My sister ate corn weird.

Corn on the cob.

Growing up in Lancaster County, PA, we ate a lot of corn on the cob during the summer.

And, inexplicably, each person in my family ate it differently.

My dad—for reasons that I’ll never understand—would grab both ends of the corncob in his hands and, with cinematic effort, break it in half.

My mom ate hers in rows, like a typewriter (which you can see in museums and old-timey black-and-white movies).

I ate mine in circles around the circumference, gradually moving from left to right.

I can’t remember how my older sister ate hers.

But my younger sister would just go at it with wild abandon, and no plan whatsoever. A bite here… and then a bite WAY over there. Randomness at its best.

So here are my questions to you:
Which one of us was right?
Which one of us was wrong?

The answer to both questions: Nobody.

Because in the end, the goal was the same—to eat the corn.
We just had different methods of getting there.

And that’s innovation in a nutshell (or cornhusk).

Innovation isn’t about “the one right way.”
It’s about finding a way that works—maybe better, maybe faster, maybe more fun.
It’s about testing approaches, learning, and adjusting.

Too many teams get stuck waiting for the perfect process before they start.
They want consensus, alignment, and a step-by-step plan.
And I get it. Those things give us confidence, safety, a sense of certainty.

But innovation rarely starts that way.

It starts when someone—like my sister—just dives in.

So the next time your team faces a new challenge, stop obsessing over who’s “right.”
Try a few bites from different angles.

You might just find a better way to eat the corn.