An Alternate Path

I realize the NFC Championship game was 1.5 weeks ago, but the topic of New Orleans being "robbed" keeps coming up. 

Late in the game while driving toward a winning score, referees missed an obvious pass interference call. The clock stopped, the Saints kicked a field goal to lead by 3 points, and then the Rams drove half the field to kick a field goal to tie the game (later winning in overtime).

Most folks "rightly" point out how the referees blew the call, and the blown call set up a sequence of events that caused the Saints to lose.

Or did it cause the Saints to lose?

In the first quarter, the Saints drove deep into Rams territory, stalled, and then kicked a field goal to lead 3-0. Following an interception, the Saints stalled deep in Rams territory and were forced to kick another field goal to take a 6-0 lead.

Now, imagine for a moment that both of those scores were touchdowns. The Saints then lead 14-0 instead of 6-0, and there's no reason for the Saints to pass late in the game (given they're ahead by 8 points instead of tied) and there's no way the pass interference call happens. Heck, just one touchdown instead of a field goal and the Saints are leading by 4 points at that time and they might not pass.

Did the pass interference hurt the Saints? Absolutely!

Do the Saints have some accountability in the outcome? Oh sure.

This brings me to your business.

Five years ago your business made decisions ... some good, some bad. Today you are attributing challenging situations to things that just happened ... "Amazon is killing us, paper costs too much, Google and Facebook are holding our customers hostage". Nonsense. Those things are happening ... but you also made decisions in the past, decisions that sent your company down an alternate path. And because you took an alternate path, you are left to deal with the consequences of the alternate path.

Keep that in mind when you attend the Omnichannel Customer Experience Steering Committee meeting later today ... the decisions you make today send you down an alternate path, a path filled with unique and varied consequences. You might end up like Marty McFly allowing Biff to get his hands on the Sports Almanac, causing everybody to have to live in an alternate world.