About 25 years ago – right before I got married – my bride-to-be and I were sitting in the kitchen of my future in-laws. As we sat, my mother-in-law was preparing a dinner of pot roast which, given her middle-America upbringing, shouldn’t be a surprise at all. As I slowly sipped on my Shiner Bock, I noticed that she had cut off about one inch of meat off of either side and simply discarded it in the trash. I sat there silently and tried to logically process why what just happened even transpired in the first place:
Perhaps the roast was slightly past the “use by” date and the ends needed to be trimmed
Possibly she felt the ends were simply too fatty for her future son-in-law
Maybe she wanted the roast to appear in more of a rectangular form
If you know me at all, then you know I had to ask her why she cut the ends of the beef – if only to satisfy my own curiosity. For me, it was more than that as I was starting to fear that the meat was bought on special, well past it’s prime, and bordering on rancid. Also, at that point in my life, I only knew how to cook eggs, microwave popcorn, canned soup, and peanut M&M’s so I thought I might learn something.
“Kathy, why do you cut the ends off the roast before you put it in the pan?” I asked a bit sheepishly. Her answer only served to inflate my curiosity. “Well, I really don’t know. Gene’s mom always did it this way, so I have just always done it.” Gene was my future father-in-law and certainly knew his way around a roast, so learning the cooking trade from his mom made sense. However, the logic was still missing – I had to know why.
Thinking I might be missing out on some family culinary secret, I suggested we call Gene’s mother (Grandma Menze) to solve the puzzle. Much to my surprise and delight, everyone was game.
After exchanging pleasantries, I provided a bit of background on the topic at hand and asked Grandma Menze, “so, why do you cut the ends off of a roast before you cook it?” She responded in a sweet giggle that provided as much joy as it did bewilderment. After catching her breath, she said, “I always cut the ends off the roast because I never had a pan big enough to hold the ones I got from the store. So, I cut it down so it would fit in the pan.”
As you can imagine, everyone howled in laughter. For decades my mother-in-law trimmed her roast before cooking simply because that’s the way it had always been done. While cropping the meat was born out of necessity, the “tradition” continued for the simple reason that not one person – in over 40 years – had asked the simple question of, “why?”
How many times in our business day do we simply do things because that’s the way they’ve always been done? I think the truthful answer might be a bit more painful than any of us would like to admit. When we blindly march forward and do things exactly as they’ve always been done, innovation and creativity die.
I strongly believe that processes and procedures should be reviewed annually – every single one of them. Look at them critically and ask yourself and your team why things are done the way they are done. For many of the components, the reason will be completely logical, efficient, and profitable. However, if you do this every year, I guarantee you’ll find things that don’t make any business sense at all and people are simply doing what has always been done. When you uncover those roadblocks to progress, then imagination, inspiration, innovation, and profitability will prosper.
Even something as simple as simply questioning that pot roast has meant there is much less food waste in my family. Yes, it’s a small thing, but the lesson is still the same: question everything.
Bill is president of PromoCorner, the leading digital marketing service provider to the promotional products industry, and has over 18 years working in executive leadership positions at leading promotional products distributorships. A featured speaker at numerous industry events, a serial creator of content marketing, past president of the Promotional Products Association of the Mid-South (PPAMS), president of the Regional Association Council (RAC) board, and PromoKitchen chef, Bill has extensive experience coaching sales teams, creating successful marketing campaigns, and developing branding that resonates with a target audience. He can be reached at bill@PromoCorner.com.