Contents
Fixes that fail (also called “policy resistance”) is a systems archetype describing the situation in which a quick fix to an urgent problem ends up eventually making the problem worse due to both its side-effects and the resources consumed by the short-term fix that were diverted from more sustainable improvement. To me, this is the classic example of the value of systems thinking: when the “obvious” solution to a problem only makes it worse, and you have to step back and look at the system as a whole in order to understand why and what to do next.
Examples
In the realm of product development, say an important customer has an urgent need for a new feature (e.g. a report showing every action a dismissed employee took in your product) and threatens to switch to a competitor if you don’t build a custom solution to address that need for them ASAP. It’s tempting to have some of your team work on that custom feature when they could be using the time to discover and build something to meet that need for all customers (e.g. a general activity log). Acquiescing to one customer’s demand also teaches the customer that you’re willing to build whatever they ask for if they threaten to leave, making it more likely this will happen again.
Another example from Thinking in Systems is of anti-drug enforcement, in which success at limiting the supply of illegal drugs only causes prices to rise, lining the pockets of suppliers and attracting more dealers:
Strategies
- To address, admit that the initial fix was merely temporary (or stop working on it if it’s not too late) and focus on solving the real problem. In the case of illegal drugs, it’s essential to recognize that drugs are not the real problem, but rather the conditions that create demand for drugs. Until you reduce the demand, constraining the supply serves only to increase the price.
- A two-prong attack is possible—make the quick fix today to buy time to solve the ultimate problem—but you have to start working on solving the underlying problem immediately or you’ll risk paying the cost of the quick fix indefinitely, exacerbating the problem.