If it's worth doing...It's worth doing it poorly.

Risk an ugly result and innovate!

This morning I saw an actual balloon pilot aviator's license from 1906 signed by Orville Wright himself. An icon and amazing man died this past week. He had spent a majority of his life in aviation, dating all the way back to seeing the first planes take flight.

It often blows my mind to think back on what a 100 year old person has experienced. They have seen more than my mind can imagine. They have felt, seen, and touched things that I can only read about.

And they know some things that many people today don't understand. One of those things, I believe, is the value of first time dreams, innovation, and trying something that often comes out not working very well or risks operating like a bucket of bolts.

So often business owners are gun shy about trying things that we fear may not come out well. But how well has anything that was every worth a shiny penny ever started off brilliant? Innovation doesn't start that way. It starts in Henry Ford's garage looking like an old lawnmower, or on an ugly tan piece of plastic that you give away because nobody wants to by a computer with an "apple" on it, or with 2 brothers building a bicycle with some sheets spread out running down the beach in North Carolina.

Business guru Tom Peters tells about a businessman whom he admires whose motto is “anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.” “The logic is impeccable,” says Peters. He points out that the plane the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk was nothing to write home about. Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone was not exactly up to Bell Lab standards. Yet if Bell hadn’t foisted that piece of junk on the world we wouldn’t have a vast communication network that can instantly link anyone on this planet, and if Orville and Wilbur hadn’t gone for lift-off with that bucket of bolts down at Kitty Hawk, we wouldn’t have 747s.
Peters goes on to say, “I emphasize the point because the number one failing that I see in small and large organizations is the failure to do stuff. . . In an environment where we know nothing for sure, the only antidote is, to quote my old man, ‘Don’t just stand there. Do Something!’”

Taking the time to risk failure and doing something beats using the same old thing or just standing around any day!
One of the advantages of a soft economy can be that you find yourself with some more time. So don't just stand there- do something- risk an ugly result, and innovate!

- Jon Bohm