![]() The rat catchers would capture rats, cut off their tails, and then release them back into the sewers so that they could breed and produce more rats, thereby increasing the rat catchers’ profits.Īs they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the similar mistakes are happening around us everyday when the decision -makers fail to take a 360 degree view of all the possible outcomes of an action before implementation. After initial success, the officials, however, started noticing rats with no tails. To obtain the bounty, people would provide the severed rat tail. They created a reward program that paid a prize for each rat killed. The rulers realized that there were too many rats in Hanoi and spread of plague was imminent. They have a tendency to take short-term advantage of any situation though that may lead to harm to them & society-at-large only in the long run.Įvery solution has consequences and those consequences may lead to certain situations where rather than solving a current problem, you may end up with more complex problems.Ī similar type of incident like increasing cobra-population occurred in Vietnam. There’s always a certain group of people who have a tendency to game the system -intentionally or otherwise. Specially, the solutions that try to affect how people behave. Well, it’s time to pause and think about how people would respond to the new idea that may sound great on paper! Trying a new solution or Planning to tackle an existing problem with a new idea? The unintended consequence for a well-intentioned – idea led to making the problem worst. The solution for the problem made the situation even worse. As a result, the cobra population further increased. When the news reached the government, the reward program was scrapped, causing the cobra breeders to set the now-worthless snakes free. This was because few people began to breed cobras for the income. After a short-term dip in cobra population, it started going up. The results were great, a large number of snakes were killed for the reward.Įventually, however, it led to some serious unwanted consequences. ![]() The government of the day had to get into action to stop this menace and it offered a silver coin for every dead cobra. People were dying due to snake-bites and it became scary for almost everyone to step out of their houses. This name was coined based on an incident in old colonial India.īy some reasons, there were too many venomous cobra snakes in Delhi. ![]() It refers to a situation when an attempted solution to a problem makes the problem worse. In fact, every head of an organisation or team should know about it. If not, it’s time that you learn about it. Hope you know about a term named Cobra Effect? I GOT this intriguing piece from a friend, and I have been pondering what I read for over one month now. ![]()
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