Breaking Free from Groupthink
The tendency for us
to participate in groupthink can lead to stifling our ability to see things
from a different perspective. Then sometimes, I suffer from an inclination to
see things from a different perspective first, before seeing the blatantly obvious.
As readers of my blog
might have observed in my debunking of the half-glass-full or half-glass-empty
debate, this only matters in what is in the glass. You cannot judge my sense of
optimism or pessimism from the notion of the glass without examining its contents.
The Contents Matter
Most
If the glass contains
fine wine, it would likely be half empty because I am enjoying the drink and,
by inference, it will remain half full, or full, if I cannot abide the taste,
quality, or bouquet of the wine poured in it.
My wine example could
spark debate about whether I am proving my point or demonstrating confirmation
bias, yet it is in what the glass contains that we can deduce the state. Just
as if I knew the glass contained poison, it would remain half full.
This morning, in an
engagement with a colleague, he expressed concern that an activity might cause
a bottleneck. Here again is the tendency in all definitions to see a bottleneck
as a problem.
Reframing the
Bottleneck
According to the AI
Overview my browser provided, “A bottleneck is a point of congestion in a
system—such as production, software, or computing—where a single component's
limited capacity restricts the overall speed, throughput, or performance.
Similar to the narrow neck of a bottle, it causes delays, reduces efficiency,
and creates backups, often requiring the slowest part to be upgraded or
optimised to improve the entire process.”
Without thinking
twice about it, I responded, “Bottlenecks are good; they make the difference
between getting the drink in the glass and spilling it everywhere.” Surely,
that is a beneficial feature of bottlenecks and the reason why we do have real
bottlenecks, as opposed to bottlenecks in application, production, or business
processes, on computers, or in networks or traffic.
Those versed in
systems thinking might, in this case, distinguish between designed constraints
(intentional bottlenecks), which follow my response, and emergent ones (system
failures), which engender the broader definition.
Reconsidering
Received Wisdom
There might be other
situations where the restriction of flow helps direct and concentrate resources
to achieve an aim. These are worth considering further.
The other argument
might suggest that the definition of bottleneck has evolved well beyond its
original meaning. Just remember, when happy and gay literally meant the same
thing.
Yet the situations
where received wisdom suggests the negative deserve review from another
perspective. There is often more to it than what we have been schooled to
accept as the only truth.
Blog - Half
of a quarter full of an eighth empty (October 2004)
Blog - Pour
the wine and don't you whine (May 2024)
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