Resistance to Change?
Why people find it so difficult to accept change without realizing that the change would make their lives much easier?
As software guys, any experiences?
As software guys, any experiences?
Is your change better than the prior solution? Yeah, it most likely is. And if you are solving a problem that makes people feel pain in their lives for a large chunk of the day, they will welcome the change. But most changes don't work at that scale in their users' lives.
Like I used to build and support software for a call center, and if we resized a button or changed the color of the text somewhere, we got complaints from the agents using the software.
It's kind of like driving your car for two years, and then you get into your car and the turn signal is suddenly in a different place and operates completely differently. Now your mental driving autopilot is going to get screwed up, it'll take time to adjust, and you may have preferred where it used to be anyway.
Now imagine fucking with thousands or millions of users that way every time you make a little change. People are going to hate you for it if you do it to them too often.
Which change? Any change? Any way, any how?
This is one of those phenomena where everything is so clear afterwards. In real time conserving potential is the strategy for longevity and endurance.
Most change are circumstantial, adaptations to the relativistic nature of the subjective instance.
Worth while change is one which is self sustaining, where the cost of change is calculably long term efficient, as any change has overhead.
As a “software guy” I can’t tell you how often the new guy spouts off about the latest trend in development (as I’m sure I had once), where in reality it is better to wait for mature versions, developed community support, and established continuity in a niche before considering the investment of adaptation.
What change did you have in mind that you think would make someone's life easier but they refused to accept it?
When you introduce change, you force others to re-evaluate the new situation and to establish new habits. That requires active thinking, choices. Those take energy, and you feel more drained afterwards.
I believe that we optimize for stability and not change, because we aim to spend as little energy as possible on getting through our day.
In more concrete and software-related terms, bringing in new software to companies often means layoffs... The software is meant to replace at least some of the people.