In 1910, the Los Angeles Times published a story about a boy who was tasked with opening a valve on a steam engine-powered water pump every so often in order to release the built-up steam. That was his whole job: staring at the whirring pieces of metal all day, and he got bored. One day, when the supervisor walked in, the boy was nowhere to be found. The pump, however, worked just as it should — the “lazy” boy, in his boredom, was able to create a mechanized release for the pump. It was the first iteration of the automatic steam engine.
Now, this story may be apocryphal but the boy’s behavior reflects a deeper truth. When we are feeling “lazy” and disinclined to do something, we often search for an easier way to do the undesirable task at hand. We try to streamline the process and save time and effort. We wind up making the task more efficient. In other words, laziness can drive innovation.
In recent years psychologists and business leaders have wisened up to this insight. It’s shifting our perspective of what “laziness” really means, and whether strategic idleness or our inclination toward ease may actually be powerful tools and great assets. Bill Gates is even reported to have said, “I always choose a lazy person to do a hard job, because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
More about this over at Psychology Today.
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