I spent the evening picking up trash. Literally picking trash out of the gutter.
There are many reasons to do this.
- Trash needs to be removed, not left dirtying the streets.
- By making completely clean spaces, all the social proof that says “it’s OK to litter here, everybody does it” goes away. Without social proof, it’s a lot harder to be the first person to drop something.
- By showing up and picking up trash – being seen by people – it becomes clear that someone actually has to pick up trash. If it doesn’t necessarily spur them into action, it will at least leave a memory with a mild preventative effect next time they consider littering. This depends on all sorts of things, but the availability and salience of the memory is a large driver.
This also happens to map into business.
- Small problems need fixing, not ignoring. Small problems stack in a way not dissimilar to trash in public places.
- By having a complete absence of small annoyances, it becomes clear that sand in the gears is not an acceptable way to run things. It’s harder to be the only person to let small problems stack up.
- Leading by example applies to everything, and so it applies to picking up trash as well.
For more parables on picking up trash, go pick up a copy of Principles by Ray Dalio – you’ll get trash parables + hundreds of pages of wisdom.
Go do it.
Pick up trash.