Reading Seth Godin’s post, Vestiges, I couldn’t help but recall Robert Kriegel and David Brandt’s book Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers: Developing Change-Ready People and Organizations. Seth is correct to point out that all too often concern over vestigial aspects of our products or processes get impede progress. Psychological inertia is one the most common silent killers of innovation.
A process manufacturer wanted to rebuild a plant in order to increase their production capacity. When they began looking at the project, it was stated that all aspects of the process were open for modification except for one. A large mixing vat was viewed a being central to the production process. Yet, when asked why the vat was so critical to the process, none of the manufacturing engineers knew the answer. The vat’s mystique was based on legend lore that had long ago been lost. This realization opened the door to considering something radical.
The manufacturer began to rethink their view of the entire process, and found in that analysis that the sacred vat was in fact the source of a large number of manufacturing problems. The best path forward in redesigning their plant was to eliminate the mixing vat entirely.
Want to find truly high value, game changing innovations? Then dare to think the unthinkable.
How have you challenged entrenched thinking lately?
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