We are designed to be wasteful in meetings! Systematically!

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 Let's do an exercise which was given to us by our prof Saral M, 

Statement 1: A system designed to succeed, succeeds when it succeeds.  

Statement 2: A system designed to fail,___________ when it ___________. (now complete this before you scroll down).

Are you thinking why the hell, a system will be designed to fail. Think about fuse box, circuit breaker or software tester. 


...

... (no cheating...fill the blanks)

...

...

You will be in top 99% of population if your answer is  

  • A system designed to fail, succeeds when it fails, or
  • A system designed to fail, fails when it succeeds
Very few, almost none will state "A system designed to fail, fails when it fails to fail. Right? We are schooled systematically to be successful; to such an extend that we cannot form a statement without using word "Success/ succeed". Human might be social, but it is designed to be competitive and be successful. What is a better place than Group meetings to be competitive. 

Group meeting is a place to showcase our strength, to brandish our ornaments and weapons as if we are here to find our mates in jungle. We do not collaborate but compete. These behaviors are expected as they are based on old school thinking developed by Socrates, Aristotle or Plato i.e. to argue to see the truth. Edward De Bono came up with "parallel thinking or 6 hat thinking" to placate our this competitive attitude and force everyone to think in same direction: all will ideate at a time, all will be optimistic or be pessimistic at a time, etc. But wearing six hats and conducting meetings are too dramatic and time consuming. 

Jake Knapp's book talks about Sprint where everyone is forced to come up with ideas individually and then analyze critically together for all ideas together. I will like to take this concept a bit further and ask the individuals to find loopholes in their own idea. In the rush to be successful, he/she will poke holes in his/her own idea. 

Basically, design the system to fail!


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