Buckets are easy. It’s easy to put things in buckets. The green item goes in the green bucket. The square goes with the other squares.
Buckets are easy to explain. “I had a round widget so naturally I placed it with the other round widgets.” Clean. Simple. “Huh… Why, yes. Putting like things together seems completely rational. More of the same please.”
Buckets become easier to reach for in uncertain times. When life gets hectic, buckets give us comfort.
Challenging the ways of the bucket requires creativity, critical thinking, and relying on empirical evidence — areas subject to attenuation during uncertain times.
Buckets inhibit creativity and thus innovation by encouraging more of the same. Buckets direct our gaze toward upholding process, not building toward progress.
Buckets allow us to mistake the forest for the trees, the mundane credential for the unmistakable ability, the opportunity for the protection.
Buckets are simple. They require little effort. To engage in buckets is to play the most simplistic of matching games. To elude buckets is to play chess.
The world’s greatest achievements, and most challenging problems, have been accomplished and solved outside buckets. Feats accomplished because great thinkers existed outside the bucket, and considered the holistic in the task at hand. The system.
In a world where systems become increasingly interrelated, connected, and complex, buckets will serve less value.
Systems thinkers do not fit into buckets.