The Way We’ve Always Done Things: Challenging the Status Quo

At the risk of stating the obvious, we’re going through a period of tremendous change in tech, in organization structures, job definitions, you name it. This can bring added stress to daily work and create periods of uncertainty as there is usually a lag from what has been done to what the vision is for the future.

In this time, there is an opportunity to make things better or more efficient, to change mindsets, and to foster growth in new ways. But it requires some courage and planning to challenge the status quo.

Small But Mighty

Not every challenge needs to be a big one. Incremental change or smaller “status quo” problems are fair game. The range of status quo opportunities is wide. Sometimes you’ll get a hint of why a refresh might be useful when a new employee joins and their immediate questions are “why” questions. For example:

• Refreshing a process or a workflow. Many processes get “hardened” over time and then people stop questioning why things are done that way. This kind of project is a good one to consider for automation with AI assistance in assessing the current one and making recommendations for improvements.
• Finding efficiencies. Not just in processes or workflows, but in other areas such as data management, purchasing, or eliminating duplicate work.
• Challenging assumptions. In many of our companies there is a core of long-tenure employees who work from long-held perspectives about solutions, customers, and markets. Their deep experience is a valuable asset, but it’s possible that it’s been a long time since the assumptions that drive decisions have been validated.
• Changing culture. Culture shifts usually requires senior leaders to be involved. Whether you’re talking about team culture or organization culture, it can be a great benefit to embrace innovation and changes to company culture that make it easier for people to work well. As more companies seek “AI first” approaches, there will be necessary culture change to support these new frameworks, not only for technologies, but also for job roles, decision making, innovation, and more.

Some questions that managers can use to identify potential areas to focus on:

• What aspects of our current approach were hard to understand or follow?
• Can you explain the challenges you’re facing?
• Which tasks slow you down? What are the friction points?
• What does a productive day at work look like for you? What gets in the way of that?

Dealing With Pushback

Even on small things, and especially when there is an authority gap, it is easier to accept “this is the way we’ve always done things” than to challenge it, because challenging established processes feels risky.

There’s good reason for that. As author Timothy R. Clark notes in the Harvard Business Review, it’s not the systems and processes that push back, it’s people. People who may have a strong attachment to the status quo, and the relative power to keep it that way. Or more benignly, they just don’t want you to change things. And sometimes there are good reasons why.

However, too much status quo thinking can lead to a sort of “willful blindness” even if a process or tradition or mindset is no longer serving people well. Facing stagnant growth, we ought to be thinking about innovation, and that requires challenging what has always been done.

The Status Quo Bias

Put simply, we tend to prefer the current state of affairs, resulting in resistance to change. Often because it takes less mental/time investment to stick with the “default option.” It’s counterintuitive, but this bias isn’t about doing nothing. It can trigger deliberate actions (the default response) that might be described as rote actions: you’re doing some action or exhibiting a particular behavior, but it’s the same thing repeated without question or consideration about alternatives.

It is related to concept of Loss Aversion, a behavior driver based on the fact that we experience “pain” from a loss that is stronger than any “pleasure” we get from an equal gain. In this way, the imbalance drives us to select the status quo to avoid that potential pain. We know what to expect and we assign greater weight to potential losses vs. potential gains.

The Current Case: Status Quo Bias and AI

One of the key drivers of high velocity change these days is, of course, AI. Status Quo Bias will continue to be a factor that impacts adoption, or even how open & curious people will be about AI.

This will be worse in organizations where the communications and knowledge sharing related to AI – the vision, when it’s useful and when it’s not, governance, permission to experiment, permission to fail, role opportunities – lack clarity, making potential pain much larger than any potential gain.

There are also more practical considerations that aren’t necessarily stemming from some bias. For example, if you have only a few hours to get something done that has to get done, and you are not AI-savvy, you are very likely not seeing this as the perfect time to try it in AI. Or, for another example, if your work is only one part of a larger process, it may not be feasible to inject a new AI/automation tool without kicking off a larger project with more stakeholders involved.

Most companies are making room for teams to consider/experiment with AI away from daily operational demands as a way to address these status quo challenges.

Advice for Challenging the Status Quo

It bears repeating that challenging anything without compelling reasons or being the person that challenges everything is not good for one’s career. That said, when you’re identifying areas that could benefit from change, there are some useful tips for getting buy-in from those around you:

1. Identify a specific opportunity. Emphasis on specific.
2. Learn the history. Start with the assumption that everyone makes the best decisions they can in the time and context in which they make them. If you are new to a team or company, you bring a fresh perspective, but you need to make the effort to understand why things are the way they are before you can intelligently and respectfully seek ways to improve things. Even if you have been around for a long time, you may not have been involved when previous decisions were made or processes were set up, so getting some history is useful for you, too.
3. Ask for permission. You’re going to need support and it’s never a good idea to surprise people who have real or perceived ownership. Think about the “positional power” dynamics – asking if you can look into things can also reduce your feelings of personal risk because you know have “permission” to learn more and ask questions.
4. Research and listen. Your research may include benchmarking against other companies, real-world examples, data about current state and potential future state, potential stakeholders, and user & customer needs. Listening to others, including the “owners” of the area of focus, as well as the people who would be impacted by changing things is really important.
5. Experiment. If you know what the current practice is, and you know the history of it, you can incorporate your new research into some “what if” experiments to test out new ideas. Be candid about risks and about the unknowns and be prepared for your hypothesis to be wrong. You may also discover that the change costs (time, money, complex interdependencies) are higher than the benefits of the outcomes.
6. Socialize and get feedback. The benefits are twofold: gauging support and fostering collaboration. You might uncover a better idea. Talking to others helps to lay the groundwork for future changes as well.
7. Act. The first action might be a formal proposal (if needed), a project plan, or making actual changes.

The order in which you do things matters. Challenging the status quo before you’ve learned about the history or listened to others pretty much guarantees you’ll be met with resistance and resentment. Imposing change when you don’t have trust or credibility is not a good idea.

Throughout the process, as Timothy R. Clark, says, you’ll need to model emotional intelligence. If you can create relationships based in psychological safety, and demonstrate self-awareness, it goes a long way to avoiding potential blockers, while setting the groundwork for future change.

Be sensitive to the who and when as well. Public challenges trigger defensive responses, especially if they are direct challenges to leaders. If there is no established way that people can ask challenge questions, then start with people you trust to ask their advice. This is especially true if your manager has a strong sense of ownership in your area of focus.

Counter-advice for challenging the status quo or raising an issue

The general advice on this is very solution-focused, but there is another school of thought that says that if the company culture/leadership style emphasizes “don’t bring me problems, only bring me solutions,” then there will be a lot of problems that never get discussed.

If you think about the emotions associated with sustaining the status quo, especially considering how much power dynamics play into it, demanding solutions/compliance as part of the culture can amplify fear of failure, making everyone a little more risk averse.

In organizations where it is acceptable to come forward with questions without having a full solution, there are richer opportunities to socialize ideas, experiment, and collaborate on improvements, workflows, and so on. It’s important to note that pushing back isn’t/shouldn’t be complaining. It can be open-ended questions, risk management, or innovation opportunities, though.

The steps will still get followed, but the context in which they happen will happen. It’s more likely that leaders will be involved earlier in the process.

And speaking of leadership, as researcher Dr. Kiko Suarez comments, learning how to challenge the status quo is an important indicator of leadership. Finding the right balance of change and commitment can be tricky – aim for “what if” challenges instead of “gung-ho” challenges.