Street-Side Convos: "Are We Living in a Culture of Waste" by EBELE MOGO [OPINION]

While it is a cultural norm to always be busy, it is curious that so much of the effort that we devote to working in a culture of busy-ness is not actually very productive at all. The economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 80 % of land tends to belong to 20% of the population and since then many have found this 80/20 rule to be predictive of other aspects of life.

It is said that 20% of your efforts account for 80% of your productivity.

Since this is a power law, then 4% of your effort can account for 50% of your output. It is also said that out of every hour, employees are only working on a goal for 3 minutes. The other 57 minutes go to waste. Imagine all the time and money spent on keeping things running, yet only 1.67% of each hour is being used productively?

This makes me wonder if waste is an inevitable aspect of our culture, and makes me ask myself where there are opportunities for less waste and more productivity in my life. If 20% of our efforts account for 80% of our output, and if 80% of our problems can be solved by 20% of our activity, then what amount of positive change can we make by simply being less wasteful?

Waste comes in many forms, yet there are some common forms of waste.

One of these is untapped talent which leads to generational disadvantage. Or abuse of natural resources which comes back to bite us in a million and one ways. Or a failure to engage grassroots knowledge which often leads to failed projects – from interventions that do not work, to businesses that do not scale, to strained relationships, to full blown conflict, to disparities in economic and health outcomes in society.

Waste can take the form of missing the mark in production – where we overproduce, meaning we have to pay for transportation and storage, or where we spend too much time producing thus using more resources without replenishing them, or when we produce substandard products that do not meet our intent or that of the people we create for.

Waste comes from systems that do not do things right the first time.

When systems do not work properly and the right infrastructure are not in place, there are accidents, preventable incidents, wasted potential. On a societal scale this would look like the preventable poverty, violence, sickness, and  injury that is sometimes caused by simply not enabling communities to access infrastructure for social mobility such education, jobs, health, water, roads etc in the first place.

There are real costs to this.

For example, in Nigeria people have to pay up to 12-24 months of rent upfront. Imagine what people would do with all that money if there was a culture of trust that people will pay month to month because the legal infrastructure to enforce this is functional. They may use all that money to build wealth.

Consider what is wasted when families find wealth and end up losing that wealth in one generation because no one taught them how to think long term and they lacked the foresight, education or maybe access to resources like land ownership to create generational wealth and long term assets. Consider all the waste of human resources in the people groups that are excluded from any form of formal economy and so do not have access to means for long-term social mobility.

Waste may show up in our personal relationships and how we encounter one another. It shows up in the false assumptions we make of people that do not allow us to benefit from them. It can show up in centuries of ethnic, religious, class distrust that stop people from cooperating with and learning from one another.

Waste also shows up in little ways for me. 

One of these is realizing that I can reorganize my space to reduce the distance I have to travel to transport things, so that I am less likely to disorganize my space and then waste time re-organizing it. Waste shows up for me in over thinking things at times – that is simply a waste of mental energy and emotions. Waste has shown up for me when I do not listen to my mind or heart then end up realizing I could have avoided a mistake. Waste shows up for me when I do not respect my own boundaries of energy and time and trust, and then learn to do better.

How does waste show up in your work, how do you see it show up in your relationships, and what about in society?

In what little ways can you see yourself moving upstream against this tendency for waste? It is amazing how eliminating little wastes here and there allow us more productivity, more sanity, more happiness and more time to enjoy our lives.

*Written by EBELE MOGO
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