Friday 18 January 2013

snow makes decision making simple


 
Another few cms of frosted water lands across the UK and Britain stops. We love a good snow drama and no doubt the papers will produce similar headlines to what they did last year.

No it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone in the UK that the snow has fallen/is falling. We obsess about the weather here on a daily instance. All conversations start with it and should you want to be a spy for a foreign country, please just strike up a conversation with us about the climate and we’ll suspect nothing.

That all said, the drop in temperature seems to do something to our powers of thinking, analysis, perspective and problem solving. Look no further than the data to draw your own interpretations.

The number of people whose car won’t start and/or get into trouble requiring rescue call out will be in its THOUSANDS.

The number of people who cancel meetings or work from home will be in its THOUSANDS.

Schools will close, shops will shut yet we’ll all have a valid (but irrational reason really) for doing so.

I have a theory that our brains ability to think about the future is high jacked at the mention of snow.  We take the path of least resistance.

We could check the car battery and pull it out of the car and into the house to keep warm and put die-icer in the doors locks to stop them freezing and a blanket on the windscreen to stop the frost. We could email and text everyone at the meeting tomorrow in advance to make sure that we’re all making special effort to get in and manage our travel and physicality so that we arrive on time, in a good mental state, prepared and ready to go; like any other given day. We can also ensure our children have adequate plans to get home without us.

This requires effort, energy and forethought.

Instead we cancel the day and play snowballs.

 

I think there is a great deal of learning in our snow approach if we lifted the DNA of ‘least resistance’ to other aspects of our lives when it comes to solving problems. Does the ppt. need ANOTHER page, do we need to involve yet ANOTHER stakeholder, do we need to ask yet ANOTHER boss and ‘just run things by him just in case’. The answer is no.

It’ll always be no.

And those who disagree are the ones who aren’t having fun right now in the soft blanket of happiness that’s just landed outside....

 

 

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