Letters from the Global Province

" ...Theory of Embedded Wrongs: If a problem has been around a long, long while, and there's a dominant prevailing notion as to what will cure it, the answer is almost inevitably wrong.

Strong, wrong-headed notions particularly achieve a stranglehold in mature societies such as the United States. Lobbies and interest groups can summon up enough staying power, dollars, ideological fervor, and adherents to turn their idiosyncrasies into supposed cardinal truths that capture the popular mind.

Our business schools and consulting firms have popularized copious theories about change management and change agents. But we find that they change very little, their tedious efforts at reform unable to effect a revolution. Their flyswatters just have not had much impact on entrenched ideas. Surely these change nostrums themselves are part of the useless baggage that needs to be swept aside, so that better ideas can supplant them."

Interesting position to take if you are dead-set against changing anything.