This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans (Create a Strategy to Elevate Your Career, Community & Life)

by Seth Godin

We’ve lived with them so long they have become invisible, but systems are everywhere. Systems shift our perceptions and our actions, and they don’t always offer us what we want or need. So why do they stick around? Status quo—when people coordinate into networks and groups, our individual aversion to certain kinds of change is multiplied, and so the default becomes keeping things as they are. Sunk costs—once we’ve invested our effort, money, and emotions into something, it’s hard to let it go, even if it might not be what we need. Interoperability—there are practical reasons for things to work in the way they do—connectors that connect, languages that are understood, and procedures that maximize efficiency. No one wants to buy a phone that doesn’t support Bluetooth. Status roles—the hierarchy benefits those that are at the top (who have power) and they work to maintain it. They also sell everyone else on the idea that the system is the best way for them to achieve status as well. Affiliation—culture is “people like us do things like this.” Humans find solace, satisfaction, and safety in community, and our desire for affiliation maintains existing systems.