“Think of how stupid the average person is… …and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

George Carlin

Some stupid stuff I done did

• Drinking from a Deming mug, with quotes on, for years. In meetings I would strategically place the quote side towards the person opposite me, thinking I was subtly influencing them. Nothing says ““Hey, I’m normal and it’s normal, come join me!” like a dirty tea mug with a photo of some dead stranger on it.
• Sticking a photo of Brad Pitt up next to my desk with a speech bubble coming from his mouth saying “The first rule of systems thinking is…” God, the irony is so meta it burns.
  
• As a Christmas treat invite the whole office to watch some Deming DVD, it’s slow in the office a few days before Christmas so they virtually all accept. Then lose the DVD.  And I’d promised them all popcorn. They’ll all come to the next one, right?
• Sent 2 directors to Edinburgh to see John Seddon speak, not accompany them thinking , “well, I agree so what’s the point?”. Yes. There’s no point in having 2 directors all to yourself on a long train journey, fresh from being Seddonised.
• “Systems thinking can’t be learnt from a book, oh no, you have to have a normative experience learning from presented demand in the work“. Yes. Wait, what?
• Pile up books on my desk to signal to everybody that systems thinking wasn’t theoretical rocket science for propeller heads. Oh.
• Send long garbled emails to managers in response to latest directive informing them point by point where they are going wrong. Bullet points, mind. Everyone likes being refuted by bullet point.
• Open my mouth and talk words about systems thinking.

Howdy!  I’m with stupid, who are you with?