There is a saying: To get something done well, two conditions are needed: slightly exceeding the requirements of the ability + not enough time. I believe that every student who did not finish their homework by the deadline has a deep understanding of this.
This phenomenon is extensively studied in Scarcity, co-authored by Sedhill and Princeton University psychology professor Elder Shaffer. After analyzing a large number of cases, they came to the conclusion that the poor will always be short of money, and the busy people will always be short of time.
How did this vicious cycle come about? How to break it? The case of a hospital in the United States may give us some inspiration.
St. John’s Medical Center is a hospital that provides emergency services. Every year, up to 30,000 operations are performed in the 32 operating rooms here, so all operating rooms are permanently packed. Once there is a patient in need of emergency treatment, the hospital can only postpone the previously arranged operation. Sometimes doctors still operate at 2:00 in the morning, and employees are also exhausted by long overtime work. They often pay for a two-hour machine. The surgery waited for hours. The resulting pressure and medical malpractice will naturally increase accordingly.
Later, hospital management brought in a consultant who came up with a surprising solution: one of the original operating rooms was set aside for emergency surgery. A doctor recalled his reaction at the time: “I think this man is crazy! We don’t have enough operating rooms, and he has to take one!
” Both “planned” and “unplanned”. If the latter forcibly cut the queue, the efficiency of the former will be greatly reduced, resulting in more overtime costs, waiting costs and medical errors. Every planned operation is forced to “pay off debt” for the unplanned operation. Unplanned surgeries are predictable, so when they are all grouped into specialized operating rooms, other surgeries are more regular.
The results proved it worked: After two years, St. John’s saw a 45 percent drop in overtime, an 11 percent increase in admissions, and an increase in revenue.
Poverty will not only limit my imagination, but also limit my IQ?
Aside from the scarcity of time, there is one thing that most people are short of – money. American researcher Darryl Collins and others have done research and analysis on the poor in South Africa, India and other places in the book “Portfolios of the Poor”. And our two authors are also very interested in this study: why even if the poor are given a sum of money, they still fall back into poverty? Why are they still reluctant to take measures despite the opportunity to improve the economy?
“Portfolios of the Poor” mentioned in the “poor people get money, they tend to spend it quickly, making it difficult to save and invest” is common. Because in their life, they often encounter various situations of sudden use of money, and the remaining money in their hands simply cannot deal with it.
“If you ask them, isn’t financial management important? They’ll say, it’s important, but it’s not urgent! Now you can fill your family’s stomach, buy enough food, clothing, and shelter, and prepare money for sudden illnesses and neighbors’ weddings. , is what I am anxious to solve.”
This phenomenon is actually very common around us. Many people tend to become stupid when they fall in love, why? Because the extreme attention to love occupies the bandwidth of the mind, concentration and rationality decline.
This is why the more companies try to make money, the less they can make it. Because their minds are all on saving costs and finding customers, they are hungry for a bunch of bad jobs, and they don’t have the mind to plan a grander strategy. And those companies that make money often don’t think about making money in the first place. Their starting point may just be how to serve others and create value for others.
There is a famous saying on the Internet: Don’t use tactical diligence to cover up your strategic laziness. That’s what it’s saying.
