IS THERE A BETTER WAY?

Is there a better way? If so, do I want to change?
Fred Smith, the famous consultant, said that when called into a sick Company he always looked for one of two attitudes, either IGNORANCE or CONCEIT. If it was ignorance he heaved a sigh of relief. They could easily be taught the right principles and practices. But if it was conceit, "We have done it this way for umpteen years", or "Nobody can teach us anything", he would give up.
There seems to be an "Effective Curve" that operates on about a five-year cycle. It may be a business, a project or our household financial plan; we start off with high hopes being innovative, enthusiastic, creative and eager. Things happen, life is rosy and our effectiveness rises sharply. Then we start to ease up and allow inefficiencies to creep in. We learn to coast along on past successes and in fact look backwards instead of forward. Then the curve starts downward until we often can end up where we started, ineffective, disillusioned, a life of tedium and totally lacking in excitement.
It's good to evaluate just where we are on the effectiveness curve so we can take immediate, corrective action if necessary.
A famous aircraft engineer has a picture of a large bee in flight with this caption. "Aerodynamically it has been proved conclusively that the bee cannot fly but the bumble bee doesn't know it and just goes on gathering honey."
A great many people over the ages have "proved conclusively" that this or that could not be done only to wake up too late to discover somebody has done it and like the bumble bee gathered the honey. Maybe we need a few lessons on "Creative Thinking" just to get us back on the upward curve again.
Here's a little test to see whether you limit your thinking by assuming requirements that are not asked for and may not even exist. Draw nine dots in the form of a square. Now you are asked to draw four straight lines so as to intersect each dot. You must not cross any dot more than once, not retrace any line not lift your pencil from the paper until all nine dots have been crossed.
Don't give up - it can be done - only you have to start thinking laterally. However thinking is not sufficient. Creativity needs to be applied. Our country needs original thinkers, not a bunch of robots who only do what they are told. We need those who are prepared to be innovative, think outside the square and willing to test out and improve until like the bumble bee we gather enough honey to set our economy straight again.