dispatches from the new world of work

Mindless Business

Recently, Tom told us about an upcoming book, Mindless Eating, by Brian Wansink. The book is now out, and it's very interesting. Key themes—The amount we eat is usually not determined by how full we are, but by how much food is put in front of us. And, we usually underestimate how much we've eaten. (I highly recommend the book. The stale popcorn story at the beginning is worth the price of admission.)

Can't help but relate this to business—How often do people, out of inertia, keep working on the thing that's in front of them, without questioning whether it's worth continuing? And, would they then underestimate the amount of time that's been sucked up by a stale project?

Steve Yastrow posted this on 10/30/06.

Comments

Steve - we use 9" max plates to fine dine on - any TRICK to stay LEAN & serene - ANALOGY of LIVING well below means too - focus on Ecology - thanks.

Posted by sean_mindless at October 30, 2006 2:05 PM

I had a work colleague who just stopped doing a weekly return to the finance department because he could not see the value of the return. No one ever asked him for the return in the following three years. How many of us have emptied things out of our pending tray after 6 months because no-one ever came back. A fabulous topic â€“ thanks for the analogy Steve.

Posted by Trevor Gay at October 30, 2006 2:17 PM

In response to Trevor's comment: Hyatt used to require its hotel general managers to fill out a monthly report explaining variances from forecast. A California GM was certain that no one was reading the report, so he put in a comment in a mid-summer report explaining a profit shortfall due to excess snow plowing costs. Nobody ever called him on it.

Posted by Steve Yastrow at October 30, 2006 2:50 PM

I had a colleague who was transferred to another office and left a pile of accounts reciveable paperwork 6" high on his desk, 9 months later he returned to the Dept to hear squeals of discontent over funds not coming in and no one knew who, how, why, what or where...

On his desk was the original pile with a new one growing in his intray. Within 2 weeks the $$ were flowing again.

Posted by Steve Gray at October 30, 2006 4:11 PM

Steve,
I cannot wait to read it and you're absolutely right inertia in businesses can be a frightening thing to watch in action. I have experienced inertia causing companies to grind almost to a halt because the projects got so bogged down in it that no one bothered to look up and see if they were actually accomplishing anything, or making a difference for that matter.

Sometimes I think it's the feudal structure of the companies where the serfs (front line workers)are doing all of the work, but since the king (or queen) and his court (senior management) are all knowing they never bother to check and see what's happening in the fields. They simply issue decrees about how much grain to plant and harvest every year. Chances are, if there's a problem during the growing season, and the field workers try and raise the issue, no one will pay any attention until it's too late.

Posted by Andrew Hayden at October 30, 2006 4:35 PM

Wow! That's a wonderful analogy Steve. Couldn't agree more.

Posted by Namith at October 30, 2006 7:02 PM

Inertia is not limited to the mundane and the boring.

Take Google, for instance. Google keeps on building on established success, while it is clear as daylight that THEY HAVE TO BUILD A NEW GOOGLE IF THEY ARE TO FULFILL THEIR DECLARED MISSION OF ORGANIZING THE WORLD"S INFORMATION (AND PROTECTING IT).

Yes! The time has come to build the new Google...

A PEER-TO-PEER GOOGLE that lives in millions of super desktops and super laptops and super mobile devices worldwide, with the "Google OS" under the hood. A Google that is IMMUNE to both censoring and terror strikes, and will stay up even if those huge Google data centers stop working.

Sergey and Larry, are you listening?
http://ideaburger.blogspot.com/2006/10/its-time-to-build-peer-to-peer-google.html

Jay, from Bangalore

Posted by Jayakumar Hariharan at October 30, 2006 9:46 PM

It sounds like an interesting book and the immediate thought I have is that if the amount we eat is usually determined by how much food is put in front of us, then is how much food that is put in front of us usually determined by how much we order? And if not, why do we feel compelled to to eat it all anyway - fear of upsetting the host, some primitive urge to eat now because you don't know when the next meal will be etc?

As ever, a lot of this seems to boil down to thinking about what's the right thing to do, and then doing it!

Posted by Mark JF at October 31, 2006 4:13 AM

So why do people keep doing the same old all the time and noy question it - Usually due to a culture that rewards compliance and alignment not challenging and questioning. Most managers want easy people to manage - personally I like the ones who push me

Posted by PaulH at October 31, 2006 4:31 AM

Good question Paul...there is a pay-off somewhere.

Posted by KateM at October 31, 2006 8:53 AM

Actually, Mark, the amount we put in front of us may not be determined by how much we order, at least not in the US. Here's an example.

I love cheeseburgers. Twenty years ago the average cheeseburger added 333 calories to my diet. Today's cheeseburgers average 590 calories and the fries I like to have with my cheeseburger have rocketed upward from 210 calories to 610.

Posted by Wally Bock at October 31, 2006 1:21 PM

Boy - did this strike a chord with me... In engineering, this is a fact of life. I've lost count of the number of 'wet dreams' that I've designed, prototyped and beat to death for customers that never went anywhere...

Posted by Steven J. Ackerman at October 31, 2006 1:49 PM

Steve,

Excellent point. Everyone in business needs to work on what is important, not what is in front of us.

Lewis

Posted by Lewis Green at October 31, 2006 2:57 PM

First, I believe every human being was wired for a certain destiny. That destiny is manifested in strengths.

Spending your time trying to be "great" in areas that don't relate to your strengths is a waste of time. Our legacy will be measured by what we did with our unique destiny.

Posted by Eric Pennington at October 31, 2006 3:37 PM

"The amount we eat is usually not determined by how full we are, but by how much food is put in front of us"

Interesting and true too...but I must say that the "Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility" applies to eating in toto...Did I say Eating & Economics go hand in hand? Ofcourse, its all about scarce means & unlimited wants!!!

Posted by K.Sriram at October 31, 2006 11:15 PM

Wally - is the increase in calories a function of "how much" or of "what it's made of and cooked with." And if it's just that they serve up bigger burgers, you don't have to eat it all...

Posted by Mark JF at November 1, 2006 3:42 AM

Re: mindless eating

About 5 years ago I lost 40 lbs, and I've kept most of it off. The trick, if there was one, was portion control: I tried to be aware at all times of what and how much I was eating (I even kept a food diary with calorie counts for a while), and focused on eating what satisfied me rather than on external cues like package size. So I developed new habits, and by and large they've held up over time. (E.g., I still eat chocolate, but I'll eat 5 Hershey Kisses, rather than sitting down with the whole bag to read the paper and discovering, half an hour later, that I've just polished off 2000 calories!)

Posted by Paula at November 2, 2006 10:45 PM