Build your Corporate Muscle Memory

I have posted before about the need for standards to allow us to focus on differentiating functionality and I have been thinking about this again since I have been working on a project in which standards are a big part.

Have you ever considered how as you learn something it become easier with practice, eventually become second nature? Watch a small child learn to walk and it is something that they have to really focus on at first. Then as we get older it is something that we simply take for granted. Does this make us expert walkers? Or do we just establish walking as a "dial tone" activity that we no longer need to think about?

Think about a chef. When they are first learning to do things they need to focus on every cut of a vegetable. But as they become an expert they no longer even measure a teaspoonful of salt. (BAM! Just watch an episode of Emeril Live and see how closely he holds to a written down recipe for an example.) A chef can do things without any concentration at all that many of us would require many times the time to do.

A runner or athlete is another good example. Runners develop muscles that work in very distinct ways. Their develop something called muscle memory that causes the muscles to introduce an actual change to how the muscles work. This change increases the level of accuracy and flexibility for running by optimizing the muscles for the repeated action. There is a trade off however, the muscles become very good at a certain set of items and less flexible for others. Because a runner is training to be a runner, not a gymnast this is a fine trade off.

Standards are similar in that we want to establish a Corporate Muscle Memory. It will require focus and concentration at first to do the new standard processes. It will also reduce flexibility to a certain extent in that there will be specific micro-processes that could become harder but the specialties become faster. But with the goal being to move as quickly as possible with agility towards the companies direct goals this is a trade off worth making.

Focusing our efforts on learning and optimizing according to standards allows is to build our Corporate Muscle Memory. We can then go faster and focus on differentiating functionality rather than dial tone. Just as with human ability companies ability needs to evolve over time and standards are no different. When the time comes to change a standard there will be a period of concentration required for us to develop that new Muscle Memory and for it to become second nature. But as we do whole new levels of speed and capability are possible.