Shipulski On Design

Doing what you did last works well, right up until it doesn’t.

When you put 100% effort into doing what you did last time and get 80% of the output of last time, it’s time to do something different next time.

If it worked last time, but the environment or competition has changed, chances are it won’t work this time.

You can never step in the same river twice, and it’s the same with best practices.

Doing what you did last time is predictable until it isn’t.

The cost of trying the same thing too often is the opportunity cost of unlearned learning, which only comes from doing new things in new ways.

Our accounting systems don’t know how to capture the lost value due to unlearned learning, but your competition does.

Doing what you did last time may be efficient, but that doesn’t matter when it becomes ineffective.

Without new learning, you have a tired business model that will give you less year on year.

If you do what you did last time, you slowly learn what no longer works, but that’s all.

The best practice isn’t best when the context is different.

It’s not okay to do what you did last time all the time.

If you always do what you did last time, you don’t grow as a person.

If you do what you did last time, there are no upside surprises but there may be downside surprises.

Doing what you did last time is bad for your brain and your business.

How much of your work is repeating what you did last time? And how do you feel about that?

If you are tired of doing what you did last time, what are you going to do about it?

Might you sneak in some harmless novelty when no one is looking?

Might you conspire to try something new without raising the suspicion of the Standard Work Police?

Might you run a small experiment where the investment is small but the learning could be important?

Might you propose trying something new in a small way, highlighting the potential benefit and the safe-to-fail nature of the approach?

Might you propose small experiments run in parallel to increase the learning rate?

Might you identify an important problem that has never been solved and try to solve it?

Might you come up with a new solution that radically grows company profits?

Might you create a solution that obsoletes your company’s most profitable offering?

Might you bring your whole self to your work and see what happens?

Image credit – Marc Dalmulder

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