Innovate or fail! Come on...really?

Just like we cannot all be thinkers, and have no doers; just like we cannot all be dictators and have no citizens; just like we cannot all be countries that rip off innovations from countries that innovate, and have no innovative countries; - is that newly coined phrase, "Innovate or fail" really true for nations and individuals? Let's explore this often blindly accepted phrase.

To start with, we will define what crowd sourced intelligence says Innovation is, and what better crowd sourced intelligence is there apart from Wikipedia, shown here verbatim?  What surprises me is that the word was coined as far back as 1903, a time period still that most of us think off as the dark ages without the internet, Google and mobile phones. The bright side is there was no FaceBook then.

“The word innovation derives from the Latin word innovates, which is the noun form of innovare "to renew or change," stemming from in—"into" + novus—"new". Diffusion of innovation research was first started in 1903 by seminal researcher Gabriel Tarde, who first plotted the S-shaped diffusion curve. Tarde (1903) defined the innovation-decision process as a series of steps that includes:

1. First knowledge
2. Forming an attitude
3. A decision to adopt or reject
4. Implementation and use
5. Confirmation of the decision

The s-shaped diffusion curve maps growth of a product against time, represented by the black curve in the diagram. In the early stage of a particular innovation, growth is relatively slow as the new product establishes itself. At some point customers begin to demand and the product growth increases more rapidly. New incremental innovations or changes to the product allow growth to continue. Towards the end of its life cycle growth slows and may even begin to decline. In the later stages, no amount of new investment in that product will yield a normal rate of return.

The s-curve derives from an assumption that new products are likely to have "product life". i.e. a start-up phase, a rapid increase in revenue and eventual decline. In fact the great majority of innovations never get off the bottom of the curve, and never produce normal returns.

Innovative companies will typically be working on new innovations that will eventually replace older ones. Successive s-curves will come along (represented by the blue curve) to replace older ones and continue to drive growth upwards. In the figure above the first black curve shows a current technology. The second blue curve shows an emerging technology that currently yields lower growth but will eventually overtake current technology and lead to even greater levels of growth. The length of life will depend on many factors.”

Having now presented "my" viewpoint as to what innovation is, let's get back to the title of this posting. Is it true that those of us who do not innovate will fail? Really?

Can it be true that those of us who do not innovate will fail? Really?

In general terms of course, everyone will always improve their ways of doing things, since human beings by nature are a lazy lot. Why walk ten miles to achieve x when you can walk one mile, or not at all, to achieve the same x? Whether we are conscious of it or not, we are always looking at easier, better ways of doing what we always do in our personal and professional lives. The motivation for this is that we will naturally save money, time, sweat…did I say money?

That is excluded from this conversation.

What that expression is trying to say is that we must all always keep on improving what is on offer, because all products have a life cycle. But I will beg to differ, because the rate of change and the number of products have increased to the point of infinity. There is too much of everything, and there is too much choice in each of the everythings. This has caused the human mind to completely turn to the good old days where we knew what is and what should be and there was no need to think about and question everything; just be able to stay in our comfort zones and live and let live.

So my outlandish and controversial proposition is that businesses can stay stuck in the good old days and not change a single damn thing about any product of theirs. People are going back to good old hand baked breads with no caviar fillings; lean, healthy meat from chickens rooting about in the soil looking for worms; made to measure, comfortable shirts with no brand names; sturdy, simple chairs with no innovative design that will move their guests to tears; most of all simple home environments to bring up children who are connected to the planet and who know themselves enough to build healthy bodies and minds.

I do agree that half of have to innovate simply because there is lots of great stuff that come out of innovation, just pointing to the net is enough. But it certainly cannot be a broad description that applies to everybody – “You bloody well innovate or you will bloody well fail!” Unfortunately, it HAS become a general term used on everyone, and because it is so widely accepted, individuals, communities businesses and countries that have great things going are losing out on perceived benefits of innovation and letting over-enthusiastic designers come in to change their beautiful, traditional ways of doing things.

China has become a great nation because they decided that the rest of the world could innovate till kingdom come, and they would supply the manufacturing base for all these innovations to become real, a cost-effective, efficient and massive manufacturing base. They at least had the guts to stand by their guns and tell grim faced outsiders, “Thanks, but no thanks.” The Indians combined and balanced innovation and manpower, but kept to traditions and culture, and built a work force that has much of the western world screaming, “Unfair!” because of outsourcing.

We should be wise enough to realise that innovation is not the last word. If you are comfortable, and your employees and citizens are comfortable and your research shows the trend is not likely to be disrupted and most of all, if you are happy, then don’t change. Find niche areas, or if you decide that you really don’t have a unique offering that will probably be well received, then innovate. You only need to ask yourself two questions to see what needs to be done.

Am I happy?

Will I stay happy?

“Innovate…or fail!” is an epic fail statement.