Scarcity and abundance

There is too much rationing going on. We assume that there isn’t enough of things to go around. But we make wrong assumptions about what is scarce and what isn’t. We ration what doesn’t matter and restrict the capabilities of what matters most.

In the early days of computing, a great deal of time and effort went into sharing out processing time between people. The presumption was that computers were expensive and people were cheap, so it made some sense to have people sitting waiting for the computer to get back to them. The economics have changed utterly, but in many ways our experience hasn’t. Try having a conversation with an automated call centre, and see how much of the time you are waiting on the machine being ready to talk to you.

We act as if we expect all manner of abundant things (ideas, energy, positive feedback, recognition) are scarce, and we behave as if we are on the point of running out of them.

Take the brakes off. What have you got to lose?