I and many others spend our time talking to businesses and posting articles extolling the virtues of Innovation, how it provides us with new products and services, boosts our intrinsic motivation, helps us get to grips with a changing world …. and survive.
After doing this for nearly eight years, the number of businesses listening is growing but not at a fast rate. There are many people still with their heads in the sand. A recent tweet suggested that the last seven words of a dying business are “We’ve never done it that way before”. How many businesses worldwide are sticking to the old ways of doing things, either because they are afraid or ignorant of alternatives?
A recent email conversation with a colleague in Australia put everything neatly into perspective. He stated that without Creativity and Innovation to be able to adapt and change we are left with a scenario put forward by Peter Drucker. The only method we have of differentiating our products and services within the marketplace is through pricing. Assuming that we have a product that will sell, we can only make ourselves more attractive than the competition by reducing our prices.
Even the most short sighted business leader can see that a huge number of companies that do not possess the financial clout or bank balances of large corporations will die – possibly uttering the seven words mentioned previously. What is your business going to do? It is no time for Business as Usual anymore.