Page 192 - Free the Idea Monkey

DAVID STRATEGY #2: ATTACK TRADITION
Show me a mature business, and I will show

you either a superannuated management team that
wants to freeze time or an entrenched union keep-
ing the company from doing what is necessary.

If you are in a mature industry, you are sur-
rounded by inertia, habit, tradition, complacency
and “expertise”—people who know the best way
something should be done (i.e., it’s the way it has always been done).
You’ve been in the room with these people. They can give you 10 rea-
sons why any new idea won’t work, “based on my experience.”

All this produces amazing opportunities for upstart companies
to beat you with innovation. You need to look no further than the

music industry (see iTunes), the travel
industry (see Orbitz), the video industry
(see Netflix®). I could go on, but you get
the idea.

How do you eliminate this prob-
lem? The obvious answer is to slash
bureaucracy; fire the people who are
hindering progress and beef up your
innovation efforts. The less obvious
course? Think like an entrepreneur and
create a new company of your own.

We see this all the time. Bright, shiny people in large companies
filled with piss, vinegar and ideas. They are passionate. They are
idealistic and oftentimes they are spot on.

If this is you, and you feel like you are losing your edge, we’d
coach you to view your job as research. Think: when I start my own
firm or manage a team, how would I do things differently?

If you manage a person like this, we’d coach you to start a
skunk-works project or empower this person in some way. If you
don’t, you risk losing them emotionally first and physically second.

177C H A P T E R 1 3