Processes & Playbooks: the modern take on Procrustes

Myth of Procrustes

The unintended cost of uniformity can be demonstrated in the Greek myth of Procrustes. Procrustes, also know as Polypemon, Damastes, or Procoptas, was the son of Poseidon. Some versions of his story portray him as a troll others as a robber, my favorite presents him as innkeeper offering weary travelers a night’s lodging.

The story goes that living at the top of a mountain pass, Procrustes, who’s name loosely translates to The Stretcher, would offer hospitality to passing strangers, inviting them in for warm fire, a pleasant meal and a night's rest in a nice bed—which he guaranteed would be the perfect fit for each guest. Procrustes was always pretty vague about how he would ensure a “perfect fit” for each guest, but after traveling up what was surely an exhausting and dangerous mountain road, what traveler could refuse such an offer? An evening of hospitality, food, and wine, and the promise of the perfect bed was too tempting for anyone to refuse. But as soon as guests would lay down in the bed, the pleasant evening became a nightmare. I mean it is a Greek myth after all.

As it turns out what Procrustes called a “bed” as really more of like the torture device commonly called The Rack—a device to use to stretch people literally limb from limb. Procrustes would stretch his guests to make sure their height perfectly matched the length of his bed. Of course, for those guests who were too tall for the bed, Procrustes had another solution; he simply cut off their legs to make sure they had a nice snug fit. Procrustes was a stickler for conformity.

The phrase Procrustean Bed has been used by authors, philosophers and politicians as a metaphor to describe any standard or measurement which places conformity ahead of doing what’s right—even in spite of the obvious harm it may cause to others.

Agile, Design Thinking, PE Playbooks, Marketing Frameworks are the modern beds we lie in

Agile subscribes to the notion that all work will fit neatly into two sprints. That everything you do, from user research to design concept development to implementation and testing will fall neatly into two week buckets. Design Thinking has it own prescriptive approach; empathy drives insights, that in turn lead to the right solution. Every Private Equity firm has their own playbook for enhancing a company's value in order to execute a well-timed exit strategy that is some mix of operational enhancements, frequently focused on cash management and talent management, balanced with growth initiatives.

Regardless of where you find yourself, its important to remember while its true these processes have the potential to return great value, their blind application to every situation will result in predictable but likely mediocre outcomes. They are in fact each a type Procrustean Bed requiring the people implementing them to ignore the variances inherent in each product or business, requiring them instead to fit within their predetermined scope. They all require you to “cut your losses” at some point and simply move on, having extracted what value you could from the resources you have in the time you allotted.

No process is without its shortcomings. And every process has room for improvement.

Its a red flag when someone tells me they have used this same approach on dozens of products, or in 50 companies, so it will work here. I don’t take repetition as a sign of success I look at the outcomes—not just financially but holistically. Was the outcome the best potential outcome for the customers, employees, investors, environment, and society? Indeed success requires an understanding of the landscape and real inherent potential within an organization or product to deliver value across the board not just into one group’s pocket. It requires vision, faith and the ability to inspire. Simply rolling out a predefined plan and force fitting the customers, talent, technology, and portfolio into allocated spaces, stretching them when they are thin or trimming them when they are too large, is either naive or arrogant. Or worse, simply an action taken out of habit or because its familiar.

Every process and playbook has room for improvement.