# Navigating Innovation: Embrace, Ignore, or Wait? By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2025-01-05 Organizations must decide what to do when new technologies like AI and calculators come onto the scene. Do they ignore them, embrace them entirely, or wait and see? How the organization answers these questions tells you much about what it believes, its survival, and those in charge. Organizations that entirely ignore innovations do so because they are either very financially comfortable or strongly believe in doing things differently. Often, the two go together. Only after the fact do we praise ignorance as "sticking to the knitting that made them great" or "obviously idiotic actions of Luddites who missed the boat." Those who fully embrace the new technologies are likely facing a tough financial situation or are led by idealistic visionaries who see how to transform. Again, often, these two go together. Rarely is a visionary leading an organization in radical adoption of the new unless things are going bad. We only judge this visionary activity as "brilliant foresight from a brilliant leader and organization" or "a disparate, poorly ran company clinging on straws as it attempted to survive." Lastly, we have the organizations that wait and see. Most organizations fall into this category as they cannot decide and are likely operating completely within a bubble of their making. Things are going okay for them, and the status quo and bureaucracy cast a big shadow. The comfortable middle means no one does anything great or interesting. They are at the top of the bell curve hill, destined to eventually fall into times of financial uncertainty or so many riches that they won't know what to do. With 50/50 odds, many wait to see how the wind blows. In the end, and regardless of the scenario, if nothing is done, entropy will win, and death is certain. #### Related Items [[Organization]] [[Innovation]] [[Technology]] [[Assessments]] [[Analytics]] [[Behavior]] [[Systems Thinking]]