Don't Over-Engineer It!

What is about an organisation that complicates what should be simple? Why when a small group of people grows to an organisation, do they become blind to simplicity? Why over-engineer problems and introduce unwieldy systems and operating procedures?

So I was in a restaurant in a hotel recently when I discovered the chicken I’d been served was undercooked. I called the waitress over and the meal was taken away. Then nothing much happened. So I called over the Maitre D’ and expressed my disappointment that what I thought was a decent establishment had a poor attitude to food safety. A few feet away from my table was the open-plan counter of a kitchen where the food was prepared. Somewhere around the corner was a chef. I felt like going off to find him or her to get answers to my question, it seemed so simple. The Maitre D’s response? “I’m very sorry sir. You can be sure I’ll be sending lots of emails tomorrow morning to sort this out”.

What the …?

All three people in the equation were there, just feet away. The chef. The customer. The manager.

Emails? A conversation would be a good start.

I figured that if I’d been in a small family or owner-run business it would have been sorted out quickly - and there’d have been no emails in sight.

So at all costs: if the problem is in the kitchen (or the sales office, or wherever), don’t send emails. Just walk in there and sort it out.

Don’t complicate something when it's really quite simple.