"Sequence of Events"

At my gym, it’s customary to disinfect the equipment after use. All gym-goers faithfully do this with wipes and spray bottles. It’s therefore noticeable when someone isn’t aware of that unwritten rule and leaves a used piece of equipment without cleaning it. There are also gyms where people clean the equipment before use, as they see fit. Whether you clean it before or after is a matter of preference; one isn’t necessarily better than the other. You could call one approach a bit more courteous than the other, but it doesn’t really make a difference.

In the Netherlands, we drive on the right. The steering wheel is on the left. In some other countries, it’s the other way around. It always takes a little getting used to when you drive away from the airport in a rental car in another country :). When we look at traffic statistics, we see no demonstrable difference between the two systems—neither in ease of use, nor in traffic flow, nor in the number or severity of accidents. Left or right is simply a matter of convention. It really doesn’t matter.

The decision to adopt a system like this shouldn’t, therefore, lead to a lengthy debate. Any choice is fine as long as we all follow it together, make it a habit, and don’t keep revisiting it.

Another type of organizational issue, for example, is how organizations deliver a product or service to a market. Often, the key choice regarding organizational structure is whether to be market-oriented or product/service-oriented. There is a lot of internal conflict within organizations over how to make this two-axis matrix work. This is an unwarranted competition, as both are important and inextricably linked. Customer-focused sales and delivery, as well as excellent products and production, are both essential in an iterative process. Organizing them is primarily a matter of sequence. The only question is where to start: building the excellent product or addressing the needs of the key customer.

I’m not doing justice to the complex world in which we live and work with these simplified examples, but I want to make it clear that we have many discussions with one another about things that are all, in fact, equally important, equally good, equally beautiful, equally interesting, …, equally whatever. We have to organize things in order to live, work, drive, cook, perform, provide healthcare, and so on, together. That organization is often nothing more or less than a sequence among dimensions that are all at play. An order of precedence.

We waste less time and energy by not spending too much time endlessly debating whether to drive on the left or the right, or whether to disinfect exercise equipment before or after use. And the order of the two axes in the matrix organization doesn’t matter as much, as long as we use both of them consistently. Just as a speed skater shifts to the other leg in time to keep moving forward.

The recent election campaign also involves such a question of classification—at least to the extent that the political landscape can be simplified into a dichotomy between left and right. Both sides are relevant; a one-dimensional approach never works in the long run. Today will reveal which order we chose yesterday.