The gas or the brake?

Maybe you work for one of those companies that lists “innovation” as a core value or that has a CEO who is always going on about your brand’s commitment to “market leadership.” Yet, somehow, your company is continually a step or two behind the competition. Or perhaps even facing extinction.

Maybe you are a team member or a manager who provides input on new ideas or recommended product, program or process improvements. But more times than not you are a defender of the status quo rather than feeling wired to say “yes.”

Maybe you regularly tell yourself that you are a creative person, full of great new ideas. Yet, it’s hard to point to many instances when you’ve actually exposed your concepts to your colleagues and contacts, much less the broader world.

What makes us think that the way to catch-up with the competition or to build an insurmountable lead is to ride the brake? Is the world going to become a better and more just place with us sitting there and watching?

Yet the stark reality is that is what most of us do.

If you are serious about innovation, about leadership, about bringing your idea to market, about making even the tiniest dent in the universe, you are going to need more acceleration and less coasting or braking.

Step on the gas.

Or relinquish the keys and let someone else drive.

A version of this post originally appeared at https://www.stevenpdennis.com