The 3 shackles of tradition

Traditions in and of themselves are not a bad thing. Traditions are the result of time, habit, and shared
experiences. They play a vital role in developing the culture of society whether that society is a national,
state, local, or company level. Traditions can also ease social interactions as people automatically know
how they should respond or act under certain circumstances. They can also lend an aura of heavy
importance and weightiness to ceremonies and events. Unfortunately, traditions can also serve as an
anchor to hold people or organizations back and slow them down. The following are three shackles of
tradition which should be avoided at all cost.

1. We have always done it this way

Of the three, this is the most dangerous and annoying. A couple of years ago, I was at my grandmother’s
house for Christmas, and my grandmother gave a young cousin of mine one of those Christmas tree
calendars where you put a sticker on the tree for every day leading up to Christmas. Always ready to
break the mold and feeling a bit mischievous, I encouraged my young cousin to stick the ginger bread
man sticker on the very top of the tree; the spot normally reserved for the star or angel. My
grandmother exploded with indignant rage at my suggestion. No! The star goes on the top of the tree!
To be honest, I was quite shocked at her response. Are gingerbread people banned from that elevated
position simply due to a long history of tradition? Would putting something else on the top of the tree
be such a crime? Without a doubt, everyone reading this article has at some time or another
encountered someone who either outright made that statement or at least acted with that mindset. The
idea is that this is the way it’s been done, it’s always worked before, and this is the way that we do. This
kind of mentality absolutely suppresses any kind of positive change, experimentation, or improvement.
A company full of people who hold to this kind of belief will find itself locked into a specific period of
time and unable to adapt while competing organizations continue to adjust to the most current
technology and events.

2. Think outside the schema

Schemas are absolutely wonderful things. In psychology, a schema is a concept or framework that
people form based on experiences and situations that they have been in. In this way, these schemas are
essentially our own traditions. These schemas allow us to quickly categorize and respond to the world
around us without having to carefully analyze every situation as if it were our first time encountering it.
For example, a young child has no idea what a dog is. Initially, a dog may seem to the child to be any
kind of animal living or otherwise. Over time however, the child will develop a schema of furry, four-
legged creatures that bark called “dog”. Thus, even if the child has never encountered a particular breed
or kind of dog, it can immediately recognize it as one without needing to contemplate its features and
can thus respond with either friendliness or fear based on previous experiences with dogs. If people did
not develop schemas, then every time we encountered a familiar object but with just a slight feature
change (a white dog or big dog instead of a small brown one for example), we would have to analyze
that object as if it were completely foreign and try to build a response to it without any kind of basis.
Unfortunately, while these schemas can help us analyze and react infinitely more quickly than
otherwise, they can also prevent a thorough analysis. This is because once we categorize something in a
particular way, it can be nearly impossible to view it differently.

3. Age old wisdom