Rinse and repeat?

What lies behind our everyday behaviour?

Relaxing with my head in a hairdresser’s sink recently, I noticed the salon trainee carefully washed my hair – twice. I had to quietly smile.

It reminded me of the story in Benjamin Cheever’s novel ‘The Plagiarist’ when a marketing executive becomes an industry legend by adding one word to shampoo bottles: REPEAT. He doubles shampoo sales overnight.

Fiction may not be far from the truth, as all shampoos used to say ‘rinse and repeat’ on the instructions. Most don’t anymore. Maybe it’s in response to us consumers getting wise to such a blatant marketing ploy to get us to use twice as much shampoo. Or maybe because we now wash our hair more often and use less hair product than in the 1950’s.

Whatever the reason for the change, my salon has still taught their new trainee ‘the correct’ way to wash hair is to wash it twice. And so the salon pays double for their shampoo, which eats into their profits.

It’s a great example of unquestioned behaviours having a significant cost that goes unnoticed.

In another example, a woman both ends off a ham before cooking it in the oven. When her daughter asked her why she replied that’s the way her mother had always done it. When the woman asked her mother, the answer was the same. So the two women and child asked great-grandma why she had always cut the ends off the ham. Great-grandma casually said ‘Oh that’s because my roasting pan was too small for the ham. I had to cut the ends off to make it fit.’

This duplication without understanding why is common in many systems, particularly in businesses that have had systems in place for a long time. It can be invaluable to get a fresh perspective, someone to come in and review systems and make sure that everything is running efficiently, without any ‘legacy’ wastage.

The same is true for our habits of thought, which we have generally adopted from family and society while young. Usually unconsciously. These thoughts can be about the ‘right’ way to do things or behave, or they can be deeper beliefs such as the way that the world works, what people’s behaviours mean etc. We can accumulate attitudes to other people, money, success and failure. While some may still be useful, others may not.

To operate at our very best, we need to be flexible in response to our environment. In a time of rapid change in business, technology, the global economy and our very society, stepping back and questioning our assumptions can be very valuable.

A great exercise is to ask ‘why’ just like a young child might. Asking over and over until we come up with either a valid reason that makes sense, or we find an unquestioned assumption ‘just because’ or ‘that’s the way it’s done’.

If we find these golden assumptions, we now have the opportunity to change our attitudes and beliefs to something that is more useful or productive. When we do that, we become the architect of our thinking rather than being held back by outdated beliefs that may cost us dearly one day.