Ever heard of Muphry’s Law? No, not Murphy’s Law which states that if something can go wrong, it will. Muphry’s Law was created in 1992 by John Bangsund of the Victorian Society of Editors (Australia) and identified as the editorial application of the better-known Murphy’s Law.
Among other things Muphry’s Law states; ‘if the author thanks you in a book for your editing and proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book.’ Another observation says, ‘if a mistake is as plain as the nose on your face, everyone can see it but you.’
But getting back to Murphy’s Law, does it have an equivalent in the world of business? It certainly does. For instance, it is estimated that in the food industry out of every ten new products only one or two really succeed. What happened to all that sophisticated and expensive market research and the years of planning and development?
They simply got it wrong!
Mistakes in small business are not always easy to spot. The owner is mostly too close to the action or too busy to notice what is going on. It’s easy to blame the economy or look for external influences affecting a downturn in business, but perhaps your competitors are smarter than you think. Maybe they are directing business away from you without your knowledge.
Does that strike a jarring chord?
Just a postscript about Murphy’s Law. It was attributed to an engineer named Captain Edward Murphy who was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in 1949 and who cursed one of the technicians working on his project.
"If there is any way to do it wrong, he’ll find it," snapped Murphy. The line stuck.
However, history goes back even further. In 1841 a newspaper in Ohio printed a parody based on a poem written by Thomas Moore.
"I never had a slice of bread, particularly large and wide, that did not fall upon the floor, and always on the buttered side."
Classic Murphy!
Lloyd Masel