In my upcoming book, Automatic Influence: New Power for Leading Change, I write extensively about complacency. What is it? What causes it? How do I overcome it?
What is complacency?
Complacency is inappropriate satisfaction. We think things are fine as they are, when they aren’t. So we don’t see the need for change.
What causes it?
Complacency comes from blindness. Whenever we’re blind to danger or blind to opportunity, we automatically become complacent.
- The smoker says, “Smoking calms my nerves and helps me stay trim.” She ignores the warnings and runs the risk of lung cancer. She’s blind to the danger, and therefore complacent.
- The manager says, “We don’t need to worry about competition, our customers are loyal.” He fails to improve and risks losing customers to competition. He’s blind to the danger, and therefore complacent.
- There’s a job opening near where Abbey works with better benefits and $20,000 more pay. But Abbey doesn’t know about it. She’s blind to the opportunity, and therefore can’t be motivated to go after the new job. She can’t make the most of her opportunity because she can’t see the opportunity.
As I write in my book, perception is the prime mover, like a power button in the basement of human nature, driving every emotion, motivation, decision, and behavior. Whenever we have a motivational problem like complacency there’s a perception problem underneath it. We see things wrong, or we fail to see the way we should.
What’s the cure?
Since complacency comes from blindness, the cure is to see right, every moment of sight. Whenever we’re blind to danger or blind to opportunity, we automatically become complacent. But when we see dangers as they are, and see opportunities as they are, we automatically become motivated.
Identify the dangers of status quo, talk them out, spell them out, get them into view. Then identify the opportunities in the change, make sure they’re just as clear as the dangers.
This will fix the perception and fix complacency, automatically.