My son is one of those kids that never wants to try a new food. I remember one instance when he was a few years younger: we were attempting to introduce him to apple pie. He said “I don’t like it!” Of course, this was despite the fact that he had never tried it. This is not uncommon with him.

After a lot of verbal back and forth trying to convince him to taste it I saw my opportunity. He was looking the other way, saying something to his sister, and I quickly placed the smallest piece imaginable in his mouth. He grimaced instinctively and expressed that he was affronted by my assault on his freedom of choice, but ultimately he decided it was very good. Within a short period of time apple pie became his idea; he would assert that he thought it would be a good idea to have it for breakfast in fact. I don’t disagree.

2020 was rife with unpleasantries for sure, but the success we have had as a remote workforce is pretty remarkable. I know some leaders that had embraced remote work prior to the events that have led to our current work from home circumstances, but a vast majority of people are experiencing the ups and downs of a home office because employers had no other option.

Go ahead Johnny Enterprise: roll out you benevolent ‘Agile Working’ plan with great fanfare. I’m going to pretend it is my idea when I finally forced to change the silly paradigms I’m hanging onto in my life too.

We have all heard the cliché “We don’t know what we don’t know”. There is a lesson we should be paying attention to here and it relates to business. I am 100% guilty of being just like my son in the aforementioned anecdote; I am certain that I still hang on to antiquated processes because they are “good enough.” I suspect that my son’s internal thoughts while he was declining my requests to try something new were something like: “I already have foods that I like: cookies, ice cream… I don’t need to try anything new.” 

What he didn’t realize, and what we don’t realize in so many circumstances, is that we are missing out on some pretty great stuff.