Two Minute Drill: The Value of Experimentation
What’s up Kaizenovators, happy Tuesday Two Minute Drill. Today’s topic of conversation is experimentation. A few weeks ago, I needed to take my little puppy, Hannah, up to the vet. I live in D.C. and had to take her up north to a town called Germantown, which is about an hour away. Unfortunately, it was during rush hour and traffic was really, really bad.
Learning from Experiments
Even though I left really early, it looked like I wasn’t going to get there on time. So, instead of paying attention to what Google Maps was telling me, I decided to experiment. I tried a different route to see if I could “beat the clock”. Well, that experiment failed. It didn’t go very well.
I was significantly later than I probably would’ve been had I just followed Google, but I thought I could outsmart it. Speaking of trying to outsmart the system, this past Sunday I was coming back from Austin at my awesome Ultimate Achievers Club event, and my airline informed us that our plane was delayed because of maintenance.
I’ve had experiences in the past where maintenance sometimes means it gets canceled. So, I decided to move myself to a later flight. I was originally supposed to take off at 11:45. I moved to a later flight that was supposed to take off at around 5:30, thinking at least this flight wouldn’t get canceled. Well, not only did my original flight take off at around five, but my flight that I moved to ended up taking off at around 11:15 at night, and I didn’t get home until about 3:30 in the morning.
What does all this mean? I make bad decisions. I should just go with the flow. I think the lesson I’m learning from all this is that life is just a series of experiments. Sometimes those experiments go well, and sometimes they don’t. The question is, are we learning from those experiments?
I encountered traffic again today. I wanted to get to my Rockville office quickly. It was going to take longer than expected, but I took a different route than what Google told me to take. You know what? I got here at about the same time. Sometimes experiments work, and sometimes they don’t.
The key is, can we learn not only directly from that initial experiment that we’re conducting in front of us, but can we learn from the experiments over time? So, I don’t know if I have an answer for you.
I would love to hear what you guys think. Are you experimenting? Are you trying things? Are you just going with the flow? Because I think there’s a lot of wisdom to be gained here, so I’d love to hear what you guys think. So, experimentation is life.
That’s this week’s Two Minute Drill. You guys, have a great week.
Your questions and feedback are always welcome and appreciated!
Connect with us on Instagram or email us at [email protected]