Doing New Things - More on Change

Henry Ford was an innovator. As society was changing at an ever-increasing pace all around him, he saw an opportunity to meet its changing needs and famously gave the world its first mass-produced automobile. The Model T was not a great car. Others at the time were building better cars. What places Henry Ford in our history books is not the car his factory built, but the way they built it.

Henry Ford once said, “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” If average people were to enjoy the freedom and efficiency the automobile had to offer, things were going to have to be done differently. At the Ford Motor Company, that meant innovation in the manufacturing process, resulting in cars produced at prices the average person could afford.

We have never had tools like we have now to help us innovate and do things in new and different ways. And why is innovation so important? Because Henry Ford was wrong! If you always do what you’ve always done, you soon will not be getting what you’ve always got. And why? Because society is changing—and at an exponentially faster pace than it was in 1908, when the first production Model Ts rolled off the line at Ford’s manufacturing plant in Detroit, Michigan.

At the Agathe Center for Entrepreneurship, we have come to believe that doing things today the same way you did them yesterday is no guarantee of the same results today. As important as it is for our products and services to iterate and improve, it is just as essential—and maybe even more so—that our practices and processes evolve. And so, we are challenging our clients to study their markets, their clients, and their social contexts, and to do new things in response to what they observe and learn.

We are also challenging ourselves. Innovation is not an option. Failure to do new and different things can soon mean having no things to do at all. We cannot impede the pace of change, but we can commit to adjusting to it so that we continue to get results. Consider that commitment.

Ralph