Boiling the Ocean

I own a software company. Or, more correctly, I own the other half of a software company. What we do is power gift, rewards, loyalty and customer retention programs for retailers throughout North America. We’ll probably start working in Asia and South America later this year.

I’m the public face of the company, working with merchants. Most want simple programs – programs that reward customer for purchases with some sort of rebate. “Spend $100 and get $5 back” or something similar is relatively common. All of my current clientele uses the system more or less as it current exists. Oh sure, we tweak it for them, but we don’t change the way the system works. It’s an endless series of minor modifications that continuously upgrades and enhance the functionality. All these little changes make it better for everybody using the platform.

But every once in a while, I get a prospective customer that wants to transcend my current offering, completely changing the way the system works, in order to sell this new product to an undefined customer base. They have grandiose plans that are going to change the world. In these situations, I just nod my head and wait for them to stop monologue- ing. Then I ask this rhetorical question: “so you want me to boil the ocean for you? Is that right?”

They invariably say “no”, and the question often catches them by surprise. I usually follow up by telling them that is going to be incredibly expensive and going to take a long time. They typically respond with, “but think of how much money you’ll make with this great system I’ve envisioned. You develop it, I’ll sell it and will split the profits”. I then ask them if they asking me to underwrite the beta test of their business model. If they’re honest and say “yes”, then I politely decline and the conversation is over. If they start to sell me on what a great idea it is and how we’ll both make this huge pile of lucre, I listen politely, then decline. One actually said I was out of my mind for not jumping in and joining him in the project. I hung up the phone. I didn’t want to tell him that I have no intention of spending my time and my money on an unproven project that may or may not deliver any return ever. Boiling the ocean indeed.

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I know little of the policy surrounding President Barack Obama’s (D) healthcare debate. I have read a few reasonably thoughtful articles, the best of which was written by John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods. In it, I saw incrementalist approach that would create little efficiencies here and there that would probably solve most of the perceived issues plaguing the American health care system. They were small, understandable things like medical tort reform and allowing health insurance companies to compete across state lines. More competition would likely lower prices. I saw Mr. Mackey as a kindred spirit of sort – make small changes over a long period of time to make everything work together a little better. Refine, don’t re-invent. That’s the way I work. I like it.

But most of the debate has not been thought. I saw the same angry town hall meetings on the evening news that everyone else saw. The looks on the faces of the hosting elected officials was usually that of incredulity or condescension. They couldn’t understand the outpouring of anger from their constituents. I can and do: the America people don’t want to boil the ocean. They see what I see: a giant, brand new health care system that might or might not work better than what they already have and that will cost an honest-to-God fortune.

Any system can be refined and re-engineered to be better and more efficient. Healthcare in America is no different than anything else. There are ways to streamline things. But re-inventing the system from scratch hoping it will work is not the best way to fix health care or anything else for that matter. The American people know this.

But maybe the American people suspect something else. Maybe they suspect that this isn’t about “fixing” the health care system in America. Taking any number of Mr. Mackey’s proposals and trying them out – slowly incrementally – would probably make things better. The ones that work, we keep, the ones that don’t work, we toss. No, maybe this is about taking over the health care system so that somebody else – some expert from a fancy college who works in Washington – can make decisions that are “better” that what we poor fools in flyover country can make. Maybe that’s where the anger comes from.

Maybe they know what I know: trying to boil the ocean is fruitless exercise.