It's just the way it is

Many years ago, A song I always had on my Walkman was "The way it is" by Bruce Hornsby & the Range. How little did I know that phrase would stalk me for the rest of my career, and it hadn't even started then. So what am I going on about? please let me explain.

I teach various CAD Software in my job, and trying to persuade people to come on training is hard enough, but actually getting them to adopt new techniques and procedures is practically "The Holy Grail" of my vocation.

The biggest obstacle I get to using new techniques is that's just the way it has always been done. If the rest of the world adopted this mantra, where would we be in life? We would still be bleeding patients because they have "bad blood" and Doctors washing their hands would never happen. Just because that is the way it has always been done, doesn't mean that that is the right way to do it. It might have been wrong years ago when "the way" was decided upon as it is normally decided upon by the person who shouts the loudest.

I remember visiting a company very early on in my career, to talk about adopting some CAD Standards (AutoCAD). I showed them what was possible, and then I let them discuss the various techniques and I returned a week later, to try and put everything into operation. This company had decided that layers in AutoCAD were not necessary, and all users should avoid using them like the plague, as it only confuses things. I think I sat with my mouth open in disbelief for about 10 minutes, and wondered if my demonstration abilities were lacking somehow. Not using layers in AutoCAD is frankly preposterous, therefore I set about changing their mind. There was 10 people in the "CAD Standards Group" and all of them but one wanted to use layers, but this guy was very loud and persuasive and unfortunately had the ear of the management. To this day this company is still using AutoCAD and is still not using layers. It was wrong 18 years ago, and is even more wrong today, but its the way it's always been done.

I find the problem is made worse when larger companies purchase smaller companies, and try an instill "the new way of working" on this smaller bunch of people. This normally leads to a lot of discussion about who is right and who is wrong, but when they guys get back to their desks, they will do it the way they always have.

So you may ask what is the point of this article? My main aim of this article is to make people realise that just because that is the way it has always been done, doesn't make it right. Question everything, it is the only way you can get more productive in whatever you do for a living. Invest in training by professionals. While your job might be to design a new widget, my job is to make you quicker and more productive when you are designing that widget, and the same goes for every profession out there, there are people who make a career looking into new ways of doing things whether its CAD Software or swinging a golf club, please learn from them.

So next time someone says to you, "Do it like this, it's the way we have always done it" please respond with "Let's see if there is a better way then"