In many aspects of work and life, we often find ourselves stuck in “firefighting” mode. Firefighting means addressing immediate problems in a short-term manner without resolving the underlying issue. I’ll share three examples to illustrate this concept and how stepping back to look at the bigger picture can lead to more sustainable, efficient solutions.
Example 1: Running Out of Petrol
Imagine you’re driving, and you run out of petrol. Fortunately, you have a jerry can in your car—a plastic container for carrying petrol. You walk to the nearest petrol station, fill up the jerry can, return to your car, and fill up your tank enough to drive a bit further. Inevitably, you run out of petrol again and repeat the same process—walking back to the petrol station to refill the jerry can.
This stop-and-start approach is highly inefficient. You’re addressing the immediate problem—lack of petrol—without solving the underlying issue of driving on a near-empty tank. The obvious solution is to fill your tank entirely at the station and stop when necessary to keep it full.
This analogy represents firefighting: tackling immediate needs while ignoring the bigger solution that would save time and effort. Although our conditioning might tell us that solving the larger problem would be harder, in reality, it’s often easier and more sustainable.
Example 2: Painting Purple Squares on a Wall
Now, picture that you’ve been assigned to paint a tiny one-centimeter square on a wall purple. You’re good at your task—precise and skillful. Your colleagues are painting their own small squares. Together, all of you are contributing to a larger objective: painting the entire wall purple.
Everyone performs well within their assigned area, but the overall objective is to paint the whole wall. From a management perspective, it would be far more efficient to use a spray gun to paint the entire wall at once. Yet, because everyone is focused on their small section, they don’t see how much easier it would be to address the problem at a larger scale.
Again, our conditioning may suggest that scaling up a solution—like using a spray gun—would be more difficult or complicated. However, it’s actually simpler and more efficient, achieving the desired outcome faster with less effort.
Example 3: Gaps in Business Processes
In an enterprise, business processes are driven by data. As operations take place, data changes, and this changing data triggers further processes, creating a continuous cycle. Ideally, enterprise systems handle this seamlessly, but in reality, most systems have gaps.
These gaps occur because businesses evolve, merge, and adapt over time. IT systems cannot always keep up with these changes due to budget constraints or the need for constant updates. As a result, employees often use spreadsheets to bridge these gaps. The common practice is to manually export data to Excel, update spreadsheets, and pass them along—creating a human chain to keep the business process running.
While this works in the short term, it’s a firefighting solution. It’s akin to using buckets to transfer water between two disconnected pipes in a desert. The job gets done, but it’s laborious and inefficient.
Here’s the key insight: Excel itself has built-in capabilities to bridge these gaps efficiently and at scale. Most people don’t realize that Excel can eliminate this human chain entirely, just as filling up a full tank of petrol or using a spray gun can solve larger problems with less effort.
Conclusion: Transforming Firefighting into Holistic Solutions
These examples illustrate how firefighting—addressing small, immediate problems—can be replaced by taking a holistic approach that considers the bigger picture. In every case, whether it’s refueling a car, painting a wall, or managing data in an enterprise, solving the larger problem is not proportionately harder. In fact, it’s often easier, more efficient, and more sustainable.
This same principle applies to business processes. Instead of relying on manual, short-term fixes like the human chain of spreadsheets, we can use tools like Excel to create more robust, scalable solutions that eliminate inefficiencies and reduce costs. The key is to step back, look at the bigger picture, and choose the most effective approach to solve the problem on a larger scale.
This is a podcast by Hiran de Silva. Narrated by Charlie.
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