The cobra effect

I was doing some reading the other day about fitness clubs (for some silly reason) and happened onto this article. I don't believe I'd heard of "The Cobra Effect" until now, and found it quite interesting.

As the article explains, the Cobra Effect is "an unintended, negative consequence that occurs as the result of a not-fully-thought-out incentive." The name is derived from an incident that occurred in India in the 1800s...

"During the 1800s, when India was under colonial rule, the British government reportedly set out to reduce the number of cobras in the city of Delhi by paying bounties for dead cobras... A few shrewd entrepreneurs realized there was good money to be made from dead cobras. So what did those enterprising citizens do? They built cobra farms to raise more snakes. In the end, the cobra population of Delhi increased."

 I'm sure it would be easy to make comparisons in politics, or economic systems (Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, etc.).

One of the first things that came to my mind was when I worked for a storage company. One year they told us that since we'd had such a profitable previous couple months, they wanted to offer an incentive to show their appreciation. So they challenged us to be even more profitable and they would give us this ridiculous pay hike. It had the opposite effect on several of us because, if they were showing their appreciation, why were they dangling the carrot out even farther in front of us to get the raise? At the least, it maybe wasn't very well thought out...

Anyway, what really caught my interest with this was how it applies to the church. I started thinking about the whole 'consumer mindset' so prevalent in churches today. Where did this come from? Was it, perhaps, a case of the cobra effect?

I'm just guessing, but in the simplest of terms, maybe people were so enthused about trying to make disciples, and they thought the best way to make disciples was to get people into churches, so they/we went a little overboard on trying to do that, and then offering people as many avenues as possible to become (or grow) as disciples, and.... well, I imagine anyone reading here can read between the lines and knows exactly where it went.

I guess my point is - and the point of the original article I was reading - we really need to think through the things we do... as companies, churches, bosses, employees, and as people in general. It's not enough to simply be intentional about what we do, but the need for strategic thinking BEFORE intentional action is critical.

It's easy to think we need to quit spending so much time in meetings and merely talking about things... we need to get out there and DO STUFF! Well, I think it's important that we do the right stuff. So I hope to remember the cobra effect, and try to be a little more aware ALWAYS - in preparation, planning, and practice. Notice I said "try." Yeah...