“Reply All” and the Bystander Problem
In 1964, 38 people in Queens, New York, witnessed the murder of one of their neighbors, a young woman named Kitty Genovese. A serial killer attacked and stabbed Genovese late one night outside her apartment house, and these 38 neighbors later admitted to hearing her screams; at least three said they saw part of the attack take place. Yet no one intervened.
Social Psychologists call this phenomena the Bystander Problem or Bystander Dilemma or Bystander Effect. I believe the same effect happens in “Reply All” email communication.
Elegance and Encapsulation
Hiding unnecessary information from a customer is good business. Have you ever had an interaction with a business, where your goal was to get served, but instead the business shares their problems with you? Were you left thinking “I’ve got problems of my own, I don’t need or care to know yours. Just give me my hamburger already.” Encapsulation is an elegant and simple principle to ease the burden on your customer by subtracting or covering the unnecessary and adding the meaningful.
Consider the image below:
The Source of Dirt
In Amazon’s 2008 letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos shares about a Kaizen event he participated in:
At a fulfillment center recently, one of our Kaizen experts asked me, “I’m in favor of a clean fulfillment center, but why are you cleaning? Why don’t you eliminate the source of dirt?”
I’ve spoken numerous times about Bezos on Lean Thinking, some of which are here, here, here and here but there are many more — just browse shmula.
Total Company Involvement
Most vision or mission statements are hollow, uninspirational artifacts. Sloganeering, as it were: they sound good, but fail to mobilize a team or company. To illustrate my point, let me share a great story — the opposite of what I have just described: The NASA Janitor.
This story, I’m sure, is part legend, part folklore, part false, and part truth. Nevertheless, the spirit of the message is clear and correct:
Process Bloat, a Hidden Indigestion
The Hidden Factory is a term that refers to activities in an operation that were not designed into it, but grew over time as workarounds for the current process. Most organizations have some form of a Hidden Factory and being able to “see” these hidden factories in an organization requires learning to see what waste is and understanding that waste in any operation — service or manufacturing — can be a substantial drain on the bottom line, top line, on employee morale, shareholders and, most importantly, the customer.
Purposeful Simplicity, Unthoughtful Complexity
Most people or organizations do not, by design, create a product or service with the goal of “making the most complex product that nobody can use”. In other words, rarely do we see purposeful complexity but instead we see much unthoughtful complexity.
i am going to create the most complex product or service and nobody will be able to use it! i’ll make sure that after my customers experience my product or service, that they feel deflated & completely unsuccessful.
Goodbye eBay, Hello Backcountry.com
I resigned from eBay and I’m happily joining Backcountry.
I covered the company in this post back in February 2007. I was intrigued by the company then and have continued my relationship with them over the years. I know and respect the management team and I am especially impressed by and attracted to their core values, which they genuinely follow:
- Never compromise in hiring.
- Never accept an asymptote – there’s always a better way; we can always do better.
