Are We Working Hard at Poor Design?

Imagine walking through a beautifully landscaped park. The sidewalks are neatly paved, carefully planned, and designed to guide visitors from one destination to another.

Yet, right across the grass, there's a worn dirt path. Why? Because people found a more direct way to get where they wanted to go.

Now picture a Rube Goldberg machine. You know, one of those wonderfully complicated contraptions where a marble rolls down a ramp, knocks over a domino, tips a bucket, pulls a string, and eventually accomplishes something as simple as turning on a light.

Believe it or not, many organizations have managed to create both, at the same time.

We design elaborate processes, introduce technology, establish policies, and add layers of approvals. Then we're surprised when employees create shortcuts to get their work done.

But here's a question worth asking… Are employees creating the problem, or are they simply finding a path around the one we've created?

When Good Intentions Create Bad Outcomes

Consider an employee who needs to finish an important project over the weekend but doesn't have secure remote access to the organization's systems. They're expected to meet the deadline, but the tools and access they need aren't available.

So, they email the files to their personal account and work from home.

Or consider an employee struggling to understand a complicated document. They pull out their personal phone, open an AI application, and ask for help, potentially sharing organizational or sensitive information in the process.

They're trying to do their jobs! And that's where things get interesting.

When technology, cybersecurity requirements, policies, and organizational expectations don't align with how people actually need to work, even your most dedicated employees can unintentionally create significant security, privacy, and operational risks.

They're simply following the dirt path because the sidewalk doesn't get them where they need to go.

The Rube Goldberg Effect

Now let's look at the other side of the problem.

An organization decides to modernize an outdated process or implement a new technology solution. Great idea! But before anything can move forward, everyone wants input. Every department has a preference. Every manager wants to preserve something from the old process. Someone insists on maintaining an existing approval, while another wants the new system to operate exactly like the old one.

Before long, the organization has taken a relatively straightforward improvement and transformed it into a complicated collection of old habits, new technology, redundant steps, and conflicting expectations.

Congratulations! You've built a Rube Goldberg machine.

The challenge isn't that people want to participate. Getting input from those who actually perform the work is essential. They're often the ones who best understand what happens every day, where the challenges exist, and what customers or constituents really need.

The problem arises when seeking input becomes an expectation that every suggestion must be incorporated. Listening to everyone doesn't mean doing everything everyone wants.

Leaders need to be clear from the beginning: We value your ideas, experiences, and feedback. We want to understand how you work and what you need. But not every suggestion can or should become part of the final solution.

Sometimes the right answer requires changing an old habit, retiring an unnecessary step, or accepting that a new way of working will feel different. And yes, that can be uncomfortable.

It's Not Just About the Process

Here's something we've seen repeatedly throughout our experience… simplifying a process doesn't necessarily make the organization simpler.

You can eliminate unnecessary approvals, implement modern technology, and develop an elegant new workflow. But if the organization's culture, expectations, and behaviors don't evolve alongside those improvements, the old complexity has a way of sneaking back in.

Why?

Sometimes it's fear of change. Sometimes it's a lack of trust built from previous experiences. Other times, people simply feel more comfortable with what they know.

Rather than adapting how they work to take advantage of something new, they try to make the new solution behave exactly like the old one. The result is often more complexity, not less.

Technology alone cannot solve a people problem. A new process cannot overcome conflicting expectations. And a policy that ignores the reality of daily operations practically invites workarounds.

Meaningful improvement requires the people, processes, technology, and organizational culture to move forward together.

Build Sidewalks People Actually Want to Use

So how do we avoid building another Rube Goldberg machine while keeping employees from creating potentially risky shortcuts?

Start by asking a few different questions:

• Where are the dirt paths? Look for unofficial workarounds, repeated exceptions, and activities that happen outside established processes. Don't immediately assume employees are doing something wrong. Understand why they're doing it.

• What are we actually trying to accomplish? Design around organizational goals, customer and service needs, desired outcomes, costs, security, and real-world operating conditions, not simply around how things have always been done.

• Are we listening or collecting requirements we'll never be able to satisfy? Invite honest input from those doing the work, but establish clear expectations. Participation should inform decisions, not create an endless list of individual accommodations.

• Are we protecting something important or preserving something familiar? Some controls and approvals are essential. Others may exist simply because nobody has questioned them in years. Knowing the difference matters.

• Are we changing the process without changing the environment? Make sure training, leadership expectations, technology capabilities, policies, and organizational culture support the new way of working.

The goal isn't to eliminate every shortcut or remove every guardrail. It's to make the right way of working practical, effective, and as straightforward as possible.

Sometimes the Grass Is Trying to Tell Us Something

Here's the thing about that dirt path through the park: it didn't appear overnight.

It developed because enough people, over time, discovered that the designed route didn't meet their needs.

Organizations experience the same phenomenon. Workarounds, unnecessary complexity, and resistance to new processes don't appear out of nowhere. They often tell us something important about the gap between how we think our organizations operate and how they actually function.

As leaders, we have a choice. We can keep putting up signs telling people to stay off the grass, or we can take a closer look at why they're walking there in the first place.

And sometimes, the best improvement isn't building another sidewalk. It's recognizing that we designed the first one in the wrong place.

At Sage 497 Consulting LLC, we help organizations look beyond the technology and written procedures to understand how people, processes, cybersecurity, and operations work together in the real world. If this topic sparks some thoughts about the sidewalks or Rube Goldberg machines in your own organization, we'd welcome the opportunity to compare experiences and explore ideas together.