Operational Paradox
The Efficiency vs Resilience Paradox
Efficiency feels smart.
Until it breaks.
The more you optimise for:
• speed
• cost
• utilisation
…the more fragile the system becomes.
Resilience looks inefficient:
• slack
• buffers
• redundancy
• testing
Until disruption hits ! and it’s the only thing that works.
Lean systems win in calm conditions.
Resilient systems survive reality.
The real question for leaders isn’t “How efficient are we?”
It’s “What breaks first when we’re stressed?”
Innovator’s Paradox
The “Customer Is Always Right” Paradox
It sounds contradictory.
It isn’t.
The paradox exists because “right” means two different things**.
Customers are always right about:
• Their pain
• Their frustration
• Their lived experience
Customers are often wrong about:
• The root cause
• The trade-offs
• The best solution
That’s the paradox.
Follow customers blindly and you get incremental fixes.
Ignore them and you get clever solutions no one adopts.
The resolution is simple:
Customers define the problem.
Leaders design the solution.
Listening is mandatory.
Decision-making is non-negotiable.
👉 Where in your organisation are customers shaping decisions, not just feedback?