The business has a plan, the staff are engaged. Management and employee KPIs have been identified and bonuses to be paid for meeting same. Management KPIs have been set, operational costs minimised, and employees encouraged to use their initiative. "Relevance" is now fully operational; happy staff, happy customers and profitability for all ensured.

As a direct result of implementing the above plan the San Francisco based bank Wells Fargo has just, September 2016, terminated 5,300 employees and been fined some USD$180 million. To both meet and exceed the first of their KPIs employees created fictional PIN numbers and fake email addresses to enrol existing clients into fake online banking services. That done they achieved their second KPI by transferring client's monies from real accounts into the fake accounts. This was replicated for "at least" 1.5 million "new" accounts. The third KPI was met when employees submitted 565,443 applications for new credit card accounts; without the client's knowledge. Finally the fourth employee and management KPI was met as the clients incurred fees; such as annual fees, interest charges and overdraft-protection fees.

Wells Fargo has announced that it will pay "full restitution to all victims". One wonders what it will take to achieve "full restitution of its business reputation".

The lesson to be learned is simple. "ticking all the business relevance" boxes is not the "be all and end all". Businesses are complex. A set of operational rules, no matter how complete require continual revisiting and oversight. Finally consider firstly giving written instructions, "how to tie your shoelaces" to a 5 year old; and secondly the skills needed to write said instructions in the first place.