The Story of the Remote Control

Audio with Captions:

Transcript:

[00:00:00] I recently had a team that was making every effort to streamline, but kept tripping down the merry path of needing everything to be essential in their process. So I felt it was time for a story. Of course I did. When don't I use a good story to illustrate a point?

[00:00:17] I asked them, " have I told you the story about the remote control? After all, I don't want to become like my grandfather who had the same repertoire of stories, his entire life. So here's the story.

[00:00:31] A young man went to see his Gran every Sunday. And she always wanted him to watch her programs with her. One Sunday, he turned up and he couldn't find the remote control for the TV.

[00:00:42] He asked his Gran and she said, "Oh, don't bother with that stupid thing. It never works. Just turn on the set while you're up." He turned it on so as not to ruffle feathers and then searched for the remote, figuring it was something trivial that he could just sort why they watched the tele. He found the remote in a drawer by his Gran's chair and clicked the volume and it worked.

[00:01:05] He told his Gran as much on the commercial break. She said "no. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does it and I just can't be bothered. It won't hurt either of us to get up and adjust the set." Hearing this feedback, he replaced the batteries, thinking they were starting to go.

[00:01:24] The next visit he returned for their Sunday evening time together. And again, Gran said the remote was on the fritz and she was just done with it. And hadn't, they all survived before those fancy gizmos. Anyway, again, he picked up the remote and it worked. But he let her have her way and handed the remote back to her.

[00:01:45] Feeling exasperated. She said, "see, this doesn't work." as she started pushing buttons. As he watched her, he figured out what was happening. She was pressing the wrong buttons and her arthritic fingers were only making it worse. But in watching her struggle, it dawned on him that most of the buttons were useless to the average person.

[00:02:07] Who had decided on the red, green, yellow, and blue buttons, what do they even do? How do you use the ones that looked like VCR controls, but also have words above them. By the way I owe the team an answer on these important questions, the risk, when you tell a story.

[00:02:24] Now, why did I tell this story to the team today?

[00:02:28] They were trying to come up with their standard forms needed for their process and kept adding, "but we might need X, Y, Z" to the discussion. So we discussed the remote control and how 80% of it has no value to the general population. And if they continue down the path, they were going, the process they were creating was going to get bloated and ineffectual to most of the people they were serving.

[00:02:51] But more importantly, it was going to cost them precious processing time for the what ifs of maybes. The outcome was that they were to put a magnifying glass to everything they added and ensure it belonged for the masses. And then they would create a library of add-on clauses and they would add them as they come up so that in the future, they had a standard list of exceptions as well.

[00:03:16] How do you encourage your teams to focus on what adds value and leave the rest behind?

Now as any good storyteller will tell you, the story changes in the telling from time to time and the same story serves many purposes. So if you want to find out what the grandson did to help his Gran with the use of the remote control and a bit more on why we shared this not once but twice, check out an oldie but a goodie in our blog library, Delivering Value.

And then hop on over to our FREE resource library and check out more gems as well as our group coaching, masterclasses, and intensive offsites.

Learn More

About the Author:

INDRA A. BOOKS

Connect with us