It’s the way we’ve always done it is one of my all-time least favorite lines in business. You talk about a kiss of death for an individual as well as an organization. When someone has said that type of thing to me in the past, I normally look for the closest exit to escort them out of. If someone thinks this way, it just says they have either closed their mind, given up, or have been completely assimilated into the mundane. They have lost their passion if they ever had any to begin with. 

Oftentimes, they just don’t know any better. It’s like a learned behavior. In fact, they may be just parroting the excuses they’ve heard from management as to why the company is underperforming. The way we’ve always done it is an attitude, and a bad one at that. A toxic infestation that you’ve got to pull it out by the root. Of course, not knowing any better is not a viable excuse because if a team member has the capacity to buy into the idea of mediocrity, it tells you a lot about them and/or the organization they work for. None of it good. 

So, what’s the opposite of it’s the way we’ve always done it? Change, and as we know, most people are allergic to change. I know it’s sort of a cliché at this point, but organizations need to find a way to embrace change. Otherwise, they will die slowly and from the inside out. It’s often times easier to just stay with what you know, right? Where you have stability and perceived efficiency, risk reduction, and preservation of knowledge.
 
I completely disagree and view things contrastingly opposite. Instead, doing things the way you’ve always done them leads to the same results you have been getting which is stagnation, missed opportunities, and limited growth on all fronts. The problem lies in getting leaders to wake up and reflect on the company’s reality before it’s too late. This sort of reflecting leads to epiphanic moments of clarity. Future college basketball hall of fame coach from Davidson University, Bob McKillop summed things up nicely when he said, “Without a doubt, a leader has to first coach himself.”.