Innovation Leaders, unite!
This year, tens of times every day, someone refers to the “new normal”: in publications, on TV, in webcasts.
But what is normal? One definition is “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern“
Because of COVID-19, we have certainly stopped conforming to some regular patterns. We do things we never did before like wearing a mask. We changed habits like going out for dinner in restaurants. We changed our shopping routines and replaced some of them with internet shopping. But we still do many of the same things we always did, like watching TV and listening to music. Long after COVID-19, some things will stay different and will also continue to change.
However, is (or was) there ever a normal? Other historic “events” created change, but these changes didn’t seem to remain stable for a long time. So, did these events really create a “new normal”?
- Peace after World War II? We indeed got peace again, but a different kind of piece than after WW I, partly thanks to the creation of the UN. And what seemed like peace in 1945 was a very different kind of peace than in the 1960s during the cold-war.
- The historic launch of the PC changed our ability to process information. The “new normal” created by PCs in the 1980s, was certainly again a different normal in the 1990s, when the internet was made publicly available and again as of 2008, when the iPhone was launched and again in 2010, after the iPad emerged.
My point is that there is not a real “normal”. There is a continuously evolving “new normal”. Things happen, people make things happen and thus there is ongoing disruption of what is considered “normal”. Thanks to disruption, we are now healthier and more prosperous than in any previous period in the history. We do have a long way further to go of course.
Our jobs as innovation leaders were conceived to accelerate this pace of change. We are assigned to change and/or disrupt of what is today considered as “normal”. Normality can lead to complacency and stagnation. It’s our role to identify problems as opportunities for innovative solutions.
As Nicole Pince said:
‘When we think about our lives in an existential way, we might surprise ourselves how often we hit the reset button.”
So, as Innovation Leader, I challenged the normal, by stimulating innovation and thus creating change.
More about this topic: Covid19 & Pharmaceutical Marketing : The 5Cs For The New Normal by Pawan Kulkarni
Please share your thoughts about the above?
Click here for more of my blogs on innovation within corporations: Wim Vandenhouweele