Applying Systems Thinking and
Common Archetypes to Organizational Issues

Module 6: Systems Archetypes

"Fixes That Backfire"

Here are some typical mental models associated with "Fixes That Backfire":

This is a simple problem and the solution is straightforward. (I can't even imagine that there would be any negative results associated with this solution.)
We need to fix this problem now. If there's any fallout, we'll deal with it later.
If we don't make this problem go away immediately something bad will happen to me personally, my project, my team, or my organization.
What's important is getting rid of the appearance of any problem so that someone else (boss, Board, CO, Congress) doesn't get wind of it.
They pay (promoted or assigned) me to work here because I take care of problems.
We can't spend a lot of time on this problem - there are a dozen more to deal with.
When the problem recurs, we think the fix worked, but we didn't apply enough of it (or didn't apply it for long enough), so we should now do more of what we did before.