When power is given to those who refuse to change anything

There is something that hurts me more than poor management itself:

Watching a real possibility for change exist right in front of you, and watching the people who have the power to make that change choose to leave everything exactly as it is.

Watching someone sit in a position of authority, possessing enough power to move an entire institution, enough responsibility to improve it, enough influence to open doors to development—and yet choosing to do nothing.

Not because they are incapable.

But because they have chosen to become guardians of the past instead of architects of the future.

And that is where the real tragedy begins.

We do not always suffer from a lack of capable people.

Sometimes, we suffer from something far more dangerous:

capable people trapped inside systems that refuse to let them use their capabilities.

A young person enters an institution with a different mind.

They were raised in a different era.
They learned through different tools.
They watched the world transform in front of them.
They understand that technology is no longer a luxury.
That digital transformation is no longer a slogan.
That speed, efficiency, access to information and intelligent use of resources are no longer optional for institutions that want to remain relevant.

And then they enter the institution...

Only to hear:

"This is how we have always done things."

As if that sentence were a law of nature.

As if whatever worked twenty or thirty years ago must remain the best possible solution forever.

As if time itself stopped the moment someone decided that the old way was the correct way.

And I cannot help but ask:

When did respecting tradition become the same thing as submitting to it?

When did respecting the law become synonymous with refusing to think about how it could be implemented better?

When did respecting those who came before us mean forcing those who come after us to live exactly as they did?

No one is asking for chaos.

No one is saying that everything old is bad or everything new is good.

But there is an enormous difference between respecting the past and worshipping the past.

The law has its place.

Hierarchy has its purpose.

Experience has its value.

But the law was not created to kill initiative.

Hierarchy was not created to kill independent thinking.

And experience does not mean that the person who possesses it has become immune to criticism, evolution, or change.

Someone may have spent forty years inside an institution.

That gives them experience.

But it does not give them forty years of experience with the future.

The world they have lived through is not necessarily the world the next generation must live in.

And this is the truth that many people struggle to accept:

What was appropriate for one generation can become a burden for another.

The most dangerous thing is when authority stops being a responsibility and becomes a mechanism for preventing others from moving forward.

Then the questions change.

Instead of:

"How can we improve the way we work?"

the question becomes:

"Who gave you permission to suggest something?"

Instead of:

"Is there a better way?"

it becomes:

"Since when have we done it this way?"

Instead of:

"How do we keep up with the world?"

it becomes:

"We don't need all of that."

And that is how progress dies.

Not all at once.

It dies slowly.

It dies every time someone proposes an idea and hears "no."

It dies every time a young professional tries to introduce a better tool and is told to return to the old method.

It dies every time competence tries to move forward and is told:

"Know your place."

Eventually, the most capable people learn that silence is safer than initiative.

And that is when an institution should become afraid.

Because an institution that punishes initiative will eventually reward blind obedience.

And an institution that rewards blind obedience will gradually lose the people who think.

Then, one day, it will complain about the lack of competence.

What an extraordinary contradiction.

You close the doors to capable people, and then wonder where the capable people have gone.

Morocco today is facing a different generation.

A generation living in a world that no longer has patience for slowness simply because slowness has become a tradition.

A generation watching artificial intelligence transform entire industries.

Watching digital transformation reshape institutions.

Watching countries compete for the future rather than compete over who can preserve the past most faithfully.

And then we ask this generation to go backwards.

To put their intelligence aside.

To forget what they have learned.

To stop questioning.

To simply obey.

And then we wonder why they do not progress.

How are they supposed to move forward when every attempt to do so is met with: "Go back to your place"?

Morocco is no longer the Morocco of thirty or forty years ago.

And the world our children will inherit will not be the world we knew.

Anyone who holds authority today needs to understand one fundamental truth:

You are not responsible for managing the past. You are responsible for preparing the future.

A position of authority is not a higher chair from which to look down upon everyone else.

It is a responsibility.

Power is not a privilege that allows someone to say:

"Because I have the power to stop this, I will stop it."

Power is a responsibility that should force a person to ask:

"What can I open?"

"What can I repair?"

"What can I leave better than I found it?"

Because what is the value of reaching a position of authority if you leave everything exactly as you found it?

What is the value of years spent in responsibility if nobody can say that the institution became better because you were there?

What is the value of authority if its only legacy is making people afraid to propose an idea?

A true leader is not the person who makes everyone aware that they are the decision-maker.

A true leader is the person who makes the institution stronger even after they are gone.

And perhaps what hurts me the most is seeing that many young people are not lacking willingness to work.

They are not lacking patriotism.

They are not lacking intelligence.

They are not lacking ideas.

What they are sometimes lacking is space.

Space to say:

"I have an idea."

"I have a solution."

"We can do this better."

Without immediately being treated as a threat to authority.

Because not everyone who disagrees with an old method is rebellious.

Not everyone who proposes change is disrespectful.

Not everyone with an independent mind wants to destroy the system.

Sometimes, the person who cares most about an institution is precisely the person who refuses to watch it remain trapped in the past.

Because there is a difference between protecting an institution and protecting its habits even after those habits have become a burden.

So perhaps it is time to ask ourselves a more uncomfortable question:

Are we protecting the system—or are we protecting our fear of changing it?

Change is frightening.

Because it forces leaders to think.

Thinking creates the possibility of being wrong.

Initiative creates responsibility.

But stagnation is comfortable.

You can always hide behind:

"We simply followed the established procedure."

But history does not only ask what was done.

It also asks:

Who had the power to change it—and chose not to?

That is the question every person in a position of authority should be brave enough to face.

When you are given the ability to open a window—

did you open it?

Or did you simply make sure that the old door remained closed?

Because time will not wait for anyone.

The new generation will not go backwards.

And Morocco cannot build its future with a mentality that is afraid of the future.

Respect the past. Learn from it. Honor it.

But never hand the future over to it.

Because when tradition becomes more powerful than progress, an institution stops serving its people—

and starts serving its own history.

And if you cannot keep up with the future,

then at the very least,

have the courage not to stand in the way of those who can.