Pointless exercise

Let me start this by asking you a question, is there a moment you suddenly realise, "oh crap, whatever has been kept me busy like hell in the last 12 months has just been rendered as useless. It is not going to make any difference in what matters." If the answer is positive, then you would probably want to continue to read the following.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I am sure you probably had been working your ass off, and probably had succeeded a few things in the stuff you had your eyes on, or had made some customer smiling rather than grudging, launching couple of products onto the market which made onto some sort of review lists. That is probably giving you a warm feeling of accomplishment, or fulfilment. But, you know that's not what I am talking about; the funny thing is, that's also not what you, have been thinking about either.

So what's wrong?

Needless to say that everything is moving at a speed which is slightly over what we have been trained for, which is not necessary a bad thing by the way. We convince ourselves that we know how the shit runs, and we cook out a plan to get us from where we are to where we want to be. As you don't have too much time to think, which you might have been kept telling yourself of, you decided to get started. "We can't predict the future", as we normally referred to back up our ways of working.

True that.

We forgot something. So what is it?

Well, before we go any further, let's take a brief look at the two causes which make this negligence almost inevitable, almost.

·         Firstly, we are busy, way too busy. "I am already late for another meeting which I don't think I want to miss"; "if I don't reply this email within next 5 minutes, someone is going to jump off the cliff, literally."; "You must be joking me! We absolutely can not delay this for another day, either I have this by end of today, or I am not going to make it for tomorrow morning coffee."; "We have to get this bug fixed within this week, otherwise we are shut off from this customer forever and ever.". If any of these sound familiar, then you have just identified yourself to be in this group. But don't worry, we are certainly not alone here.

·         Secondly, our heads are in the sand, very deep. "We have been pulling every string possible, throwing every heads available, doing every thing we can, to make this happen - we are on schedule."; "Damn it, why the blood-swearing design doesn't appeal to the focus group, we must have got the wrong crowd, or the sampling method is wrong"; "We are the market leader in our sector, but not sure what happened, within 3 months, that market has been superseded"; "We are closely following our competition, we are ready to take them head on…WTF, it looks like we are in totally different games here. They are not even looking at what we have been doing". As I said, when we are walking on top of some level of establishment, that establishment appears to be eternal, regardless what second laws of thermodynamics thinks.  The thing is, nothing is there forever, not even the same every other day, if we really want to get philosophical.

The two causes are leading to the same consequence, we are way out, we don't even have the right target, or it's evolving, and we are not – we are fucked.

What makes this even more painful and hard to swallow is, at subconscious level, you actually knew this, you knew you are looking at a moving target, you knew you are not keeping up with what is happening out there, you knew you will miss the pole, you knew you are doomed – you knew this will be another, pointless exercise, all along.

Why didn't you do something about that? Now you see why I want to lay out the two causes first, they are just there.

We don't want to change, that's what I believe as the fundamental nature of human mind, or the source of the profound conflicts with reality – everything changes, at all times. (And yes, I never believed those who tell me in interviews that they are not afraid of changes.). The fact is,

• -          "who am I to question the status quo?"
• -          We don't spend enough time in watching everything else is going on while our own shit is being dealt with on daily basis, fires all over the place.
• -          Under statistic assumption, when some of us picked up the scent of moving targets, we convince ourselves with figures, measurement, or whatever we find emotionally pleasing, that everybody else is wrong, we are right. We will come out as the one stick to the plan and win.
• -          Ok, we knew we might be off the mark now, but what can we do about it? "There is too much uncertainties, and I am not the one setting the post, why should I take the risk now? I mean, after all, if I see it, someone else must have seen it too right?", "we don't have a better plan so I'd say we do what we have said we're gonna do, and leave the rest to the higher power".

-          We miss what really matters, not because we don't see it, it is because what matters is normally hard, and we don't like that.

This time it is a certainty – a pointless exercise. It will be a cruel reality check for individual and entire organisation. More often than not, this will come at a time when it is already too late.

Had enough of this? Well, the way out is pretty simple, just do the opposite of everything I have just rambled down.