Creatures of Habit

The political landscape right now it very interesting for me to watch. We have three candidates that all have the same core message. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain all seem to have the core message of "change." Of course, each of them take a different spin on the idea of change. But, unmistakably, the attitude of the message is, "Vote for me and I'll make significant changes in the way we do things in our government." In my past, I was employed as a change agent. It was my job for nearly two years to instigate a significant amount of change in the way the company did business. From internal processes to our go to market strategy.... the goal was to make change. The most important thing that I learned through that process is that most people don't like change. Most people would prefer to maintain the status quo if it means to keep things the same. Moreover, people are very selective about the amount of change they are willing to endure. Most change is forsaken long before any benefits of that change is realize. Take a look at my change versus ROI graph. The fact is, change is hard. People don't like change. Personally, I think that whichever candidate is elected (I think I know who will win and it isn't the one I support) is setting himself up for failure. Promising change and delivering on change are two mutually exclusive things. The vision of change is always far more appealing than the change itself. If change is to succeed, the champion has to push through a significant amount of opposition and be willing to put it all on the line to prove that the change is worth the effort. Corey Smith Co-founder of Resumango where you can build a better resume for free.