Space Clutter and Sacred Cows

This in from the Associated Press: More than 9,000 pieces of space debris are orbiting the Earth and it's a problem that's only going to get worse.

According to an article in this month's Science magazine, each piece of this space junk measures 4 inches or more and totals 5,500 tons. What's worse, even if space launches were immediately stopped, the debris would continue to grow as the pieces already up there collide and break into additional pieces.

The story reminds me of a blog entry I posted back in July of last year called, Sacred Cows Behind Invisible Fences. The metaphor has changed, but the idea is the same - there are all sorts of outdated policies and procedures that are just floating around out there, colliding with each other, or worse yet, colliding with individual employees, and sapping their energy, enthusiasm, and productivity.

Now I know that January is usually a time of starting new things, but maybe it makes sense to use this January as an opportunity to get rid of some old, outdated, things, too. Imagine the clutter that could be eliminated if every boss got rid of just one piece of "space debris," just one Sacred Cow?

Can't think of what you'd like to eliminate? What then would you like to see your boss get rid of? Maybe you could work on it together.