Change What Works

There’s plenty of attention paid to aspects of our businesses that aren’t working or new things we could do, but what about the things that are working? Sometimes that is the best place to innovate. 

I was a bit of an inventor as a kid, always creating, building, deconstructing… That left me turning Legos into projectiles. Assembling couch cushions into forts. And re-purposing magnifying glasses into incendiary devices. Taking things that worked just fine how they were to see how they might work better, or totally differently.

One of my early memories happened one summer while off from school, I must have been a young teenager. I'm the oldest of 4, and we all had different chores and jobs, where we were all expected to helped-out at different times. This particular summer one of my jobs was to pull weeds from the garden. 

It just so happened that this particular summer my little sister received a brand new electric Barbie car. They make them in all sorts of designs these days, but this was a state-of-the-art machine back then. I watched her ride around for a few days before I had a thought: seems like the electric engine in that car could be used for something a bit better (and maybe even solve a problem for me)...

Late one afternoon I headed out to the garage where we kept the car and after a brief inspection proceeded to dismantle the motor from the car. It wasn't an easy task -- plastic was cut, wires clipped, it was totally wrecked. But I turned that motor into one of the best electric weed wackers going (I’m sure of this). If only my parents could have seen it that way...

While that was probably not the best thing to disassemble, it proves my point. Sometimes the place to innovate is within the things that are already working. And doing so, can effectively solve problems at hand. I can tell you, I got that weeding job done in record time!

Kodak, the inventor of the digital camera, had the opportunity to reinvent their incredibly successful print photography business before it was too late. Xerox, the inventor of the personal computer, could have reinvented their incredibly successful photocopying business before it was too late, too. 

I'm not suggesting that we necessarily have to tear down things that are working perfectly well, but I do think Bert Lance had it wrong when he said "If it ain't broke, don't fix it”. That doesn’t always mean tear down things that are working perfectly well. Better said, "if it ain’t broke, see how you can make it even better”.