In order to change something, an innovator has to be comfortable with new ideas and at the same time be uncomfortable with the status quo. They have to be uncomfortable enough to want to change it – and willing to use untried approaches, unfamiliar skills, and even the wrong tools to make something better.
Tony Reynes, a principal of Tesar Reynes made this very clear to me recently when he said, “Instability and comfort with being off-balance certainly is a big part of why I’m an innovator.” Being comfortable with discomfort may be a crucial character trait for innovators.
Patrick Lamb of Valorum Law Group helped clarify the importance of discomfort by describing his new exercise regimen. His physical trainer requires Patrick to stand on an unstable platform whenever he performed an exercise. According to the trainer, the instability of the platform helps to build core muscles that are constantly compensating and trying to maintain some kind of internal balance. Translated to business and innovation, that same ideal holds, “if we are able to operate in an unstable way, we become stronger and better able to emphasize the positive sides of change.”
If people are unable to accept discomfort, they may not be able to innovate. Kevin Conlon of Conlon Public Strategies pointed out that traditional printers in the seventies and eighties, when negotiating new contracts with newspapers passed up the opportunity to take control of emerging electronic printing and remote printing technologies. Those printers, however, were very comfortable in their skills as traditional trainers. “They were given the opportunity to embrace new and unfamiliar technology – and instead opted for contracts that allowed them to be traditional printers forever with no burden to evolve professionally. There are now virtually no traditional printers at any of the major newspapers.”
It should come as no surprise then, that innovators often seem to straddle multiple worlds, multiple cultures, and quite often don’t completely fit in. They often don’t have the standard credentials or formulas for a problem – and therefore by default look at things in a fresh or unique way. And even when they know the formulas well, they are willing to put them aside.
People who are comfortable with how things are done right now, have little reason to change. The rational course of action for someone in that position is to avoid changing what they are doing, even if there's a chance that things could become very uncomfortable in the future.
Jonathon Rutman of CB Richard Ellis has pointed out, “Those people who are the most successful in an old system are the last to see the reason to change – or to make any kind of change. Why give up what you have?”
Innovators are better able to find new solutions to old problems, not because they choose to – but because they have to. They are too uncomfortable to continue as they are.
Innovation needs to be uncomfortable.
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