A630.6.4.RB - 50 Reasons Not To Change/The Tribes We Lead

I have been in a lot of situations both in work and in my personal life where ideas have been brought up and discussed, but somehow they always end up in a negative light in the end.  I’d like to think that I am the type of person who enjoy to mix things and up and try out new ideas and when I am faced with a situation where someone doesn’t believe enough in the group or the idea, I feel like we are all missing out on a potential opportunity to learn new ways of thinking and develop new ideas and concepts. 

Recently, at my current job, we were given a new set of company standards that were to be followed.  At first, the standards seemed like unnecessary work to change a system that was already working.  I realized that that way just an excuse and that this might actually be more beneficial.  As I was thinking these things, one of my coworkers stated that she didn’t understand what the point of this was and commented that it was just going to make a situation that is working fine, become more of a hassle and become more disorganized.  She was using the excuse that if it isn’t broken, we don’t need to fix it.  After she made her opinions clear, we had no choice but to move on with the standards.  After several months of putting the new standards in place, the group has already developed a strategy for using the new standards and everything has become routine.  In the end, the situation came out fine.  I have realized throughout my life that I have been faced with doing a lot of things I don’t necessarily want to do, but after I do them, I realized that I actually benefited from the experience.  This has taught me to be more open to new ideas and recognize when I am making excuses to avoid an uncomfortable situation. 

With that said, I still end up using excuses when I don’t want to deal with something or just feel like it will be hassle to start at that point in time.  They are usually little opportunity, but I still catch myself making excuses.  I think the best way to overcome making these excuses is to realize that every opportunity that presents itself to you is an opportunity to learn and develop new ways of thinking that should not be passed up.

Seth Godin brought up some really interesting, and in my opinion, valid points about our changing society and the need for movements to start and be developed.  With the increase in globalization and the onset of social media and the multitude of ways that we can connect with people, mass marketing is just not the answer anymore to creating a real change.  Change starts with an idea and once that idea is voice on a platform that can connect to people, other people with similar thinking will see it and be drawn to it because they are finding individuals who are thinking like them.  This movement of connecting people can be incredibly beneficial to develop and carrying out news approaches and ways of thinking.  The internet has become a huge platform for sharing ideas and can be an incredibly useful tool for exploration and development of skills in different areas.  In my other graduate program, I am working toward an art and visual culture education degree, so these platforms have been very beneficial for me in the discovery of new ideas and potential problems in others areas of different cultures that I would otherwise not be exposed to.  These opportunities have helped me expand and broaden my way of thinking that helps me recognize that the culture I am in right now is not the only one and that there are many people facing similar issues or thinking about similar ideas that have different perspectives.

Brown, D. (2011). An experiential approach to organizational development (8^th ed.).  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Seth Godin: The tribes we lead | Video on TED.com. (2009, February 1). TED: Ideas worth spreading. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_the_tribes_we_lead.html