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One of the rituals of being in the Air National Guard comes each Saturday and Sunday around 11:15AM. You might call it lunch, but it is reminiscent of getting your plates renewed at the DMV. The line stretches around the room, and everyone has the same look in their eyes when they join in at the rear. It’s a sense of half futility and half desperation. You wonder if you should drive off the base to a local sandwich shop under the guise that it would be quicker. But by the time you get there, you would be through this line, so you stay. And if you are lucky, you can strike up a conversation with a person nearby who is asking the same question. Eventually the line does move and for the price of a signature, you receive a hot meal. It’s not gourmet, but it keeps you going for the rest of the day.

My friends and I would make the most of being in the line. We traded tech tips, talked about vacations and discussed our latest career strategy in the ever booming marketplace of IT. Some days the line goes quick, but usually we have solved the world hunger problem by the time we get up to “the desk”.

One weekend things went a bit different. The line was slow as usual but there was a new guy supervisinghe sign-in list at the desk. We had not seen him before, but judging from his age and the numerous stripes on his sleeve, he was a guy who was about to retire. We figured he had been put there to ride out his 20 years and would probably not be there for long. Everything went fine until I got up to the desk to sign for my ration of food for the day.

I reached for the pen and started to fill in the next blank, and he stopped me. “What are you doing?” He asked. I thought he was joking, so I continued to write my name and said, “Signing for my lunch..?” He reached and held the pen. I gave him a look of surprise (and anger) and said, “What?!”

His reply set the tone for every line I would stand in from then on: “The line isn’t moving yet; you are signing before you can move up…You should wait until there is a space for you to stand in, and then sign!” He barked. I paused for effect so my friends could anticipate my next move. About the time he finished his sermon on efficiency, the line moved and he released the pen, “now, see?-you can sign in”. He said condescendingly.  He then  pointed to the opening in front of me as if a light would go on and I would feel grateful for the wisdom he had imparted. Needless to say, I scribbled my name, moved up and looked back at my friends, knowing what was about to happen.

They had not caught the entire briefing, and naturally had to endure it like I did. I waited until we were out of ear shot and asked them, “Hey did you make it past the Line Nazi?” We laughed, we repeated the instructions several times, and all agreed that tomorrow we would bring broken pens, play deaf, and jump in and out of place to confuse he Line Nazi.

Slow lines do this to people; they reach a level of futility that demands some sort of reasoning. A line in itself is a circle, but I digress. A line is not a bad thing, it explains a process. Start here, end there. We stand in many lines in life. And not all of them make sense or have clear destinations.

How many times have you done something because everyone recommended it, or expected it?  Only to find a Line Nazi at the front who demanded you do things their way or else?! Wasn’t this what grade school was about? Start in kindergarten and come out as a senior?

In his book, “A whack on the Side of the Head” the author references a simple dot on a chalkboard. He asked a group of kindergarten children what it was and got almost 50 different ideas. “A squashed bug!”, “A bird’s eye view of a telephone pole!” on and on with ideas, the list was impressive.

He then asked the same question to a group of seniors and got three replies. None of them ventured far from the obvious, “A dot.” “A period”, etc. His conclusion, “We begin as question marks and finish as periods”. That is, there is only one right answer, so look no further than the obvious.

Like my buddy the Line Nazi, you don’t do anything until the process moves a notch. This mentality is pervasive in corporate cultures today. How many departments spend their time waiting for another to move up a space (do their job) so that they can do their part in the process of work? Accounting is waiting on Customer Service. Marketing is waiting on Accounting, and so it goes.

In this model, there is only one way to get things done, and those who step outside the lines are criticized for being creative. The process applauds the Line Nazi, ever vigilant, never questioned and quick to isolate those who do things outside the lines.

How many companies have found that paradigms like this are the true enemy? A report that everyone rushes to finish and get distributed was only needed for a contingency 5 years ago. No one even reads it, but they all file it just in case they have to refer to it later. The Line Nazi said it was important!

A PC replaced an antiquated system that required 220volt power, and a raised floor. Yet we have the air filters and halon fire extinguishers checked regularly because that is “required for the computers”. Everyone has the sense that the old way is the right way without question. One answer and one answer only!

Legacy network servers continue to run today simply because they have been so vital in the past. At one time, these were the flagships of the enterprise, able to run programs that needed massive power and storage. A desktop PC could not even open the programs without the server assisting. Yet today, the power on the desktop is cheaper and faster than most servers. In fact the server may only authenticate a log-in and deliver your email; the rest is done by the desktop. A complete reverse of the original client-server network! While everyone rushes to improve server performance in the name of speed, the desktop did something unheard of-it got faster, better and cheaper. Is there still just one answer?

Obviously the questions need to change before the answers will. For example, rather than asking how the computer can do more work for “me” maybe I should ask what the purpose of the work is. Is there a better way? Can I automate it, and who else uses the products I generate? How can they share in the process so that we don’t reinvent the wheel at each stage?

There will always be a line and you will stand in it. But, ask why you are in the line and what you hope to achieve by going through it. The line should be questioned each time you join in. The report you look for, the file you review, the form you sign, each of these are a line, a beginning and ending called work.

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