It Works. That’s the Problem.

Years ago, I built an application that worked perfectly fine.

Later, with more experience, I realized it could have benefited from tools I already knew about when I built it.

That was the strange part.

I already had the tools.

I just didn’t recognize when to use them.

And there wasn’t much reason to.

What I had built worked well enough.

Recently, I noticed the same thing somewhere completely different.

I was playing pickleball and wasn’t enjoying the game. Before long, I had constructed an explanation for why.

Then I noticed myself cutting the other players down in my head.

That made me stop.

I realized I was reaching conclusions that were abrupt, unverified, and unchallenged.

Again, I already had tools for dealing with that.

I just hadn’t thought to use them.

Both situations exposed the same problem:

When something works well enough, there’s less reason to question it.

And sometimes that’s perfectly fine.

Improvement has a cost. Changing something that already accomplishes its goal isn’t automatically worthwhile.

The problem is when local success prevents us from evaluating the larger goal.

A process can accomplish its immediate task without serving the larger business.

A conversation can resolve today’s disagreement without improving the relationship.

A habit can get us through the day without taking us where we ultimately want to go.

The pattern is the same:

Something can work for what we’re doing right now without working as well for what we’re ultimately trying to accomplish.

That’s where triggers become useful.

A trigger isn’t a reason to change something.

It’s a reason to reconsider it.

Sometimes we build those triggers ahead of time through metrics, tests, checkpoints, or feedback.

Sometimes experience teaches us what to look for.

And sometimes we create our own.

That’s what abrupt, unverified, and unchallenged has become for me.

When all three appear together, I investigate.

It doesn’t mean my conclusion is wrong.

It means it’s worth another look.

Sometimes that second look reveals a better approach.

Sometimes it confirms that what we’re already doing is good enough.

Both are useful.

The goal isn’t to optimize everything.

It’s to recognize when something that works locally deserves to be reconsidered globally.

Because sometimes the thing preventing us from finding a better solution isn’t a lack of tools, knowledge, or resources.

What we’re already doing simply works well enough that we never think to look.