College football is broken.
Marshall University just declined an invitation to play in a post-season bowl game because 75% of the team entered the transfer portal just weeks after winning their conference championship. It’s only one example of players making quick exits from their schools for a variety of reasons, even in one case where a Penn State player is leaving while his school is competing for a national championship!
What once was an unjust situation where student-athletes were “stuck” at their schools based on decisions made as 18 year olds. The inability for a kid to make a responsible change needed to be made. However, the complete free agency now is even worse than what it was as it can literally and figuratively dismantle a program.
It was over-correction at it’s worst.
In our businesses and professional lives, we can also be guilty I’ve over-correction, too. We see over-correction take place in both small and mega businesses in:
- Dropping prices dramatically to respond to competition. This can erode profit margins and cheapen a brand’s perception.
- Pivoting the brand identity or messaging due to a failed campaign or trend, the confusing loyal customers and diluting bond recognition.
- Instituting rigid Human Resources policies or micromanagement after one employee misstep. This can stifle innovation, damage morale, and erode trust.
- Over-investing in automation after a technology failure or inefficiency critique. This might have the consequence of disrupting workflow, ticking off employees, and ignoring areas where human touch trumps artificial intelligence.
- In areas of diversity and inclusion, there can be a well intentioned attempt to institute tokenism or quotas to meet external pressures. The result can often be a perceived (or real) lack of authenticity that can lead to residence and loss of morale.
You get the picture. In so many cases, over-correction is done with good intentions. However, the rush to do so can create a worse situation that what existed before.
For those of us who struggle with impatience (and count me as one of those), there is a desire to “fix” perceived areas of deficiency quickly. The best way to do so is to actually slow down, identify the real issue (sometimes there isn’t one), get help from internal and external sources, implement intentionally, and then monitor closely.
We all will make mistakes when trying to make corrections in business. Let’s just be brave enough to be ready to monitor and correct those “corrections” before it’s too late.
Quick note: We can also be guilty of abandoning a correction or change because it didn’t “respond” as quickly as we would have liked it to…guilty as charged. Patience is a part of monitoring results.
Keep chasing unleashed.
Quote of the Week:
“People fall forward to success.”
~ Mary Kay Ash (20th century American businesswoman – Mary Kay Cosmetics)
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