Unintended consequences are an indisputable facet of the business landscape. However, there are ways to mitigate these potential pitfalls. In this article, I’ll highlight for you 10 high-profile examples of unintended consequences. Moreover, I’ll identify preemptive actions you can take to avoid unintended consequences. Strikingly, there are also cases where unintended consequences are actually good for you.

10 High-Profile Examples of Unintended Consequences.

Econo Class offers several unintended consequences of policies that lawmakers or the public either ignored or didn’t anticipate. Here are 10 examples:

1. Three Strikes Laws.

Several states have laws requiring judges to impose tough sentences for a third felony conviction. Hence, the unintended consequence resulted in an increase in the murder rate.

2. Seat Belt Laws.

Seat belts protect drivers and passengers. However, the unintended consequence resulted in an increase in pedestrian and cyclist deaths.

3. Banning DDT in Less Developed Countries.

Ban was put in place because DDT caused cancer and harmed wildlife. As a result, the unintended consequence was that malaria increased dramatically killing tens of millions of people. 

4. Don’t Talk To Strangers.

Parents and teachers often instruct children not to talk to strangers like the “stranger danger” campaign. As a result, the unintended consequences can include: lost or in danger children hide from strangers who are trying to help; inhibits social development making it more difficult to spot dangerous people or situations.

5. FDA Drug Approvals.

FDA spends more time testing drugs to assure safety. However, the unintended consequence is that elongated testing periods can cause more deaths due to delay in approval of a new drug.

6. Reduced Logging and Protect the Threatened Northern Spotted Owl. 

Injunction in 1991 greatly reduced logging on the national forests in the Pacific Northwest. Yet, the unintended consequence was that logging worldwide increased because logging companies harvested more, not fewer, acres of forest due to increasing profits and harvesting of less productive forests.

7. Cigarette Taxes.

Between 1992 and 2000, the average state cigarette tax rose by 64%. However, the increased tax rate resulted in several unintended consequences. First, the gross state tax revenue from cigarette taxes only rose 35%. Additionally, smugglers now buy cigarettes in low-tax states and sell them in high-tax states. Lastly, organized crime and terrorists are increasingly involved in this business.

8. Steel Tariffs.

In 2002, President Bush imposed a tariff on steel imports in order to protect the steel industry from foreign competition. Yet, the tariff caused the unintended consequences of costing more American jobs than it was saving.

9. Vegetarians and Animal Rights.

There is an ethical reason for becoming a vegetarian or vegan:  it does the least harm to animals. However, there is evidence that converting to a vegetarian has unintended consequences. Namely, studies suggest that vegetarianism can lead to an increase in animal deaths.

10. Saving Horses From Slaughter.

Horse slaughter is now banned in Texas and Illinois, home to the last three horse slaughterhouses in the United States. Yet, there are unintended consequences. For example, horses are now transported across the border and likely slaughtered in a more gruesome manner.

“Without reflection, we go blindly on our way.”

Margaret J. Wheatley

What Are Ways to Minimize Unintended Consequences?

Risk Mitigation For Supply Chains: How To Best Identify, Make Assessment, Overcome

sBlog’s The Law of Unintended Consequences: Shakespeare, Cobra Breeding, and a Tower in Pisa offers several ways for us to minimize unintended consequences. To detail, these rational thinking techniques include:

• Inversion. When we invert our thinking, we consider what we want to avoid, not what we want to cause. Hence, there are merits to not seek perfection, but avoid stupidity.
• Look for Disconfirming Evidence. Instead of looking for information that confirms that our actions will have the desired consequences, we should rigorously search for evidence that they will not.
• Understanding Our Circle of Competence. Each of us has areas we understand well and are familiar with. Hence, when we act outside our circle of competence, we increase the risk of unintended consequences.
• Second-Order Thinking. We often forget that our actions can have two layers of consequences, of which the first might be intended and the second unintended.

“There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything.”

Steve Jobs

The Unintended Consequences of Prohibition – Detail Example.

America ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to The U.S. Constitution in 1919 prohibiting alcohol in the United States. Thus, supporters of this amendment thought prohibition would cure the country of alcoholism, family violence, and political corruption. However, the Eighteenth Amendment was appealed 13 years later. This is because during those 13 years many unintended consequences occurred. Mistakes Were Made blog details the following 10 unintended consequences of Prohibition.

• Rise of Illegal Speakeasies
• Underground Distilleries
• Rise of Organized Crime
• Abuse of Medicinal Use Alcohol
• Rise of Sacramental Wine Usage
• Individual States Refusal to Enforce Prohibition
• Poor Quality Alcohol Killed U.S. Citizens
• Rise of Alcohol Smuggling
• Harder to Get a Drink After Prohibition Ended

Examples of Ways Unforeseen Consequences Can Be Bad For You, But Also Good.

Rob Norton’s Unintended Consequences provides a great history on the study of unintended consequences and details the reasons for unintended consequences. To detail, see below:

• Negative Unintended Consequences. Sociologist Robert K. Merton’s Five Sources of UnIntended Consequence (four negative and one positive) include:
  • Ignorance. Makes a decision with no knowledge of the situation or how a system works.
  • Error. May have the facts, but bad analytical errors are made.
  • Willful Ignorance. This is usually because the focus is on short-term gains. For example, decision-makers, like regulators and legislators, may have the knowledge and experience to know the consequences, but go forward anyway.
  • Basic Values. Here the requirement for or against something leads to just the opposite. As an example, a person or society has a strong work ethic of hard work, which leads to a decline of the hard work ethic with the accumulation of wealth.
• Positive Unintended Consequences.
  • The Invisible Hand. Adam Smith, a Scottish economist and philosopher, developed the concept of the “invisible hand“. In particular, he maintained that each individual, seeking only his own gain, “is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention,” that ends being the public interest.
  • Self-Defeating Prediction. This is Merton’s positive source of unintended consequence. Here a prediction is made such as “that population growth will lead to mass starvation” leads to scientific breakthroughs in agricultural productivity negating the prediction.

The Problem-Solving Process: Humans Make Mistakes And Need Tech To Make Better Decisions

For more information from Supply Chain Tech Insights, see articles on Supply Chain.