Information Technology Dark Side

Several years ago I bought a Mini Cooper. It was extremely fun to drive, particularly on the two round-abouts on the way to and from work. It zigged. It zagged. It zoomed around that circle. I loved it, but… rear-facing child seats won’t fit behind a guy who is 6′ tall in one of those things, particularly if that guy is married to a girl who is 5’11″. You know what happened next.

I gave up the roundabouts when I got the old Honda. It didn’t quite corner like the Cooper. Truthfully, nothing would, and now that I have an Outback it’s even less zoomy on the roundabouts than the Honda was.

I still think about those roundabouts every now and then as I take my faster, more direct, and totally boring route home each day. Occasionally I will pull up to a stop sign and let out a sigh as I come to a complete stop, check both ways, and then resume on my way. Why do I love roundabouts? It’s not just because of the g’s you can pull. It’s also because they are so dang efficient and self-managing. They are a perfect example of an agile approach to an intersection, contrasted with a stop sign or stop light, which is a process-driven approach to an intersection.

Yes, thinking about stop signs and stop lights this deeply makes me a total geek, perhaps to the point where no normal person will be able to relate to me. So, I’ll spare you the gory analysis and get down to the moral of the story: the roundabout is driven by natural incentives, whereas the stop sign is driven by artificial incentives. I think this is one of the essential beauties of any process that really works, and I will list the principles I have come up with regarding natural incentives, all of which are inspired by the simplistic beauty of the roundabout:

Principles of Natural Incentives

I’d like to see more natural incentives at the workplace. More roundabouts, and less stop signs.

Stumble it!