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Media Perspectives - Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Inertia
By Jaffer Ali
"The first rule of any technology used in a business is
that automation applied to an efficient operation will
magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation
applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the
inefficiency." ? Bill Gates
I began writing about business back when I still had hair
on my head. That, my friends, was a long time ago. I wish
I had more answers than questions and indeed, the more I
write, the less I seem to know. But anyone who's been in
business for more than a few years will notice that some-
thing dramatic has happened...
Everywhere we turn, we encounter the specter of inertia. I
looked up the word in a thesaurus and here are some of the
words used to it: inactivity, apathy, lethargy, inaction,
torpor. There were many more such synonyms, but you get
the idea.
Our business environment is characterized by inertia on so
many levels. What are the reasons, and why are they so
intertwined?
For openers, we have developed what I have termed an
"intermediary economy". With so few folks actually
producing "stuff", there are at least ten intermediaries
for each real producer in our economy. While the Internet
promised "disintermediation", the act of eliminating
intermediaries, a whole slew of them ? consultants,
agencies and even the technologies themselves ? still
remain and still propagate as unchecked as ever.
What do I mean about technology acting as an intermediary?
I mean that our tools often stand between those wishing to
do business with each other. Start with phone systems that
result in maybe one in ten calls actually being answered
by a live person. The rest gets digitized and filed away
for later action; action that often never materializes.
Our email stands as an intermediary technology. This
digital communication tool is now routinely either ignored
intentionally or confused with SPAM.
We have organizational tools designed to help us with the
growing glut of information. Our "knowledge stream" is
increasingly governed and managed by digital tools.
Customer service has been "automated" with technological
solutions that have replaced people, resulting in what
should more appropriately be called customer disservice.
Try getting in touch with someone at Twitter or Facebook.
These "social media" technological organizations are
decidedly anti-social as they are insulated ? more like
hermetically sealed ? from the great unwashed. As Bill
Gates said, we have applied technological solutions to
inefficient processes and magnified our inefficiencies.
By arming every intermediary layer of the economy with its
own technological tools we produce exponential friction
that stops us in our tracks. The resulting inertia creates
an atmosphere where the decision making process comes to
a crawl. I have read a slew of business books that tout
how FAST things change. This is true. But change happens
more and more through collapse and failure than through
deliberate decision. Decision-making processes that have
to fight their way through bureaucratic or intermediary
layers now take longer and longer to unfold, often taking
so long that other changes in the environment render them
impotent and irrelevant en route.
The question remains as to why we pursue such an inert
business philosophy. One culprit is fear. We have a
culture of fear. We fear terrorism. We fear sending our
kids to the playground. We fear making decisions because
we're afraid of being wrong. Much better to simply blame
it on the other guy, and with so many intermediaries
clogging the pipes there is plenty of blame to go around.
In the movie Dune, the Bene Gesserit cult knew that
"fear is the mind killer." Fear paralyzes. Of course,
intermediaries are by and large ruled by fear. They
can't afford to be wrong and thus busy themselves
creating more inertia that further distances them from
any real accountability for their role in the process.
Another culprit contributing to this inertia is the over-
whelming ubiquity of Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD.
We have so much information coming at us that we have
developed what the Zen masters call "monkey mind". This
is where our minds jump from one idea to the next as
monkeys jumping from tree to tree.
With such a seeming inability to focus or concentrate on
anything until the next bit of information further clouds
our consciousness, is it any wonder that decisions get
tangled in their own inertia-laden feet?
Fast paced change coupled with inertia is a thorny problem
to solve. The two seem incompatible until we understand
that they in fact feed ? and feed upon ? each other.
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Jaffer is the CEO of Vidsense and actually answers his
own phone when in the office! Even more amazing is that
he answers emails that are personalized. To email him,
send to j.ali@Vidsense.com or call him at 708-478-4500
ext. 105.
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