Too Easy to Say NO!

I occasionally teach MBA classes at the Acton School of Business. The students at Acton work 100 hours a week to get through what I feel is a very difficult immersion-type program. They work hard because they want to be entrepreneurs.

Even this group of entrepreneurial students, dedicating massive amounts of work to studying how to start new businesses, find it very easy to say NO! when confronted with a new idea. It must be in our nature. NO! seems to be a default response when anything outside of our comfort zone is proposed.

This may help to explain why change is so hard. We really don't want change. As U.S. citizens we are well aware that the economy cannot function the way it did in 2007. We know that the old system lead us to huge problems. We don't want Wall Street executives taking the same huge bonuses. But we really don't want change, either. If someone would propose a plan with a tag line that read "The easy path back to the way it was..." we would seriously consider it.

But "the way it was" is badly broken. So now we have to open our minds up to a new path that will require openness of thought, personal energy in changing old habits, and the emotional uncertainty that comes with doing something new. Given the choice very few of us would have picked this as a preferable path. But we weren't given the choice. Instead we resisted change and road the horse we were on until it died beneath us. And now we must find (or build) a new horse.

So saddle up! There will be change. It will not be easy. But if we do it thoughtfully it should be worth the effort. As for the part of us that fears the unknown - ignore it!