After reading Dawud’s post on sparkplugging.com about the second most important question you can ask about your business, it got me to thinking, why do I do what I do? Let me tell you a story…

A story about “laziness”….

I don’t remember much about kindergarten, but I do have a few images seared into my brain. One day, we’re coloring things. I’m not sure when or how the insight hit me, but I discovered that if I used the crayons that had been stripped of their paper, I could finish in 1/4 of the time. How? I would first color a larger border around the lines as normal. Then I would lay the crayon on it’s side so I had, in effect, a huge surface to color with and could make large, sweeping strokes using the entire length of the crayon. In only a few strokes, I could color a massive area.

I was tickled pink with my cleverness. My teacher was not. I can’t tell you her name nor could I pick her out in a line-up anymore, but I can tell you what she said to me because it stuck with me all these years. She said, “Bobby, you can’t take short-cuts. Don’t be lazy. Do it like everybody else.” I grumbled, but did it “her way”.

Fast-forward to high school

I signed up for a computer programming class. Mostly because I already knew what I doing so I figured it would be an easy A. And it was - mostly. It was except for another confrontation with another teacher about the same thing…

On the first day, we were told that we would turn in a couple dozen programs to be graded for the year. We would have to submit a disk with our source code and compiled program, a printout of the code and most importantly, a printout of the output of our programs. Our grade hinged on how closely our output matched the expected output.

We were given our first assignment. Write a program that asked for your name and then it would print, “Hello, <name>” 15 times in a row. We were given an entire week to write it during class time. To me, this was a cake walk…so I played around until the last minute and pounded it out and turned in my assignment.

I got back the next Monday and the teacher handed the assignments back…

I got a B? How did I get a B!?

I couldn’t see anything wrong with my output! I talked with the teacher after class and again, a familiar conversation took place…

me: “Why did I get a B on this? My output is perfect?!?”

teacher: “Your output is fine, but you used a ‘for’ loop instead of writing the print statement 15 times in your code. I haven’t taught you how to do this yet and you missed the point of the assignment by circumventing the way I wanted you to do it.” [for those that don't understand this, I used a "loop" command to tell the computer to repeat the instruction to print 15 times rather than write the print instruction 15 times...much shorter and easier]

me: ::stunned look:: “You’re kidding me right? You said we were graded on our output. You’re telling me that I’m being penalized because I was aware of a better way to write the program?”

teacher: “it doesn’t matter if it’s better, it’s not the way I wanted you to do this particular assignment. Don’t be lazy. Just do the work Rob”

Fast-forward some more to my professional career

I had conflicts with my employer because they would sell some computer program for a fixed-fee, say 20 man-days worth. I would look at it and see a way to do it in 6 man-days. Then I would get in trouble because I “goofed-off” for the other 14 days.

What makes that so ironic is that we were writing software for companies to try and make their supply chains more efficient…to cut-out unnecessary movements, work smarter…yet I was being reprimanded for applying the same principles to my own work.

Stage3

I had teachers and other people telling me that I was lazy my whole life and I believed them.

Later, I realized that they were all wrong. I wasn’t lazy, I just couldn’t stand inefficiency. It would drive me mad if I had work any harder than necessary. I had let my teachers and employers beat my creativity out of me. I’d believed them that there was something wrong me because I was constantly searching for the shortcut, the easier road.

That’s not laziness…that’s a relentless obsession for efficiency and effectiveness.

When I started Stage3 Consulting, I struggled with what services I would offer my clients…there were so many things I could offer…I’ve done programming, I know web stuff, I’ve consulted on operations before, I’ve got an MBA where I concentrated on marketing and strategy, so I could offer that too. Then I realized that what I really can offer my clients is time.

What I really bring is my expertise in ‘laziness’ to their businesses, because I can’t help but do anything else.

Why do you do what you do?

Welcome back again!