Room for Beer?

Day 197 - 9:30pm, 17 July 2019

Someone shared Stephen Covey's bucket filling metaphor at work today. It's all about putting the big rocks in first, then less important things (the pebbles), finally the fillers (sand), and after everything else, somebody pours in beer so that it can end with lighthearted moral, there's always room for beer.

I have so many issues with Covey on his illustration. His bucket is empty to begin with and the contents - each of which is easily identifiable by all and doesn't change form readily - are added in a controlled manner. That state simply doesn't exist in the real world. None of my buckets are ever empty, and surely a lot of the friction we encounter is because there is no shared agreement over how to categorise objects, nor can we assume that a 'rock' will always be a 'rock'. And it would be great if tasks and people would form an orderly queue, but again, you just have to roll with the punches on that one.

Okay, I'm probably reading too much into this one, but it's a very limiting mindset to think that it is all about what you can pack in or contain. At some point, you are going to hit a physical limit as to what you can add and how differentiated you can be: one full bucket looks much like any other, whatever the contents. The question we need to ask ourselves is whether we are bucket filling for the sake of bucket filling. 

Perhaps it's less about the order in which ingredients are added and more about seeing beyond the bucket, to imagining how we can build something big, bold and beautiful? If we must keep the bucket, let's up end it and sit on it Oor Wullie style! That way we are not focused on maintaining the illusion of control, but enjoying the moment as is, and open to the possibilities of how we shape the future.

But parting thought, if the moral of the story is as Covey jokes about beer, then it must be never drink beer that has been sieved through a full bucket. It's not going to be fit for purpose: if it doesn't kill you, it isn't going to taste nice!!!