If you’ve been following this blog, you will know that to get lucky, you must open yourself up to as many new opportunities as possible. Keeping your eyes open to see any changes that can lead to new opportunities and listening to as many people as possible to hear new points of view that can lead to new opportunity. It seems pretty obvious that if things aren’t going as well as you would have hoped, you would open yourself up to new ideas and new points of view. If that’s the case, why are so many businesses and organizations banging their heads into the same wall over and over again?
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
— Albert Einstein
Being new in town, my wife decided to help out some local organization by joining committees for their fundraisers. She was full of excitement knowing that she was not only going to be helping out her community but also, she will be able to share some of her ideas to make the events even more successful. They welcomed her onto the committees with open arms but to her surprise, they were unwilling to listen to any of her ideas. Even though they complained that they lost money of some events and would love to raise more money on others, they were determined to not only redo each of last year’s events but duplicate them completely and have the same people run each part.
My wife sent them an email saying that she was disappointed that she wasn’t involved more than just running errands that nobody else wanted to do. Here is the response that the committee leader sent to my wife:
Hi,
First of all, i apologize for not including you more in this. Most of the year to year things, carry on from year to year, so the ones who have dealt with these things in the past continue to do them year to year. Most of the committee does nothing more than helping to set up, dealing with the night of…I think because the core committee can do this with our eyes closed already, we didn’t bother to set up any “real meetings” with the rest of the committee.
“Who is wise: He who learns from all men.”
– Ethics of Our Fathers
When will people learn that if they want change, they will have to open their eyes and start doing things differently and most of all, listening to other ideas and points of view. If you never want to get lucky, go ahead and continue doing what you’ve always done with your eyes closed.