Recently, I have been reflecting on the following quote by Adrian Slywotzky in his book, The Art of Profitability (Warner books, 2002):
“What separates the winners and losers in innovation is who masters the drudgery. The creative process usually starts with a brilliant idea. Next you determine whether, if the brilliant idea worked, it would be worth doing from a business standpoint. That’s the exhilarating part. It may be the stimulating intellectually, but it’s also the easiest. Then comes the real work - reducing the idea to practice. That’s the drudgery part of innovation…”
I meet a lot of people with amazing ideas that are captivating and creative. These individuals are progressive and articulate. Sometimes, they even make us want to quit our current jobs and commit fully to this new opportunity.
However, the challenge is not coming up with new ideas; it is having the discipline to translate it into reality. As leaders, we must transform the idea into a sustainable business with effective systems, measurable outcomes and competent people. We have to be interested in new products or service development and in the development of processes, systems, sales, services or quality to support them. The fundamentals, and ultimately the profitability, come from building the infrastructure for execution.
As Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen write in their book, Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck - Why Some Thrive Despite Them All (HarperCollins, 2011): “The difficult task is to marry relentless discipline with creativity, neither letting discipline inhibit creativity nor letting creativity erode discipline.” As they point out, “The best leaders we studied did not have a visionary ability to predict the future. They observed what worked, figured out why it worked, and built upon proven foundations. They were not more risk taking, more bold, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons. They were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.”
Given the above, this week I challenge you to sit down with your team and talk about the importance of disciplined thought, disciplined action and what needs to be in place so each of them can master the drudgery of on-going execution in the midst of a global pandemic. I believe you will find this discussion to be helpful in both the short and long term work of this year.
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