A successful operation

The operation was successful, but the patient died. The adapted phrase originally attributed to Mr Mak Tian Kuan in 1970 describes the achievement of the implementation or the process in disregard to the intended outcome. The outcome doesn't really matter. The important thing is that the plans have been perfectly executed.

Applied to a teaching and learning excercise, most teachers may be interested in conducting the class according to the lesson plan, but then neglect to consider if the student has indeed learned anything. Perhaps, this is a common phenomenon, especially in this age of applying standard procedures such as ISO9001 to education.

Or you may have had a brilliant sales pitch, but no one bought your product. Organizations are not spared from this phenomena. The change intiative may have been spot on in increasing productivity in the short term at the expense of the employees' health and morale.

What can be worse than a dead patient? Maybe, a dead surgeon. The operation was successful, but the surgeon died. This situation can be argued in many ways and perhaps it may not be a bad situation at all. After all, an organization that has attained its mission has thus outlived its usefulneess. Simply put, albeit far-fetched, if an organization tasked with eradicating poverty has achieved its goal, then its existence becomes irrelevant.

Is this why organizations conciously or subconciously sabotage themselves?