Rogue employees and a copy-cat strategy

1. Your company’s future may be dependent on your rogue employees.

Companies are always reigning in their rogue employees. It is almost as if they did not realize that somewhere among the rogue thinkers are their future innovations.

As soon as your company becomes a battened-down 100% process machine that does exactly what it is supposed to do, it will stop innovating. And, in these times, that’s usually bad.

2. Copying is not an innovation strategy

If you have a 5 year plan to catch up to what you perceive your competitor is doing right now– and it is your primary strategy- then that is probably not good.

Don’t make imitation your primary strategy. Make your own way. What do you need to offer in 5 years? Instead of trying to be more like your competitor in 5 years, think about what you need to be in 5 years. You can’t build an innovative strategy using benchmarking against current competitor’s actions. Break out of the cycle of imitation.

Do I think that imitation is always bad? No, I don’t. But I think it is bad if it is a replacement for innovation. 

“…The leader is the leader precisely because he did something remarkable. And that -remarkable thing is now taken  –  so it’s no longer remarkable when you decide to do it.”
-Seth Godin

Here are some interesting thoughts on innovation from Tom Peters. He eloquently speaks on the 2 topics mentioned above.