How Shortcuts Short-circuit Culture

In this morning’s Tai Chi class, my instructor Rich was explaining the concept of The Exception Proves the Rule. In Tai Chi this means that there is a particular way to do a form that is the accepted way to do it. Rich sometimes also calls it the Chi-full way. The less Chi-full way might feel easier, or appear higher or longer, but is ultimately not the proper way.

This got me thinking about how this applies in Business. When a company culture is based on a set of principles there is a way to do things that goes along with and supports the guiding principles of that culture. For instance, it is part of the culture of Quantious to start a meeting by grounding and connecting the participants. We consciously fully arrive at the meeting through a moment of silence (or other grounding practice) then share something personal about ourselves or our experiences. Our meetings that start this way are meatier and get to the heart of the matter much better than meetings where we skip this step in a rush to get to the details.

When we take a shortcut and don’t remember to do this, we notice that the meeting is missing something (intention or soul?) and doesn’t get us where we’re trying to go.

And if you think about it, shortcuts are called shortcuts for a reason. If the shortcut didn’t cost you something then it would have already become “the way”.