Accomplishing 20 times as much requires you to stop doing
things that waste time and resources. Tradition often
binds us into keeping harmful habits. Check to see if you
or your organization are following any of these practices.
If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It
A motorist asks a farmer for a glass of water. The farmer
obliges, using a hand pump to draw water from a well. The
pump handle turns close to a board, and the farmer curses
as he scrapes his knuckles against it.
Motorist: Why not move that board? It serves no purpose.
Farmer: It's been there since my father's time. If it was
good enough for him, it is good enough for me.
Aping Human Beings
Imagine a cage containing five apes. In the cage, hang a
banana on a string over some stairs. Before long, as the
story goes, an ape will decide to go up the stairs to grab
the banana. As soon as that ape touches the stairs, spray
all the apes with cold water. After awhile, another ape
will approach the stairs with the same result: All the apes
are sprayed with cold water. Do this repeatedly and then
just watch when another ape tries to climb the stairs. The
other apes will try to prevent the ape's attempt, even
though no cold water is sprayed on them.
Next remove one ape from the cage and replace that ape with
a new one. The new ape sees the banana and wants to climb
the stairs. To its horror, all of the other apes attack.
After another thwarted attempt, the new ape knows that if
it tries to climb the stairs, it will be assaulted. Now
remove another of the original five apes and replace it
with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is
attacked. The previous newcomer enthusiastically takes part
in the punishment although it has no idea why it was not
permitted to climb the stairs.
After replacing the third, fourth, and fifth original apes,
all the apes that had been sprayed with cold water are gone
from the cage. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches
the stairs.
Why not? "Because that the way it's always been around
here." Sound familiar?
The Pecking-Order Tradition: After You, Alphonse …
In most organizations, decisions have to follow a certain
pathway. Someone who needs a decision begins the process by
asking his or her boss. The boss asks her or his boss. This
process continues until someone has the authority and wants
to decide. When the decision is finally made, communicating
the answer has to follow the same path in reverse down
through the organizational pathway. Nothing has changed
about this process since the days of feudal kings and their
lords. But is this the fastest way to make progress? Hardly.
The Hazing Tradition: Get Down!
Organizations don't like to allow newcomers to become part
of the group until the new people are put through some
ridiculous initiation that had humbled the organization's
veterans. Having humiliating experiences in common makes
everyone feel more comfortable with one another. The apes
in the cage would recognize the process.
The Slow Walking Tradition: Take the Tour
Few people like it when pressure is put on them. To avoid
that pressure, many people will pretend to be at full
effectiveness … while working well below their
self-perceived potential. When the big bosses arrive for an
inspection, those who host the visitors will take the big
brass on a long, slow tour designed to demonstrate that
everyone is fully and effectively engaged. Every stop will
have been rehearsed for weeks in advance, and everything
will be perfect.
This tradition has been around for a long time. During a
famine, Catherine the Great took a tour of Russia to see
how the peasants were doing. A prosperous-appearing village
was erected along the banks of the river just before her
arrival. That night, the village was disassembled and
transported down river to be erected again for viewing by
the Czarina the next day in a new location.
The Time-Is-Money Tradition: How Much Is This Conversation
Going to Cost Me?
Many organizations run themselves to be cost efficient.
With stop watches and clipboards in hand, cost analysts
ensure that activities not earning an adequate profit are
ruthlessly slashed. In this way, profits are increased.
Or are they? Sometimes the effects of the cost cutting
actually harm profits. Here's an example: There's no
profit in taking back unsatisfactory products. Stores will
put as few people as possible working on this task. There
may be 30 customers in the store and 19 of them will be in
line to return items while a single clerk works as slowly
as possible. But wait in too many of these long lines and
customers will buy somewhere else … where the return lines
aren't so long. A lost customer can cost a company
thousands in profits. Sometimes that short-term cutting
focus is the wrong way to look at things.
The Isolation Tradition: Solitary Confinement for Learning
Development
Most organizations are reluctant to credit innovations and
ideas that have prospered in other organizations. Engineers
often like to refer skeptically to the sloppy work that
everyone else does. Ironically, this approach is more often
known as the "Not Invented Here" Syndrome that almost
always means falling behind the competition because
everything "Not Invented Here" is shunned.
The Inertia Tradition: Millwork Is My Trade
In 1848, gold was found at Sutter's Mill in northern
California. There were literally large nuggets sitting in
the river beds that could be picked up by the handful. Five
minutes' labor would pay for a week's expenses. Sutter lost
his business as a result. He kept trying to earn money with
his sawmill while workers quit to carry off fortunes in
gold. Similarly, many organizations focus on their past
activities rather than grasping the great potential of the
present.
List Your Harmful Traditions
It's not enough to laugh at others who make large mistakes.
You need to identify which traditions hold back you and
your organization. If you jot those down now, you'll have
taken a helpful first step in eliminating those harmful
traditions.
Copyright 2007 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved
----------------------------------------------------
Donald Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company, a
strategy and financial consulting firm in Weston, MA. He is
coauthor of six books including The 2,000 Percent Squared
Solution, The 2,000 Percent Solution, and The 2,000 Percent
Solution Workbook. Free advice on accomplishing 20 times
more is available to you by registering at
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