Every Company Needs a Good Map

When we reward the wrong behavior and get results we did not want, should we be surprised? Usually the answer is yes. The answer is yes, because we did not realize we were rewarding the wrong behavior. How can you check what you are encouraging without looking like you do not know what you want? Know what you want encouraged and work backwards.

Every day I get 2 newspapers; the Wall Street Journal for national and business news and the Orange County Register for local news, sports, and comics. Every day I browse about 90% of the pages of the Wall Street Journal, I skip the stock tables - what I needed to know I knew yesterday from various Internet financial sites. The Register is a much larger stack and I start by tossing aside about 40%. I start looking at the Sports section, I love baseball. I skip all of the pages for teams or sports I am not interested in. Next I view the Local section, where I only look at the page for my area, and then usually only read the bits about my town. The op-ed pages are at the end of this section, and I usually read a few of those pieces. They are like blogs, but often they have done more research. The rest of the paper goes the same way, where I skip the full-page ads and coupon pages entirely. I finish up at the comics of which I read 8 out of the 30 or so on the two pages.

Since I read less than half of the Register why do they keep sending all of that paper? They do so because I don't have any way to not receive all of that paper. How many other people are wasting 50% or more of every newspaper every day? So the people who make up those sections, write those articles, and buy those ads think they are doing a good job because I paid for a paper where their material got a free ride.

I wonder what the newspaper would look like if everyone could send back the parts they don't use. What if we could login each day and tell the editor not to bother sending that part tomorrow, or ever again? What if you could select the parts to be delivered and then any of the rest you could just read online? How about if you got a survey at 5 PM that told you all the stories they are working on for tomorrow and you could check those that you wanted to receive? Seems like the voting process is a lot of work but it would make the paper a lot smaller.

What signal would rejecting the parts of the paper that are of no use to you send to the newspaper writers, editors, and owners?

My signal; Stop sending me so much paper that I just throw out. Maybe if I had a bird it would be useful.