Transform Your Work and Your Life by Saying YES to Change
To innovate is to have a vision of the future and paint it on the canvas of the present. The future isn’t somewhere out “there” in the distance — we bring it to life with the ideas we nurture today and the actions we take now.
And the first action we must take to realize a better future for ourselves, our work and our world is to take the “No” out of Innovation.
Because, whether we admit it or not, we are hard-wired to resist change. We reject things that threaten our belief systems or that take us out of our comfort zone. We do this in our work and we do it in our lives.
Slightly embarrassing example: When I met my husband at age 23, I almost didn’t go out with him because he wasn’t my type. When I look at it now, my type at the time was moody, broody, unavailable, and usually toting a banged-up guitar. Thank goodness I had a sane friend who encouraged me to go on a first date with Vic because he was, as she put it, “nice.” I was kind of punk rock back then and, “nice” sounded like a nickname for the grim reaper. Against my will I said “Yes” and hit the jackpot.
There is a Wharton study that specifically looked at this propensity to reject new ideas. They found that at times of uncertainty, people dismiss creative ideas over…
