# Best Advice Ever To Drive Business Innovation Today By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2024-02-09 I recently came across some advice on the race to the bottom that is LinkedIn, which outlines the failure of modern organizations. The advice was, "Look where people are not looking to find opportunity and be innovative." On the surface, this advice seems reasonable. If the competition is focused on one thing, finding something they aren't focused on seems like an advantage. Additionally, there are many stories where competitors emerged seemingly out of nowhere with something entirely innovative. So, it's easy to think doing the opposite is the path to success. However, everyone who encounters this advice will then focus on the opposite of what everyone else is focused on. The problem is now everyone is doing the opposite, so is the opposite an advantage? Maybe one should focus on what everyone else was focused on because they aren't focused on it. But then people shift again, and the pendulum will keep swinging back and forth. All of this switching is undoubtedly not cost-effective, and, in the end, one will likely go under because one only cares about what everyone else is doing versus what is going on within one's organization. Therefore, one can say this advice is complete horseshit, but it tricks nearly everyone, and those who give this crap advice rise in the business guru ranks to be paid ever more money to peddle more nonsense. This is only level one of why this advice is crap and why organizations fail. Level two is that looking where everyone is not does not correctly capture how innovation and opportunities emerge. To be a good swimmer, one does not look to the desert for answers. I guarantee no one is looking there for swimming advice. Innovation and creativity emerge from complex conditions, mindsets, and innate talents. Most innovations are not economically or socially viable. Thus, there is a high uncertainty as to whether anything will 'take off.' The only certainty is that something will take off; where one looks matters little. Thus, organizations that focus on achieving economic innovation are unlikely to achieve it because focusing on the outcome is wrong. Instead, organizations must focus on the conditions that maximize the chances of innovative success after many failures. But no one has time for that. We need bullshit advice as quickly as possible to claim victory before people find out how little we know and how little we think. We need more clicks to generate that sweet ad revenue. #### Related Items [[Advice]] [[Organization]] [[Creative]] [[Success]] [[Thinking]] [[Business]] [[Economics]] [[Social Media]]