Purpose or Pain: Two Antidotes for the Status Quo

You know your organization needs to change.  You feel it on a regular basis.  You sense it in the relevance disconnect.  You might not be able to describe the reasons, but the stuckness is more palpable than ever before.

Still, the status quo has a stranglehold on team members that can’t quite break free of old paradigms.  Stuck in the models of the past, they have difficulty even seeing the winsome potential of the future.

Fortunately, there are two antidotes.  A clarified sense of purpose will do it.  Wrestling to the ground the genuine why behind what you do.  It takes work.  It might require fresh eyes.  And it certainly takes a steadfast effort.

Pain is another antidote to the status quo.  Enough pain will also break the stranglehold.  You’ve got to love this line from Gary Hamel: “In the absence of purpose, the only thing that will change the status quo is pain (p. 130, What Matters Now).

Want to change?  There are two antidotes.  Which one will it be?