Solve the Wrong Problem

I'm angry with Kevin Heilbroner, my favorite Liberty Mutual insurance agent. He won't sell me life insurance. No – not on my life. I want him to sell me life insurance on Rex Grossman, the anointed savior of the Redskins. He is their new starting quarterback. Why won't he sell me the life insurance? He tells me I don't have an insurable interest in Rex. In order to buy life insurance on someone, you must have some close connection to that person. In other words, the person, whom you are insuring, must be your spouse, child, or maybe your business partner. I believe that as a Redskins fan for over twenty years, that I have a close enough connection to Rex to have an insurable interest. Kevin disagrees.

Here's a financial tip for you. Buy life insurance on Rex and buy it this week. Mortgage the house. Sell off the kids. Rob a bank. Make your wife work the streets. Do what you have to do. Why do I think Rex's life is about to end? At best the Redskins have one offensive lineman, who could start for a quality NFL team. I doubt that any of them could start for the New England Patriots. Maybe none of them would even make the team. Bad offensive linemen are bad for a quarterback's health – any quarterback, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, and yes, Rex Grossman. A bad offensive line gets the quarterback killed.

If you have been living in a cave, or maybe the White House, you might not know that Rex Grossman didn't start the season as the number one quarterback for the Redskins. The team, with much fanfare, signed Donovan McNabb from the justifiably hated Philadelphia Eagles. Eagles fans are just barely human, but that is a topic for another time. Donovan McNabb had led the Eagles to five conference championship games and one Superbowl. McNabb was going to resurrect the offense running the offensive system brought by new head coach, Mike Shanahan.

After the first thirteen games of this season, the offense, to put it charitably, was not resurrected. In fact, it consistently sucked. Receivers dropped passes. McNabb had to run for his life, because his offensive line couldn't block anyone. All that is before mentioning the defense, which ranks near the bottom of the league in most statistical categories. The Redskins stink. Why do they stink? When the offense is bad and the defense is worse, there is only one explanation. The Redskins players just aren't very talented. Over the past ten years, coaching staffs have come and gone. Offensive and defensive coaches and systems have come and gone. The results have been the same. This tells you the problem is the players.

So how do the Redskins address their lack of talent? They change quarterbacks. Of course that makes no sense. Changing the quarterback won't make them a playoff team this year or next. Neither pretty boy Tom Brady or Peyton Manning could make the Redskins a playoff team. The Redskins are solving the wrong problem. They need to rid themselves of most of the players they have, and find more talented ones. This ought to seem painfully obvious, but - when you solve the wrong problem, the real problem remains. Your results don't change, except maybe for the worse. I see lots of business owners solving the wrong problems, and they wonder why their businesses don't improve and succeed.

Recently, one of our staff told me morale in the office was low. She thought changing the surroundings would help. She wanted to paint her office, renovate the women's bathroom, and just generally reorganize the office. If you know me very well, you know that there are damn few things I care about. I don't care where we eat. I don't care about the color of my car. I don't care about the style of my clothes. Yes, I know that is obvious from the way I look. I absolutely don't give a damn about her office, the women's bathroom, and the general organization of the office. So I said yes as long as it didn't affect me. The office was redone as she wanted, but she still told me morale was low.

Why was morale low? During one of our Friday morning staff meetings, we discussed morale. That is my story. Everyone else in the company would probably say I discussed morale. I was more than a little peeved that we were spending time discussing morale when we had lots of client work to get done. Dealing with morale should have been the last item on our lists. I opined that changing the office surroundings was solving the wrong problem.

I told them about the Hawthorne Study performed by Western Electric in the 1920's. If you had the misfortune to take an entry level management course in college, consider yourself lucky if you have been able to forget it. I have not been that lucky.

The study was originally designed to study the effect of lighting on worker productivity. First, the lighting in the study was increased. Not surprisingly, productivity increased. Then, the lighting was increased again. Productivity increased again. This cycle was repeated several times with the same results. To validate the results, the study's organizers then reduced the lighting. Surprisingly, productivity increased again. What the study proved is that working conditions are not the only driver of productivity. Emotional factors drive productivity as well. The workers were responding to the extra attention they received for participating in the study.

In our meeting I pointed out that morale wasn't low, because the office needed a good reorganization. Morale is low every December – for some good reasons. First, December is a busy time for us. None of us has enough time to enjoy the Christmas holidays. I have become the biggest Scrooge since Bill Murray in the movie. If I could stop Christmas from coming like the Grinch, I would. I'm actually working on it. Second, tax season is nearing, and none of us wants to think about the three and a half months we'll spend in our office dungeon preparing tax returns.

When we reorganized the office, we were solving the wrong problem. Of course, we can't change the date of Christmas or delay the coming of tax season. The only thing we can change is our attitudes My solution to the morale problem was to concentrate on helping clients. When life gets me down, I find happiness in helping clients. In fact, I am happiest during tax season. Life is simple then. Wake up, prepare tax returns, go to bed. Repeat for three and a half months. I timed the conception of my children so that their births wouldn't happen during tax season. Each year, I tell my family, “If you intend to create needless drama during tax season, don't expect me to participate.”

I'm not going to delude myself that I changed many attitudes for the better this December in our office. What I did accomplish, however, was convincing our staff that solving the wrong problem wasn't going to improve morale. At the very least, I feel better – and aren't my feelings what really matter?

This coming Sunday, the Redskins will be led to another valiant loss by Rex “the Wonder Dog” Grossman. My wife asked me where I got the “Wonder Dog” part. I have no clue – probably related to beer consumption in some way. However, I am certain that Rex won't fare any better over a series of games than Donovan McNabb. Rex holds the NFL record for fewest games started by a quarterback the year after leading a team, da Bears, to a Superbowl. They soured on him and so did the rest of the league. He wasn't the solution to the Bear's problems nor was he the savior of the Houston Texans. The Redskins are taking another step backwards by solving a quarterback problem they didn't have. At some point valiant losses just create valiant losers – but losers nonetheless. At least next year, tickets will be cheap and plentiful again. I'm sorry. I forgot - Dan Snyder tells us they are sold out every year. Why do I torture myself every year rooting for the Redskins? The evidence suggests I'm a moron. Shut up all you Cowboys, Eagles, and Steelers fans – even if you are right.