2005
Why the Chairs don’t get Fixed
C H R I S L O N S D A L E & A S S O C I AT E S LT D . Copyright 2005, Chris Lonsdale
Why the Chairs don’t get Fixed H ave you ever wondered why, in a business, there are often things that need to get done but they never seem to? Even more the meeting room. He was a little taken aback, but took the time to explain to the person on the phone that he hadn’t actually broken a interesting, have you noticed that in some chair. All he was doing was letting them know situations people simply refuse to offer any that there was a problem with a chair, and that sort of help to people in other departments? it needed fixing.
Recently, Jonathan told me a story that throws For some reason, maybe caused by the some light on how this sort of dynamic might language gap, he was unable to fully explain evolve. what the problem with the chair was. The facilities manager asked if Jonathan could meet Finding a Broken Chair him and take him to the meeting room with the broken chair, and explain exactly what the It was a Monday afternoon, and Jonathan was problem was. Being a nice, helpful human in a meeting with three colleagues. He being, Jonathan did not decide to call it a day. happened to sit on one of the meeting room Rather, he helpfully agreed to physically show chairs, and the back felt quite loose. Upon his counterpart what the problem was. The investigation, he discovered that there were two met in the meeting room and Jonathan two screws missing from where the back of singled out the damaged chair, and then the chair attached to the upright. The other showed the facilities manager what the problem screws were somewhat loose. was. He then departed, leaving the facilities manager scratching his head. Being a good citizen, Jonathan got a sheet of paper and wrote a warning note which he The Saga Continues placed on the chair. He then called the administration department responsible for Several hours later Jonathan was very surprised managing all of the different office facilities. He to get another call from the facilities manager, then went back to his meeting. who was asking where he might find screws 1 that could be used to fix the chair. Jonathan A couple of days later he got a call from the thought that this was a bit much, and that the facilities department saying that they had facilities manager should have some way of received news that he had broken a chair in solving that problem. But, he let his helpful
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Why the Chairs don’t get Fixed nature get the better of him. Still wanting to instead requesting that the facilities manager be helpful he suggested that the screws looked arrange for a messenger to pick up the screws. fairly standard to him and that they should be After a little bit of discussion, this was agreed. located at the local hardware store. A couple of hours later, a messenger arrived The facilities manager hummed and hawed, and Jonathan duly handed over the screws as if he really wasn’t sure what to do, or where which disappeared out of the door. With a to go, so Jonathan said that he often went sigh of relief that the saga was finally over, past the street where all the hardware stores Jonathan went back to focusing on his real were located and that he would pick up some job – making money for the firm. But… screws. The Last Straw He then promptly forgot. Later that day, just when he was beginning Now it’s YOUR Fault to give some serious focus to an important business problem, the phone rang. It was the Ten days later, Jonathan got a call from the facilities manager. He carefully explained to facilities manager asking about the screws. Jonathan that he really didn’t know how to fix The tone of the call was somewhat strange, the chair. As it seemed Jonathan was very bordering on the unpleasant. The facilities much a handy man type of guy, would manager didn’t quite go so far as to blame Jonathan be so kind as to help with the actual Jonathan for holding up the whole process, fixing of the chair? but he was careful to indicate that nothing had happened yet because he was waiting For an eternity Jonathan really did not know on Jonathan to deliver the screws. what to say. He was trying to work out in his own mind what had happened. It all began It just so happened that Jonathan was planning when he saw a damaged chair, and alerted lunch that day on the same street that the the department concerned. After being initially hardware stores were located on. He promised blamed for breaking the chair, and negotiated to pick up the screws that afternoon. into finding the screws to fix the chair, somehow he was now being asked to fix the When he returned from lunch this time, chair himself. Luckily, at that moment, he had Jonathan had a little packet of screws with the presence of mind to hang up the phone. him. He called the facilities manager and said Without a word. And then, instead of working, that the screws had arrived. He was taken he spent the rest of the afternoon reflecting aback when the facilities manager suggested how he had somehow become a victim in the 2 that Jonathan should take the screws upstairs whole process. to the facilities management department. He also began to get a glimmer of Wising up by this stage, Jonathan refused, understanding. For some time he had
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Why the Chairs don’t get Fixed wondered at why people in the company didn’t seem to be that willing to help each other out, especially people coming from different departments. He had also wondered why things that were damaged and broken somehow didn’t ever seem to get fixed. This had been especially vexing for him, because many of the problems that remain unfixed for long periods of time seemed to him the easiest things in the world to fix.
What he didn’t know was that he was living in a company where a set of invisible, unspoken rules were in operation.
They simply went like this:
• If you blow the whistle about any problem, you caused it • Since you caused the problem in the first place, you have to help solve it • If you accept the premise of the first two rules, and agree to help, if you are slow then you are to blame for slowing everything up • Since you were the wise guy to point out the problem in the first place, it has to be your responsibility to fix it.
Now he knew why nothing ever got fixed, and why nobody ever wanted to help anybody else in the company.
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Originally published 2005-03-21 · Legacy CMS article #7093