Status quo is defined as preserving the existing state of affairs. It’s about doing what is comfortable and thinking inside the existing box. We’ve all been there before with the “If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it” thinking in our careers and personal lives. This is so much easier than being uncomfortable and thinking outside the box.
The reality is that many companies promote a similar business as usual culture because it still works…at least in the short term. “We’re a successful company today, so why should we change?” is commonly heard from executives in relation to promoting quarter-over-quarter performance results and prioritizing incremental shareholder value. This creates a focused drive and effort, along with perhaps a false sense of security with a trade off on short term progress and long-term innovation.
Case studies of this disruption can be seen with Uber/Lyft compared to the taxi business, AirBnB to hotels, Amazon to retail shopping, Turo to car rentals, Netflix to traditional television, the list goes on and on. These disruptors did not get there over night. They constantly came up with ideas to challenge the status quo, and probably had many failures along the way before they ultimately reached that level of success.
The “Super Chicken” experiment
Weird Side Story Alert: In the early 90s there was an experiment to create “Super Chickens” by selectively breeding the most passive chickens in order to see if this helped in producing more eggs over time. There was a random group of “normal” chickens and another other group of the most passive chickens to test the hypothesis that the latter group would produce more eggs. The study turned out that after a couple of generations, the normal group of chickens were the same as the previous generations, and the “Super Chickens” decided to peck each other to death until only three remaining chickens survived with their feathers being plucked out!
When translating this experiment over to the business world, there are certain challenges companies face that are like the “Super Chicken” experiment outcome. For example, performance evaluations have been fine tuned to the point that employees are pressured try to make the “Super Chicken” cut to receive validation for their hard work, talent and contributions. At times, they may even peck others down to stay on top.
“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”
Challenging convention might be in the DNA of progressive companies such as Amazon and Netflix, but it doesn’t have to be an inherent trait for more traditional organizations. The corporate sense of Darwinism doesn’t discriminate in its evolution. The risk of not challenging it evolves around obsolescence if there is potential for disruption in the business model. Companies will either view this as a threat or an opportunity to essentially thrive, survive or erode.
How to challenge the status quo
When incorporating a culture of innovation and diverse thought within a company, the real struggle lies within how to collaborate effectively. Teams begin to grapple with the many moving pieces in a project, along with balancing short-term gains to go with long term viability. Furthermore, individuals may be reluctant to share collaboration thoughts and ideas due to the fear of it being shot down or not seeing the value in it.
Here are some tips to effectively challenge the status quo within the team environment:
Make allies: if not already on a team, find a group of like-minded people that see an opportunity and collaborate with them.
Create an objective: this includes an initial roadmap of the overall mission and goals that the team contributes on together and sticks with through thick and thin
Have a monthly “Freelance” meeting where each person on the team can brainstorm ideas and contribute on how to work better and focus on those common objectives.
When getting into the nitty gritty, create a buddy system within the project so each task is assigned to a lead person along with an assistant lead to provide support, and adding other team members to the task depending on the size of the task.
Debrief on these sessions to discuss lessons learnt and opportunity for growth and advancement as a cohesive unit
Remember that at the end of the day you are the CEO of your own career, so start taking ownership of where it’s gonna go!