Creating chaos out of order
Most of us are quite familiar with the safety rap that you get o most airlines. In fact, it doesn't change much from airline to airline or language to language.
"Your safety belt is fastened by inserting the metal clip in here. And it is undone by lifting here..."
I'm on an Air Canada flight and they are making a complete mess of it.
I think they have a old script: "Please don your life vest by placing it..." (Who dons things these days?) And they can't seem to get through it. There aren't stewards or stewardesses standing where there ought to be. The Captain asks them to "check all the doors and cross-check" part way through.
So, I am wondering what the effect is on people when the simple and mundane stop working? When common processes break down?
I am leaving London for a few weeks' holiday, and I am leaving a city that is losing it's natural rythm. Yesterday when the firecrackers when off on three tubes and a bus no one really knew what to do.
We didn't feel like watching it on TV, like we had a few weeks before. We had better office emergency measures in place than two weeks before. And the company spoke to us as employees many more times over the course of the day than they had two weeks before.
So even London's emergency situation had become the routine. What was lost was out regular daily routine. Getting to and from work. Twice in as many weeks it all had to be done again and differently.
In a city where travel to and from work is a regular source of complaint and endless story-telling, we all had to think of new ways to do old things. We had to actually think creatively about our commute again.
All this to say that neither routine -- airline safety briefings or public transit London -- are very highly thought of. We roll our eyes at the safety briefings and complain about our commutes. But when they change or become unavailable we get nervous. In communications the same can be said. You often hear leaders saying... "If they don't like the newsletter/ briefing/ management conference, let's just get rid of it. Then they'll be happy."
Not so. Even bad routines are routines. If you are going to replace them, do so respectfully, and with a lot of forethought.
"Your safety belt is fastened by inserting the metal clip in here. And it is undone by lifting here..."
I'm on an Air Canada flight and they are making a complete mess of it.
I think they have a old script: "Please don your life vest by placing it..." (Who dons things these days?) And they can't seem to get through it. There aren't stewards or stewardesses standing where there ought to be. The Captain asks them to "check all the doors and cross-check" part way through.
So, I am wondering what the effect is on people when the simple and mundane stop working? When common processes break down?
I am leaving London for a few weeks' holiday, and I am leaving a city that is losing it's natural rythm. Yesterday when the firecrackers when off on three tubes and a bus no one really knew what to do.
We didn't feel like watching it on TV, like we had a few weeks before. We had better office emergency measures in place than two weeks before. And the company spoke to us as employees many more times over the course of the day than they had two weeks before.
So even London's emergency situation had become the routine. What was lost was out regular daily routine. Getting to and from work. Twice in as many weeks it all had to be done again and differently.
In a city where travel to and from work is a regular source of complaint and endless story-telling, we all had to think of new ways to do old things. We had to actually think creatively about our commute again.
All this to say that neither routine -- airline safety briefings or public transit London -- are very highly thought of. We roll our eyes at the safety briefings and complain about our commutes. But when they change or become unavailable we get nervous. In communications the same can be said. You often hear leaders saying... "If they don't like the newsletter/ briefing/ management conference, let's just get rid of it. Then they'll be happy."
Not so. Even bad routines are routines. If you are going to replace them, do so respectfully, and with a lot of forethought.
posted by /df at 11:40 AM
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