It’s hard to be different. Even if new business development depends upon it at times. We tend to fall into the path of least resistance while we’re not paying attention. Why? Because it’s so easy to keep doing what we’re doing—business as usual—like everybody else. Trouble is, we lose a certain connection to reality because in reality, everything’s changing. On the other hand, if you’re not happy with the way things are—or you notice others aren’t happy with the way you are—you might be on to something.
I’ve never had much respect for status quo status. To me the status quo is “the state in which it was,” or worse, it’s the opposite of thinking progressively. When I think about the status quo I see people who haven’t evolved; people whom are resistant to change; and people who fail to listen and heed to rather obvious warning signs. They’re oddly content, but they’re also blind to the negative consequences of their actions and decisions. These types have been known to pin stuff on others just to protect their own box of rocks. Yikes!
Here’s a couple of ways to get out of your box and start doing it differently:
1. Start thinking “remarkable”
There’s hope for you in a little book (5 x 8 inches, 145 pages) called “Purple Cow” by Seth Godin. It was written about 8 years ago but it’s still highly regarded. “Purple Cow” is about standing out from the crowd. The author likes to associate the purple cow with being remarkable. He makes a good case why the world needs more remarkable products and services. He says, “Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional …. Boring stuff is invisible. It’s a brown cow.”
“My goal in Purple Cow is to make it clear that it’s safer to be risky …. Once you see that [your] old ways have nowhere to go but down, it becomes even more imperative to create things worth talking about.”
Like I suggested earlier, it also helps when you know what you’re dealing with. Start by learning to identify some of the symptoms that got you stuck in the first place.
2. Become more aware; take this brief test
“The warning signs of defending the status quo” by Seth Godin
When confronted with a new idea, do you:
- Consider the cost of switching before you consider the benefits?
- Highlight the pain to a few instead of the benefits for the many?
- Exaggerate how good things are now in order to reduce your fear of change?
- Undercut the credibility, authority or experience of people behind the change?
- Grab onto the rare thing that could go wrong instead of amplifying the likely thing that will go right?
- Focus on short-term costs instead of long-term benefits, because the short-term is more vivid for you?
- Fight to retain benefits and status earned only through tenure and longevity?
- Embrace an instinct to accept consistent ongoing costs instead of swallowing a one-time expense?
- Slow implementation and decision making down instead of speeding it up?
- Embrace sunk costs?
- Imagine that your competition is going to be as afraid of change as you are? Even the competition that hasn’t entered the market yet and has nothing to lose…
- Emphasize emergency preparation and the expense of a chronic and degenerative condition?
Calling it out when you see it might give your team the strength to make a leap. Take action!
INSIGHT:
Defending the status quo can kill your company. The defeated ones are those that kept doing what they were doing—failing to adapt to a changing marketplace. And failing to heed to changing customer needs and expectations. They clung to safety.
ACCESSA helps you to improve your product, improve your bottom line.
I welcome your comments, questions or more discussion.