Shifting the burden, which occurs whenever remedies appear to improve a problem in the short term but actually shift attention away from fundamental corrections. Eroding goals, which is a special version of shifting the burden. In this case, managers lower standards to deflect attention from fundamental and perhaps difficult corrective actions. A service manager, for instance, might decide that satisfying customers is an unrealistic goal and instead opt for minimizing the formal complaints reported to the head office. People Express became caught in this archetype when the company reduced its customer-service standards from what were once the highest in the industry.
Corporate examples abound.
To decrease costs, a division may cut corners and provide poor customer service, thereby damaging the firm's reputation. Or a manager may disregard employees' interests, sowing the seeds for antagonistic union-management situations that penalize everyone. When managers recognize that their company is caught in one or more of these patterns, they start to understand why previous experiences have been so frustrating. All too often, well-intentioned policies in complex systems produce a positive outcome initially, but later trigger a problem that may be more costly than the original gains. With the help of microworlds, organizations are discovering a new set of tools for gaining control of their destinies.