I have never liked status quo, any status quo leader. Maybe someday when life is perfect; when there is no disease or conflict and I am all knowing and want for nothing……maybe then I can accept status quo. Of course at that point I will be so prideful, arrogant and annoying that I will have to change my status quo. So I guess I will never like it.
As we all know, status quo is to “keep things the way they presently are” (Wikipedia). As business leaders we can rarely if ever be accepting of “keeping things the way they are.” It is our job to succeed and achieve, in fact it is our responsibility. It is our responsibility because there are so many people depending on us. Employees depend on us, colleagues depend on us, vendors, partners, suppliers, customers, heck even our country and the world economy depend on our success; but most of all, the well-being of individuals and families of everyone we can touch depend on our ability to succeed.
This topic has always been a sore spot for me. I see people immigrate to the United States from other countries and be here 20 years and still cannot speak proper English. I see people stuck in dead-end jobs that stay there for years and years because they do nothing to increase their knowledge or training. We have all seen people with annoying habits or weaknesses that they never put any effort into changing.
We all have our “some-day’s” and “tomorrow’s”. You know, that excuse that pulls us back and drags us down, sometimes for our entire lives. Someday I will learn to be a better sales person. Someday I will learn to speak in front of large groups. Someday I will learn how to communicate better. Someday I will learn how to manage my money. Someday I will take a vacation with my family. Someday I will show my employees how much I care for them. Someday I will write that book. Someday I will overcome such and such bad habit or someday I will spend more time with my kids. Tomorrow I will tell my spouse how much I care for them. It seems they never stop.
Status quo is something we often think of as a kind of “environmental” problem that is happening around us, something that is caused by others or caused by the “system”. But bring it back and bring it closer to the individual level, to the personal level. If we could foster this value of progression in ourselves and in those that work for us, think about what could be achieved. If every employee had a learning mentality and a mentality of overcoming their weaknesses and learning new skills, how much more powerful of a culture could we have at our companies? We would not just have a lone leader progressing, but we would have an army of people going the extra mile and improving every day. How much greater profit and greater happiness could be produced in this scenario? How many more people could we positively touch?
I mentioned that this is a sore spot for me, because changing our current state does not necessarily have to be hard. Learning a new language is hard, but if you learned 10 words a day or 5 words a day, how much greater could you learn to speak that language, than if you had done nothing? Dr. Nido Qubein, said: “I learned English by memorizing ten words a day. Each day, I would review the words I had learned the day before and then study 10 new ones. By the end of the week I had added 70 new words to my vocabulary. It was this consistent effort, that enabled me to achieve fluency in English.” Nido is a self-made raving success.
This is not some rant on immigrants. What I am driving at is that small consistent effort is the key to overcoming status quo. There are thousands of stories like this, where someone took small consistent steps and were able to overcome great challenges, setbacks or weaknesses. By only reading about 5 pages a day, you can read an average business book or self-improvement book a month. There is a wealth of information in books that will help us overcome just about any challenge we face, although more effort is often spent searching for the remote control.
The biggest excuse I hear is “lack of time”. It really is an excuse. What you are really saying is: “I enjoy staying in my miserable state and I cannot prioritize what I do so I will just stay miserable and keep making excuses.” “Miserable” might be a strong word, but there is almost always some level of suffering by not progressing. That could be missing out on a better salary, a healthier lifestyle, amore loving relationship, a more profitable business, etc…. People will do what is most important to them. If you find yourself watching TV a couple hours a week and not working for 5 minutes a day on something that could help you, then obviously the TV is more important. If you spend your time always doing menial tactical work, and never strategizing to grow the business, then obviously business growth is not that important.
There is always a better way to do something or squeeze more time in somehow. Great leaders know this and do not make excuses; they focus on what is important to them and their organization. They will make time.
No matter if you are a CEO or a high school drop-out, I invite you to look at your life and to consider what small and consistent effort you could work on that might have an impact on your current situation. Then start acting. Don’t be haunted by “some-day’s.”
Please leave a comment or send me a message through the contact form. I’d love to hear what you think and I am always happy to help.
