I have just returned from riding and volunteering at the RACV Great Victorian Bike Ride, a 9 day ride from Lakes Entrance to Philip Island. It was awesome fun and I would recommend both riding and volunteering to anyone. It’s the closest thing to riding the Tour de France I’ve experienced!
Being a cycling event, there were thousands of road bikes, many of which would have cost over $2000. It’s possible some would have been up in the $8000- $10,000 range. What continues to amuse/frustrate me is that bike technology advances, yet there is one small, simple part of cycling that lets the whole thing down: inner tubes and valves.
On a several thousand dollar machine, the cheapest part of the bike can still bring down the whole package. Tubes generally cost under $15 but by far they are the most commonly replaced item on a bike. While on the ride I had two valve malfunctions – an achievement over 600km – but one poor kid had to walk the last 7km of a 108km stage as he had experienced 4 punctures in one day!
Thankfully I had my first blowout on the rest day and the other at a rest stop on the longest day (right next to the Bicycle Superstore tent!). For the latter incident, the tube itself was fine but as I tried to pump up the tyre the valve broke off completely. Thus the cheapest, most easily replaced part prevents the whole machine from operating as it should. As this year’s Tour demonstrated, the fastest riders in the race on fast bikes become quite impotent, all because of a seemingly insignificant part of the machine!
I think that ‘valves’ exist in organisations too. It might be the receptionist, an administration position or intern position, but I’m sure there are internal service providers or customer facing employees who senior management or HR see as replaceable and cheap hires, when they really shouldn’t be. The first point of contact for a firm may be reception or a switchboard attendant. AdNews feature a ‘mystery shopper’ telephone call each issue, and often the representative is not up to speed with a current campaign or product feature. Product or service failure from the customer perspective may be caused by one little aspect of marketing that has been overlooked by management.
Who are the valves in your organisation? Patch them up with training or get a better quality part!