Exhausted by Fires
TheraTech CEO Joshua Winans is no stranger to firefighting. In an industry fraught with fierce competition and stringent regulatory oversight, his team is constantly extinguishing one crisis after another. Take TheraTech’s latest product launch: unexpected technical and supply chain problems nearly derailed the project. Heroic efforts saved it but exhausted TheraTech’s best scientists and put other important projects behind schedule.
Downward Spiral
To break the self-perpetuating firefighting cycle, TheraTech must tackle the root cause: diverting resources to fix unanticipated problems. This usually means sucking resources from projects that are focused on the future. The loss causes their schedules to slip. Quality problems worsen and important work gets dropped. These project woes will eventually spark even more fires in the future. Chronic firefighting spirals downward over time, ultimately engulfing the organization.
Behavioral Biases that Feed Fires
Four behavioral biases push humans into the short-term thinking that feeds fires.
- We overweight tangibility. Today’s issues feel more real than conceptual or planning work, making it easier for us to divert people and money.
- We don’t like uncertainty. It feels safer to invest in today’s clear needs rather than in an ambiguous, fuzzy future.
- We prefer fast payback. We favor investing limited resources for short-term payback rather than waiting for benefits that will take a long time to appear.
- We underestimate future work. We think that there will be plenty of time for long term projects to recover from a few short-term diversions to fight fires.
How to Reduce Firefighting
Here’s how to fight these behavioral biases.
Prevent. Protect your future-focused people and projects. Resist diverting them, even when a fire is burning. This is an investment in your future.
Detect. Not all fires are preventable. Detect them early and fight them while they are still small. Watch for upticks in urgent, unexpected work. This may be a hint that your team is not allocating enough time and priority to planning, risk management, and high-quality execution.
Fight efficiently. Put fires out quickly and efficiently. For example, use tiger teams, andon cords, and similar fast response techniques. If you must divert key people into firefighting, return them back to future-focused work as quickly as possible.
Learn. When a fire has been extinguished, hold a retrospective to learn and implement lessons that will reduce future fires.
Finally, as one of my clients is fond of saying, “Firefighting is bad enough. Don’t reward the arsonist, too!” While it is important to acknowledge the heroes who extinguish a blaze, remember to support the less visible people and projects that prevent fires in the first place.
Now What?
Joshua’s next step is difficult but necessary. He must find ways to prioritize prevention and protect more resources for long-term work. How can you reduce harm from firefighting in your organization? Contact me if you’d like to brainstorm some ideas.
I teach and consult about highly effective projects, portfolios, and leadership. You can contact me at [email protected].