There is no final state
Every now and then I receive an inquiry from someone who is following my bullsh… er, ramblings on social media. Here is the most recent…
Every now and then I receive an inquiry from someone who is following my bullsh… er, ramblings on social media. Here is the most recent example:
I really like that call for action. Stop your bullsh…ing and show us some goods. We smell the sizzle, but where’s the beef? We see the smoke, but where’s the fire?
Let’s get some things out of the way first. Saying that there is a time and a place for theorizing and also there is a time and place (I presume a different one from the time for theorizing?) for where the rubber meets the road, is not sitting well with me. Why? Because the way I read it (and of course chances are I’m totally wrong in this), it seems to assume the existence of silos. Such as “over here are people who are responsible for thinking, and over there are people who are then responsible for doing.”
I’ll be honest — I don’t like those silos. I don’t see any value in outsourcing our thinking to some third party think-tank. Even if that think-tank consists of select members from the same team.
Secondly, that inquiry seems to be assuming that out of all those theorizing and thinking activities there must be a way to sus out something that is proven to work, as opposed to something that is merely an intriguing idea, but in practice couldn’t cut the mustard.
You see, I disagree with that premise. The reason I’m not big on cataloguing which theory is shown to work and which theory proved to be a dud is because all those conclusions are largely circumstantial. For example, I may propose one hypothesis to the team and we may then enact on it. And maybe the hypothesis is proven to demonstrably work. Should I now shout from the rooftops in the attempt to enlighten other organization to follow that approach?
No, I should not! Why? Because even in my individual case, what gets proven to work today may quite easily cease to work tomorrow (happened to me more than once). Everything is pretty much circumstantial. Ideas that may prove to be beneficial for the process improvement in one team may end up being detrimental to another team. Not only that, but also what demonstrably improves the situation in one team may later turn into an impediment to the exact same team.
Things keep changing, whether we like it or not. What worked beautifully just yesterday, suddenly stops being that useful this morning. We have to be open and prepared for that eventuality.
What does that mean? It means that there is no desirable final state. Things are in constant flux, and it is our job to keep adapting. The moral of the story is to stop reaching out to leaders and prominent thinkers in the hopes that they will give us a magic formula, a magic potion that will miraculously fix all our problems and improve our jobs. The unavoidable conclusion is that we must continue theorizing, hypothesizing, experimenting, failing, improving. And now the unpleasant truth: we must do all that work ourselves!
There is no silver bullet.
Conclusion
If you happen to follow my ramblings and then find something that looks like a good idea, try it yourself. If you’re expecting me to sell it, that would be a wrong expectation. The only lesson I’m hoping to impart via my personal example is the lesson that things change and we need to keep experimenting. Unexamined life is not worth living, as Socrates said. No stone should be left unturned on your path.