Innovate Faster

Embrace Risk and Rapid Cycles: Building the Future Like Elon.

The decisions Elon makes may appear risky to others but because of the setup of his companies he is able to roll out innovations on the fly.

Fast decisions give Elon’s companies an edge because either they improve, or they learn, and this helps innovation.

Elon’s companies have an edge whereas entrenched management in legacy companies cannot keep up due to managerial lag.

Too often people are paralyzed by fear and suffer from analysis paralysis.

Without an element of risk a great reward is rarely found.

There is risk of company decay and death when no action is taken at all.

Safe is risky and risky is safe.

Innovation is how you win and innovation requires a degree of action taking risk.

But avoiding innovation is a bigger risk.  Innovation requires a focus on what could be rather than what already is.

Elon has said “What matters is the rate of innovation.”

“What exactly is innovation?” you might be wondering.  

At Tesla AI day Elon explained: “In general innovation is how many iterations and what is the average progress between each iteration.  And so if you can reduce the time between iterations the rate of improvement is much better.”

Innovating more effectively and rapidly than your competition gives your business the best chance of success…

So always be “risk taking” and innovating!

The faster your rate of innovation the faster your business will rise in power and capture market share.

Tesla has been innovating faster than other car companies and the compounding effect of all of these innovations are an essential part of the reason why Tesla is now the most valuable car company with no signs of slowing down.

Amazon has been innovating more than Wal-Mart and this makes it clear how Amazon has been gaining market share from Wal-Mart.

Innovation is future focused and being future focused is key if you want a more fantastic future.

Elon certainly is and says:

“I think within the next five years we will see the electrification of aircrafts.  First propeller, then turboprop, then jet engines.”

“What is important is that we establish a self-sustaining city on Mars so the future of consciousness and life as we know it can survive.”

Elon goes on about innovation in an interview with Offshore Northern Seas.

“Establish an expectation of innovation, and the compensation structure must reflect that…there must also be an allowance for failure because if you are trying something new, necessarily there is some chance it will not work.  If you punish people too much for failure they will respond accordingly and the innovation you get will not be very incrementalist.”

So keep thinking ahead because the future is where we’ll be spending the rest of our lives.