THE ALIEN TEST
“Have you tried the Theakston’s Old Peculiar yet?”
It’s a Friday evening, a few years ago. I’m sitting on the train, heading into North London to go to a beer festival. Good conversation (and beer of course) are in prospect.
Sitting opposite me are a bunch of guys clutching beer glasses and programmes for the festival. Evidently this will not be their first evening at the beer festival this week. They are comparing notes. “Theakston’s Old Peculiar”, by the way, is a beer. Will it be part of their upcoming evening? That’s the discussion.
I meet my brother at the beer festival. It’s being held in a large tent in a field, where as well as drinking beer we do indeed enjoy good conversation.
After a while, we need to walk across the field to another tent labelled “Toilet” where we get rid of the beer. Then we walk back to the first tent and repeat the exercise. As the evening progresses, our trips across the field become more frequent.
At some point, inspired (?) by the type of revelation often brought on by beer we observe:
“If an alien landed right now, they would have no idea what we are doing, or why”.
I’m calling this “The Alien Test” and beer festivals fail it..
I was reminded of this recently by my son Phil. We were both involved in a children’s holiday in the South of England. Phil has been a leader of the holiday for many years. I’m just a cook (that may be overstating my talents). It’s a holiday that has been going around forty years and over that period has built up a lot of traditions.
We’re watching a particular activity when Phil says “I have no idea why we do this. In fact there’s a lot of things we do here that feel like that”.
New leaders on the holiday often have no idea why things are done in a particular way. Maybe these activities don’t pass the Alien Test either.
So that’s beer festivals. And 40 years old children’s holidays.
Now let’s switch focus. Let’s talk about the place where you work
Incredibly efficient, with constant review of what works and what doesn’t, and reflection on why you do things a certain way?
In effect, frequent application of the Alien Test?
Have you ever invited an Alien in to take a look.? Someone who is not from your world.
Someone who can ask awkward questions about why you do it this way, why you’ve made it so complex, what exactly it is you are trying to do here?
Aliens can be expensive of course. So maybe just try thinking like one for a while.
After all, wouldn’t it be a shame if much of what you do just ends up going down the toilet?
A bit like the beer, but without the fun.
FANCY A SLIGHTLY LONGER READ?
Maybe try one or more of the books
