“It is more important to do the right thing than to do things right.” – Peter Drucker
We like this quote a lot. So much actually, we even print it on mugs. Why? Because it relates to our experience: When approaching Legal Tech projects in law firms and legal departments, it is so easy to look at existing processes, and fully focussing on automating them. And to be honest: There is a lot that can be automated in legal practice!
But this approach misses a crucial point: Before making an existing process more efficient (”do things right”), it is important to ask whether this process should exist at all. And if yes, whether it should exist in this form. Processes do not only need to be efficient, they need to be effective! To quote Drucker again: “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”
Hence, in our view, the best process is not one that we automate, but one that we eliminate or make simpler. This is easy to overlook: Often, the expectation of the stakeholders in a project is that existing processes will be automated as fast as possible – no consultancy ever got fired for making a process more efficient!
Still, removing or reducing a process is where the real time savings can be achieved, often quicker and cheaper than with automation. It only requires a willingness to step back, challenge old habits, and test new ways. Admittedly, this willingness is a scarce resource even in very innovative companies, which makes success by omission even more valuable.
There is another reason why we like Drucker’s quote so much: In our view it is true way beyond process automation only. So often in everyday situations, it is much easier to aim for small gains in efficiency than to question whether one is on the right track at all. And while efficiency is great, doing the right thing is what is truly important both for success and for happiness.
