Legacy behaviors

Some behaviors stick around long after the problems they were designed to solve have disappeared. These create some of the biggest change management challenges we face.

Take the keyboard. This oddly arranged collection of keys exists because of a mechanical limitation from over a century ago. Typewriter keys would jam if you typed too quickly on adjacent letters, so the QWERTY layout deliberately slowed typists down.

Why haven’t we escaped this antiquated design in the nearly 40 years since typewriters became obsolete?

Often it’s because these behaviors become so deeply embedded in our culture that we stop questioning whether better alternatives exist. We train the next generation using the same methods without pausing to ask: is this actually the best way?