When Your Systems Work Inconsistently Like a Failing Water Heater

Imagine the excitement of getting hotter than usual water for a shower. It’s glorious, like a fancy hotel.

The next day, it’s room temperature. Manageable, like a beach’s foot wash.

Then, it’s cold. Cold like the water influencers use for cold plunges.

Today, it’s back to hotter than usual, but I don’t trust it.

The frustrating part of this is the inconsistency.

Organizations deal with the same kind of inconsistency.

Maybe the inconsistency is due to an aging, legacy system that is literally failing.

Or, it could be that your organization is doing something differently than when that system was implemented, so there’s a mismatch in how something was intended to be used and how it’s really being used.

When a system works inconsistently, everything dependent on it becomes less reliable.

It also becomes less efficient, as time is spent retrying the same thing with hopes of a different result, exploring workarounds, and venting to coworkers.

Organizations often tolerate this inconsistency for a variety of reasons:

1. It’s not painful enough, so it feels manageable to continue with the current state
2. There are workarounds that are “doable” or “handle” the issue
3. The fix could be expensive or disruptive

Sometimes people don’t even validate that last point because they’re more comfortable with that being unknown, even if the fix is not expensive or as disruptive as they think.

The area where this becomes really sketchy is when organizations normalize inconsistency.

Just like the hidden costs of quick fixes and unnecessary complexity, the inefficiency that results from inconsistency builds up over time.

If something feels like it could be better, it’s worth asking or demanding time to define what it is and discover potential alternatives.

In the case of the hot water heater, the fix might be swapping a temperature sensor (cheap and simple) or needing to replace it entirely (expensive, but still relatively simple).

Plus, there are new approaches (tankless, on-demand water heaters) that provide the same outcome.

TLDR: Inconsistency produces inefficiency, and that has hidden costs that add up over time. Don’t normalize inconsistency in your organization. Ask or demand sustainable alternatives.