Functional myopia (which is not a vision-related term) occurs when employees focus so much on the goals and standard practices of their job function that they suboptimize the work of the organization. Harvard Business School professor Ted Levitt coined the term “marketing myopia” some 50 years ago, and while this myopia can certainly apply to the marketing function, functional myopia can also apply to all functions within marketing. of an organization.
One definition of “professional” is a person who adheres more to the norms of their profession than to the goals of the organization they work for. And certainly this is often a good thing. For example, we want our doctor to practice good medicine instead of blindly following the guidelines imposed by an HMO. Similarly, we rely on a CPA to adhere to the standards of the accounting profession rather than “fix the books” for their employer or client.
But, in many cases, adherence to functional or group norms can negatively affect the overall goals of the organization. Here are some examples from my own experience along with other examples I have collected over the years from a wide variety of organizations.
- Back in the 1980s, when I was working for Digital Equipment Corporation, I started a project to create a “Network Pre-Sales Manual”. The project was designed to create a loose-leaf binder containing a wide variety of materials, created by many different groups within the company, that would provide a single-source compendium of information for network sales and presales specialists. The audience for this project was very enthusiastic about the idea and the development of the materials was done in record time, until it was time to produce the materials. (Nowadays, we got everything online very quickly, but back then, we had to rely on hard copy distribution.) While he received calls every day asking when it would be ready, he could only reply that it was “in production”, and it actually took seven months before the first copies were distributed. When I asked the production staff why it was taking so long, they told me that the company required them to put out to tender every component of the notebook: the folders, the spine and the cover inserts with the title, the printing of the document, the printing of the the separating tabs for each section, and the assembly and packaging of the notebook. And, once they had the lowest bid for each component, they had to wait until each component was produced before assembly and packaging. After the job was done, I asked them to go to any vendor of their choice and ask how much it would have cost that vendor to do the entire job and how long it would have taken that vendor to do the job. . The answer came: it would have taken that vendor 6 weeks to do the entire job and the cost would have been $0.45 cents more than the costs with multiple vendors. The difference of $0.45 per notebook (out of a total cost of $43.00) delayed delivery of this valuable information to the people who needed it by 5-1/2 months! That’s functional myopia!
- My company sought to establish a strategic partnership with another company, a partnership that would greatly benefit both companies. The new product that would be developed by the joint effort would lead the market. Executives from both companies were so eager to get the partnership off the ground that they reached agreement on basic terms very quickly. And then they handed the project over to their lawyers to put it all in writing. The lawyers spent five months arguing over inconsequential word changes, and when they ended up dotting every “I” and crossing out every “T,” another competitor beat them to the market. The executives blamed themselves: “We should have known from past experience that lawyers would enter these kinds of ‘spitting contests’ because that’s what lawyers do. It will be done within 30 days.”
- A metallurgical company had to order a special alloy to create parts for an aerospace company. The company’s purchasing agent went to their suppliers for the alloy and found that the best price they could get was for 500 pound blocks of alloy, so they ordered those blocks. This is what purchasing agents do: they find the best price for the materials that the company needs to buy. The problem was that the parts to be created from this alloy were very small and the amount of time it took to cut the large blocks and the amount of waste material created in the process reduced the profit margin on these parts by more than 50% of the margins that would have occurred if they had purchased the materials in 2-pound blocks (but 2-pound blocks would have cost 5% more per pound than 500-pound blocks).
- A company’s customer service call center was receiving extremely low ratings from customers. Complaints came every day. “I had three questions. Your service rep answered the first question and then hung up.” “Her representative for her was quick to answer the call and I didn’t understand anything they told me. When I tried to ask for a better explanation, she told me to read the manual.” The company hired a new call center manager, and the first thing the new manager did was provide several days of customer service training. Almost immediately, the customer response changed: “I don’t know what he did, but his rep was fantastic and took the time to make sure he fixed my problem.” And the call center staff was even happier: “The training was great. It’s really nice to be able to actually help customers solve their problems.” The changes lasted almost two weeks, until one of the representatives had his annual performance review. “I’m afraid I can’t give you a raise this year,” the manager told the employee. “He was reviewing his performance stats for the last two weeks. He averaged 5.5 minutes per call and our standard is calls are answered in less than 3 minutes.” It didn’t take long for word to spread throughout the call center and for all reps to revert to previous behaviors where they could answer calls in less than 3 minutes.
In each of these cases, employees adhered to the standards of their own groups, and in each case, these standards did not always result in optimal performance for their companies.