Improvement, Leadership and “Status quo Defenders”

‘Status quo’ means ‘existing state of affairs’. Status quo is popular because it has worked so far – and hence has many defenders. At workplace, people constantly defend the status-quo because as humans – we fear change. We don’t like uncertainty that comes with change. We love comfort.

A few years back, when I was working on a process improvement initiative, I heard a senior leader saying, “We are too small for having rigorous processes in place. And, our clients have never asked for such processes”. I was amazed at the confidence with which status quo was being defended. When senior leaders model such behaviors, the teams only follow/comply.

In pursuit of improvement, it is important to identify “status quo defenders”. Watch out for these statements that they often dish out:

• “You know, we tried this before. It didn’t work.”
• “This is how we have been doing this so far.”
• “This has always worked for us.”
• “It can’t be done. It is too costly for us to do it.”
• “We are time-constrained to do it.”
• “We are too small for doing that.”
• “But why do we want to change it? It is working OK!”
• “Top Management will never agree for it”
• “We have never done it before”
• “Let’s park it for now. We will revisit it later.”
• “Our clients/people will not accept this.”
• “Check with accounts if they have budgeted it.”
• “We are not in that league.”
• “It will create unnecessary overhead.”
• “We have too many constraints”

Leadership plays a crucial role. If senior leaders within the organization keep defending status quo (or allow people to do that), they are setting wrong example. Accepting that there is a problem is first step of any improvement initiative. Transformational leaders challenge the status quo because they know – if we keep doing things the way we have always been doing, we will only be as good as we currently are. Leaders also need to build a culture where people know that it is fine to challenge the normal.

Unfortunately, marketplace does not wait for you to change. Instead, it forces you to change. It is therefore, a sound strategy to keep improving your practices and stay comfortable with change.

Have you heard these defending statements before? I have.