Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I am a problem solver. Sometimes, however, solving a problem is the worst thing to do.

This story made the rounds recently about how our military is experimenting with small jolts of electricity to keep sleep-deprived troops awake. The electricity might have fewer bad side affects than the current treatment — lots of coffee or Jolt Cola or Red Bull or that Five Hour drink thing.

Then again, the military might try to eliminate the problem of sleep-deprived soldiers. I mean, why are we depriving our troops of needed sleep? Surely, better management of resources could, well, you know, allow them to sleep as needed.

I go back to a morning conversation many years ago. A colleague’s father was once a cook in the Army (back to our military, see a trend here?). His troops were spending lots of time and cleaning products removing spilled sugar at the coffee station from the mess hall along with killing the pests that the sugar attracted. My colleague’s father threw away the sugar at the coffee station. No one spent any more resources cleaning spilled sugar or chasing pests.

He eliminated the problem vice solving it.

As in the case of sleep-deprived soldiers, eliminating problems requires innovation by managers. And that, is rare.