The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

Oh, they’ll claim they give things a chance, it’s just their version of doing that is to immediately compare/judge any new approach against ways of working that have literally had decades to evolve and iron out any quirks … and so, generally, it is always going to end up being the unfairest of unfair fights.

However sometimes dismissal is not even about a lack of effectiveness.

Many times, it’s driven more by personal ego … where rejection occurs because a particular individual fears that any new methodology may result in them losing power and control and because of that, they’re openly hostile [and subjective] to anything being presented for consideration.

So what happens is the industry invents terminology that allows them to feel they’re being innovative but actually it’s all about conformity.

It’s why we hear the word ‘transformation’ banded about so much.

Oh when you hear that you think of acceleration … revolution … category redefinition … but what does it tend to really mean?

That’s right … it’s companies who have been left behind by years of ignorance/arrogance/complacently who finally realise they need to get their shit together so spend a fuckton of cash simply to be where everyone else has already been. The irony with this approach is that despite making such a big deal of their ‘transformation’, they still end up behind their competition because while they’ve been trying to play catch up, everyone else has been moving forward. Again.

But just as much as fearing innovation is harmful to your growth and potential, so is blindly accepting whatever new thing is available to you.

Far too often we’ve seen some companies embrace the new, shiny thing for the simple reason they want to be associated with the new, shiny thing.

Worse, they embrace it and then talk about it like it’s the finished article only to quietly move things aside when [1] they realise it may be shiny, but it’s not worthy or [2] there’s a newer, shinier thing that they need to be seen aligning themselves with.

Sadly adland is one of the worst at this. But so are the tech industries. And basically everyone on Linkedin, hahaha.

New is wonderful. It needs embracing, celebrating and championing. But most of all it needs patience and objectivity.

Patience for the idea to evolve, develop and see where it can go or goes.
Objectivity for you to be able to assess without bias, whether you’re dealing with hype or hope … allowing you the clarity to know if you have to protect it or kill it.

The last thing to remember is that sometimes, the thing an idea needs to work is ‘good timing’.

When I was younger, I never believed it when people [read: girlfriends, haha] said it was ‘bad timing’.

I thought it was just their way of getting out of seeing me.

And maybe it was … however as I got older, I’ve realized timing is a thing. Often an intangible, unexplainable, unmovable thing.

It may be driven by coincidence. It may be driven by circumstance. It may be driven by attitudinal shifts. But there are countless examples of ideas that were made or died because of timing, regardless of who was behind it, how much they spent on it or their history in doing it.

One of my favorite examples is the Toyota Prius.

The general view is Toyota launched the car in response to societies increased awareness of the car being a threat to the environment.

It may be true, after all the concept of the electric car had been around well before Toyota launched the Prius, albeit with continual failure.

[As an aside, there’s a documentary entitled ‘Who Killed The Electric Car’ that is well worth a watch]

However, I was told the development of the Prius had nothing to do with environmental concerns and was a byproduct of Toyota experimenting with their engineering capabilities. By pure chance, they developed a viable electric car at a time where society was changing/evolving … both in terms of environmental awareness but also economic situation. In essence, Prius was a happy accident of timing rather than forward planning.

As with most things, history has a million different authors … but given the Prius was so far ahead of other car manufacturers – and very different to Toyota’s traditional approach to car manufacturing – it feels there may be legitimacy as to how and why it succeeded and it had very little to do with being culturally aware.

Whatever the answer, the issue of ‘new’ is a complex one.

Too many people dismiss it.
Too many people fawn over it.

All I know is we should value it and respect it.

That doesn’t mean you can’t challenge or question, but in a world where everyone wants to give their hot take in the blink-of-an-eye, the smart people give ‘new’ the time to surprise and evolve as well as remember that on the occasions something doesn’t work out, they acknowledge it may not be the idea, but the times.

And times are always changing.