We all look for different angles to a situation. And usually miss the most important one. The ‘Try-Angle‘. This angle made Edison one of the greatest innovators of our times. He tried a 1000 times before he created the successful incandescent electric light bulb. So let’s not be afraid of trying. Those who really tried this angle have even reached the moon. This angle is the source for innovation. Ideas have become realities only because someone dared to try and persisted till it succeeded. While I say we need to try to innovate, its very important the fundamentals are taken care, else your try could even kill you (I mean, you will be a looser even if you win). Here is an illustration shared by my friend Nasir Ali on a try which can kill… “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and get a different horse.” However some people employ more advanced strategies often, such as:

1. Buying a stronger whip
2. Changing riders
3. Appointing a committee to study the horse
4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses
5. Lowering the standards so that the dead horse can be included
6. Reclassifying the dead horse as ‘living impaired’
7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse
8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed
9. Providing additional funding and / or training to increase dead horse’s performance
10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance
11. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overheads and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horses
12. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses

And, of course,

13. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position!

In today’s world you need to innovate even to survive, but if the purpose of innovation is not well understood, it is suicidal! image courtesy: bittersweetadventures.com