Ignoring the Obvious:

Blind spots – we all have them. It does not matter what your position in life is, what job or title you have, or what kind of personality you have. Let me illustrate with a very simple example: Count the “f’s” in this little passage:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS

At the bottom of this “paper” you will find the answer. How did you do? If you are like most people you missed the answer badly. (“Let the firings begin!”) Don’t feel bad. I once taught a course in quality control and the use of statistics, and did a similar exercise. In that much lengthier “passage”, the correct number of “f’s” was 21. Most did not get the answer correct. One particularly industrious inspector found 40! No wonder nothing ever got past her, she was finding problems that did not exist.

How often does this happen in our lives and in our businesses? We see the problem, we know the issues, we know how to fix the problem. That is, right up until somebody tells you how may “f’s there really are. (And if you are high enough up in the management ranks, the search for the “innocent” begins.)

I was once Director of Manufacturing Engineering for a telecommunications company. We were purchased by a much larger company. The larger company wanted to educate us “youngsters” in the right way to do things, which at the time meant automation. So they took me and my staff to a plant which had been completely remodeled. They fixed order entry, they “fixed” the sales channel (come on, nobody ever fixes the sales channel), and they totally automated the factor floor. The expense was enormous, totaling over $350,000,000 (in 1985 dollars).

There was one problem that none of us from our "little" company understood. Now this was in 1985, and at the time we were working in Silicon Valley, the “Garden of Eden” for technology. The problem: The large company was producing typewriters!! At the time, there were few typewriters left in our little company, we had all switched to PC’s. Now I will admit, they made nice typewriters. They were of high quality, and they made a lot of them. But they were still typewriters, not personal computers.

My message is this: Don’t ignore the obvious, but don’t be a slave to it. Sure, try and count all the “f’s”, but don’t obsess over it. The large company in my example (which is real – trust me), counted all the “f’s” and totally missed the market. Expect that people will make mistakes, deal with it. That is the price we pay for making progress. Success comes from learning from your mistakes, and moving ahead. Nobody gets far by counting all the “f’s” in life.

The answer: If you counted 3 “f’s”, you are fairly normal, but wrong (deal with it). There are actually 6. Most of us don’t see the “f” in the word “of”, as we mentally process that with a “v” sound. If it makes you feel any better, I still get this wrong, and I know the exercise.

Prologue: The large company in my example did finally learn from their mistake. They switched from typewriters to printed circuit board assemblies, which again cost a tremendous amount in re-tooling cost (and of course new robotics). Not a bad move, until they realized that these were best made by subcontractors, and the factory was again re-tooled to make printers. They eventually sold the factory. Don’t ever believe that big companies have the answers, they don’t.

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