Are you still fit for purpose?

In 2014, the Chinese government decided to remove 6 million cars from its roads – that’s twice as many cars as there are in New Zealand. Many of those vehicles still do what they were originally designed to do – move a small number of people from A to B. And that’s the problem.

By design, older engines produce more greenhouse gases, and the Chinese are fed up with living in cities filled with the resulting smog. So these cars are heading for the scrapyard not because they are broken, but because they are still working. Since they were built, they have become irrelevant to the environment in which they operate, no longer meeting stricter emissions standards.

We all know it’s harder to convince people to change when they don’t see the need. It’s quite understandable to believe that if, like the car, we just keep on doing what we’ve been ‘designed’ to do, we will get to do more of it tomorrow. But if our external environment is changing faster than we are, what was being done effectively, efficiently, and – until yesterday – usefully, is now irrelevant.

The old adage says that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Unfortunately, the world has moved on and that saying is broke and needs fixing. If it ain’t broke, that don’t mean it works anymore. The trick is in understanding when something that still looks and feels like it works is actually no longer fit for purpose. Unfortunately it can be easier to navigate through the smog of a Chinese city than it is to see the ‘best before’ date of the status quo disappearing in the rear-view mirror.