Helpful aphorisms I have heard in my career
Inefficient is not broken
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Not everything that is broken needs to be fixed
I once felt the nuance of all of these deeply. I was running a major turn around. The operations were insanely strategic, otherwise we would have just shut down the business. In the process, I had a mentor of mine come visit. As I was walking him through the operation and the org chart, I highlighted that our head of community relations was a convicted murderer who spent 30 years in prison. My mentor naturally said, “that feels like a problem.” I agreed. He asked if I planned to fix it. I told him that it didn’t even rise into my top 10 priority list, so not today. I doubled down and said, “when I have the luxury to worry about that, you will know the turn-around will be successful”.
There was immense relief in backburnering a tough issue. In the middle of a turnaround, that relief is a matter of necessity. In normal operations, that relief is just a relief. Keeping a priority list is of value because it keeps you focused on what matters. The result: you can forgive yourself for not working on things that are not priorities.
Personally, if I see something as inefficient, I want to improve it. Is that improvement a priority? Is it broken, or leading down a dead end path? If it is broken, does that thing need to work?
These follow up questions allow me to determine my priorities. They help me simplify the operations, and my focus. And, they allow me to forgive myself for an operation that I manage not being perfect.