CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO
Campbell Lumbila August 14th, 2009
Catherine Booth, co-founder of The Salvation Army once said, “There is no improving the future without disturbing the present.” That statement rings true in life today but if you are like me, you probably have a rhythm of doing things and it becomes hard to depart from routine.
While is it easy to become accustomed to the existing state of affairs around you, realize that you cannot do anything extraordinary in your personal or professional life until you learn to challenge the status quo.
The status quo, while mostly comfortable, can be the cause stagnation in business and life. Many companies have missed great opportunities because they’ve held on to the “normal” way of doing things. Perhaps the most devastating effect of maintaining the status quo is ineffectiveness. People and organizations become ineffective because they’ve not recognized the ever changing landscape of the business environment or the culture around them. Therefore, holding on to the norm becomes a death sentence.
Challenging the status quo is about doing something out of the ordinary; something that has never been done before. It’s about reaching for the stars and tapping into the creativity in us and in others in order to find innovative solutions to challenging problems. Challenging the status quo is about pushing the boundaries of human ingenuity so that “we can boldly go where no man has ever gone before.” Challenging the status quo is about embracing real and radical change and the process which makes the change possible.
So how do you begin challenging the status quo in both your personal and professional life? Here are a few tips with the help from Kouzes & Posner and their book “The Leadership Challenge.” I have paraphrased a few things in order to fit my audience.
1. Ask questions
Challenging and changing the status quo in your personal and professional life begins with a few obvious questions I.E. why have we always done this thing this way? How useful is this in helping us become the best we can be? How useful is this for stimulating creativity and innovation? If your answer is “absolutely essential” then keep it. If not, change it.
Encourage those around you and in your company to ask the same questions and make a firm commitment to changing whatever doesn’t work.
2. Gather Ideas
Someone out there might be doing it better and there is no shame in learning their ways as long as they work for you. The biggest mistake we make is that we do not listen to outsiders and Kouzes & Posner also point to this fact. We can be so busy listening to insiders who, in most cases have a bias view, instead of listening to outsiders who can offer us with insight into what is working and what is not. In fact Kouzes & Posner advise that we spend 25% of every weekly staff meeting or personal meeting, listening to outside ideas for improving processes and technologies and developing new products and services.
3. Clarify your Mission
What exactly do you exist to do as an individual or business? We can easily fall into the trap of activity that we forget to remind ourselves just why we are working so hard. It is also important to ask ourselves if we are indeed fulfilling the mission for which we exist. The status quo begins when we fail to fulfill our mission or become complacent and seize to challenge ourselves.
These are just a few things that I think will help you challenge the status quo and of course there are many more.