Funny What We Get Used To

It's funny what people can get used to.

A noise in the building. A drawer that sticks. A customer who complains every week. An employee everybody has learned to work around.

At first those things drive you crazy. You notice them every day. You tell yourself you're going to do something about them. Then, somewhere along the way, you stop noticing them altogether.

Not because they got better.

Because they became familiar.

I've seen the same thing happen in business. The things that frustrate us the most often become the things we eventually accept. Familiar has a way of feeling normal, and that's where things get dangerous.

Most businesses don't change overnight. They gradually become a reflection of what the owner is willing to tolerate. One compromise here. One excuse there. One problem that never quite gets addressed. Over time, what once bothered you simply becomes "the way we do things."

It's usually not the big things.

It's the toxic employee. The process that creates headaches every day. The customer issue that keeps showing up. The goal you quietly stopped pursuing because you've convinced yourself it's unrealistic.

Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to accept those things. It happens so gradually that it's easy to miss. That's why I think awareness matters so much in leadership. Not because leaders have all the answers, but because they're willing to notice the things everyone else has stopped seeing.

They're willing to ask questions like:

Why are we still doing it this way?
Why have we accepted this?
Is this really who we want to be?

Those questions matter because businesses don't drift toward excellence. They drift toward whatever the leader is willing to accept.

The things we tolerate rarely stay small.

Given enough time, they become part of the culture.

Your friend,
Dave