“Insanity is doing same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Albert Einstein
“If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always gotten” (or less) author unknown
Storyline: You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet. (Real author unknown - quote told to me by Mike Yakos during China trip.)
Many years ago, while on an overseas trip I called my wife at home and told her about this beautiful egg that I had encountered that day.
She asked me, “How did it taste?” I said, “I don’t know. I did not eat it.”
She asked, “Why not? Is it because it is being hatched?”
I said, “No, this was a hundred year old egg in a display cabinet in the museum that I visited today.”
Said my wife, “If you can’t eat it or hatch it then what good is that egg?” Obviously she was coming from her value proposition criterion.
That conversation keeps coming back to me many times since then.
Sometime ago, employees of one company were faced with a situation where there was some rule in the group that they had to follow. But it did not make sense to some new employees.
So one curious and zealous employee inquired further and discovered from the old timers that the rule was in practice for a long time and named after the group VP who had proclaimed it in early 1990s. She was told that the group had accepted and followed the rule since then.
But she was not accustomed at accepting things at face value and took initiative to investigate further and showed that the 17 years since, the rule did not have any useful value. She suggested a new rule which was accepted. She basically broke the golden egg that was laid two VPs ago and in the previous century and millennium.
Reflection:
Rules are made for a purpose. And they are meant to be broken when their useful value has diminished. Look around you and evaluate the usefulness of the rules, policies and procedures that have been there longer than a few years. Break an egg or two. But remember, Just breaking an egg is not enough. Once you break them you must be ready to make an omelet. (Propose useful alternatives and ensure they are carried through for implementation).