Waiting for good times to return is irresponsible, & focussing on ‘the good old days’ to come back is ignorant.
Recently I was talking with a manager of a large retail chain, he said that, “retail is very poor at the moment, but we are weathering the storm as it will return to how it was”. He thought he was being positive and optimistic. I hear it all the time, how we are waiting for our customers to return to their previous spending behaviour.
This irresponsible thinking is universal and we are trying to innovate through using techniques and formulas to get our clients to return to how they were.
This is called Bouncing Back.
Bouncing Forward is innovation through creating.
Another way to look at it would be what I like to call, Reactive Innovation verses Proactive Innovation.
Here is a graph of the difference between Reactive Innovation & Proactive Innovation:
Reactive Innovation Proactive Innovation
| Innovation through Bouncing Back | Innovation through Bouncing Forward |
| Strategizing to return to how it was | Strategizing to create what it can become |
| Optimistic for sales to return to how they were | Optimistic to create new practices for sales to be better then how they were |
| Focusing on previous wins to imitate | Building upon what worked to learn from, then grow into something better |
| Waiting for crisis before innovation ignited | Continuous innovating |
| Re-capturing customers that have left | Continuous improvement strategies in NEVER losing customers |
| Managing crisis through reactive processes | Strategies for crisis management in place and ready |
| Waiting for decline in productivity and profitability before innovating | Always innovating for continuous growth |
| Staff engagement and collaboration in crisis mode | Staff engagement & collaboration within business DNA & Culture |
| The Past = The Future | The Future is yet to be created |
STOP being irresponsible & continue to proactively create, innovate & Bounce Forward…
