Innovation continues and that is a very good thing. I love innovation. The only thing I love more is innovation that is Entrepreneurially Disruptive! (think how Uber disrupts the Taxi monopoly). Each and every one of us looks forward to new advances. However, we hate change. This makes little or no sense.
Could it be that we trumpet change as “innovation” when it is change that we like, but strip the word from our vocabulary when it is change that we don’t?
I think so.
Leadership.
You need to ruminate on this fact. As a leader, your direct reports will herald change as innovation as long as it means their routine does not need to change, their comfort isn’t threatened, or their skillsets are not put to the test. As a leader, you will need to mitigate that with full disclosure and instruction, training sufficient to ease the worries, and the full revelation as to why this new change will make things better—not only for you—but for them as well.
I laugh sometimes at the pushback we get as we implement new system changes. Knowing that there are rough waters ahead, but new productivity and efficiency await past the rapids. Change eventually makes everyone’s life more efficient, but there will always be those who chose to stay with the old ways and suffer hours of frustration because they refuse to take the hour or two to learn.
I love the picture above. Many of our direct reports chose to lay in the path of danger to use the current systems… I’ll take the GoPro.