Since I like to simplify things, let’s simplify the world of medicine into two types:

1. Preventive medicine (e.g., a daily baby aspirin to prevent heart attacks);
2. Emergency medicine (e.g., a clot-busting drug injected during a heart attack).

Now, if we’re talking about you and your personal heart, which one of those two would you prefer?

Unless your masochistic tendencies are higher than mine, I’m guessing you chose #1, right?

I’d like to suggest that you start thinking of innovation as preventive medicine. Something you practice routinely in order to stave off the crisis.

Unfortunately, that’s not what I typically see in the real world.

In the real world, most organizations treat innovation as an emergency medicine. The crisis happens—the supplier goes out of business, the government issues a new regulation, the competitor changes the game—and the cry goes out: “We need to innovate, and we need to innovate NOW!!!”

That’s like taking a guy who had three flying lessons twenty years ago, putting him in the cockpit of a 777 at 35,000 feet, and telling him, “You need to land this airplane NOW!!!”

Maybe he’ll get lucky. But the odds are against him.

If you treat innovation as emergency medicine, maybe you’ll get lucky.

But, just like the inexperienced pilot, is that a risk you want to take?