With airports and flights very much in the news today, here's a good example of how focusing on the wrong problem can make situations more fraught than they need to be.
Business advisor Ian Lurie was once on a visit to Los Angeles Airport: ‘The flight was right on time, smooth as silk. Then we landed at LAX', he explains. 'The jetway was busted. So, for the next fifty minutes, eight airline and airport employees moved the jetway forward three feet, then back three feet, then forward three feet, then back three feet: Fifty minutes. Multiply that by eight employees and that's nearly a day of paid work.'
The airline put all of their focus on the wrong problem: They did fix the jetway, but only after several passengers missed their connections to international flights, and everyone was thoroughly irritated. The real problem was the passengers stuck on the plane. They could have fixed that in minutes by wheeling up a set of air stairs and letting us exit from a different door.
In fact, they had just decided to do that when the jetway started working again.
Source: www.conversationmarketing.com