Comments: Mindless Business

Steve - we use 9" max plates to fine dine on - any TRICK to stay LEAN & serene - ANALOGY of LIVING well below means too - focus on Ecology - thanks.

Posted by sean_mindless at October 30, 2006 2:05 PM

I had a work colleague who just stopped doing a weekly return to the finance department because he could not see the value of the return. No one ever asked him for the return in the following three years. How many of us have emptied things out of our pending tray after 6 months because no-one ever came back. A fabulous topic – thanks for the analogy Steve.

Posted by Trevor Gay at October 30, 2006 2:17 PM

In response to Trevor's comment: Hyatt used to require its hotel general managers to fill out a monthly report explaining variances from forecast. A California GM was certain that no one was reading the report, so he put in a comment in a mid-summer report explaining a profit shortfall due to excess snow plowing costs. Nobody ever called him on it.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at October 30, 2006 2:50 PM

I had a colleague who was transferred to another office and left a pile of accounts reciveable paperwork 6" high on his desk, 9 months later he returned to the Dept to hear squeals of discontent over funds not coming in and no one knew who, how, why, what or where...

On his desk was the original pile with a new one growing in his intray. Within 2 weeks the $$ were flowing again.

Posted by Steve Gray at October 30, 2006 4:11 PM

Steve,
I cannot wait to read it and you're absolutely right inertia in businesses can be a frightening thing to watch in action. I have experienced inertia causing companies to grind almost to a halt because the projects got so bogged down in it that no one bothered to look up and see if they were actually accomplishing anything, or making a difference for that matter.

Sometimes I think it's the feudal structure of the companies where the serfs (front line workers)are doing all of the work, but since the king (or queen) and his court (senior management) are all knowing they never bother to check and see what's happening in the fields. They simply issue decrees about how much grain to plant and harvest every year. Chances are, if there's a problem during the growing season, and the field workers try and raise the issue, no one will pay any attention until it's too late.

Posted by Andrew Hayden at October 30, 2006 4:35 PM

Wow! That's a wonderful analogy Steve. Couldn't agree more.

Posted by Namith at October 30, 2006 7:02 PM

Inertia is not limited to the mundane and the boring.

Take Google, for instance. Google keeps on building on established success, while it is clear as daylight that THEY HAVE TO BUILD A NEW GOOGLE IF THEY ARE TO FULFILL THEIR DECLARED MISSION OF ORGANIZING THE WORLD"S INFORMATION (AND PROTECTING IT).

Yes! The time has come to build the new Google...

A PEER-TO-PEER GOOGLE that lives in millions of super desktops and super laptops and super mobile devices worldwide, with the "Google OS" under the hood. A Google that is IMMUNE to both censoring and terror strikes, and will stay up even if those huge Google data centers stop working.

Sergey and Larry, are you listening?
http://ideaburger.blogspot.com/2006/10/its-time-to-build-peer-to-peer-google.html

Jay, from Bangalore

Posted by Jayakumar Hariharan at October 30, 2006 9:46 PM

It sounds like an interesting book and the immediate thought I have is that if the amount we eat is usually determined by how much food is put in front of us, then is how much food that is put in front of us usually determined by how much we order? And if not, why do we feel compelled to to eat it all anyway - fear of upsetting the host, some primitive urge to eat now because you don't know when the next meal will be etc?

As ever, a lot of this seems to boil down to thinking about what's the right thing to do, and then doing it!

Posted by Mark JF at October 31, 2006 4:13 AM

So why do people keep doing the same old all the time and noy question it - Usually due to a culture that rewards compliance and alignment not challenging and questioning. Most managers want easy people to manage - personally I like the ones who push me

Posted by PaulH at October 31, 2006 4:31 AM