This quote is from Robert Anson Heinlein (1907-1988) [1], American science fiction writer, who was famous for his quotes. This one has many uses and interpretations, which fall on the unkind side. Applied to people, well, you get the message. But it also brings several messages to the table.
- Persist in doing something that will never produce fruit
- Having people (sorry, he said pigs) in the wrong jobs
- Being resilient for the sake of it, as opposed to ‘fail fast’ and move on
- How being stubborn is rarely a good idea
- The overall futility of pursuing wrong avenues and expecting them to turn out well
- How in many cases the only outcome is the duo ‘waste of time’ and ‘annoying somebody’.
Again, reliance is not stubbornness. One of the arts of leadership is to switch gears at the right time and being able to say: wrong path, sorry, now, this is next. Also to make sure people are in the right places (skills, competences). And knowing and finding out which ones these are is another leadership feature.
There is a common practice in many organizations that consists of moving people around jobs. It’s noble and useful for obvious reasons. But I have seen many times in my professional life, the abuse of this when people rotation becomes a mantra. Critical thinking should come first. In many cases, this mantra, does not ‘teach the pig to sing’ and the result is that they become very annoyed. Intellectual tourism around jobs may sound great, but it has its limits.
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Critical Thinking [2] Accelerator from The Chalfont Project:
Renew, transform, re-invent the way you do things. Organizations today need to look at better ways, alternative and innovative ways to change the status quo. It’s not about being radical for the sake of it. Only if you try radical ways will you be in a better position to find your ‘fit for purpose’ goals.
As Michelangelo said: ‘The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark’. He was a radical in the way we talk about it.
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At The Chalfont Project, we have crafted a short intervention on Critical Thinking [2]:
- Do you feel like you’re missing the time to reflect and makes changes?
- Do you feel like your team has fallen into bad habits, business is unproductive and no one takes ownership to change it?
In this short intervention we teach you and your team Critical Thinking methods and questions that will help you focus your time on the things that matter, make good and fair decisions and escape the dangers of human biases. We will also help you apply these methods to your everyday challenges in your organization.
You will learn about strategy acid tests and many mind fallacies, including various biases, and the practical Critical Thinking methods that you can use to address these.
This high impact, short intervention will:
- – challenge ways of thinking
- – provide immediate and trackable actions
- – drive change
- – develop a better way of functioning across the team, department or organization.