How does traffic relate to your organisational culture
Arthur Carmazzi from the streets of Pune, India
And I’d like to bring your attention to traffic… and for that matter, being STUCK in traffic. Why does traffic actually happen? If you actually think about it, each automobile actually takes about 2 to 3 seconds to move before the one in front of it. So basically, if you have 30 cars in front of you, the 31st car is going to be waiting about 2 seconds for every car, which means it will wait 1 minute before it can even START to move. Now have you ever been waiting 1 minute in traffic? It feels like a long time because by the time you get to the stoplight, by that time, it has already turned red again and you’re frustrated before you even arrive at your destination… then when you finally do arrive… how effective will you be?
Well, consider that on the way to your destination, on the way to your objective, essentially, you are worrying about getting there and the frustration comes because your goal is there but you’re not really achieving it because you’ve got all of these obstacles. Now, consider your organizational culture. What kind of traffic does your organizational culture create? What kind of bureaucracy are you creating? How many levels of decisions are making you wait and get frustrated before you finally reach your objective? Often times, people are so worried about getting things right that they take no action, the decision making process takes longer, and then of course, there’s multiple levels of decisions. So then people get frustrated when they get frustrated because, essentially, they’re not achieving their objectives, because it takes too long.
Now, here’s the thing: any kind of action is better than waiting too long because if you take an action, at least you are able to determine in advance, what kind of result you’re starting to get. So if it’s the wrong decision, you can adjust it, but at least people are moving. You know how you feel good when you’re moving in traffic? It’s the same thing when it comes to decision making. What kind of an organizational culture do you have? One where people are basically waiting and making each other frustrated, which drops engagement because you’re basically just feeling like you’re stuck in traffic, or one that is at least moving forward? Drop the bureaucracy, make faster decisions, create a corporate culture that moves towards objectives.
Arthur Carmazzi wishing you great success.
See Arthur Carmazzi on Wikipedia
