I’m an anti-traditionalist. I firmly believe that most “traditions” were born out of need, and over time we’ve romanticized the past and sentimentalized things that started off as purely pragmatic. Join me for a story that illustrates my point:
A newly wed couple prepares for their first Christmas together. While preparing other items for the meal, the wife makes a request of her new husband. “Honey, would you please cut the shank off the ham?”
The husband responds, “Cut the shank off the ham? Why?”
The wife stops, slightly thrown by the question. “Because… we need to remove the shank.”
Equally perplexed the husband arches his eyebrows. “Why? I’ve eaten ham at the holidays my whole life, and never cut off the shank.”
Returning to her chopping, the wife shrugs, “I don’t know. That’s how I learned to do it from my mother.”
“If there is a reason we should, that’s fine with me. But I’m curious about why.”
“There’s the phone,” the wife nodded her head towards the wall. “My parents are home. Why don’t you call her and ask?”
Picking up the phone, the husband dialed his mother-in-law. After recounting the conversation, the wife’s mother paused. “Hhmm. You know, now that I think about it, I am not really sure. That’s how I learned to cook a ham from my mother. You should give her a call and ask her directly.”
On a mission, the new husband phones his wife’s grandmother. He quickly recounts the unsolved mystery he is trying to uncover. Much to his surprise, Grandma begins to laugh. “What’s so funny?”
Grandma clears her throat, and with a lingering giggle says, “Sweetheart, I only cut the shank off the ham because we were too poor to afford a pan big enough to fit the whole thing!”
I was a pre-teen when I first heard that story, but it made an enormous impression. This has been at the heart of what I look to understand when I get involved in organizational change efforts: Do we do things this way for a valid reason, or one that no longer applies?
Of course, the trouble I never considered as a child was that, for some people, the mere fact that there was once a reason is often good enough of a reason to keep doing something. I suppose I can sort of understand that when it comes to what you eat at Christmas dinner or where you like to spend your Fourth of July holiday, but in business that reason is the Kiss of Death.
At DrupalCamp in Austin recently, the head of a local development firm mentioned that, once per quarter, his company shuts down for the day, and spends the whole day working on internal processes. Each member of the business is charged with keeping a running list all quarter long on existing processes that need improvement or new processes which need to be developed. And then the company turns off the phones for a day, and collectively re-works the processes that need to be fixed.
It’s a fascinating approach to the old saying “working on the business vs. working in the business.” And it’s a very tactical example of how to build an organization that is always asking, “Why?” And then making sure that the answer is something better than, “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.”
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.