“We’ve always done it this way.”
I’m very chill, but that sentence makes me instantly mad. In my brain, it’s like saying, “I don’t feel like thinking today.” Ridiculous, right? Yet that’s what I hear when someone says the six most offensive words in business.
This sentence sounds harmless, but it greatly impacts your appraisal firm or department (or software company for me). It drains momentum, smothers initiative and convinces your smart people to play small. I think people say it to show their experience, but it’s really a lazy effort, resistance to change and lacks responsibility.
And the cost? Flatlined curiosity. Doing the same thing as last month/year/decade(s) seems logical, but it’s like ignoring your health. Everything might seem ok but inside a fire is burning.
For commercial fee appraisers, the cost shows up subtly at first like stale comps. Leads to reports that make reviewers sad instead of “WOW what a great report!” The cost is your professional value declining from “expert and indispensable” to “fast and cheap.”
For chief appraisers, the costs are blind spots in the review process, lender friction and regulators spotlighting missing or incomplete documentation. Your team feels reactive not strategic. Flatlined curiosity bogs down your workflow and SLAs.
When curiosity is absent, innovation dies. Opportunities like YouConnect or Glances are ignored. Tools built to remove friction get pushed to “later.” Not because they don’t help, but because no one asked: “What’s slowing us down?”
Sit down face-to-face with your staff. Take them through the Curiosity Operating System framework. Open their minds to move from tactical stuff to strategic ideation (Hint: No. 1 is hard for appraisers).
Curiosity Operating System
1. Observe before fixing.
2. Map reality without judgment.
3. Expose the old belief anchoring the old process.
4. Redesign with intent.
5. Measure the improvement (so truth beats opinion).
Organizations don’t stall because they lack intelligence. They get stuck because they stopped being curious. When everyone lives in task-mode, the questions that would level up the business never get asked.
So ask yourself.
Where have you accepted “the way things are” instead of designing what they could be?