Just in Case
Just in case. When packing for a travel, what did we add to the bag as we said, “just in case?” Did we sufficient “in case” stuff that we paid extra weight fees for our baggage? When walking into the closet and seeing a wardrobe assortment spanning 6 years and 50 pounds ago, do we hesitate before reaching for something to put into the give-away bag saying, “maybe I’ll wear it keep it, just in case?” How about the files we keep in our desk drawer or in a section of our hard drives, just in case? Do any of the books on our shelf look brand new and unopened after a decade of taking up space, but we keep them, just in case? Are we saving five year old magazines for “when I have some time to read them?”
When setting standards or targets for performance, how large are the “safety cushions” of time we put between when we are done and when it is due, just in case? When preparing a presentation, how many additional slides do we build with details and tangential data, just in case? When ordering materials, printing out decks for a meeting, ordering food for a meeting, setting inventory levels, how much do we add for just in case? Just in time belongs to the confident, but just in case belongs to the fearful. How about our staffing and resource loading? Do we staff up for not coming up short on a peak day, just in case, then find things to do on the slack time?
Management by “just in case” is expensive. Not only is it expensive in inventory, it is costly in added complexity, capability decay, waste, but actually the creation of resource scarcity and often very poor fit. Just in case becomes the catch all phrase for the uncertainties in life, be they rational or irrational, be they quantified or not. How often do we ask the question, what will this cost in opportunity if the just in case doesn’t happen? There are plenty of data and tools that abound to rationally address tangible inventory and the science of supply chain management can transform much of the visible.
Let’s think about the opportunities lost because of just in case.
- What did we not do while spending our time on just in case?
- What did we not consider that was relevant because of the focus on the irrelevant baggage of just in case?
- How much of our focus is dulled because of lugging lots of just in case in our minds or in front of our eyes?
- How many resources sat idle in the wrong place on the wrong topic while we ran into scarcity where it counted because of just in case?
- How much time and how many resources did we tie up or consume on training too many on too much because it was easier to deploy something to a shotgun approach, just in case?
It’s a challenge. Focus is hard and hard choices are what engage our brains and challenge our habits. We may be at a really interesting fork in our lives. It may well be the fork where the direction we chose will require all of the focus, discipline and follow-through we can muster to succeed.
- How much baggage can we afford to bring along?
- Do the reasons or fears that determined what we brought along for “just in case” still determine what we should bring along for tomorrow?
- What are the factors that should determine tomorrow’s just in case?
- Are they determined by the consequences of what happened last time?
- How does the virtual and connected world change all of this?
