So the other day, I read a blog post on BoingBoing.net about fake bus stops outside of nursing homes. The post was introduced this way, “A nursing home in Germany built an exact replica of a bus stop in front of the facility. The only difference is that buses never stop there.” When patients with Alzheimer’s disease become frustrated and leave the facility, there is now a safe place for them to wait to “leave.” Once they’ve forgotten about what made them storm out in the first place, often a nursing home worker can coax the patient back inside. This got me thinking about human nature in general. Man, we are creatures of habit, aren’t we? The whole reason the fake bus stop works is because it’s been hard wired into these residents’ minds that a bus stop is a way of escape. It’s how they can leave. They lived all their lives never thinking about how the way they’ve trained their brains could somehow serve as an auto-pilot–even if they can’t consciously remember or understand where they are.
Whenever I come into a dark room, my hand unconsciously reaches for the switch. When a stray soccer ball is coming my way, I duck or put out my hand. When I drive to the office in the morning, I don’t even remember making the drive. We do so many things without thinking and without understanding the reason behind our actions. While there is safety and familiarity in doing what we’re comfortable with and sticking with our formed habits, in order to grow and learn, we must leave some of that familiarity behind and venture into something new.
Now, I’m not saying you should let the soccer ball hit you in the face just for the “experience” of it, but I am saying that the way we’ve reacted in the past isn’t always the best way to react in the future. Think about it. What habits are you holding onto that could be inhibiting your growth? Are you stuck in the tried and true way of doing business? Or are you challenging yourself and your company to see things in a new way and look at the ever changing forms of doing business in an ever changing world?
