Lowering costs by lowering quality sounds bad, but what if you get a 30% cost reduction by lowering a product’s lifespan from 50 years to 40, and you know that most people will throw it out after 10 anyway?
Layoffs are always bad for the person being laid off, but if the company can’t afford to pay everybody what they’re earning, the only other options are pay cuts for everybody or close the company. Nobody lays off employees just to be mean.
Safety standards sound good on paper, but everything has a cost. Something that doesn’t cost much and reduces injuries by 50% is wonderful. Something that costs a fortune and requires a team of lawyers to deal with mandatory government paperwork, and only reduces injuries by 1% is probably not such a good idea.
But hey, we can’t expect people to understand these things. We live in the age of the sound bite. Nobody will listen if you can’t finish your thought in 10 words or less.
As with all things, context is critical.
Lowering costs by lowering quality sounds bad, but what if you get a 30% cost reduction by lowering a product’s lifespan from 50 years to 40, and you know that most people will throw it out after 10 anyway?
Layoffs are always bad for the person being laid off, but if the company can’t afford to pay everybody what they’re earning, the only other options are pay cuts for everybody or close the company. Nobody lays off employees just to be mean.
Safety standards sound good on paper, but everything has a cost. Something that doesn’t cost much and reduces injuries by 50% is wonderful. Something that costs a fortune and requires a team of lawyers to deal with mandatory government paperwork, and only reduces injuries by 1% is probably not such a good idea.
But hey, we can’t expect people to understand these things. We live in the age of the sound bite. Nobody will listen if you can’t finish your thought in 10 words or less.