The fact is that the better the idea the more fear it will instill in people. Scott Berkun said it best:
No matter how amazing an idea is, until proven otherwise, its imagined benefits will pale in comparison to the real, and nonimagined, fear of change. This creates an unfortunate paradox: the greater the potential of an ideas, the harder it is to find anyone willing to try it.
I’m currently reading Scott Berkun‘s excellent book Myths of Innovation. I plan on posted my full notes of quotes in recording from the book in the future but for now I want to share this particular gem:
Honoring luck doesn’t diminishing an accomplishment: it’s am acknowledgment to others that you can do everything right and fail, and do many things wrong and succeed.
“The U.S. Senate, and all governments, are dominated by leaders born decades before the rise, and fall, of fax machines. Obama is the first president in history with an email, and not paper, centric work lifestyle. Many Fortune 500 companies are led by people whose email is printed out for them, or for whom blogs, Facebook and twitter, are, to them, toys for their grand-children…
In nature, death is the leading cause of life. Everything that lives depends on the death of something in order to grow. When trees fall, some become what are called nurse logs– their decay becomes the basis for the next wave of growth. By falling down and letting light shine through, the future begins.”
http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2011/innovation-by-death-a-theory/
The title of this post comes from the first chapter in Jim Collins’ book Good to Great, in which he desects how exactly a good company can become great.
The following is the first few paragraphs of the book:
“Good is the enemy of great.
And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.
We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good — and that is their main problem.”
Personally I’m in total agreement with Collins’. In so many areas of society we could be doing a whole hell of a a lot better. Especially our social institutions. Continue reading