Swimming like the sharks

The business world would be much healthier and more profitable if businesses saw innovation like sharks see swimming.

Sharks need to swim to survive.  They don't get to rest once they get their morning workout in or when they become the fastest swimmer in their part of the ocean or when they hit their quarterly earnings goal.  According to Professor James Kitchell, sharks have to swim to stay buoyant, to breath, to survive.  Business should innovate for the same reasons.

The innovation pattern is familiar to everyone except, apparently, companies going through it.  A company or an entrepreneur comes up with an innovation that happens to match the needs of the marketplace.  They start a company or a brand.  Sometimes, if they are lucky, the company or entrepreneur continues to innovate as their company or brand grows.

Eventually, though, success ensues.  Sometimes wild, highly profitable success ensues.  The problem then is that with success usually comes risk aversion.  You see, humans like success and we tend to want to hang onto it.  It is hard to force yourself to act like that hungry entrepreneur and throw caution to the wind to support new innovations.  It is much more comfortable to continue to ride the gravy train that your past innovations have put you on.

The problem with that is that there are always new gunslingers entering Dodge, ready to knock off the top dog.   Entrepreneurs who are still hungry have you in their sights and have nothing to lose by going after you.

A smart, successful company recognizes this and tries to knock itself out of the top spot with a new innovation.  But that is hard to do.  Ask Microsoft.  It wasn't that long ago when there were predictions that Microsoft would rule the world before long.  Then along came Yahoo and all of the sudden Microsoft didn't even rule their product category.  Then Google came into town.  And now Google has countless younger, more nimble companies nipping at its heals, trying to knock it off.  At times, business seems like a giant game of King of the Hill!

Like sharks, excellent companies figure out a way to continue to keep moving.  They innovate like crazy.  They fix things that aren't broken.  They keep swimming.


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