Business language can be peculiar and revelatory.
Ever have anyone in your company tell you that they were going to "pick the low hanging fruit"? This means that they believed that the things they were going to change in their organization were simple. Low cost; high benefits. The implication: “this stuff's ripe for the picking if only you were smart enough to look up and pluck it.”
Hmm. Remember that thing about, “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is?”
We know that the fantasy of one-stroke change continues to pervade business. “Hell...all you have to do is....”
But those of us who've toiled in the belly of the beast know that much of that low fruit is as poisoned as Eve's apple. Sure, you can go ahead and take cost out of the system and look like a genius. Simple. Until the implications start to play out.
Cut the workforce by 10%. Easy. Low hanging fruit.
Oh, customer service is now slipping?
Take 20% of the cost out of the innovation system; we know those damned designers are profligate spenders.
Well, well: new product sales don't meet projections?
Outsource HR.
What the hell happened to our retention numbers?
I know we all want things to happen quickly. In today's world, they have to. But making believe we can cut through complexity with talk about easy changes ought not to satisfy anyone anymore.
Be very careful when tempted to pick that low fruit. Before you do, ask yourself:
- Why hasn't it been picked before? (Do a 5 Whys on this one and you're likely to learn some fascinating lessons about your organization, its culture and its people.)
- What's going to happen when you do? (Think: short-, medium-, long-term anticipated and unanticipated consequences.)
- Who knows the answers to those questions? (Dig for the people who understand the system best.)
If you do this, you might find that you still want to pick that fruit. But the chances are you won't be nearly as smug as you would have been before realizing that everything's more complicated than it looks at first glance.
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