The Art of Affecting Change
There’s an interesting duality in us humans when it comes to change. Our ability to adapt to changing environments and circumstances has arguably made us the most successful species on this planet. Whatever you may think of where we are and what we’ve achieved — and indeed inflicted upon ourselves and others — our adaptability more than perhaps anything else made us what we are.
It’s kind of ironic then that we seem to loathe it so much. Because let’s be honest, most people prefer hanging on to the devil they know rather than embracing the possibilities change brings with it. And this is as true in software engineering as in any other field.
Working as a consultant I’ve seen my fair share of companies, and nearly all of them had problems with ossification in varying degrees. In fact, I can think of only a couple of places I’ve worked where they actually embraced change and used it for their benefit.
So, why do we stagnate and fall into the “because we’ve always done it like that” trap? The perhaps most generic and fundamental reason is the fact that we don’t like change. Change represents the unknown, the unknown represents risk and risk represents danger. We tend to forget that the vast majority of our time as a species was spent living in small, primitive communities, largely ignorant about how the world around us worked. And under such…
