Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!

I was meeting with a potential client recently to discuss how I might help them with their data management strategy. During the discussions, the person I was meeting with made a comment along these lines: Weve been working hard on these issues. Theres always a lot of work being done. My response was Yes, but is it the right kind of work? Just because youre in motion does not mean youre doing the right things. He replied: Doing something is better than doing nothing. Not true. Sometimes its better to just stand there, and NOT do anything. (In reality, its better to redirect the resources.) This reminds me of the healthcare debate going on in the US right now. Many proponents of the current healthcare proposals before Congress have argued that This is better than nothing; we must do something! But if what youre proposing is actually going to cause more harm than good, is it really best that we just do something? For example, if the current healthcare proposals expand coverage but actually cause insurance rates to rise and lowers the quality of care, is that a good thing?  As Ive written in other places, every decision we make in life is a trade off. So when we do something were making a trade for something else. Usually the trade is that were putting people and resources to work on something in place of something else. So if doing something is better than doing nothing, what were really saying is doing this is better than doing that. So how do we know when we should just stand there, and not do anything? Its a matter of objectives and measures. That is, you have to have clear objectives (i.e., what are you trying to accomplish?) and clear measures for knowing whether or not you have accomplished what you set out to do. In the case above, the objectives were unclear, there were no real measures of success, and thus doing anything probably was not time spent wisely. In their case, just standing is probably better than doing something. So the next time you think We have to do something! make sure youve got clear objectives and measures before you put yourself and others to work. Sometimes its better just to stand there.

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