Maintenance, Not Innovation, Is Most Important

For many in the business world, continuous improvement and innovation are each viewed as vital to corporate survival and success: the highest and noblest of all goals. In regard to innovation, a seemingly ever-changing marketplace mandates that leaders must be able to adapt and come up with new solutions to confront new realities. And, what better ways to accomplish this than forward-thinking and constant experimentation? At one level, Silicon Valley’s mantra of “moving fast and breaking things” makes sense. Change is inevitable, and Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” never seems far away. Yet what if all this emphasis on innovation and managing disruption in fact hurts the long-term viability of many companies? This is the argument made in the compelling book The Innovation Illusion, by Lee Vinsel and Andrew L. Russell.