The Cobra Effect: How Leaders Can Avoid Unnecessary Bad Decisions

However, if you are no longer physically at the church and just watching online, the social responsibility no longer exists and you can simply turn off you computer when it gets to the giving portion of the service.

The only way to reverse The Cobra Effect and digital church is for pastors to learn from the British government and Georgia food processing plant. The digital church will always be with us. It is a wonderful resource for the potential visitors, the sick, and shut-ins. However, if a person is going to restaurants, ball games, and Cosco, then they can also go to church. Pastors must challenge people by preaching on the deficiencies of online church and the advantages of in-person worship.

The Solution

The solution to The Cobra Effect is to gather information at one level, then make decisions at another level. In other words, if you are making decisions at an executive level, you need to first gather information from those at the operations and customer levels affected by those decisions.

If you are going to make a decision “to make things better for your customers,” you should first ask your customers what their needs are. Gather information at one level, then make decisions at another.

If you want to make an executive decision “for the betterment of your employees,” you should first ask your employees what their needs are. Gather information at one level, then make decisions at another.

The Cobra Effect is about how assumption and presumption results in unintended consequences. Don’t make the same mistake the British government, the Georgia processing plant, and even churches did. Otherwise, you may lose 60% of your customers as well.

This article originally appeared here and is used by permission.