PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Limiting consequences - the unintended kind :: 09/28/2015
My good friend Roy Weissman has a great saying: “I want to be successful in business in spite of myself.” Why do I like this so much? Because, as business owners, we have a tendency to get in our own way.
Often, decisions we make cause unanticipated issues -- good and bad -- also known as unintended consequences -- those outcomes from an action that are not what you wanted or maybe even imagined possible.
Unintended consequences come in three varieties: an unexpected positive result or benefit; a negative result in addition to the desired result; or a very negative result with no benefit, otherwise known as a backfire.
Unintended consequences remind me of Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
For examples, look at the first two Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Consider the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In a free society, we can say anything we want, print anything and not worry about being carted away for subversion. But hateful, attacking speech can be unintended consequences.
The right to keep and bear arms enshrined in the Second Amendment has had the unintended consequences of contributing to the proliferation of guns and violence in our society.
Another example is the Affordable Care Act. "Obamacare" has many unintended consequences, including companies redefining the work week to 30 hours to avoid the additional costs of mandatory insurance for employees working 40-hour weeks. (And remember, if you like your plan, you can keep the doctor you have. Unless, of course, the plan has been scrapped because it didn’t meet new federal guidelines.)
Lesser of the evils
I love watching TV commercials for pharmaceutical products in which stating the list of their possible side effects takes up more time than talk of the drug and its benefits. The last statement made in such ads is often something catastrophic, such as, "See your doctor if this problem lasts for four hours" or "can cause death." Gee, I can’t wait to consume those meds! (And I still can’t figure out why that couple is sitting in bathtubs on the beach. Have you ever seen a bathtub on a beach?)
The more complex the system, the larger the number of possible effects. Here's a simple example: Let’s say that you own a restaurant and you increase your drink prices by $1 per drink. You anticipate that this strategy will result in more profit, right? Maybe. Unintended consequences: You may lose customers who now feel that your drink prices are too high. Secondary unintended consequences: Your restaurant will now have more seating availability. Assuming you can fill these seats with new customers, you may make higher profits.
Now that you have a better understanding of unintended consequences, what can you do to avoid them? Here are some suggestions:
1. Try to account for human nature and biases.
2. Try to know what you don’t know.
3. Survey your customers and non-customers.
4. Conduct market research to be able to have a high level of confidence in your decisions.
5. Involve other departments in the decisions to help detect unforeseen effects.
6. Consult a marketing expert, SCORE mentor or business coach.
7. Create incentives that help achieve the desired outcome .
8. Balance short- and long-term goals.
9. Don’t create problems you don’t have.
10. Discuss prospective changes with your accountant.
11. Test changes before committing to them.
Avoid the Streisand effect
In 2003, Barbra Streisand unsuccessfully sued Ken Adelman and Pictopia.com for posting a photograph of her home online. Prior to the lawsuit, only four people had downloaded the photo. The lawsuit drew attention to the image and resulted in over 400,000 people visiting the site. The Streisand effect, named after this incident, was an unintended consequence. The attempt to remove information instead drew attention to the image being suppressed, resulting in the image becoming widely known, reported and distributed.
Remember: An intervention in a complex system tends to create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes.
Unintended consequences I personally experience from writing my weekly, small-business column, "Business SCORE Card," are fame, notoriety and fortune. Well, two out of three ain’t bad. Be careful what you wish for and, if you win the lottery, call me for help with your new unintended consequences, such as "old" friends and distant relatives coming out of the woodwork.
Dennis Zink is a volunteer, certified mentor and chapter chair of Manasota SCORE and Chair of Realize Bradenton. He is the creator and host of Been There, Done That! with Dennis Zink, a nationally syndicated business podcast series. He facilitates a CEO roundtable for the Manatee Chamber of Commerce, created a MeetUp group, Success Strategies for Business Owners and is a business consultant. Email him at centreofinfluence@gmail.com.
