Why organisations need a method to experience pain
The feeling of pain or discomfort is very important for the healthy functioning of a human body. Experiencing pain is not a pleasurable experience but it’s a signal that somewhere something is wrong in the body. It’s a signal which often saves lives or helps us fix or treat things which can significantly change our lives.
There are people who suffer from diseases where they can’t experience pain. You might think it’s such a wonderful situation to be in. You can avoid pain and live a pain free life. These people are so lucky. But that’s not the case. These people are actually very unfortunate. Their bodies are unable to signal to their brain that something is wrong. Which means they can’t take timely interventions to fix things. They are living a precarious life.
Many times, lives are lost or small health problems become very big because the body doesn’t send a proper signal to the brain when the problem was minor and could have been fixed a timely intervention. There is also the issue of not taking these signals seriously.
This is why new health devices like the Apple Watch are so awesome. They help in identify and signalling other health problems which might not get signalled by the body to the brain otherwise. Parts of the body that not working well but aren’t sending a signal to the brain in the form of pain. Which will mean that there will be no intervention and the problem will become worse. We don’t want such a situation
Pain is actually great. It’s an uncomfortable experience in the short term but it makes us better in the long term.
If you aren’t experiencing any pain it might not always be a good thing. It’s a good thing if you have good data and diagnostics about your body. Then it means you are healthy. But if you dont have good diagnostics, it just means you dont know your health problems.
The perfect situation is when every pain is getting signalled and nothing is getting missed. The worst situation is when nothing is getting signalled in the form of pain and the brain has no idea of the problems that are brewing in the body. The first situation might overwhelm us and cause stress sometimes but atleast we won’t be getting any health surprises which are beyond fixing.
What’s the equivalent of pain for an organisation ?
The signals which tell the leadership ( the brain ) that something is wrong with the organisation ( the body ).
What are these PAIN signals ?
Feedback from stakeholders, business data, error reports, audit reports and first hand observations by the leaders. Feedback can come from customers or employees or any other stakeholders. Business data and show what metrics are doing badly. Error and audit reports can tell you what systems or processes are not running properly. Sometimes the leaders can observe issues first hand.
All of these signals are bad feedback for the leadership. It’s makes them uncomfortable. Sometimes they might get defensive. But they should be happy that they are getting this signal as telling them that something is wrong with your company. Ignoring them is not going to help. They will impact business performance. By acknowledging them and acting on them, the leadership can fix these problems and ensure that business results aren’t affected.
What kind of companies are more successful ?
Like the human body, all organisations will lie on a spectrum. On one end, there will be ideal organisations which know all their problems and on the side, there will companies which have no clue about any of their problems. The closer you are to the first type of ideal organisations, the better of you will be. You will know about more problems and you are more likely to fix more of your problems.
Organisations and their pain signalling systems
It’s clear that an organisation should have great pain signalling systems. Which should be able to catch everything which goes wrong. If there are problems which your systems can’t detect, then you are like that person who has a medical problem but who’s brain isn’t getting any signals. You dont want to have too many such problems.
So every time you find such a problem ( one you didn’t detect ) , you need to upgrade your pain catching systems. So that next time they can signal the pain. Sometimes this happens with customer feedback also. They often report problems your pain signalling systems don’t report. Such feedback is critical. You can be rest assured that many other customers are experiencing the same problems but they are aren’t reporting it. So you need to upgrade your systems so that they can detect the problem every time it happens and signal it every time.
Customer feedback is therefore a great check for your problem catching systems. You should be grateful to such customers.
You also need to integrate the pain catching and signalling mindset in your organisation culture. That pain is good. Our systems should signal pain every time there is a problem. If they don’t it’s a problem. More pain is good not bad. It might be uncomfortable in the short term but it’s great in the long term.
Also like the human body, an organisation cannot become perfect. So that they won’t have problems. There will always be problems. And as a result, there should always be pain. You should work towards reducing problems. But they won’t go away completely. So problem finding and pain signalling systems are absolutely necessary.
Just like the Apple Watch improves your body’s pain signalling system, you need more systems for your company which can find problem and signal pain. It’s a combination of encouraging customers and employees to find and report more problems and using more technology ( like the Apple Watch) to do the same.
Whether we are humans or companies, we all need pain. It’s great for us.
