Step out of line

A key challenge for anyone involved in learning and development is actually helping people to ‘unlearn’.

The problem is that, from an early age, we all become conditioned to respond in a certain way - and changing that conditioned behavior is not easy.

I recently encountered a prime example of this at London’s international train station, St Pancras. When you exit this very busy station, there’s a sign near the taxi rank that says: ‘Queue here’ - and everyone does. Every taxi stops precisely at the sign; every person queues the other side.  And consequently only one taxi loads at a time (despite there being hundreds of people waiting on an entire string of empty taxis right in front of them). By contrast to the long queue at St. Pancras, Paddington Station, another famous London train station, has nine taxi bays and an attendant ensures that each of them loads simultaneously – a seamless and efficient loading process. Someone has found a better way.

Why St. Pancras is set up this way I have no idea.  Why someone with any authority has never noticed the problem and addressed it, crazier still. But even more puzzling to me is the universal conformist human behavior that keeps everyone in line, even when the solution is so obvious. What is it that prevents a random collection of hundreds of people, from all walks of life, from stepping out of line?

From an early age we are taught – stay in line, toe the line, don’t cut in line. Hell, we’re not even allowed to color outside of the lines. Is it any wonder we are conditioned heavily against stepping out of line?

Are people in your organization rigidly adhering to a particular process because they’ve become conditioned to behave in a certain way? Do they continue that pattern even when a more efficient or logical solution is staring them in the face – just on the other side of the sign perhaps!

Step out of line occasionally. Noting that it is polite to explain to those around you why you are doing it.