Daily Inspiration: “How many of your daily actions are based on lifelong lessons that no longer apply?”

“How many of your daily actions are based on lifelong lessons that no longer apply?” – Futurist Jim Carroll

We are creatures of habit, prisoners of routine, captives of ritual – we keep doing the same thing over and over again, and yet we know it won’t get us anywhere!

When this happens, progress stalls, initiative is inhibited and success is stifled.

For individuals, this means that behaviors extend beyond being a simple problem and devolve into something destructive. There are a lucky few who manage to find a pathway out and take the steps to begin to get there; too many others are left to wallow into a static state of inaction and find that progress and their future are regularly stifled. Companies suffer from this type of stagnation as well; convinced that their past success guarantees them a future opportunity, they get lazy, inactive, and arrogant – hubris defines their attitude. That’s why we see so many companies following the path of Blockbuster, Kodak, and Sears.

How do you know if you are suffering from these challenges? Ask yourself some hard-hitting questions – analyze the attitude and culture that might provide for a foundation of complacency:

• actions are based on lifelong lessons that no longer apply
• variation in routine is abhorred
• the strategies that are in place are often outdated by faster trends
• a command and control structure doesn’t allow for agility and flexibility
• outdated HR practices reward mediocrity
• individualism is punished
• risk is something to be feared, not embraced
• collaboration is absent
• big thinking is abhorred
• creativity is crushed
• hubris and arrogance is rampant
• trend spotting is nonexistent
• denial is rampant

When this type of thinking exists, problems result.

The result is that you end up with a corporate culture that is a petri dish of inaction, a breeding ground for change-resistance anti-bodies.

The only way to establish some immunity is to begin asking yourself the tough questions that really matter!