Parallel Parking: the sacred cow

My first born successfully completed her road test and received her driver's license today. Many would be able to appreciate the contrast of mixed emotions between pride and trepidation produced by your baby girl being authorized to drive a large automobile – by herself.

The nearly three years of preparation for my daughter's historic day provided many tense moments for her parents, as well as a few heated discussions (adolescents just don't like to take advice from their parents). The majority of these special memories came out of the "Parallel Park". In fact over 90% of our special practice time together was spent on the intricacies of parallel parking. Out of the thousands of aspects that one needs to be aware of to successfully drive (signs, rules, laws, etc.), most new drivers fear having to parallel park more than anything else.

How many times in your life have you actually parallel parked? If you are like most people, this is not something you do everyday ... or even every month. Most people may only parallel park once per year. Could this be because parking lots have been invented virtually eliminating the need for parallel parking?

The skill of driving a vehicle in reverse and putting it into a very tight space between two other vehicles is certainly not simple and does require practice. But I have become convinced that something is wrong when this [parallel parking] is the primary focus of a new driver and has been since I first received my license. And I am going to go out on a limb here, I am sure that not many people are killed in the act of parallel parking a vehicle.

Whenever things (things: simple word for processes, business, organizations, etc.) get big and organized, people have a tendency to get lost in their focus. That which is important seems to get lost in the myriad of details. Businesses find themselves spending massive amounts of time and money on elements, programs, metrics and sacred cows - that if never existed in the first place - no one would have cared or noticed. All of this at the expense of what is important ... you know ... stuff like, sales, profit, customers, and the bottom line. Sometimes we just need to take a step back and take stock of what we are doing. Is this really that important? Is the benefit of this ____ going to outweigh the input cost? Does this support or fit our mission or purpose for being in business in the first place? Is learning how to parallel park critical to one's driving ability?

Just as organizations should kill useless sacred cows, testing new drivers on parallel parking should be stopped. Let them learn it if they want to and instead focus on the driving "stuff" that is really important – that which will preserve life – theirs and others. What is the worst that will happen (if parallel parking was no longer a focus)? New drivers wouldn't be able to shop downtown. On the other hand, it is amazing how desire has a way of motivating people to learn new things. I bet my daughter would figure out how to parallel park if that was the only way she could get to shop.

Parallel Parking: the sacred cow