Five Choices Of Those Discontented With Status Quo
1. Choose to be a reformer within the system.
2. Remain in the system but find other meaningful outlets
3. Drop out of the system.
4. Transfer and commit to another system.
5. Leave and create anew.
(Lyle Schaller; Strategies for Change; pg. 110-111)
Sooner or later most of those who become severely discontented with the institutional status quo are confronted with this fork in the road. Do I remain here and persist in seeking to reform this organization from within? Or do I leave to create that which will enable my dreams to become reality?
The patient and persistent agent of planned change who is committed to reform continues to work from within. The impatient visionary leaves to create the new. The tradeoff is between institutional loyalty and impatience. The stronger motivating force usually determines the outcome.
Who are the victims? Perhaps the most unfortunate victims of the choice between seeking to reform the old or going out to create the new are the reformers who stay with the old. Their diagnosis of the problem was accurate, their prescription was a perfect response to that diagnosis, but they lacked the allies required to make that prescription work. Those potential allies had left to go out and help give birth to the new. The reformers look back on a life filled with hope, faithfulness, patience, loyalty, and disappointments while their departed friends enjoy the fruits of impatience, creativity, action, and helping to pioneer the new.
(Lyle Schaller; Strategies for Change; pg. 112)
