When innovation stalls, be ready to fail faster

Fastest companies innovate, but they have a reason to rise to the occasion every time they do so. When innovation stalls you must get ready to fail faster.

2018 Edition of the fastest innovating companies is here. The most common names are as obvious as Apple, Netflix, Tencent, Amazon, Instagram, Nintendo, Marvel, Washington Post, NBA, etc but the surprises in the top 20 are Square, Patagonia or Reliance Jio.

They have refused to stay the same like the timeless photograph above.

Many companies have everything but they miss to rise to the occasion. They search for the perfect time and they are willing to wait to perfect their art or the artifice, whether their existing product offering or their brand.

Take Coca Cola, the world's leading brand some time back; but it took them hundred and thirty four years to enter the alcoholic beverages segment, they just launched them last week in Japan called Lemon-do. 

Or think of wheeled suitcase and it was Northwest Airlines Pilot Bob Plath who first invented it in the 1980s when baggage handling became very difficult as the airports became bigger. Baggage on wheels took several hundred years to actually fructify. 

 Such are the nuances of staying entrenched in the same paradigm, not rising to new ideas around, no matter how little it would mean to shift the direction or the focus.

But some those are nimble would rise up to every occasion where waiting would have done better; they would be impatient to act or to fail fast.

But there is never a perfect time for any launch or a break through or a precipitous action; all times are imperfect in their own way and perfect when the results follow the desired intent. So do not wait to act, there is never a perfect time for action. 

Well, is it then a matter of luck? Yes, it is but it depends how you define luck. 

The stoic Seneca would have said, "Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity." 

So if preparation is better, there is that much more chance to succeed. At least all successful winners are better on preparation.

But there is a subtle hint on opportunity as well. Keeping an eye on the possible opportunities is what differentiates leaders with the ‘also ran’. 

Think of the class graduating from the best universities of the world and you will see a vast range of possibilities for all of them and how they look at the opportunities on hand and how they prepare against them. The Class of Economics or the Class of Engineering will finally have a huge spread of results when it comes to which opportunities are picked up subsequently by the people and which are let go and what was the preparation that went into. Even with similar skills and aptitude the results have shown a huge divergence as to what people finally end up doing in their lives. 

So it does not matter about the timing of an initiative as long as it is intended for a given outcome and it tries to draw from the range of possibilities the best that meets the preparation. 

Preparation is not planning. It is hard work and the combination of routine and rigor that goes in every race. When planning and preparation combine it is an unbeatable combination. 

10000 hours of preparation will make you an expert in your own area, but just that may not make you a genius. That last bit is what differentiates the true winners. 

This last bit is about rising to the occasion. 

Companies do not rise to the occasion until a CEO takes on a new path, the path so far not travelled. There are risks on the way as always but it is this risk that could be worth taking. 

Think of Coca Cola and it took them hundred and thirty four years to enter the alcoholic beverages segment, they just launched them last week in Japan called Lemon-do. 

Or think of wheeled suitcase and it was Northwest Airlines Pilot Bob Plath who first invented it in the 1980s when baggage handling became very difficult as the airports became bigger. Baggage on wheels took several hundred years to actually fructify. 

Some like the start ups are always challenging this old paradigm. They are impatient to act and are ready to fail. Between the two extremes, waiting to rise and being quick to fail there is a gulf of difference. 

Waiting to rise is when you are living on the back of your past successes. Quick to fail is when you are searching for that one chance to succeed. 

But could these sensibilities both coexist in an organization, that is where some have shown great promise. Making organizations stay simple is where the examples stand out, empowering and finding the right leaders and tolerating failures once this has been done is in sum why they win.