the cost of decision making

"There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does"
Daniel Pink at his TEDtalk.
Why do businesses and organizations have such inertia? I'm sure you've been a part of some leadership body that did things that seemed silly to you, but suggesting they change turned out to be a big ordeal. You've also probably experienced the singularly lousy feeling of realizing the same path you've always taken to the grocery store for the past ten years is actually five minutes longer than another, more scenic route. There is a reason this kind of things happens so often. If we consciously made every choice we were faced with, we would spend most of our energy just deciding. These routines and automatic responses save some us precious time to use on important things and decisions.
This principle holds true for groups too. I've been in groups where much too much of our time was spent on inconsequential decisions. Being thorough and being efficient is a tough balance to maintain. At what point should a group stand back and examine its routines. Is it best to wait till some external factor points you in the right direction, like the construction on your usual route to the store? Serv, the current organization in charge of service at Olin, has finally got some inertia. This is good because it allows it to do a lot of things on campus, but maybe it needs a couple iterations. One example is that serv says yes to everyone that asks the mfor help. THis is a great principle for an organization like this to have. Unfortunately the way they deal with this is to provide all these opportunities to the community at once in the digest and at the serv table. As discussed before, choices take a lot of energy. People continue to go with the choice they are used to which in this situation, is not participating. We hope to provide an outside opinion of serv. Without stopping up and slowing down the organization we can observe the sort of things serv is doing out of habit that aren't effective. In the end all we can do is give them advice and hope they listen.
How can you get other people to examine their automatic responses? How do you get others to change?Just as we are trying to ask serv to look at the choices they don't notice, serv is needs a way to ask peopled to look at the unconscious choice to abstain from Friday service. As can be seen in Jordyn's post we are trying to get their attention with dinosaurs (their elephants), then appeal to the rider with a very simple reasonable request to make a goal. There are other principles at play such as consistency and social proof. If we can get people to make that initial realization that there are new things they can do Friday afternoons instead of their routine maybe we can convince them it should be Friday service.