Organizational flaws and a bitter shortage of Milkshake Moments.

In his lovely new book The Milkshake Moment: Overcoming Stupid Systems, Pointless Policies and Muddled Management to Realize Real Growth, business growth consultant Steven Little manages to put his finger right on the weak pulse of my college's problems.

He describes a strange little experiment he's been conducting unofficially at numerous hotels in which he calls room service and asks for a milkshake (his favorite thing of all things) even though it's not on the menu. Almost invariably he is met with a worried and hurried, "Sorry, sir, we don't have milkshakes." At this point the dialog goes like this:

"Do you have ice cream?"
"Yes."
"Okay, do you have milk?"
"Yes."
"Then please bring me a bowl of ice cream, half a glass of milk, and a long spoon."

Once the ingredients arrive, he makes his own milkshake and wonders what makes organizations restrict their members so much that creative problem solving is pretty much stifled.

At Hunter College, bureaucracy is the rule of the land, even though no one can quite figure out what the rules are. Limited power for each member of this thick web leads to crankiness and a zombie-like state of apathy, and dumb policies lead to chaos and frustration.

Little's lesson? Don't be afraid to challenge the beast. Question stupid policies and demand explanations. And within the organizations that you run: beware that growth often leads to more and more rule making and structuring. Make sure the rules you have make sense and that they serve to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of each member. And have milkshakes whenever you can.

A lot of them.

Comments

[Megan Millisor]

I was going to write something really thought provoking and insightful here... but I couldn't stop looking at the picture and now all I can think of is how much I want a chocolate milkshake. Maybe I'll come back after I've gotten one and try that insightful stuff again. :)

[Kevin Prentiss]

Right-o.

What's the difference between effective challenging and ineffective challenging?

I've been in meetings or discussion where one or two people are questioning the system when the rest of the group is trying to brainstorm about working in the system.

This often creates conflict between the people who see the big picture (and want to fix it) and the people who just want to "get something done."

How can someone challenge/fix the system and still maintain rapport and influence with the system and others who don't see the big picture?

[Tania]

Megan--har har. I guess you're still in search of that milkshake!

Kevin--that's a great point. I think that in that case it's a "time and place" issue. Some meetings should be big picture focused and some should be focused on immediate problem solving. So in your example, maybe the big picture people can say, "Look folks, we're frustrated because we feel like the solutions we're coming up with now, while extremely important, don't address this problem long term. Who's up for getting together next week to talk about our overall strategy?"

In an ideal world everyone will nod enthusiastically, applaud, and maybe even break out in synchronized song and dance (okay, maybe that's just my ideal world), but in reality this may need some require some extra persuasion, but in my experience so far it seems to work. Thoughts?

[Tania]

Milkshake Moment update: I filled out a form last week to apply for a summer course at another University and promptly received a rejection stating that I had provided too much information. To have my application considered, I had to remove the unnecessary SENTENCE and apply again. Why or why couldn't they just ignore the sentence?

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