The Malady of Status Quo
Many people are stereotyped in the way they live their lives, they do not want to improve the way they do things because they feel that it is wrong to change the status quo, afraid to explore new ideas. So many people today are not ready to think, to do something tasking they always stick to their normal routine, afraid to obstruct what has been there already. But sweetheart in life, nobody ever get to the top or make a name by being stereotyped, everyone at the top initiated some form of flexibility in whatever they do. I believe one of the problem why countries are underdeveloped is because they always want to follow the status quo.
Source
For instance in Nigeria, students do not want to go ahead of their lecturers, their learning stops where the lecturer stops, they do not want to make an effort to go further or create new ideas. Student only want to read to pass their exams and do not want to stress themselves to learn more. Even the lecturers in Nigeria do not want to improve in their teaching pattern. The lecturers use ancient text books with ancient information and they still set their exams based on that ancient information and expect the students and they expect the students to be great but forget that output is a function of input. The student take everything the lecturer says hook,line and sinker and do not want to inquire more or try to argue what has been given to them with the notion that the lecturer will fail them if they try to thwart what so ever he says in class. In ancient times, for example Plato who was a student of Socrates but he argued some ideas of Socrates and came up with new ones.
This is one of the bane of Nigerian development because of the fact that majority of student do not want to think outside the box. Even the so-called First class student believe that when the get out of school there is a job for them, so when they get out of school they see acquiring a skill or starting up a small business of their own as below their standards and degree of education so they remain jobless even after living school because they are waiting for white-collar jobs. This is reason why most third-class students are more successful because they see themselves being disadvantaged, so they try their possible best to do whatsoever they can to develop themselves in any aspect they so they can match up to the so-called first-class.
Even in public firms, most workers have beautiful ideas for the firm but they do not want to air their views because of the fear of being sacked so since they always want to be on the pay roll they have to keep their ideas to themselves in order to put food on their table. Sometimes they do things conventionally and do not want to think outside the box to improve themselves and the firm because they fail to come to terms with the fact that
Individual success cannot be divorced from organizational success, they have this mentality that it is not their father's business so why should they make it a duty to change it
Source
They become nonchalant in what they do saying that the people who where there before them never changed the laws so why should they start it forgetting the fact that the change need to first start with them so others can see but that fear of taking that first step and fear of getting sacked makes them not to put a touch of excellence in what so ever they do.
In business, many people just want to follow the moving train and doesn't want to change, they do not want to develop new ideas . Sometimes they do not want to go away from what they've been thought saying that they learnt from the best but they fail to understand that even the best needs improvement now that is the pareto improvement economist talk about. They have this arrival mentality anytime they make money in business, for that fact they stop there and do not want to make consistency their watchword. They do not want to be flexible in their ideas. They do not want to think. Can you imagine an architect who want to design a building and still uses T-square to do that based on the fact that he was taught using such tool when good modern architects use autocad, revit, SketchUp etc. In everything we do we need to have that unique touch that make our work standout.
Many great men today we hear about were flexible in whatsoever they did and they went ahead of their lecturers. For instance;
Micheal Faraday who is known today in the world of physics never got there by being stereotyped he did so many trials and error method to bring about the electricity we know today. He went ahead of his teacher Sir Humphrey Davis to make a name for himself. Secondly, Tim Berners Lee founder of the World Wide Web just suggested the use of hypertext. In his words I just had to take the hypertext idea and connect it to the TCP and DNS idea and ta-da! the World Wide Web
Flexibility is the spice of every business. This is whySteemit has being very helpful because it create room for flexibility for everyone, people are always thinking of new things like what can I post that people would love, I need to create something new, I need to change my style to suit the desire of my audience and readers and so on. Through this brainstorming it creates room for new ideas and it also break the chain of Status quo.
As students, we need to come up with new ideas and what so ever we do in our academics we need to not only do it but do it well.
Source
As a business man or an employee you need to start adding flexibility giving room for new ideas and also that unique touch of excellence in what so ever you do.
BUT BREAK THE CHAIN OF STATUS QUO IN WHATEVER YOU DO