Does it still make sense?

At some point, certain things just stop making sense. 

This is true for the ‘touch base’ or ‘weekly connect’ meeting you show up to that at some point began to feel like going through the motions instead of having an identifiable purpose. 

This is true for the companies that are so overwhelmed by their sunk costs that they feel compelled go out of their way to double down on projects that by all indications from the market would suggest are no longer needed. 

This is true for certain tasks we’ve become habituated to like managing an ‘excel database’ and manually inputting data where more sustainable & automated solutions are widely available. 

Asking whether something still makes sense is inconvenient because it sometimes requires us to confront truths we don’t like and to make changes that aren’t easy. 

As you go about your work, you might choose to embrace the question any ways: “does this — the meeting, the project, the work task — still make sense?”. Asking this question is, in a very practical sense, an act of compassion. At the other end of confronting truths and encouraging valuable but sometimes difficult changes is the best version of reality that  you, your colleagues, and the people you aim to serve deserve.
Unfortunately, even if this question is asked openly and without mal intent, it usually falls on the deaf ears of the people who have the power to make a change. That's been my experience as a consultant.
2021-03-17 15:33:42
therealbrandonwilson
you're absolutely right. In general I think there's a level of rigidity that we all fall prey to when it comes to revisiting our beliefs/assumptions/practices which is only made worse when we feel like our ego/intelligence is being put into question. The finesses required to get people to genuinely rethink is a tough one to crack and even still some people will likely remain stubborn.

What I fear also happens in these cases is if the practices that no longer make sense are tenaciously held onto for long enough, there are downstream effects that invariably show up in the performance of the business. Some machines may be complex / diversified enough for this to be the case. For others, it might be what causes them to bite the dust. 
2021-03-17 15:57:02