Forget performance: robustness is a better bet

You are getting more and more exhausted. And so is the natural world and the ecosystem. A biologist, Olivier Harmant, reminds us that while it’s normal to look for productivity gains on an occasional basis, working at full speed without interruption is harmful.

It’s something the animal world is well aware of! What could we learn from living organisms that might help us tackle systemic crises?

Cooperation, not competition Cooperation can, among other things, help to scale back inequality or leverage our limited resources by working more closely with our competitors.

Robustness Our organizations and our bodies are fragile because they’re stretched to the limit without a break. They will become more robust when we can quit the quest for speed and performance. Forget just-in-time production that may be frustrated by logistical problems, and take up the cause of slowness and imperfection.

Harmant urges every one of us to get back in touch with long-term thinking: repairing goods instead of buying new products, and prioritizing low-carbon travel and responsible farming. He also recommends re-introducing redundancy, which has been outlawed in the past by cost-reduction projects.
It’s no easy task to wipe away decades of Taylorism and lean management, but you’re more open to the idea of robustness than slow-down. And that’s a powerful lever for change!