion sensing controls to help reduce warehouse costs. But the motion-detecting sensors remained dark if there were no moving forklifts in certain aisles. After a while, the forklift operators accomplished their jobs more confidently and faster by avoiding collisions with each other. They could make turns or move quickly in a single direction knowing there were no other forklifts or workers in the vicinity.  
  1. When trying to solve a problem we make it worse.  This is exactly what happened to our protagonist in the above story. 

So…how to prevent unintended consequences? 

  • Think through potential impacts of the actions before taking them. Use a checklist asking key questions about the project’s intent or activity being performed. 
  • Expand input to include multiple experts. Seek input from stakeholders or subject matter experts (SME) who may have different perspectives or expertise. 
  • Use a structured brainstorming tool to facilitate and document your discussion.  Conduct a risk assessment to identify potential gaps and develop mitigation strategies.  An FMEA (Failure Modes & Effects Analysis) is also a great tool to flush out the reasons this could fail.*

In our original story, the plant manager eventually came to his senses, went back to the original hourly wage model then worked with his team on the underlying problem; attracting and retaining workers who wanted to remain in the area. They improved overall compensation by strengthening benefits such as subsidizing the cafeteria, adding nursery day care vouchers, creating a better dental and vision health plan, among other incentives.   

To summarize, when we act to bring about change, our actions could result in pleasantly positive or perversely negative consequences. But we can mitigate, or at the very least be cognizant, of unplanned results from our own actions by thinking through the potential side-effects of our decisions. 

*Learn more about managing risks and potential failures at OpExecs Academy! Check out our courses: Demystifying FMEA and Evaluate, Prioritize and Abate Risks that could impact your project.