Why do companies always manage to do the wrong thing?

MrBerre

I hadn't heard about http://www.firstlegoleague.org/ , but apparently it's a LEGO-sponsored contest. The school St. Jan Baptist from Oerle (the Netherlands) won the Benelux-finale.

Except that afterward LEGO decided the school hadn't won, which meant they weren't allowed to compete in the European championship (article in Dutch): http://www.ed.nl/onderwijs/10365497/St.-Jan-Baptist-moet-legoprijs-inleveren.ece

Which of course resulted in negative publicity, and that caused LEGO to rethink; the school received a wildcard (article in Dutch): http://www.ed.nl/regio/veldhoven/10372836/St.-Jan-Baptist-toch-naar-EK-Lego.ece

I seriously cannot comprehend that a company -- and especially a toy company -- can make such a basic mistake ("hey let's crush these kids' dreams, even though WE made the error") and only reverses course when the (inevitable) backlash starts.

LegoFanTexas

I know the feeling, but in my experience, these things happen because a low level worker was "following policy" and didn't engage the brain, mostly because they are either not paid to think, or don't want to think, so this sort of thing happens...

Once the backlash happens, someone higher up the food chain takes note, make an executive decision and overrides policy, something that can be done higher up the food chain...

Then we all go "why didn't they do that in the first place", and the above is the reason.