What’s your summer vacation?
15 years ago at an ad fest at Jaipur, Ricardo Semler touched upon why schools have long summer vacations. (I had assumed it was to protect kids from the heat). Turns out, he shared, it is a practice from the agrarian era when kids were needed at the farms for harvesting!
Sure, we have figured out what to do with such long breaks (or have we?), but think about it, in a 12-year school life, 2 years are used up doing not much because of an outdated practice!
How many such practices continue long after their relevance is over? Just because ‘that’s how it is done’ or in the name of ‘tradition/culture’. Our unwillingness to question them lead to many that are counterproductive, yet holy cows.
Take the idea of going daily to a physical office in today’s times when commuting, pollution and cost of real estate are crippling. Or our discomfort in hiring people flexitime despite acute talent shortage.
Or for that matter, do we really need huge drawing rooms in a world where guests rarely visit home that often? As apartments get smaller, a huge part of it continues to be underutilised due to this concept.
Do you see such ‘summer vacations’ around you? What possibilities do you see if you questioned them and let some of them die?