The Trap of Proven
“That’s how we’ve always done it” is never the real problem
Photo by Tsuyoshi Kozu on Unsplash
If you’ve been working at the same company or in the same industry for any length of time, a recurring reflex in most organizations is around the idea of “that’s how we’ve always done it.” Whether this is a nod to tradition (the president always sends a holiday greeting in December) or an excuse for habitual defaults (we always meet at that time for the Monday Morning Start), doing it the way you’ve done it can feel normal, natural, even necessary. Why buck the system if it’s working?
I love change. I’m the kid who rearranged his bedroom way too often just because I wanted some variety. This isn’t a productivity argument because, as we are learning, the Antagonist is usually not that obvious.
Founded in 1888, Kodak built an empire by teaching people what to photograph and how to remember their lives. They made memory-keeping a global phenomenon. With slogans like “Let Kodak tell the story,” “You press the button, we do the rest,” and “Kodak moments,” they introduced a new way to capture and communicate life that could be shared for generations.
But Kodak had a difficult time separating the business they were in from how they made money. People weren’t paying for memory capture; they were paying for cameras, film, and film development. Why would Kodak want digital cameras when they make so much of their money on film and film development? Much like Blockbuster and the storefront movie rental behemoth they became, Blockbuster made most of its money on late fees. Why would Blockbuster go into the DVD-by-mail or streaming business, where you can’t charge people late fees?
Kodak invented the first digital camera in 1975, but did little with it because it would cannibalize the business they thought they were in. In 2000, Blockbuster passed on its opportunity to buy Netflix for $50 million.
Neither of these infamous corporate stories is unfamiliar, or even hostage to “that’s how we’ve always done it” mentality. I think it’s deeper. “That’s how we’ve always done it” is a phrase we use when we don’t know how to name what’s underneath.
What’s underneath is identity.
Kodak didn’t just sell film. Kodak believed it was film. Blockbuster didn’t just rent movies. Blockbuster believed it was the place people went to get movies. And once a company confuses its method for its mission, it stops adapting. It starts defending.
This is why those stories feel inevitable in hindsight. The leaders weren’t lazy. They weren’t stupid. They were faithful to a doctrine that had worked.
Kodak invented the first digital camera in 1975 and then treated it like a threat. It could have been an engine. Blockbuster passed on buying Netflix because it couldn’t imagine entertainment without a store, and because its most profitable revenue stream (late fees) didn’t survive in the world that was coming.
These were failures of imagination under the weight of past success.
The late Chris Argyris gave leaders a useful distinction for moments like this. He called it double-loop learning: the ability to question not just the organization’s methods, but also the assumptions, goals, and beliefs beneath them.
Single-loop learning asks, How do we do this better? Double-loop learning asks, Should we still be doing this at all?
That second question is where organizations panic because it threatens more than strategy. It threatens status. It threatens competence. It threatens the story leaders have told themselves about why they’re winning.
In situations like Kodak or Blockbuster, their strategies had worked so well for so long. What began as a playbook became a belief system. And once a strategy becomes doctrine, it stops being tested and starts being protected.
That hardened strategy is the Antagonist because it’s familiar, proven, and probably once saved you. It quietly turns yesterday’s success into today’s ceiling.
The Antagonist is rarely the external disruption. It’s the internal refusal to reinterpret what disruption means. It’s the instinct to optimize the past rather than interrogate it.
Maybe you don’t need more innovation. Maybe you need more courage to ask better questions.
The Antagonist is already at work. Are you?
Put This Enemy to Work
What “best practice” in your organization has quietly become doctrine?
What assumption are you protecting because it has always worked?
How could you rally as a team against your current strategy?
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Hi, I’m Brad Abare. If the challenges I write about sound familiar, it’s because I spend my time helping executives and their teams work through them. Over the past 30 years, I’ve been a founder, principal, board member, CEO, and chief of staff. If you’re interested in a conversation about working together, I accept a limited number of new engagements each year. You can send me a message here.