Asking Why?

Jeffrey Philips makes an interesting observation:

I worry that we are crowding our already complex computers and processes with so many short-cuts, hot-keys, hacks and other “time saving” devices that we are actually creating more complexity and less vision on what’s important.  For example, I have a colleague who has a BlackBerry.  He answers the BlackBerry while driving, in meetings, etc, usually entering six or seven word answers to emails.  Typically, these “answers” he provides don’t give enough information and require a second or third interaction before the solution is clear.  While he feels confident he has cleared his inbox, these interactions are like small candy bars, immediately tasty but not satisfying over the longer term.  We’ve built our productivity processes to a certain extent on the mental equivalent of junk food.

It’s true in many industries but the IT industry has to be one of the worst industries for thinking about going faster from A-to-B rather than thinking about taking a different route.

I was educated as a mechanical engineer and that included some production engineering. During my degree course (what seems like a lifetime ago now) I learnt about production lines and the radical (as it was then) new thinking of just-in-time. The production line techniques were all about going faster, just-in-time was all about taking a different route.

I have recently been enjoying the writings of Slow Leadership which is all about taking a different route.

I regularly return to the culture of writing huge documents to define something and think that there has to be a different route, especially when it comes to the document review process.

It’s time for more people to ask the question “why?” before they do something. There used to be a programme on the BBC called Why Don’t You, which had a more complete title of “Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television Set And Go Out And Do Something Less Boring Instead?”. The purpose of this programme was to encourage kids to do something that was more constructive than watching television, something that involved the whole person rather than just the small subset that the television was interacting with.

I’m sure we could all create our own “Why Don’t You?” and I’m sure that our business and personal lives would be all the richer for it:

• Why Don’t You Just Switch off Your Email Client and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead
• Why Don’t You Just Switch off Your Blackberry and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead
• Why Don’t You Just Switch off Your Mobile Phone and Go Out and Do Something Less Boring Instead

A good dose of “Why Don’t You?” and a few new routes and we will all be a lot happier.