What a curious question!\u00a0We can hear almost just as well with one ear as two so that is not the reason. Our glasses would fall off obviously though ears\u00a0evolved long\u00a0before glasses so that’s probably not the reason.\u00a0\u00a0Just in case\u00a0we lose one ear by accident? That sounds reasonable but then why don’t we have a have\u00a0a spare heart or spare brain too – they are more critical organs? Physiologists will explain that\u00a0we need two ears\u00a0to accurately determine the direction that a sound is\u00a0coming from – and\u00a0we do that by detecting very slight differences between what one ear hears compared with the other. What a neat bit of biodesign! So what relevance does this have for Improvement Science?\u00a0 Well,\u00a0to improve a process or system\u00a0we need to listen to two separate\u00a0voices – the Voice of the Customer (VoC) and the Voice of the Process (VoP) – and\u00a0if we compare them the\u00a0slight difference\u00a0points us\u00a0in the direction of\u00a0improvement.\u00a0The problem is, when there is a big difference\u00a0between the two sounds they will interfere with each other and we cannot hear either clearly. In that situation we adopt a policy of\u00a0selective deafness – some of us\u00a0choose\u00a0the Voice of the\u00a0Process because it can be measured objectively; and some of us\u00a0choose the\u00a0Voice of the Customer.\u00a0 The\u00a0outcome is disagreement because\u00a0we are hearing different things. Confusion\u00a0becomes conflict.<\/p>\n
With this insight one way out of this impasse might be\u00a0for everyone\u00a0to use both ears alternately: everyone listening to the\u00a0Voice of the Customer\u00a0for a while and then\u00a0everyone changing channel and listening to the Voice of the Process for a while, and back again.\u00a0\u00a0The direction of improvement would\u00a0become visible and the steps needed to align the Two Voices would emerge naturally.\u00a0 The Two Voices are trying to tell\u00a0us something and we\u00a0only need to learn to tune\u00a0into both of them. When the\u00a0Two Voices match we hear harmony not cacophony!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What a curious question!\u00a0We can hear almost just as well with one ear as two so that is not the reason. Our glasses would fall off obviously though ears\u00a0evolved long\u00a0before glasses so that’s probably not the reason.\u00a0\u00a0Just in case\u00a0we lose one ear by accident? That sounds reasonable but then why don’t we have a have\u00a0a … <\/p>\n