Last Friday's Rebel Rant was all about Dinosaurs - those mega companies who lead markets, but then get stuck in the status quo (aka, tar pit) as their markets change. Yes, these dinos appear as leaders thanks to their sheer size. But don't assume all of these behomoths are leaders in thinking differently, or in progressing their markets forward.

Dinosaurs will do anything they can to protect the way they've always done it. That's their only hope of avoiding extinction.

But it's not just dinosaurs that can get stuck in a tar pit of Gravity. Sometimes innovators get stuck in a dinosaur's tar pit, without even seeing it coming. That's the tough thing about status quo and Gravity; they're sneaky. No one is immune to Gravity.

I'm working with a really left field company. Everything they do is designed to improve on the status quo of their market, which by the way is becoming a dinosaur graveyard of phenomenal proportions. A few weeks ago we were checking in on progress. We began discussing an area of their business where they are forced to intersect with the old dinosaurs and their processes and beliefs.

Frankly, their ideas weren't that innovative, which was a big surprise coming from these out-of-the-box thinkers. I did my usual, Why Why and Why again, probing to get to the source of their thinking.

The telling answer? "But that's the way everybody else does it. We have to do it that way to leverage these channels. That's the way they're used to working."

To be fair, as the words were coming out of the team's mouths, their CEO was looking at me with a knowing grin and shaking his head. He knew, as he listened to his team, that they'd gotten stuck in some pretty messy tar. That Gravity was pulling them away from innovation and back into the status quo. The very status quo that they'd sworn to avoid was driving a whole segment of their business strategy.

My point isn't that they were doing something wrong.

My point is that Gravity happens to the best of us. That's how powerful our status quo is. That's why we have to diligently challenge the 'why' behind our actions and beliefs, every step of the way...

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Date Published : May 31 2010