A systems needs impartial observer to rectify problem situations

I had gone to meet a call centre VP. He was facing lot of issues with his call centre representatives. The issues were common. High attrition rate was one of the biggest problems. As I talked to one of the CCR’s (Call centre representatives), I was surprised at the amazing insight he shared with me. He told me that all the problems that his group is facing is due to billing errors of a mobile company. The errors occur due to the mistakes in the ‘billing process’. According to him, 80% of the billing mistakes were due to this. He wanted to talk to the mobile company, to resolve the problem at a root level. When he tried to talk this problem to his boss, he was told that ‘Call centre is earning money because of the calls. If he solves the problem, there will be no calls for them.”

This is a typical ‘systemic’ problem. Problem in a downstream process happen due to the upstream issues. Problems in downstream call centre occur due to the billing errors upstream. The same happens in any organization system: whether it is service centers of repair, or delivery centers of companies, or quality cell in a company.

These problem symptoms cannot be solved by doing anything in that department or function. In the above case of a call centre, the call centre would avoid resolving the problem symptom because it affects their revenue.

But if the call centre was part of the mobile company, the problem still cannot be resolved. For a college student, the solution looks simple: call both the department heads and tell them to solve the problem. But for anyone working in a company for a long period , this problem cannot be resolved easily, because the systemic issues get ‘escalated’ with time. Departments are at logger head with each other because each is serving a different purpose. The two departments may also have historical baggage of ‘conflict’. The bosses in the two departments may also have aggravated the ‘divergence’ further by emotional outbursts. Further, if the root cause of a problem symptom in one department is in another department, there is no incentive to ‘resolve it’ for the other department.

For a system, even though the problem symptom and its root cause are apparent, such live systems require an impartial problem solver. Not only the problem solver be really ‘impartial’, but he should also be ‘perceived’ as impartial by the concerned stakeholders. A consultant fits this bill well. Managers often joke that ‘Consultants, even if they prescribe the same solution as the managers-at-work, are listened to because they are paid’. That is not completely true. They are listened to, because stakeholders see them as ‘impartial’. Infact some of the consulting assignments fail because one of the department ‘feels’ that the consultant has been brought in by other department. The ‘process’ of selecting a consultant is therefore as important as selecting an impartial consultant.

The ‘systemic’ nature of an organization makes it also necessary that the managers in the organization use the ‘impartial’ perception of a consultant smartly. Of course, the systemic nature of an organization also compels managers to use consultants in a particular way. Consultants are useful in certain situations, they have to utilized in a specific manner, and their expertise, to be useful, has to be channelised in a specific manner. If managers fail to understand this, they can only spend tons of money on consulting, with nothing to show.