Less convenient, but worth it

Among the phrases I hear from clients when looking back over our time working together:

“It seems so obvious..now”

“When I look back to where we were a year ago I can scarcely believe how far we’ve come”

Also, phrases I often use at the start of working with a client include:

“Slow down now to speed up later”

“Trust the process”

Clients come to me looking not for incremental and easy gains and changes, but for a “What’s Next” that has a Massive Impact and feels a little scary.

Though along the way there are always insights that are actionable and have measurable and high “ROI”, often the big shifts comes from taking time to look at source beliefs, behaviours, cultures, decisions that drive the activities and so outcomes that the business gets.

As another saying goes: “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten”, or, as I am fond of stating, the six most dangerous words in business are “we’ve always done it this way”.

Now to a recent blog post from the inestimable Seth Godin. Oh, and if you agreed with Seth that some things are worth doing not because they are “easier and more convenient” but in fact exactly because they are “less convenient, but worth it”, call me to discuss your “What’s Next”. By the way, if you are ready for that, my role is also to make that process easier and faster than it otherwise would be!. Over to you, Master Godin:

Harder, easier and more convenient
Consider the windows on a car.

First, they were manually clipped into place.

And then they were hand-rolled into position. But that was too difficult.

So the electric window was born.

But holding your finger on the button for 10 seconds was onerous, so now, it’s automatic.

It’s easy to see the trend toward convenience in many areas of our lives. Tim Wu has pointed out that people will trade privacy, money or friendships in exchange for convenience.

But…

There’s a countertrend. Sourdough is far less convenient than buying a loaf of Wonder bread. Running a marathon is less convenient than driving to wherever it is you’d like to go. And the best programmers still code by hand, even though there are plenty of apps that would make it easier to create average user interactions.

The battle for most convenient is fierce. It might be easier to stake out your claim to interactions and products that are less convenient, but worth it.