Innovate or die
Get busy innovating, or get busy dying, It's your choice to make.
A lot gets written these days in the Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and other prestigious business titles that delve deeply into the logical argument for organisational agility and innovation.
Reading them, you get the distinct sense that they are written so as to not bruise fragile egos.
The hope, I'm sure, is that the beautifully-coddled message will, in time, seep into the worldview of those in charge of large organisations, and somehow flip a tiny switch that then magically conjures up the motivation within them to take on the challenging risk of innovation.
BUT let's be brutally honest here...
Big companies don't innovate because the people who oversee them are too attached to their cushy, bullshit management practices, and worry that if they do anything to upset the delicately-stacked house of cards over which they precede, they will either lose their job, or their bonuses, or their membership to the golf club.
They're financially and psychologically incentivised to do absolutely nothing.
The safe choice is to publicly declare that 'innovation is vital', while at the same time locking the half-assed process up in endless meetings and committees and other bullshit mechanisms of management crap to ensure that nothing ultimately happens.
But just like gravity, no company - no matter how big or powerful or arrogant they are - is immune to the ultimate vestige of truth.
You either innovate, or you die.
Yes, the choice is this binary.
There will always be those who try to bullshit your way around what this saying actually means, but if you are in management and are not actively overseeing a pipeline of brand-new, commercially-relevant innovations that customers will find overwhelmingly compelling, then you are intentionally choosing death.
Innovate or die.
If this is a concern and you are in need of a bit more motivation to pluck up the courage to embark on a process of renewal, perhaps then make these three words into a sticker and plaster it on your driver; that way whenever you tee-off you'll be reminded of the far hungrier youngster who busy at work putting you out of a job.
Get busy innovating, or get busy dying, It's your choice.
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Marius du Toit