“Innovation distinguishes between a
leader and a follower.” ―Steve Jobs
It is often observed that majority of
the successful people play safe when they become more successful. In fact,
people expect more from such successful people. Unfortunately, the successful
play very safe. In fact, the reverse must be true. Let us explore the reasons in this post.
Generally people are scared of various
things such as fear of failure, criticism, old age, poverty, ill health, and death
to name a few. As a result, they fail to explore and experiment. Mostly it is the fear of failure and
criticism that prevent people from taking risks and exploring new avenues. When
we look at many inventions, they are the outcome of successive failures. The
inventors failed many times and learned lessons. They identified what did not
work and changed their strategies to achieve positive outcomes ultimately. If
Edison didn’t risk, we wouldn’t have had electric bulb. If Graham Bell didn’t
risk, we wouldn’t have had telephone. If Col Sanders didn’t risk, we wouldn’t
have seen KFC. Similarly, there are several turnaround leaders who turned
around ailing global organizations successfully. For example, if Alan Mulally didn’t risk, Ford
wouldn’t have been turned around. If Carlos Ghosn didn’t risk, Renault-Nissan
wouldn’t have been turned around. If Lou Gerstner didn’t risk, IBM wouldn’t
have been turned around. If Steve Jobs were not brought back to the board, the
Apple wouldn’t have been turned around. It is obvious from these inspiring
leaders that it is essential to take risk in life. We cannot expect all of our experiments to be
successful as most of them would fail. But we must learn lessons from failures
to explore and experiment unchartered paths to become trailblazers. Remember, life
is worth living if it has challenges.
Let us look at some of the other
reasons why successful people play safe rather than exploring new territories. Basically
these successful people don’t want to lose what they have. When people don’t
have anything, they can go to any extent to take risks as they have nothing to
lose. On the other hand, when people have everything they are more careful in
taking risks. Secondly, the expectations of the stakeholders have gone up globally.
People want more for less. They want better than what they have. Hence, it is
tough to rise up to the expectations and aspirations of the people. Thirdly,
some of the high achievers have lots of internal insecurities which they don’t
reveal. These unfounded insecurities prevent them from exploring new
territories.
The takeaways from this article is successful
people must not worry too much about what they have achieved. They must explore
and experiment constantly to achieve greater success. They must reinvent constantly
to rise up to the expectations of all stakeholders. They must learn, unlearn
and relearn to stay head of times to stand out as great achievers to inspire
the world.
“Sometimes when you innovate, you make
mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your
other innovations.” ―Steve Jobs
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Professor M.S.Rao, India
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Leadership Consultants India
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Excellent Article
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