Recently I was on a conference call that combined individual contributors of a large print organization and their executive manager. This meeting was to discuss various priorities and issues, the kind of incremental improvement and process changes that go on forever inside print businesses.

One of the easiest solutions to champion is “throw this product out, and let’s buy a different solution.” Whenever challenges are hard to solve—or even just hard to understand—I hear this solution. Complex challenges make everyone feel stuck. Simple solutions proposed by the HIPPO (highest paid person’s opinion) make them feel smart and allow them to assert their authority.

Most of the time, throwing out your current print software solution for a new one is not the ideal solution. It is a solution. It is potentially a solution that theoretically could solve the specific challenge you’re currently faced with. When you’re stuck on a serious challenge and you go looking for an alternative solution with that serious challenge in mind, you get blinders on for everything else the alternative solution doesn’t do that your current solution does. It’s a recipe for disaster. You may find a solution that solves the challenge in front of you, but in the process, you create a BUNCH more challenges and hard work because the new solution doesn’t do everything your previous solutions did, your people are stressed about the system change, and now you must pay to integrate the new system into your ecosystem.