Would Companies innovate faster if we restrained from using them? (Just for a little while - with a promise to go back!)

More than ever we need a new relationship with business as customers. We need "Temporary Restraint and a promise to come back". Let me explain why?

Sustainability was the passing era of companies looking to sustain themselves, their direction and their products and services as their raw materials came under environmental and social pressure.

We are now realising that all resources are scare whether natures, finance or people and must start the business day assuming that this is the case. You can’t assume or have whatever you want even if you have all the money in the world. Health and Economics going head to head during COVID taught us that.

Author Paul Levy coined the term of us entering the era of Restrainability back in 2023. For business it means....

To restrain from doing things. To celebrate the decisions you chose to not make as a business as much as the ones you chose to do.

We are on the era of Restrainability now because all resources in the world are scare and limited. There aren't enough to go around for all the things that business wants to do.

Pure Restrainability has negative connotations. To stop. To never go back. To avoid. To boycott. Those terms scare business and investors. Simply because there is no business continuity.

But maybe there is a middle ground.

We are entering a need for "Temporary Restrainability" as consumers

To allow business to breathe. To innovate quicker. To use the limited resources it has without all that day to day pressure from customers to deliver the here and now. The products and services that we inherently know aren't good for humanity and the planet right now. And when innovation has occurred we promise to go back to those companies and consume.

Imagine the impact on certain industries if we temporarily restrained

1. Imagine if enough of us chose to temporarily restrain from flying as a collective effort to give the airline industry space to innovate and come up with a solution that keeps the social benefits of flying in place for human beings without the pressure of having to fly us around ever day in ever increasing numbers on old polluting technology. With the promise that when the solution arrives we will be back as customers.
2. Imagine if we collectively restrained from consuming antibiotics in large numbers to give the Pharmaceutical industry space to breathe and come up with a cure for Malaria that can be deployed worldwide and affordably. With the promise that when the solution arrives we will be back as customers.
3. Imagine if we collectively and temporarily restrained from drinking carbonated drinks in non recyclable plastic bottles to allow the Food industry to innovate and put all their resources into compostable alternatives without the daily consumer pressures we put on them to produce more and more of the old technology. With the promise that when the solution arrives we will be back as customers.
4. Imagine if we collectively and temporarily restrained from using fossil fuel based energy in our homes. To allow the energy companies to invest in new tech such as wave energy that simply never gets off the ground at scale because resources in energy companies get distracted and diverted....

And a Restrained Economic model would be be born

Restrained economics is a bit different. Todays argument is that you need old ways to subsidise new ways. Money in business in reality just pays bills. If we took the collective responsibility to put less financial demands on delivering the old products and services more resources would be available for innovation.

If we then go further and we promised to come back as customers when the innovation was done then the restrained business case comes full circle. The future sales and market for the business will exist. The uncertainty gap is closed.

There are lots of examples where companies are trying to do old work and new work at the same time. Pivoting or Just Transition are the buzz words.

It simply doesn't work. Why? Because with all the available money in the world that we can just print and create and pump into business we still play the short term and long term game side by side. Which just means that resources and effort gets diluted.

"We are the We"

Is it time that we as customers and consumer to business simply played a more assertive role in temporary restraint, gave business with limited resources time to breathe. Time to innovate. Time to focus. With a promise that if they do a good job and come up with the right solution we stay loyal and go back to them?

• In your experience - Does Temporary Restraint work?
• Which industries would benefit from a breather from its day to day responsibilities to get on with the future?
• What have you restrained from as a consumer?