The mantra that we have all lived with for the past five years is, “Innovate or die!” But it’s just as accurate to say, “Innovate and die.” All the excitement about all things new obscured the fact that most new ideas are bad and most old ideas are good. It’s a Darwinian principle: The death rate of new products and companies is dramatically higher than that of old ones. Dozens of new cereals fail every year, while Cheerios and Wheaties persist. Even wildly popular new products such as Beanie Babies fade, while Play-Doh remains on the scene. Still, the world does change, new technologies are developed, business models do mutate, and customer demands do migrate. So the question becomes, Which horn would you rather be gored by? That’s the innovator’s dilemma. You can’t choose between innovative work and routine work. That’s like asking, What’s more important: your heart or your brain?
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