Title: Don’t Let What You Know Limit What You Imagine
Context: The best way to set yourself apart from the competition is to stop doing everything the same way that they do.
Synopsis: Being an expert in your field can be a severely limiting condition. Very often, true innovation and advancements in the way businesses operate comes not from those most versed in the ways things have always been done, but by outsiders stumbling into procedural orthodoxy and playing the heretic. Why can’t banks be open on the weekends when everyone else is off and actually has time to go to one? Why can’t a team of pediatric surgeons learn how to do their jobs better from a Formula One pit crew? Why can’t you come up with a better solution than the one that’s always worked lo these many years? Of course you can, just as soon as you stop thinking like the rest of the people who have their careers invested in the status quo.
Best Bit: “Commerce did study its rivals, but only to discover ‘the stuff that drives customers at other banks crazy.’ These were called Competitor Rules and Practices – internal acronym, CRAP.’
via blogs.hbr.org
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