Kevin Kohls has a great story about business focusing on the wrong thing to drive improvement. Goldratt calls these "choopchicks." My Favorite Choopchicks - Cost Cutting
I think cost cutting is the biggest choopchick because most of the companies who are on a cost cutting binge are frustrated that despite all their fine efforts, profits are not increasing. Often, the company actually is losing more money that when they started the program! If they are spending so much time on it, and it is yielding such poor results, then the actions may be focused on a “trivial” cause and thus can be classified as a choopchick.