Don't frighten the horses

As we hurtle headlong into choosing a new Caesar for the country, and by this time next week (dependent on when you read this) we will know which Caesar we have chosen, work continues apace in the VTSSB to ensure that the administration can swiftly pick up the reins and ensure the ongoing protection, safety and security of its people. It’s an impressive effort by the State and us apparatchiks. No matter which Caesar we pick the apparatchiks will be ready and poised to execute the will of the populus. Isn’t democracy wonderful?

And please note Cicero’s studied and seeming indifference to the choice of Caesar. He has truly morphed into a State Apparatchik.

For those of you with a tendency to point out Cicero’s failure to use proper grammar and spelling when publishing these humble words, it should be pointed out that Cicero is writing in a language which is not his mater’s tongue and using technology with which he is totally unfamiliar. If you are familiar with his previous works such as De Re Publica, Philippicae or even De Legibus (though not one of his best works) you will be aware that Cicero’s grammar is always polished and poised and his spelling immaculate. Sadly in this day and age he lacks a amanuensis to quality assure the words before they are published…….but if anyone knows of someone wiling to do the job, please do get in touch. You know how.

And in meantime Cicero will try to pay more attention not just to what is said but how it is written. Hopefully this will help you if you are paying more attention to presentation than content.

In 1940 following Britain’s retreat from France, the country had its back to the wall. Equipment was in short supply. And there was a dreadful shortage of manpower. And so the British Army in a drive to improve the efficiency of its troops undertook a review of its operations and activities to see how it could be made more efficient, how it could do more for less. Sound familiar?

In the Royal Artillery it found that every gun came with a team of five gunners to load and fire it. And yet on review and having checked and re-checked their maths and sums and calculations the Army decided that the gun could be fired with four men, an instant saving of 20% if Cicero’s maths are correct. If not there will be someone out there with a more recent qualification in maths who will put us right.

Back to the guns.

There was now a surplus man. Sure he was busy. He was not doing nothing. But he was not critical to the firing of the gun. The gun could be fired without him. Not sure what he was doing. He might have been responsible for doing the washing up or doing manicures and pedicures or giving a massage but you will agree that none of this is critical to lobbying a shell a significant distance.

On investigation it was discovered that it was the job of this man to hold onto the horses so they were not frightened and bolt when the gun was fired. And of course by this time guns were no longer pulled by horses but no one had thought to tell this gunner who just found something else to do.
Sounds obvious, doesn’t it?

But how many times in our business and with our teams do we just seek to add incremental improvements to a process or just continue on doing things because that is way we have always done things without ever questioning whether the original purpose is still relevant. How many people do we have holding the horses in our business?

A week or so ago Cicero sat with some people wondering how something developed over 100 years ago could be improved. As the suggestions were flying in thick and fast, one bright spark asked not whether it needed improving but whether the thing still needed to be done in the first place. Would we invent it today if it did not exist? Great question and one that stumped everyone. Maybe we were still holding the horses.

And the great thing about this thinking is that is works as well for the big things as the small things. Sure it can help us decide if that business or product or key process is still necessary. But thinking like the gunners will help us deicide if that regular meeting we have which was urgent and necessary once upon a time is still required. And what about that report you churn out once a month to stop an issue that was critical an age ago. And what about that thing we ask our customers to do because we could not do it any other way at the time.

Let me give you an example. Do you know why you get told forcibly by some State Apparatchik on a form to write in black biro? It is not just to be officious, though there is that, but because once upon a time copiers could only copy black ink. No longer. But nobody has told the man designing the form who is still holding the horses. And so we get bossed about.

And so ask not how to improve things but ask instead whether or not the job still needs to be done in way it always has. Don’t look for the incremental but seek out the radical. And make sure you are not the one left holding the horses.

Is it only me……….but you would think that smokers might have the message by now.

As you know Cicero commutes vast distances every day to and from his VTTSB to ensure that you and your kith and kin might go about your business secure and protected. And every day somebody from somewhere on the train announces that it is verboten to smoke on this train. This of course seems to suggest that there are some trains on which you are not verboten to self asphyxiate which as we know is not the case as our nanny state has decreed that smoking is verboten everywhere there are other humans.

But we are digressing again………

Every day, on every journey and after every stop concentration and focus is disturbed, sleep broken and music interrupted while we listen to these pronouncements. Cicero reckons that he must hear these verbotens up to 12 times a day. Surely those have decided to turn their lungs into kippers have got the message now. Surely you must now understand that society has decreed that you are not wanted and that you must only exercise your habit behind closed doors and drawn curtains and only if no one else is present. Can you not take the hint? Do you really need to be reminded on every train journey that you are not wanted?

Silence is a wonderful and rare thing. If you cannot improve on silence then don’t try to. So stop telling me that smoking is verboten. This does not improve on silence.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.