What we can learn from the mess in our homes in order to create better results at work
Growing up, we would say the house needs to be ‘drop by ready’, so that if someone just dropped by, we could invite them in without having to scramble to move clothes off the sofa for them to have a seat and clean up last night’s pizza trash before offering them a glass of tea. Why are some people’s homes always drop by ready while others are always embarrassingly cluttered and dirty?
At work, I turn chaos into order. I do that by identifying the systems needed to produce the results the business is looking to achieve and then build or improve those systems. I don’t like buzz words like ‘systems thinker’ but in some cases, there just isn’t a better way to say something. I’m a systems thinker.
What is a system?
A quick google search provides us with this definition:
a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized framework or method.
When creating a system, I look first at the results we want to achieve and then back into the steps we need to achieve those results, and because I’m a systems thinker, I find myself thinking in systems at home just as often at work.
So what is the result I’m looking to achieve at home? I want my house to be drop by ready. What are my current outcomes? A messy house. Clearly we have a failure in systems.
3 systems you need in your house
TRASH: you live in your house along with family or roommates – and living anywhere creates trash. If you don’t have a system to process trash, you will live in trash. My kids default behavior is trash goes wherever it was created.
This is very efficient – when they take the last breakfast bar from the box, leaving the empty box on the pantry shelf while walking to their room with the bar takes no thought or effort. When they finish the bar, the wrapper it was in can also be dropped at the foot of their desk with same effort free inattention.
But… this doesn’t create the result we want. Trash is left all over the house and the goal is a trash free home. And while the initial efforts are low, the secondary effort to clean up the resulting mess is higher.
Lesson One: efficiency isn’t the goal, efficacy is.
DISHES: Eating is an everyday activity and this creates dirty dishes. My wife has suggested that eating out reduces or even eliminates this problem. She is correct and eating out would be very effective to create the outcome we want regarding dishes
But…eating out creates new challenges. First there is the obvious budget implications. Even ‘cheap’ options aren’t so cheap. It costs me $50-70 to take my family of six to most fast food places these days and a sit down place is double or triple that.
Second but maybe less obvious new challenge created by eating out is scheduling. Making dinner at home does take time but getting the family in the car to head out to eat not only takes much longer, it’s often not even possible, due to family events, kid functions, school activities. We don’t always have the chance to eat at the same time and certainly not for every meal.
Lesson Two: Second level impacts must be considered.
DIRTY CLOTHES: My teenages don’t seem to agree that this is a problem that needs to be solved. Left to them to decide, they would store their clean clothes in the same location as their dirty clothes; in a basket if we are lucky, but more often in a pile on the floor. Content with a sniff test to determine if an item is wearable – this system creates the outcome they care about. When items no longer pass the sniff – they get tossed into another pile that in some magical process eventually finds its way to the washer, dryer, and back into a basket in their room.
But…it isn’t magic. The adults in the house get fed up with the stink and either have a yelling match with the offending teenager to force them to do the dirtiest laundry or we do it ourselves.
Lesson Three: Different Stakeholders hold different priorities
Putting it all together
When you have an outcome that isn’t what you want – the chances are you have a missing or broken system. This is true in our home or office. When you look at what systems you need in place, remember that they must be effective above everything else. This does not mean you get to ignore second level impacts like extremely inefficient processes that put a strain on other parts of the ecosystem. And if you do not align all the stakeholders, you will find conflict and resistance in executing whatever system you are implementing.
I use these principles daily in order to turn chaos into order, create the results I want to see, and keep my house drop by ready! Now if only I could figure out what system I need to finally lose the extra weight…