Why Stubbornly Cling to Old Ways?
Time for a change
Why do some people resist change even if they aren’t happy with the status quo? I’m not even talking about major life changes, just small-scale tweaks here and there to make life a little easier. Change can be scary and it might involve heavy lifting. That’s a given. But if implementing a minor change will save you work in the long run, wouldn’t you give it a shot?
This week I’ve already talked with 2 people who still manually perform jobs that are easily and reliably taken care of by free (!) tools. And they grumbled because it takes them so long to do these jobs and I just zip through them. I answered their questions and told them about my tools of choice and how unbelievably easy they are to use. And they listened (at least I hope they did) and then politely informed me that their old (useless) method is good enough and they won’t go to the trouble of changing their approach. Baffling! Especially in a professional setting.
Start off small
Let’s set aside the issue of complaining to your peers. Ultimately, I wonder at this reluctance to try new things. We all tend to shy back from the big unknown and everyone has their own definition of what constitutes minor or major changes. I’m no tech whizz and I like to work with clear-cut, no-frills tools. So, I’m not trying to turn luddites into cloud-based, born-again technophiles. Nor am I telling people to completely turn their lives around. I’m providing advice that they asked for and suggesting a barely-there shift in their approach. Why would they let me waste my time and then tell me that they’ll just stick with their time-consuming manual strategy? At the heart of it, they are telling me, their peer, that they are choosing to willfully disregard ways to improve – or at least assess – weak spots in their business.
Simply identifying a problem doesn’t solve much if you don’t take the next step. Something has to give to make things better, easier, more productive or more lucrative. And change is best practiced in small steps, don’t you think?
I’d be very interested to know what improvements you were suggesting that were rejected by your colleagues. I’m not against change as such, but neither am I in favour of it for its own sake. So I’m open to ideas but I like to be able to see clear advantages for me before implementing them. And sometimes the short-term disruption of making a change, such as switching to a different invoicing system, can be very offputting, despite the long-term advantages.
Hi Simon,
I wasn’t suggesting anything as major as that 🙂 I’m talking about little everyday helpers: word counting tools, synching your bookmarks across various devices, Word macros, add-ons. And I’m not suggesting that I can fix anyone’s problems. What works for me won’t necessarily work for everyone else. If that’s what my post sounds like, then I didn’t do a good job explaining myself (I blame it on the eclipse!). And I don’t know much about invoicing systems either 🙂
I’m thinking of people who expressly approach me for advice because they are unhappy about something and then – when it sinks in that a little effort on their part is always required, like finally learning how to create a Word template – they’ll throw their hands up in the air and go right back to what they were doing before. Even though they know and have already admitted to me that that’s not working properly. These are the people who’ll get in touch with me again next year and then we’ll dance the same dance all over again. Just because they resist change doesn’t mean that they stop disliking the status quo.
I absolutely agree with what you said: Implementing change just for the sake of it makes no sense and it won’t stick anyway. Creating a stable routine and using tried methods is wonderful for increasing productivity, I find. However, going through life with a mind that is open to better, easier, smoother, or faster ways of doing things is a basic requirement for keeping up with the rest of us. At the end of the day, I’d be sincerely surprised if I knew how to solve other people’s problems for them. What I offer – in some cases – is proof that things can be different. And that could be a good starting point for working out a solution that is a good fit for you.
And maybe I am somewhat peevishly wondering why these people use up my time asking for help if what they really want to do is grumble and groan and then get on with life as they know it:-)
I hope this is somewhat clearer. The two colleagues I mentioned just sparked the post and they’re lovely people who do their best. I wasn’t thinking specifically of translators when I wrote this post.
First of all, Else, I didn’t mean any criticism of you or your post. I find people’s different attitudes to change very interesting and I wanted to see what you were trying to teach the other translators purely to find out whether I could learn something too. I know next to nothing about macros, for example. Keep up the blog, it’s one of my favourites!
🙂
I have to admit that I’ve found it unsettlingly difficult to respond to comments on this post – perhaps because I published it prematurely. The fear of change is something we are all familiar with and it’s a weighty subject that that doesn’t really fit into 350 words. I do wish I had invested a little more time in writing the article and not been so harsh on everyone. A classic case of blogger’s remorse, I’m afraid 🙂
Bad business habits are like bad partners: If it doesn’t hurt enough just yet, they won’t leave them behind. I go through the same procedure at every get-together, every meet-up… People will always complain. I remember this one guy who was nagging me over weeks to have a look at his professional online appearance. I pointed out a few non-brainers (like a 1988 design of his website with blinky text and dozens of different font sizes, family pics, and so on.) His answer: But THAT IS ME, if people don’t like it, they can buy their translations somewhere else. I will spare you my thoughts on that one.
Now that you mention it… I am in a similar situation with a dear friend of mine and a solopreneur. She is really great at networking the traditional way (always a plus) but she is scared of technology. By not approaching technology she is bound to find herself back to square one again.
I think that at some point you have to embrace new technology (at least to some extent). If you wait too long to get started, you might find that everyone has moved so far ahead of you that catching up is nigh impossible.