A common expression in IT is “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” as it is important to keep a consistent experience in the infrastructure – staff get’s to send emails on time, they get to access their sales documents on the portal, etc. But what if it is broken? We fix it. The mail server went down, we get a severity one alert to “immediately” resolve the issue together with an email from the CEO saying email is of primary importance in the organization.

I wonder why so many organizations don’t do so. They see a business process that doesn’t work, a work environment that does not foster creativity, or a marketing campaign that does not bring results – they’re just simply broken. Yet management still expects to see better results. W.L. Bateman highlights this in a very popular quote, “If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.” If it’s broken, you’ve just got to fix it

I saw this video of Seth Godin‘s presentation at Gel 2006 which somehow highlights what this means.