So this weekend summer finally arrived in the UK. I put a hammock up and deeply enjoyed lying in it for a time to relax.
To me I’ve always loved hammocks, always loved lying in them to celebrate summer weather (or, tbh, “christmas breeze” weather in Cayman when it is cool enough to lie in a hammock!)
This, to me, is a tradition worth keeping. People have lain in hammocks for thousands of years in many cultures and locations. Hammocks are timeless, I see no need to innovate in that area.
However, a tradition can also be something that we hold onto for too long. Another way of saying this is that I consider the “six most dangerous words in business” to be:
- We’ve
- Always
- Done
- It
- This
- Way
As an example, another thing I did over the weekend was submit an application to be a board director of a public body.
It is noteworthy that I only heard about this as it was brought to my attention by several people within a day or so, along with a photo of an advertisement in a newspaper. I then went to the websites of two relevant public bodies involved in this and found what? Zero mention of this board opening on their websites. It turns out that the law relevant to this position was passed only in 2019, yet the still required positions to be advertised in “newspapers in wide circulation”. It seems, the relevant bodies, perhaps so as to play it safe, chose not to further publicise the opening. I note again this is for a public body. I can see the relevance of such advertising perhaps as recently as a decade ago, but for a law drafted in 2019?
Sometimes traditions do need to change with the times.
With that, back to my hammock.