I’ve had a few interesting conversations this week about challenging assumptions, both personally and professionally.
Thinking about what we do, how we do it and why we do it – has been interesting to consider and I’m hoping to summarise them below to be helpful with actionable advice you can follow.
- Why are we doing this?
- Often there’s things that we do that we’ve never questioned. They could be the things that we’re told “that’s what’s always been done, keep doing it” and never thought – why?
- Asking why more often, thinking about what we’re doing, so we can make sure it’s relevant, optimal and useful to what we’re trying to achieve is probably one of the most simplest, overrated things we can do to improve in life.
- How are we doing this?
- There’s often a better way to do things. When you’re changing oil in a car, there’s a good way and a bad way! There’s many in between but I’m sure someone has done this incorrectly and knows what I’m talking about!
- I think it’s always useful to explore how we do things and research, ask or try different things. I’ve read a great book about Dr. Richard Feynman who had this boundless curiousity that he approached tasks and problems with that eventually he ran out of solved problems, and instead was working on things that weren’t solved until he solved them!
- What are you leaving on the table because of old ways of doing things? It could be money, time with your friends / family/ productivity, other tasks you could be focused on that you enjoy more etc…. Keep an open mind and explore how you’re doing what you’re doing.
- What am I doing?
- How often have you been down a path that you didn’t think you were on until you were too far gone? What did that feel like? What if you asked yourself DAILY “What am I doing and do I want to keep doing it?” and took the time out to reflect and answer this.
- Imagine asking this of your daily work tasks and similar to the first 2 questions answering them and realising your task add no value to you, your clients or towards your goals! Ask often, and reflect daily on what you’re doing. Is this the right thing to be doing? Am I doing this the best way possible? Could I be doing something different that’s more optimal?
I was speaking to a friend this evening about agile methodology and where some companies go wrong implementing this. One of the things that was interesting that he mentioned was that the methodology and methods work, it’s making sure that you include the people aspect of what you’re trying to do in the agile way.
We often approach good and bad things that we do unaware of the questions above and carry on doing what we’ve always done.
Einstein said the sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
If we don’t allow for PEOPLE, mindsets and behaviours around change then no methodology will work effectively! It’s often easy to blame people when the implementation of what we’re trying to achieve is the problem. We often forget to make sure we have the correct support network or team around us to solve what we’re trying to do.
I’ve done some previous posts on behaviour change and mindsets you could explore and I’d love to hear from you what you think about this topic, what you’ve learned about it previously and what you’re committing to do something different about it!
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